Sloppy Joes are usually a pretty lowbrow punt of a dinner, but they can hit the spot. And when they’re made like this, they become a different sort of animal altogether.
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When I imagined this meal, it was rather a lot like the poulet fermier aux morilles I had back in Paris on the night I got plowed tasting Burgundies at the huge agricultural fair. While that meal was a perfect drunk-thirty chilly March comfort food home run, this iteration ended up being a pretty perfect conclusion to a rainy yet balmy May Saturday. Keep reading The Pleasure Principle…
Lovage is a new favorite of mine in the garden. Apart from the fact that it’s a perennial, roaring back in early spring for some of the first new domestic greens, it has a beguiling aroma that’s like celery and citrus and fenugreek all rolled into one. As it’s peaking right now, ready to flower, I cut some stalks thinking that since they’re so fat they might take well to being treated like a vegetable. Cutting them released their perfume, which combined with the scintillating sunlight and the parch in my throat to unleash a savage hankering for an icy gin-based beverage featuring lovage. This is a shot of my little ramp patch. (Likers of the blog on Facebook already knew that; just saying). I planted these about four years ago, near the stream, under some trees. They have taken hold quite well, and are beginning to spread. It’s hard to resist pulling them up, but I do, so they will continue to multiply. What I do instead is to cut one leaf off, leaving the rest. Thus do I get to have my ramps and eat them too. *Edit* It’s worth mentioning that they like to be under deciduous trees, not conifers, and thus be mulched naturally with leaves. Full sun is not advised. They evolved to thrive on forest floors, near water, so do your best to provide them with that sort of environment. The North side of your house, mulched with whatever you rake off your lawn, can work. I tried a few spots and this was the clear winner. While the rest of the world goes bananas for them, remember that growing your own is the only sure way to protect wild populations from the depredations of both amateur and professional foragers. Ramps spread slowly, and can take years to recover from overeager harvesting. If everyone eats wild ramps, they’ll disappear. Cultivating your own patch(es) is the way to go. They transplant well, especially earlier in the season, so when I do forage them I always set aside a meaningful percentage to stick in the ground. Over time this should wean me off . . . → Read More: It Takes A Pillage Fresh morels, sautéd in butter with wild garlic, white wine, heavy cream, and herbes de Provence, make excellent crostini on homemade sourdough. Oh, and I just saw that Edible Hudson Valley has the last issue online. You can read my piece about Tuthilltown’s fire and their new gin, and also my article about homemade vinegar. I also took the photos for . . . → Read More: PSA
This Terry Winters-looking cluster of clusters was actually the inspiration for dinner, unlikely though that sounds when you consider that dinner was a rather Baroque heap of decadence. To witness the lavish feast and learn what these things are, see below. Keep reading Music Of The Spheres…
With this crazy non-winter, besides the stirring in the garden all the wild edibles are rousing themselves bright and early. Besides the wild garlic–a perennial favorite, and every bit as good as its over-hyped and over-harvested cousin the ramp–garlic mustard is getting a vigorous start all around the house. Since it’s ubiquitous, invasive, and extremely tasty (it’s one of my absolute favorite wild greens) there is a multi-faceted pleasure in its consumption that encompasses ease, righteousness, and hedonism.
Last year my friend Danny, who has 25 or so acres up the road a piece, got keen to make maple syrup from the approximately one gajillion sugar maples on his property. It turns out that far fewer than a gajillion are required to produce copious sap, even given the 40:1 reduction ratio that syrup requires. He gathered sap into many five-gallon buckets, with me helpfully bringing some of my own to catch the excess, and we both cooked it down on our respective stovetops (he used his wood stove) in our big speckleware canning tubs. The results were documented here, and we both officially caught the sap fever. This year, as promised, he took it to another level. Keep reading Tree Sugar Sex Magik…
Columbus Day weekend was perfect in the Northeast. Warm–even flirting with hot–with brilliant, clear skies and a gentle breeze, southern Vermont was a giant sensurround postcard of rural charm and autumnal magnificence. And all the rain has turned the woods into a cornucopia of fungi. Keep reading Steak Of The Woods…
A quick update for anybody who was interested in my spruce post: I left a bunch of the intact tips in a bowl, figuring that they’d dry out on their own and then I’d grind them to powder. But after months, they still retained a springy resistance to breaking up into fine dust, even under the stern ministrations of the surikogi. So recently, since I had some things going in the sous vide machine, which I normally cap with a cookie sheet for heat retention, I stripped the needles off the stems and sprinkled them on the hot metal as I had done with the first batch that ground up nice and fine. Within an hour or so, these too had become brittle and powdered easily, so I dumped them all in the suribachi and Milo and I took turns turning them into powder for the spice jar. Keep reading The More You Know… |
I'm a painter who happens to also spend a lot of time growing, making, and writing about food. I'm particularly interested in the intersection of frugal peasant cooking techniques and haute improvisation. And I have a really great personality.   |
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