On the Eastern Shore this weekend, I spent most of my time indoors, canning the plethora of berries and wild cherries that the rainy, mild weather has produced. I honestly can't remember a summer as pretty as this one, certainly not since childhood. The wild cherry trees are covered with plump fruit. Last year I was able to pick barely a quart. I could have picked gallons yesterday! I'll make cherry bounce (see July 2007 for the recipe) again this year, which I will dole out in thimble-sized servings after hearty meals come winter.

The blackberry vines continue to bear massive quantities of fruit, so we made blackberry ice cream again (see the Fourth of July, below), as well as the peculiar, sweet blackberry vinegar that appeared in my first book (photo at right).

Blackberry Vinegar from Hoppin' John's Lowcountry Cooking

The recipe for this heavily sweetened vinegar comes to me from Old Receipts from Old St. John's,  written just outside Charleston at the turn of the century. The book was written on a plantation not far from where I grew up, where a huge dam and hydro-electric plant was being built, drowning most of the old plantations in the area. The author was trying to get the old plantation recipes down on paper before they, too, disappeared.

I found the handmade book, filled with actual photos of the old plantation houses, in a trash pile outside a home in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1984. It was this book, and an interview I did with Karen Hess, the great culinary scholar, that year, that set me on my path as culinary historian and preservationist. Though grouped in the book with the beverages, I would drink it straight only as a sore throat remedy. Pour a dollop or two, instead, into a glass and fill with iced soda or seltzer water for a refreshing summertime drink. Or into a glass of low-acid wine, as for a kir. It is also delicious when splashed onto fruit salads, and it marries well with the pan juices from duck breasts or venison steaks when used to deglaze the pan. The directions are straightforward:

Cover ripe berries with vinegar and let stand for at least 24 hours. Scald, strain, and boil for 20 minutes, adding

a pound of sugar to each pint of juice. Strain again into sterilized wine bottles, and cork.

July 16, 2009 Paincroyable!!!

Ever since Mark Furstenberg left BreadLine, I have yet to find a great French loaf in Washington. Occasionally I'll buy a near-perfect ficelle at one of the many local farmers' markets, only to be disappointed the next week. In all my years in Charleston, South Carolina, I never found a consistently good loaf, either, but I often shrugged it off as yet another casualty of the pervasive, oppressive humidity there. When my neighbors here complain of heat and humidity, I run upstairs and grab my laptop to show them that they don't have a clue about heat and humidity, comparatively speaking. Today in DC, for example, is supposed to be the hottest day so far this year, with a high possibly reaching the lower 90s for the first time this summer, with a maximum humidity of 66%. In Charleston, it's been near 100 for a month, and the humidity there today, according to the National Weather Service, is already 86% at 10 am. Today is the second day this summer here that has ventured into the 90s. Though the thermometer may read higher in Washington today, Charleston already "feels like 91," a good ten degrees higher than DC. I rest my case.

But back to the incredibly good bread I had yesterday. Tipped off by Julia Watson's Eat Washington blog, I made a trip to downtown Bethesda's funky 77-year-old Montgomery Farm Women's Cooperative, a hodgepodge of arts and crafts, African masks, Middle Eastern carpets, potted plants, and, indoors, a handful of farmers and artisanal cooks and bakers.

I neither identified myself as a food writer, nor had my camera with me, but I did find myself in a remarkable conversation with Bertrand Houlier, the French baker, who sells some of his breads and pastries there on Wednesdays and Fridays. I bought a rocher coco (a sort of coconut macaroon), a petit pain au chocolat, and a baguette. It was midmorning and I had had nothing to eat, and I gobbled down the pastries, well aware of the buerre Charentais used in making them. I know how powerful suggestion is, especially when it comes to taste, and I was already anticipating the unctuous sweetness of the good butter that Houlier uses in his pastries, having been tipped off by Watson. But I'm convinced any fool would know that the pastries from Saint Michel Bakery are special. They made me want to have a butter tasting, so that I could develop a special set of words to describe the different flavors and aromas evident in butter, similar to those used for cheese and wine (though not as pretentious).

I moved on to a nearby vendor of Turkish foods, where I purchased some unremarkable dolma (stuffed vine leaves), delicious pole beans in an oily tomato sauce (served warm, delicious), and a lackluster white bean salad. While I was talking with the delightful merchant, I bit into the baguette. I wasn't thinking about what I was doing, I was just continuing to eat, the pastries having whetted my appetite. First, the fragrance of wheat and yeast, followed by the perfect crunch of crust giving way to chewy, delicious bread. I was transformed in a single bite, and turned to look back at Houlier, who was serving two other customers, and to give him a thumbs-up. I caught his eye and I didn't even have to tell him: he could see the rapture in my face. Enfin! Un pain incroyablement français, here in Washington! I returned to Houlier's booth and bought a second baguette

and a loaf of whole-wheat bread. He told me that I could store them in the freezer.

