Tardy and Delinquent

Things are changing around here. Do you see that stack of papers above? That is my manuscript, fresh from the editor. I know I've been tardy and rather delinquent in posting lately, but this unedited manuscript means that I'm going to be even more tardy and more delinquent. I gotta turn this baby around in a few weeks. And...did I also mention that Brian and I are moving? Well, we're moving. When it rains it pours.

With all of this commotion, it seems like a good idea for Nosheteria to take a brief summer vacation. So, I will be writing to you in a few short weeks, with a newly-edited manuscript from my new home in the Nutmeg State. Bear with me.

Rhyming Salad

Oh, it's getting good around here. Since I have been back from California, I have been to the Union Square Greenmarket quite a few times, and each week, it gets a bit better. At first there were the ramps, beautifully spindly. Then came the green garlic, mild in flavor and hinting of spring, and the baby kale was soft and budding, soon to be replaced by bagfuls of gorgeous gem lettuces.

But I am a creature of habit. When the produce is this good, there is not an awful lot I want to do to it. (Except run home and eat it!) Yes, I buy the same goods week after week. The vendors recognize me by face, and I love this. In a city so large, teeming with both tourists and locals, it is nice to know that the potato man recognizes you. And when the potato man, who was also happens to be my ramp man, has such delicious looking, and tasting veggies, how can you go wrong? His potatoes are packed with starchy goodness. For weeks now I have called them potatoes+ and Brian has coined them super-potatoes. They are that good! So each Saturday I hop on the subway to get my fix.

They're called little roasters, and the cardboard sign above the bushel even has roasting instructions displayed. But I have never actually done this. These potatoes are tiny, no bigger than a grown man's thumbnail. So I give them a quick bath in some screaming hot water, and boil them just until tender. Then I pop them in my mouth with a bit of butter, salt and pepper, or if I am really feeling adventurous, some freshly minced dill.

But this past week, as I nodded to the potato man, and plunged my hand in the bushel, I was thinking I really should do a little bit more with my melange. So I came up with the rhyming salad-- potatoes and tomatoes cohabitating together. Cherry tomatoes, lively and sweet, halved and salted, waited patiently in a bowl for the boiled potatoes to cool. I sauteed some chopped green garlic in a bit of olive oil, and let that bloom while I chopped some parsley and a bit of chive. Then all the ingredients were tossed together, with a bit more salt and pepper.

When I sat down to eat this rhyming meal, my gurgling stomach was quickly silenced by this springtime feast. I even thought of a few more rhyming meals while I finished my salad. There are: wild leek and halibut cheek, or rib-eye steak and chocolate cake. What about fried smelt and a patty melt, topped off by boiled spam and raspberry jam? I don't know about any of those pairings, they may just have to wait until the next time I am in rhyming mood. What about you, do you have any other rhyming foods I forgot to mention?

Taste of the Tropics

My dad was a traveller. Not a camper, and certainly not the sort of traveller interested in lying on some white, sandy beach. He was a fly by the seat of your pants sort of traveller, an adventurer, an explorer. When I was growing up, every few months he would get that undeniable itch that needed scratching, and the only way he knew to scratch was by boarding a 747 and heading off to a foreign land. Fortunately for me (or my sister), he often brought us along on his travels.

We would take leave from school and a-travelling we would go. My dad would board the plane, with a pigtailed little me following him and besides the final destination, and maybe a few business meetings along the way, my dad never had a solid plan about what we would do when we arrived. Meticulously planning where we would stay, or even landmarks that we wanted to see was not my dad's style. He was lucky, and a little bit crafty, because most of the time the trips went off without a hitch, leaving me with childhood memories of slurping ramen with the local fishermen in Japan, eating buttery crayfish swimming in cream in France, and experiencing the sweet, tropical flavor of this gorgeous fruit in Hong Kong.

The mangosteen. A fruit I had only eaten once, and had not had again in close to 20 years. We were on a trip to the Far East, where my dad had yet again, not made reservations at any hotels. He simply picked a hotel at the airport's tourist desk, and we barreled through the crowded streets of Hong Kong to our destination. My dad, with his fast-talking ways gabbed his way into a hotel room for our stay. The room was standard, but set on a coffee table, near the foot of the bed, was the most splendid fruit basket, filled with luscious unknown items just waiting to be peeled or cut into.

