Wintry foods.

Lewisburg.

Winter. With the ice and snow and finger-numbing temperatures, it hardly seems the ideal time for bringing delicious foods in from the garden. There are a few late-season pleasures to be had, however. We had frost-sweetened Brussels sprouts around¹ Thanksgiving, and harvested some lovely cabbages from beneath two inches of ice and snow.

Braised with butter, chicken stock, and caraway seeds, they're excellent.

Last weekend, we even took the opportunity to dig carrots and parsnips before the ground turned too cold to work. Here you can see the haul - with parsnips beneath - and a fascinated dog.



The remaining parsnips will overwinter outdoors, to be dug come spring. With a little luck.

I didn't have the best year for mushroom hunting, especially since we didn't get the flush of field mushrooms that appeared in 2008. With too much work to do, escaping to the woods just hasn't been in the cards. Trips to the dog park do happen with some regularity, and it was there that I stumbled across these:



Winter mushrooms, Flammulina velutipes, are around these days. There isn't much to them, with their mild flavor and somewhat slippery texture, but free, wild, edible fungus is still exciting.

* * * * *

¹Not for. Thanksgiving, after all, is a holiday for the same old boring foods a family has every year. Is it possible to make a holiday that embraces food so lackluster in the dinner department? Yes. Yes it is.

Disturbing. Depressing. And The Big Lebowski.

Lewisburg.

I've come to an interesting realization of late: I tend to use pop culture as sort of mood reinforcement. I find this odd, for a simple reason. If I'm feeling low, wouldn't it be best to watch something like The Big Lebowski?

So Sharon's been out of town for most of the last two months, the sole break being about six days back to visit and go to a conference.¹ As one might imagine, this is not conducive to good times. I do, however, make all decisions regarding pop culture consumption solely to suit my own interests. My selection of Netflix films for September and October are an odd reflection of things I might not choose to watch with anyone else.

Some of them I have no plans to watch a second time, regards of their quality or impact.²

It does make me think. In particular, about the highly depressing and disturbing things I've been interested in, and how they aren't necessarily making me feel worse. At times, it's quite the opposite - though this is a delayed effect, I find.

I've started compiling a mental list of those unusual bits of entertainment that are both brilliant - well made, formally beautiful, just truly powerful - and shocking and affecting in their subject matter. It's far from complete, but it is, I think, a list of entertainments well worth the time.

I started to think about this after renting and watching Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom. I watched it because I wanted to have seen it, which meant that I would have to see it.³ Matthew Dessem called it "visceral" and meant it. It didn't make me vomit, as I was concerned it might, but simply watching it was an exhausting experience. It made me realize that there were other films that bothered me more, or at least very specific scenes and moments, but there is little that can match Salò in it relentless pummeling of atrocities.

Shortly before watching Salò, I watched Clean, Shaven, which was depressing overall, with simple moments that truly bothered me. That scene in Inglourious Basterds where B.J. Novak's character is scalping a dead Nazi? Hilarious. The scene in this film where the schizophrenic protagonist - from whose head the film seems to spring - shaves in front a mirror he's covered in paper, because he can't handle reflections? Horrific, and I've cut myself shaving so many times it hardly even registers. Even worse is when the sounds in his head become so bad that he's compelled to remove the transmitters he believes were implanted in him. I squirmed on the couch. It was hard to keep focused on the screen.

If you were to tell me that Clean, Shaven is the most accurate portrait of what it's like to be schizophrenic out there, I'll believe it. If there's something even moreso, I'm not sure I can handle it.

There are more conventional films about mental breakdowns, like Insomnia. I watched it the other night. It was pretty much as I remembered. It does make for an interesting comparison to the American remake, directed by Christopher Nolan, especially when you consider the points raised in the Criterion Contraption essay. (Scroll to the bottom for those, specifically.) Those differences between the characters played by Skarsgård and Pacino sum up everything that's gut-wrenching about the original.

