July, 2011
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Thursday, July 28th, 2011
My neighbor’s garden is like the best seed catalog in full bloom or a paragraph in an Elizabeth Bowen novel. English born, although he’s been in Folly Cove for thirty-something years, Andrew plants his garden with humor – “I believe in weeding,” he says, looking into a healthy but untidy patch of green, “but I don’t do it.” – and British taste.
A hedgerow of privet, a few stray calendula, the trailing ends of grapevine tumbling down from an arbor and a wisteria climbing up, all woven into a bit of wire fencing, make a verdant barrier around his plot of garden bed on a sunny hillside overlooking sparkling Folly Cove.
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Tags: berries, black currants, currant fool, Egyptian onions, gardens, gooseberries, marrow, obscure vegetables, red currants, White Pine blight
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011
One ultra-runner’s homemade energy bar is simply another man’s deliciously original corncake.
In an unofficial fifty mile trail race through Mexico’s Copper Canyons, the main event in the NYT’s bestseller Born to Run, world class ultra-runner Scott Jurek competed against Mexican Indians who consider running one hundred miles good old fashion fun, not competition. The Tarahumara Indians live isolated from asphalt and fast food. They go out running enormous distances – men, women and children together - the way Americans go to the movies.
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Tags: Arnulfo, Born to Run, Chris McDougall, Copper Canyons, Corncakes, energy bars, Mexico, Scott Jurek, Tarahumara, Tarahumara Corncakes, ultra-running
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
Last Saturday it took nine people about six hours to reap one tenth of an acre of wheat on Alprilla Farm in Essex. Scythes in hand, we cut the wheat and tied armfuls into sheafs, just like Millet’s “Reapers.” The only thing we didn’t do was bring our taxed portion to Townhall, Noah Kellerman, who had farmed the wheat, pointed out. Also, these young reapers had all been promised a pool party after their labors, not exactly Millet’s farmer’s end of day.
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Tags: Alprilla Farm, Essex, harvesting, MA, Noah Kellerman, Tucker Smith, Wheat
Saturday, July 16th, 2011
A short summer vacation from gastronomy, one dry martini is the only cuisine here, but there’s plenty of style:
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Tags: Anthonie's, collage pieces, Edina, Minnesota, necklaces, Wells Gustafson
Thursday, July 14th, 2011
In staying true to New England waters, Steve Johnson of Rendezvous Restaurant in Central Square, Cambridge, courageously puts fish on his menu that – oh no! – has bones. Mackerel. Grilled to a charry crispness, dripping with olive oil, delicate filets lifting off of eight inches of spiny vertebrae, mackerel.
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Tags: bones, fresh sardines, Grilled Mackerel with Asian Cucumber Salad, Mackerel, Rendezvous Restaurant, Steve Johnson, sustainable fish choices, Whole Foods
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
Cecilia, my fifteen year old French-exchange daughter, has her own food blog, Life Is Salt and Sweet, and a signature dish: Cecilia’s tarte tatin turns upside down all my expectations of the French apple pastry. Instead of laying below a fan of apple slices, questionably crisp, this pastry drapes across caramelized apple halves, producing a tarte that looks like moguls after a fresh snow. It inspires smiles, this pan of rolling dough.
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Tags: Cecilia Buffenoir, Life is Salt and Sweet, Tarte Tatin
Sunday, July 10th, 2011
Evenfall Restaurant looks like a roadside family-style establishment on a stretch of rt. 125 in Haverhill checkered with square tech industry buildings and cow fields, but the quality and modernity of its food could place it in Cambridge, if not Brooklyn.
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Tags: Evenfall Restaurant, Haverhill, preserved lemon vinaigrettes, preserved lemons, Spiro Pappadopoulas
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
Rice, the star of all side dishes, is usually not much more than the a comfortable grave for a boneless chicken breast or a small slab of haddock. And, yet, with the addition of nothing more than a cupped palm’s worth of cardamom seeds, rice – particularly Jasmine Rice – can be pulled from backstage to center, if not actually the star of the show.
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Tags: Cardamom, Cardamom Rice, Elletaria, Nina Simond's Barbecue Tofu
Monday, July 4th, 2011
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Heritage Foods USA
In 2011, more than half of the salmon eaten in the US comes from Aquaculture, the rearing of fish in man made facilities. This summer we are excited to partner with Christopher Nicolson who has been fishing sockeye salmon in the headwaters of Bristol Bay Alaska for over a quarter century. The Alaskan constitution has banned aquaculture in an effort to protect the wild salmon population and the pristine coastal waters. Unfortunately the majority of Alaskan salmon is actually shipped abroad due to lack of demand in the domestic market. Support sustainable fishing, ask where your salmon comes from, vote with your fork, and take part in this year’s salmon season.
We love Iliamna Fish Company because they are a family who has caught wild salmon in Alaska for literally hundreds of years. Twenty family members get together every salmon season (June through July) to keep the family tradition alive. The more we buy from them, the better a season they will have, thus preserving an American tradition. Alaska is home to one of the most bountiful, sustainable, and last salmon runs in the world. These salmon come from Bristol Bay, one of the most strictly monitored fisheries in the US. Only 3000 permits have been issued, and no more will be created! |
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Tags: Heritage Foods USA, Sockeye Salmon, Wild Alaskan Salmon
Saturday, July 2nd, 2011
Ta-da! – two appetizers easier than opening a jar of salsa, and far more rewarding: one a 1970’s standard too good to be forgotten, the other almost too simple to be so good. The ratio of ease to deliciousness for both is absurd.
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Tags: Appetizers, Asparagus with Goat Cheese wrapped in Serrano Ham, Asparagus Wraps, Grilled Avocados, MIke Kenyon, Serrano Ham