Saint Michel Bakery is located in Rockville, where Houlier dispenses not only his authentic French breads and pastries, but also sandwiches. As Watson has written, he imports his dough, flour, butter, mustard, and cornichons from France and uses Canadian ham because it is most like the French ham he prefers. I'll definitely be driving up to Rockville for lunch one day! What a great find (and thanks, Julia).

My friend Chuck, who has a bountiful garden on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, brought me a bag of fresh-picked cucumbers and bell peppers yesterday, so I made dill pickles (see my blog from this time last year) and stuffed peppers to serve for dinner last night alongside the Turkish beans. I used the stuffing and tomato sauce from the following recipe from The New Southern Cook. In place of the onions, you can use large bell peppers. Rather than standing them on end, you can split them in half lengthwise, remove the seeds and ribs, and lay them on their sides. I divided the recipe in half and used 4 medium-sized bell peppers. But this recipe is great with the originally called-for onions as well. I also added a shallot to the carrot and lamb sauté, and ground my own lamb from four shoulder slices I picked up in the sale bin at the supermarket.

Onions Stuffed with Lamb and Rice

This is a real lamb-lover's dish. Kentuckian Bill Hughes sent me the recipe. Bill is quite simply the best meat cook I know. If you don't like the muttony taste of the lamb fat, use a little oil in the tomato sauce instead. In Kentucky mutton is the preferred meat for barbecue. I've also used this stuffing in grape leaves.

                        3 large yellow onions

                        2-1/2 pounds coarsely ground lamb

                        1/2 cup finely chopped carrot (about 1/2 large carrot)

                        1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

                        1-1/2 teaspoons dried rosemary, crushed, or 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves, chopped

                        3/4 cup long-grain white rice       

                        2-1/4 cups water or chicken or lamb stock, divided

                        salt and freshly ground black pepper       

                        1/2 cup finely grated carrot (about 1/2 large carrot)

                        8 whole peeled cloves garlic

                        2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

                        2 cups peeled and crushed tomatoes

                        1 cup freshly grated bread crumbs

                        1/2 cup chopped parsley

Boil the whole onions in salted water for 20 minutes. Drain and set aside to cool while you prepare the stuffing and sauce.

Brown the lamb with the chopped carrot, cinnamon, and rosemary, over  medium heat until evenly cooked, about 10 minutes. Pour off the excess fat and liquid into another sauté pan. Add the rice and 1-1/2 cups of the water or stock to the lamb. Season with salt and pepper, then simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. Add the grated carrot and garlic to the lamb fat (or a small amount of oil if you do not want the strong lamb flavor) and sauté until the carrots have begun to melt and the garlic is well-glazed. Add the lemon zest, tomatoes, and remaining 3/4 cup of water or stock, season with salt and a lot of black pepper, and reduce, over medium heat, until the sauce has thickened considerably, about 12 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375^o. Slice both the root and stem ends from the onions and peel them. Make a cut from end to end to the center of each onion.  Carefully peel away the layers of onion. With a large serving spoon, fill each onion layer with the lamb mixture, roll it back up into approximately its original shape, and stand on end in an 8" by 11-1/2" baking dish. Continue making rolls until the dish is closely filled.  Pour the tomato sauce over the onion rolls and cover with the bread crumbs.

Bake the rolls for 1 hour. Run the dish under the broiler to brown the crumbs, if necessary, sprinkle with the parsley, and serve. The buttery flavor of Green Beans with Pecans (see below) nicely complements this dish. Serve with a crusty white bread.

Yields 8 servings.

Debbie Recommends: Spanish red, full-flavored and zesty.

Green Beans with Pecans

Pecans are considered a luxury item in some places, but southerners use them with abandon as snacks, in salads and stuffings, as breading, in desserts, and with vegetables. The following buttery recipe is a year-round favorite.

1 pound tender young green beans, stemmed but with the tender young green tip intact

1/3 cup pecan halves

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 shallot, chopped fine (or 1/4 cup finely chopped onion)

salt and freshly ground pepper

cayenne (optional)

Plunge the beans into a large pot of rapidly boiling water and cook them, uncovered, until they just become tender, about 3 to 5 minutes. Taste them frequently and do not overcook them. Whey they just lose their raw flavor, immediately pour them into a colander to drain. They should be not quite cooked. Use ice to cool them off if necessary.