If you're looking for gut-wrenching, though, it might be impossible to outdo Kurt Kuenne's Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father.⁴ It's a documentary, and every painful detail is easily accessible with a brief Google search. The general consensus is that you should go into the film with as little background as possible, to let it sweep you along. Maybe. It's hard to say, because it's firmly in the category of things that can't be unexperienced, and I only know how I saw it.

I started to get choked up in the first minute or two of the film, I think. I don't precisely recall the time, though I do know the moment, the first voice that begins to break. (The man with his young son. It's in the trailer. It's seared into my brain.) Though I've no doubt there's someone out there who won't cry at this film, I - like damn near everyone who's seen it - spent the bulk of its running time with tears in my eyes. Crushing. Harrowing. Touching. Powerful. Raw. Pick your adjective.

There are a variety of summaries out there, all dancing about the details to keep some of the surprise. My version: Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne's best friend, Andrew Bagby, is murdered by an ex-girlfriend, who it turns out is pregnant with his son. Kuenne interviews family, friends, coworkers, and anyone he can find to paint a portrait of a father for a son who'll never meet him. If this were fiction, it would be an astounding picture of the interconnectedness of people around a single person. But it's a true story, and one with surprises that would be pushing the limits of one's suspension of disbelief if it weren't.

Stan Brakhage's The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes is utterly true, raw, and composed of shocking subject matter - autopsy footage - but it's nothing like Dear Zachary. In a way, because of its formal beauty, it's kind of lovely. The emotions it drums up are complex and sometimes at odds, but I actually enjoy it enough to watch it from time to time. There's a strange comfort in it that I can't quite get my head around. It soothes for reasons unknown.

So does Bonnie "Prince" Billy's album, I See a Darkness. (Title track especially. Album version here; powerful Johnny Cash version here.) It's not unlike listening to the Eels album Electro-Shock Blues, particularly Dead of Winter. Or most anything by Arab Strap.

But films tend to strike me more powerfully. Perhaps because they're just a more immersive experience. Sometimes there are scenes that are just a punch in the gut.

The one that always comes back to me is from Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers. This bothered me three years ago, when I wrote:

"The Battle of Algiers looks almost like a documentary, which is why the vicious scenes of torture - brief, not bloody, but looking entirely real - turn my stomach. Even more so is the scene, just before the torture, where FLN bombs explode in the bleachers at the horse races, a place filled with wealthy French spectators. An enraged mob converges on a small Algerian boy selling concessions, beating him unconscious until the police lift him out. You don't see any of the explicit violence, as it's hidden by the bodies of the mob, but the scene is so stark and brutal that I find it extremely difficult to watch."

Great film. Stomach-churning moment.

There's the moment in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence where Viggo Mortenson's character, Tom Stall, smashes in a thug's face with a glass coffee carafe. And we see the bloody aftermath. Or when Mortenson's character, Nikolai, in Cronenberg's Eastern Promises cuts the fingertips off a murdered man in the process of making the corpse unidentifiable. In fact, Cronenberg's films are a treasure trove for this sort of thing. The scenes of Videodrome in Videodrome. Beverly unveiling his new surgical tools in Dead Ringers. Oh, pretty much all of Crash.

Michael Haneke specializes in this sort of thing. The scene I think of most - though it's just one moment of many - is in Time of the Wolf, when Ben is standing before the bonfire. You can see a snippet of it in the trailer, but it's in context, at the end of the film, that it becomes something that sucks the air from your lungs.

See also: when Frank murders a small boy who hears his name in Once Upon a Time in the West. The abandoned war dead on the beach in The Burmese Harp. The aggregate of moments of Caden losing Olive in Synecdoche, New York. The old shirt, after Jack's murder, in Brokeback Mountain. The story of the mulberry trees in Taste of Cherry.

Antoine Doinel, sitting in the classroom as we see his parents, his teacher, and the principal outside, through the glass, in The 400 Blows. Which isn't as rough as the rest, but Truffaut certainly knew how to play a scene for emotional impact.