There were crisp starfruit lying next to pruney passion fruit. Mangoes by the handfuls luxuriated next to smooth skinned bananas and tumbling forth in the center of this basket were what I later knew were the slithery, tiny mangosteen. The rough, hard shell of this fruit adequately hides the delectable fruit inside. Pick it up, knock it around, try to bruise it-- you would never know its contents. But peel it gently, and an off-white orb pops out. It is slippery and cool, segmented like a tangerine, but with a taste like no other. It feels like a peeled grape in your mouth, tastes a bit like a plum, but has a uniquely tropical flavor that was like nothing I had ever tasted before.

I promptly ate all of the mangosteens in that fruit basket, and made my dad stop in to buy more mangosteens at the markets throughout our trip. I was mangosteen crazy. There is more that I remember about that trip, like the air being so humid and stifling that when the clouds finally burst, and raindrops fell quickly to the ground, the water evaporated on contact rather than pooling into refreshing puddles on the cement. But it is that fruit basket that I remember most.

I had heard and read other Westerners' accounts of the mangosteen, it appeared that I was not the only one so taken with this fruit. I had even read about farmers trying to grow them in the West, but I had never seen them for sale. That is until walking through a market in California, when I saw a small basket and a sign scrawled with the word-- mangosteen. At $16.50 a pound this fruit was like gold, but still I had to buy at least two to give them a try. They were remarkable, sweet, juicy, strange-- just as I remember. Maybe they were even better, or maybe it was just that I was so thrilled to finally eat them again.

I Heart California

I'm back. Humor me please. My kitchen in New York is bare. The only things that sit in my refrigerator are a jar of baby cornichons floating in murky brine, and a half-used jar of Dijon mustard. Now I like vinegar as much as the next person, but cornichons dipped in mustard is a treat I will save for another day. So yes, I have to go the market.

I like where I live, but there are times when I just do not want to pay $3.00 for one measly avocado. I become sick and tired of the strawberries looking beautiful but tasting insipid, because well... they are all coming from California. So what do I do? Haul my cookies to California to see the family and lay on the hammock in the backyard of my parents house under the welcoming shade created from the apricot tree (no, I'm not kidding), thinking about what I will do with the bags of fresh produce from my sorely missed, favorite market.

I didn't do much to this stellar assemblage, because really, there isn't much to do to such delicious specimens. Frissé, prickled the roof of my mouth. Slippery fava beans (55 cents a pound, and organic!) lay next to mini Haas avocados ($1.89 a pound-- a pound I tell you), smooth and buttery. Torn chunks of buffalo mozzarella from another favorite store, lent substance to the salad. Sprightly green garlic quickly sauteed in fruity olive oil, some fragrant lemon zest, a sprinkling of salt and pepper, and there you have it: springtime on a plate.

Yes, I ate well. And, in regards to my last post, I did enjoy the first apricots of the season, but at the market only. When I left, the burgeoning fruit on my parents' apricot tree was beginning to weigh down the branches, but they remained green, just beginning to blush like a school girl. Alas, I could not lie in the hammock, reach up, and pluck a plump piece of fruit, dabbing my chin as the juice dribbled down. So no, life is not perfect in California either.

I Pity the Fool...

...who doesn't try this deliciously simple dessert. As summer is approaching I can feel my culinary muscles getting sluggish. I don't want to turn on the oven. It is enough to set a pot of water on the stove to boil. And baking? Well, just forget about it. I am tired, or maybe it's just that I am lazy. That is why I'm happy to announce the discovery of the strawberry-rhubarb fool.

I had never had a fool-- that mix of freshly whipped cream and fruit compote of your choosing-- they had always seemed like a bit of a hoax to me. "So it's some whipped cream, anyone can do that," I questioned. And the answer is: precisely, anyone can do that. That is what makes this dessert so wonderfully egalitarian.

When I was a little girl we always had large Thanksgivings with all of the fixins' at home. Except for one year, we went on holiday in Arizona, and had our feast in the hotel dining room. It was horrible. Instead of my grandmother hacking into the bird, there was a carving station. The mashed potatoes were congealed sitting under a heat lamp, and the stuffing was pulverized to saw dust. The only redemptive aspect of that Thanksgiving was dessert. No, I didn't have pumpkin pie, not even an apple... there was mousse, creamy raspberry mousse.