About ten minutes before serving, sauté the pecans in the butter over medium heat for 5 minutes, then add the onions and continue cooking for another 5 minutes. Just before serving, add the beans. Season to taste with salt and pepper,  and, if desired, a dash of cayenne. Toss the beans, nuts, and onions well together, turn off the heat, and cover for a moment to warm the beans through and to let the flavors mingle.

Serves 4.

July 13, 2009 Lazy Days of Summer

This past weekend was the first one that Mikel and I have had alone together in two months, and we were somewhat lazy. We talked about the importance of creative activity, but sometimes I wonder if I haven't said all I have to say on this blog. I rarely repeat myself exactly in the kitchen, but many dishes are variations on recipes I've already posted, especially in the summer, my favorite time to cook, when everything is fresh and local and I well know how best to prepare it, which is to say (usually) the simplest method possible. And there are dishes that I occasionally make for one reason or another and then, even after photographing them, decide not to post here, such as this eggplant stuffed with crabmeat (Galatoire's recipe, easily found online) simply because it's not really my cup of tea. As Mikel said of this dish, which was perfectly edible, "It does taste like restaurant food."

And some days I honestly tire of my own voice here, though, more and more, I think my voice is beginning to resemble that of my mother, who kept detailed accounts of her daily life. The following journal entries, edited, is from the late 70s, when my parents were my age now and were moving their sailboat from Hilton Head to Lady's Island (Beaufort), where they had bought a place on the river:

"5/6 [1978]: ... clean strawberries to have with cereal...have brunch of sausage fondue; hot, spiced fruit; blueberry coffee cake; and vino...

5/12:  after 14 years, we are saying "Farewell" to our island home...I meet TS [my father] at Skull Creek Marina for lunch....Have Mother's Day celebration... vino, gazpacho, seafood crêpes...we order appetizer size, but get luncheon size, so we forego dessert. I drive here, and TS sails -- hated to miss trip, but with energy shortage seems a shame to waste fuel...TS arrives and 3 boys help him on the dock. We eat late, salad, quail, and Chinese vegetables."

There are page after page after page of her daily doings -- laundry, shopping, bird sightings, weather patterns, and a record of nearly every thing they ate -- "the last of the mackerel," "we pick crabs for supper," "a good visit and food -- crab casserole, zucchini, rolls, fresh blueberries and peaches." It's a testament to her delightful table and the bounty of the lowcountry, but I can't imagine anyone else enjoying reading it. I only kept one of the dozens of volumes, her last, the final pages of which she dictated to me as she lay dying and my father and I cared for her. The others we donated to the South Carolina Department of Wildlife, because there were records of her wildlife sightings in Calibogue Sound every weekend for 14 years. As Hilton Head grew, the eagles and otters became rarer sights. And the oysters became smaller, and fewer.

I've never been a lazy cook, but sometimes I just don't feel like it. On Friday night, when Mikel came home, I stuck a pisco sour in his hand. To Peruvian pisco (a clear brandy made from grapes), I added an egg white, fresh squeezed lime juice,  a bit of simple sugar syrup, and some crushed ice, and shook it violently until it was fluffy and light. A dash of bitters is the traditional final touch. We rarely drink cocktails other than an occasional margarita, but I wanted an egg yolk for my salad dressing, so a drink with an egg white made sense. My waste-not/want-not mother would be proud!

Earlier in the day, I had set my big confit pot down in warm water to melt the fat enough so that I could pull two duck legs out for supper. (See July 1, 2008, for confit recipe.) While I ran the legs under the broiler to crisp the skin and warm them, I made a dressing with the egg yolk, salt and pepper, a bit of mustard, lemon juice, and walnut oil. I served the confit salad with a Château de Vaugelas Corbières (Le Prieuré cuvée 2007), I cannot think of a better meal or a more perfect pairing of wine and dish. Though we generally avoid wines with 13.5% alcohol, like this big, fruity, award-winner from the South of France, no other wine could have better matched the unctuous duck and spicy arugula and mustard. Made with 30% grenache, 30% syrah, 30% carignan, and 10% mourvèdre, and aged in oak, the Vaugelas wines consistently win gold and silver medals and are very reasonably priced around $10/bottle! Alongside the confit I served wedges of fennel, Charleston Sweet onions, and parsnips that I had dribbled with olive oil, splashed with vermouth, and roasted in a hot oven with lemon wedges and sprigs of thyme tucked amongst them. When they began to brown but weren't quite cooked, I covered them with aluminum foil and let them continue to cook while I browned the confit legs.

On Saturday, I removed the lemon and thyme from the leftover vegetables, added some fresh chopped garlic and parsley, and combined them with a dozen eggs to make a frittata that we ate on the rest of the weekend. (Frittata recipes appeared on May 7, 2008.) For Sunday supper, I served the last of my Genoese corzetti, the coin-shaped pasta I brought home from Italy. Made from chestnut flour and flavored with marjoram, the rustic hand-stamped pasta were annointed with a simple pesto-like sauce.

The Fourth of July

Blackberry Ice Cream

We went to the Eastern Shore home of our friends Chuck and Bruce for the Fourth. Girlfriends Ellen, Faith, and Deirdre were visiting from Atlanta, and I was told before I came that I didn't have to bring any food or make anything -- except Cheese Straws. "Great!" I said, "but someone will have to film me making them so I can post it on my blog." I ended up putting the camera on a tripod and I'll see if I can figure out how to edit the video and post it here. The blackberries were ripening right and left, so I couldn't resist making ice cream. I made a custard with a dozen egg yolks, a quart of milk, and 1-1/2 cups of sugar, then, after it was cool, added two cups of crème fraîche and about three cups of blackberry puree, which I made by putting about 6 cups of blackberries in a pan with a little sugar and cooking it on a low fire until they had fallen apart and thickened slightly. I strained out the seeds. I folded it all together and we took turns rotating the crank of an old wooden ice cream churn until it was tough going, about 30 minutes. We then removed the dasher and packed the ice cream down in ice to finish freezing and until we were ready to serve it. YUM!!! (There are more precise recipes for ice cream on the January 28 blog). I made an angel food cake with the dozen egg whites to go with. The recipe appeared here on November 12, 2007.

The night before, Ellen made spaghetti with a red clam sauce, which she made by putting tomatoes and garlic in a slow oven to roast most of the afternoon. When they collapsed, she stirred it all together and added it to the pasta and the clams, which she had steamed open with a little white wine, butter, and olive oil. Delicious!

Deirdre's salad with fresh local peaches and goat cheese perfectly complemented the meal. (These last two images I managed to grab from the video clips; hence, the lesser quality.)

For lunch today, I made a salad of shrimp steamed over a fennel broth with fresh ginger and jalapeño added. I tossed the shrimp with cilantro and parsley from our herb garden; cucumbers that I had seeded, salted, and drained; slivers of jalapeño peppers (also from our dooryard); and Charleston Sweet Onion slices; all tossed together with fresh-squeezed lime juice, a bit of mustard, and some toasted sesame oil, and served over a bed of chopped romaine and avocado slices. Served with a glass of Regaleali's white wine made from indigenous Sicilian grapes, it

was simply perfect.

July 2, 2009 Favorite Foods

Yesterday while having lunch with my friend Betsey Apple, she asked me what are my favorite foods to cook. Our conversation ranged far and wide, and I never answered her, but wrote her an email later. It's hardly an "answer" to her question, but she told me I should share my thoughts with my readers. Here's basically what I told her (with hot links and photos added):

You asked me what food I most like to cook. I realize I never answered. That's a funny question. I cook all the time. I do not particularly like to make desserts because I don't particularly like to eat them, but I do so love a few that I make, and folks like them so much that the "reward" factor is high with, say, a crostata [There's a recipe on the January 22 blog.]. So I DO like making THEM. But sweets aren't high on my list, either eating or preparing. [I would add here that cobblers made with fresh fruits, my apple-nut torte, apple pie, and German Chocolate Cake are always winners as well. For the recipes, see 8/27/07, 2/10/08, 11/25/07, and 1/08:Barbados.]

And I love shrimp, but the less you do to them the better. And oysters are probably my favorite food on earth, and there's no cooking there. I don't even like to put anything on them if they are salty enough.

I also love all the old southern "peas" -- whippoorwills and lady peas and cream peas and crowders, but cooking them is boring work. [See "Cowpeas," New Year's Eve 2007.]

And I adore eggs -- and cooking them is an artform (I've seen Betsey scramble eggs properly; so few do it well), and it's almost immediately rewarding. There's THAT.

Sometimes I really, really like grilling. But not necessarily always. It's so easy. And it's sorta dumb. I do like to be stimulated. 