Now what does all of this have to do with fool? I can't remember the taste of this raspberry mousse, but I do remember how it made me feel-- civilized, and all grown up. As I plunged my spoon into the fool, taking a bit of extra compote that I pooled on top, I sat a little straighter, straightened my napkin in lap.

There isn't really a recipe for this fool. I simmered the rhubarb with a bit of sugar until the fruit fell apart. Setting the rhubarb aside, I blitzed some strawberries with another small amount of sugar, then joined the strawberry and rhubarb together to make a delightfully staining compote. Then whip the cream to stiff peaks with some vanilla extract, add the fruit to the cream, folding gently to maintain soft peaks, and there you have it. It couldn't be simpler, or more satisfying.

I'm off for a bit, going to visit family in California, and hoping to see some apricots (my favorite fruit of the summer) when I get back!

Bring Some Biscotti

I moved to New York for my husband’s job, but it ended up being a beneficial move for me as well. I found my agent, and eventually my publisher while living here. And when the time came to meet with my potential editor and a herd of others from Simon Spotlight, I was just a subway ride away. When my agent called to inform me of this meeting, of course I was thrilled, but equally terrified.

What would I say? What would I wear? But most importantly, what would I bring to eat? Food has the ability to say so much about a person and, considering I was writing a food memoir, I wanted to bring the perfect item. My meeting was at 11 in the morning—not really breakfast, not really brunch. I needed something that was easily transportable. Share-able. Not to heavy. And above all delicious. I poured over my repertoire for a week. Cookies? Too sweet. Cupcakes? Too quaint. What about a frittata? Too much. And then I found it: biscotti.

Restrained, rustic, with the right amount of body to say, “Yes, I have substance, seriously look at this book I am writing, and enjoy a little something sweet while you do it.” In general, biscotti were not really on my radar. I always enjoy them, I just never think to make them. But I had made these biscotti before. They were as trust worthy as they were delicious.

The recipe is heavily adapted from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. Originally they are flavored quite heavily with anisette. I opted out of the anisette, and substituted dried cranberries. I think it can be a little dicey to bake with anisette, unless you know your audience; never have I found a person who feels mildly about black licorice. They either love it, or hate it. I was trying to please many with my biscotti, not drive them away from the biscuit, and by extension—the book.

And I guess these biscotti did the trick. They will be forever known as The Lucky Biscotti. The next time you really want things to go your way, or even when you just feel like a little something sweet to have with your morning coffee, mix up a batch of these biscotti. The recipe is on the Daily Specials page.

My Story...

Everybody has a story to tell. I suppose that is why blogs are so popular; it can be liberating to tell a tale. But what about food blogs? They might be about sharing recipes, from my table to yours, but they are also about the story behind the cook.

In this month’s issue of Natural Health there’s a story all about my life in the kitchen. Why would they ask me, a regular old food blogger to write a story for their magazine? Well, I have an unusual tale to tell and, in the interest of complete disclosure, here it is:

When I was 21 years old, just finishing up college, I suffered a hemorrhagic stroke due to an arteriovenous malformation (AVM). It left me completely paralyzed on the right side of my body. The next few years were a blur, of doctors, of therapists, of rehabilitation, and of frustration.

So what does this have to do with food, or blogs for that matter? I am not going to say that a cake came in and sweetly solved all of my problems, but cooking did come in to solve some of my problems. While dealing with physical therapy and all the challenges it involved, I began to spend more and more time cooking. It was lovely to escape into the petty business of the kitchen: chopping, watching a pot boil, or tossing a salad. The kitchen grew to be my place, a warm nook for experimentation, and unlike therapy, there was no one to reprimand me for trying out that failed recipe.

I cooked, and I cooked. And then I cooked for other people, starting with family and friends, and later, clients in a small catering company that I started. I did this all the while rehabilitating. I never got back to where I once was, but I’ve learned to be fine with who I am, each step of the way.

When I started this blog, I was still wobbly like a custard, unsure of who this new me was. I would sit down to tell you all about the latest soup that was simmering on my stove, or my triumphs with a fiddlehead fern. Blogging was liberating for both the new cook and the new me. There is a certain anonymity to blogging, a faceless name behind the computer monitor, and I relished my little secret. No one could watch me fumble to peel a clove of garlic one-handed, they just hungrily saw the final product.

But as I continued to blog one-handed, there was an elephant in the room sitting right next to me. And that proverbial elephant was whispering in my ear that there was an entire other story that I needed to tell, a story of food, of loss, of work, and of joy. So, over the past year and a half, I’ve sat down each day to write that story. I know, I know, a memoir at less than 30 years of age; it doesn't seem quite possible to me either, but as I began the process, the words came, filling up page after page.

Well, one things leads to another, and a proposal leads to an agent and finally a publisher. I have written a food memoir, tentatively titled Cooking and Screaming. As for the manuscript, it is due in my editors hot little hands May 1!!! That's soon. The book will be published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) and is due out Spring '09. That seemed so far off when all of the paper work was signed and the contracts drawn up, but let me tell you, the days are simply flying by.

What does this have to do with the magazine article? I was approached a few months ago by the editors at Natural Health to write a story, based on the memoir, for an upcoming issue. (Now you might be saying to yourself, Natural Health? Did they even read my paen to Easter candy a few weeks ago? I don’t know, what can I say?) Fitting a life's story into 2,000 words, plus recipes, was certainly a task. I had to leave a few things out.

If you are curious to know more about my story, you'll just have to wait for the book, and in the meantime, pick up an issue of the magazine. The article also has recipes for a slow roasted chicken with a fennel-apple slaw, a springtime hash with poached eggs, and a chunky watermelon sorbet with coconut tuilles (for those of you who are just hungry!).

So, that's my story.

Amaranth in Astoria

My grandma loved the color purple (and no, I am not speaking about the book). She had several pairs of purple slacks, quite a few lavendar tops, dish towels, pot holders, you name it. It seemed that as she got older, her love for the color only increased. But she was not alone in her affection. She had many a friend who was ga-ga for the hue as well. Whenever I pass a group of older women, dressed in their finest or even donning casual kick-around clothes, I see an inordinate amount of purple. It is as if they are creating a flurry of springtime activity in their brightly colored outfits.

But for as much as my grandmother adored the color, I had a dance teacher when I was growing up who detested the color. So much animus was heaped onto the color purple, in all of its various shades that his students were forbidden from wearing the color, and the dance studio had not even a poster with the slightest hint of the color up on the wall. He claimed it made him physically ill; his stomach would turn, nausea would set in, eventually leading to vomit if viewing was forced. One day a girl had forgotten the no-purple rule, and had worn purple socks under her jazz pants. My teacher caught one look of the girl's pointed feet during warm-ups, stopped the class, and made her borrow leg warmers for the duration. That's serious. So I wonder what my dance teacher would have thought about this salad:

I went to Astoria for the first time this past weekend. Strolling around the avenues, stopping in the various markets, each with their own specialties, cruising past so many small bakeries selling rows of cookies, pillowy Italian breads, and cannoli by the dozen, was dizzying indeed. I refrained from buying too much; I had a long subway ride ahead of me. But I did find a purple pair: the diminutive Italian eggplant, and the spindly amaranth plant. I wasn't really sure what to do with the amaranth, never having cooked with it before, but it was so beautiful with its deep green leaves, and gorgeous purple veins running along the stalk and into the splayed out leaves, how could I not buy some?

That Saturday was the first truly springtime-like weather of the season, and as I sat on the subway train back home, the amaranth leaves flopping over beside me, I couldn't wait to do a bit of reading on this green. Here is what I learned: amaranth is an old green, and has been eaten in its various forms for centuries all over the world. Young amaranth is often beet colored, and the new green can be eaten raw in salad. As the vegetable grows older, it's leaves become large and varigated, and it is most often wilted and sauteed. As I looked at my leaves, as large as baseballs, I figured cooking was the way to go.

I roasted the eggplant first in a heavy cast-iron skillet, then finished them in a warm oven. The skin became blistery, and the flesh soft. I then sauteed the amaranth leaves in a bit of olive oil scented with fresh garlic cloves. Cooling the vegetables to room temperature, I dressed my salad in a simple lemon-tahini dressing, topping it with slivers of red onion, and coarsely chopped cilantro. The greens were similar to spinach, yet more astringent, and the eggplant was meaty and substantial, the perfect compliment for a creamy dressing with a bit of a kick. And upon cooking, the vegetables lost their vibrant purple tone, maybe even enough for my old dance teacher.