And I love it when I cook something I've never cooked before, don't consult cookbooks, and it comes out perfectly [the rabbit below, for example].. And I love foods that complement the big wines I love to drink, though my cooking is rarely fancy.

I guess I'm saying that I don't have a favorite way of cooking. I love most foods. There are some flavors I adore (besides salt, my favorite!) like orange, but that doesn't mean that I love oranges. It's more at orange peel.[See, to wit, the Orange Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake I wrote about on October 30.] And so much of my more elaborate cooking is for friends, and, again, folks tend to appreciate anything I do, so those old standbys that I make such as shrimp pilau [recipe here] and chicken country captain and gumbo [See August 2007] and cornbread and ham biscuits and a couple of desserts I make win such praise -- and empty plates -- that it's hard not to enjoy making them, knowing what the response will be. 

I don't have a "perfect meal," though there are some ideas I turn to again and again. One preferred meal [See 12/20/07] begins with raw oysters (and/or caviar) and champagne; some delicious fresh vegetables, barely cooked; something fried (There. I said it. Not only do I love the way it tastes, I've perfected frying just about anything -- so much so that I truly enjoy doing it, in spite of the mess); some delicious wine; and a perfect pear (tu sais qu'il n'y a que dix minutes dans la vie d'une poire quand elle soit parfaite) and a piece of Stilton. But there really is something to be said for making something so simple -- a rack of lamb, green beans, and potatoes, for example -- that eliminates all thinking from the equation. Do I enjoy making that meal? Yes, because I get to enjoy the evening instead of slaving over a pot of bubbling grease or a burning fire. [The rack I simply coat with a mixture of herbs, garlic, and bread crumbs, put in a 450^o oven for 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 425 and continue to cook for another 20 minutes. I will have parboiled quartered small Yukon Gold potatoes and green beans. The potatoes I sprinkle with s&p and drizzle with olive oil, tucking a few rosemary sprigs amongt them and put them on a baking sheet in the oven at the same time as the lamb. While the cooked lamb rests, I toss the green beans in skillet with some garlic and olive oil.]

There's also nothing like watching friends eat something I've made such as my Rockefeller Turnovers (all the ingredients for Oysters Rockefeller sautéed together then tucked into puff pastry turnovers and baked) and seeing the surprise and delight on their faces. I never tire of them myself, those turnovers, so they rank high. [I posted the recipe on December 20, 2007.] But how do I compare those appetizers to the rare piece of dry-aged prime with a glass of Volnay? [See, for example, the recipe for Standing Rib Roast in Ireland, Part I.]

And how do I rank anything higher than my fig preserves or, for that matter, any of my canned goods? 

I don't know, Reader, I've always liked cooking, but this convoluted attempt at an answer is about favored tastes, not techniques. I love to steam some foods -- like eggplant, a technique I learned from a Japanese friend, and, I think, the best way to cook it.

I've always loved whatever is the freshest, the tastiest -- the just-dug potato, the perfectly ripe peach, the oysters I gather from the pluff mud, the figs of August, truly vine-ripened tomatoes, and blemish-free okra.
They're all my babies. Don't make me choose!

July 1, 2009 Rabbit with Fennel and Preserved Lemons

What glorious weather we've been having! Yesterday I bought a rabbit and cut it up into servings pieces (the thighs, legs, and saddle), and made a stock with the remaining parts of the carcass, adding fennel trimmings to the usual aromatics of celery, onion, carrots, and herbs. I seasoned the cut up pieces with salt, pepper, and paprika, browned them in olive oil a big heavy casserole, set the browned pieces aside, and added a cut up onion, a cut up bulb of fennel, and several stalks of cut up celery to the pot, cooking them over high heat, but stirring constantly so as not to let them brown. I also added a split and quartered piece of lemon grass, left intact so that I could remove it later. When the vegetables were becoming clear, I added a cup of white wine and deglazed the pot, then added the rabbit pieces and enough stock to just barely cover the pieces. I brought the mixture to a boil, turned it down to a bare simmer, covered the pot, and let the rabbit braise for about an hour and a half, until it was very tender. In the meantime, I cooked basmati rice in the rabbit/fennel stock. I removed the rabbit pieces and the lemon grass from the braise, added the diced skin of a preserved Meyer lemon, increased the heat, and reduced the liquid until it was thick, then served the rabbit and the juicy vegetables atop the rice. I discarded the lemon grass. It was a lovely supper for the two of us, and I have a pot of rabbit-flavored fennel soup in addition to the finished dish that we devoured.

Today I'm headed to Black Salt for lunch with my friend Betsey.