Queen of the Post-Its

I am not the neatest person. I am not however the messiest-- comfortably lived-in is what I like to call it. There are always stacks of paper lying about my desk. Pens don't always have caps. The coffee table can actually be used to hold a cup of coffee, and sometimes hours will pass before I pick the empty cup up and bring it to the sink. I guess this bleeds over into how I am in the kitchen as well. My counters are always wiped clean, my utensils pristine, but as I write this, the coffee pot has not yet been cleaned-out, still holding the latest murky brew, and there is a package of graham crackers sitting out from last night's snack. So be it.

I always keep a small pad of paper with me. Tucked into my bag it becomes an invaluable resource. I jot down things that occur to me throughout the day: books to read, shopping lists, recipes to try. And when I am at home, the electronic Post-It for the computer, is similar to my pad of paper. They are a thing of functional beauty for the pack rat in me. The only problem with this method, is the desktop of my computer becomes so littered with small yellow "sheets" of paper it looks like a autumn has arrived at my desk.

All of this would be fine if I routinely checked my amassing of notes, but I stack up the tiny Post-It notes, burying ideas one on top of the other. Well, no more! At least no more for this week-- I did a bit of spring cleaning. There were recipes, and food combinations by the bundle. Some actually seemed tasty, some just seemed odd (what was I doing when I though of that?), and some seemed to be both. Like this one:

"Apple bruleed with marshmallows." Hhmm, sounds interesting enough, don't ask me when this particular doozy occurred to me, but since we are still in apple season (she writes, annoyed), I'll give it a shot. I'm not really sure if I originally intended to make apple sauce, and then brulee a coating of marshmallows like a meringue-- but that is what I did.

I don't have to tell you, marshmallows can be cloyingly sweet, so I made my apple sauce from the tartest apples that I could find. I simmered my apple chunks in a bit of water and a vanilla bean. Leaving the sauce still chunky, I put it in a ramekin, then topped each with a small handful of mini marshmallows. Popping the whole mess under the broiler, I let the marshmallows bloat and blister, before removing and eating up.

Well this was strange-- good, but strange. The nearest thing I can equate it to, would be mochi, another chewy, delightfully strange dessert. Contrasting the tart apples, the crispy marshmallow topping melted over the sauce, creating a unique melange. So the next time you're up for something a tad bit bizarre, give this brulee a try and tell me what you think.

I'm a Too Hot Tamale

When I was in my first year of college I had to have my wisdom teeth removed. While my friends spent winter break on ski holidays in Lake Tahoe, or went for a tropical beach vacation in Hawaii, I returned home to my parents house to have exciting oral surgery. I subsisted on a mainly liquid diet, punctuated by the occasional cup of translucent Jello. And the only high point of my break was that my parents had finally gotten cable television, and sucked in by the novelty, I watched quite a bit of TV that first swollen week.

I looked like a chipmunk, my face packed tightly with mouthfuls of crusty gauze, but my fingers worked just fine, and I became one with the remote control. Cable television was good then, Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda aired each night on Nic' at Nite, and there was a new channel called The Food Channel that played fabulous imports such as the Naked Chef and the rolly-polly Two Fat Ladies, as well as superb American chefs like The Too Hot Tamales, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger. (Aahh, the good ol' days!)

I loved these ladies. Their show was both informative and entertaining, and their dishes always looked delectable. I have picked up their cookbooks through the years, and let me tell you, the recipes never disappoint. So when I stumbled upon the recipe for these Green Corn Tamales, trying them was a no brainer.

And yes, I know it is not summer, so therefore corn is not in season, but I still made these dense maize pillows. In their book, they give the option of using 3 cups, drained, canned corn pulverized in the food processor. So pulse away I did. Now, never having had the pleasure of a fresh corn tamale--which might be stupendous--let me just say that these "green" corn tamales were pretty darn good. Pleasantly sweet, with just enough body to make them interesting, these tamales were like a little taste of Mexico right here in New York. And there is something so delightful about unwrapping your meal before you eat.

I ate my tamales with roasted tomato salsa, and a dollop of sour cream and dreamed of summer. Three for three, Too Hot Tamales!