And Terry Gilliam knows how to monkey with emotions, too, though he so carefully lightens the moment when it's needed. When selecting an actor to play a government torturer, he picks Michael Palin, who's pretty much the nicest man imaginable. He's almost as charming as William Powell playing Nick Charles in The Thin Man, only not fictional. Johnny Depp plays Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, because there's no way you can't like the man, and it's essential that we love him.⁵ (Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, anyone?)

He chose Jeff Bridges as the overdosing junkie dad in Tideland, because any role where Jeff Bridges plays a long-in-the-tooth hippie type instantly conjures up thoughts of the Dude. And you can't not like the Dude. (Gilliam readily admits as much.)

And I'm back to The Big Lebowski. I think I'm in a mood to watch it now.

* * * * *

¹And I spent 90% of that time down with H1N-fun.

²Often because of that impact. Of course.

³Mark Twain once remarked something about classics being books that everyone wanted to have read, but no one wanted to read. For years, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare has been sitting on my bookshelf. I doubt that I will ever read it, but I'll be damned if I'm going to get rid of it, or relegate it to a box in the basement.

⁴Here's the trailer, albeit in crummy YouTube quality. (The website's got it smaller, but in higher quality.) I find it very difficult to watch now, having seen the film, though it's hard to say what its impact was before I knew all of the details.

⁵See also: Bill Murray in Where the Buffalo Roam. Or, for late-period Murray, in the films of Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch.

Snow? Seriously?

Lewisburg.

It's snowing here today. Mid-October. As of mere moments ago:



And we just had our first frost - light enough to spare at least half of the zinnias, even - yesterday morning. Bizarre.

Perhaps this wouldn't be so irritating if I had fewer posts to set on the fence you can see in the background.

Watermelon spots.

Lewisburg.

I'm growing some watermelons, with some measure of success this year. Blacktail Mountain is a short-season variety - relatively - which gives me a little leeway at this latitude, especially in an often cool and wet summer.

Also cool: the ones I've grown have these occasional, fascinating patterns of spots and spirals.



I've no idea why, but they do make for an interesting sight. As near as I can tell, they're not indicative of a problem, since it doesn't match the symptoms of any watermelon diseases I know of. Plus, the fruits are mighty tasty. Perhaps I'll have more melons, more spots, and more of an idea next year.

Fungal frenemies.

Lewisburg.

Tomatoes!



So, they're actually long gone at this point. I noticed the late blight a little over two weeks ago, and this year's massive tomato plants - the Sun Gold vines were probably ten feet long - were done for. Torn out of the ground, stuffed into trash bags, left to rot. There's even been some evidence of it on the potatoes, but not too much, and I'm culling them as I find them.

Even so, this was a bumper year for both crops. My off the cuff guess is that I brought in around fifty pounds of potatoes, and far more tomatoes than that. Not counting those eaten fresh, we have twenty-seven quarts and seven pints canned, and three half-gallon and four quart jars (plus a few) dried. If that's not enough to enjoy until next season, then my problems aren't with tomato production.

But, you know, not all fungi are bad. Puffballs, for example, are a pleasant surprise:



I'm fairly certain that this is an example of either Calvatia craniformis, the skull-shaped puffball, or Calvatia cyathiformis. (Hard to say without a mature specimen.) Either way it's edible, though low on the flavor index. Granted, frying almost anything in butter helps. It's kind of like eating a savory marshmallow.

Actually, it's a lot like that. On its own, not so exciting.

But it grew in the backyard, and the whole thing weighed 280 grams - just under ten ounces. Not bad.

Wild blueberries.

Lewisburg.

Blueberries grow in our backyard. Enough that we've picked twenty-one quarts thus far this year, with more ripening as I write this, though production has started to slow. It's more than enough to keep us in blueberry pancakes, cobblers, and so on for the next year.

And yet, it was hard to resist the urge to go get more. Wild blueberries.



Last year, I'd gone hiking deep in the woods, and had come across tiny, wild blueberries. Fields of them, in among the mountain laurel and rocky terrain. There aren't many ripe ones to be found, but they're delicious for a nibble as you walk by. And this spring, in conversation with friends, the idea came up. So, it became an evening activity.

I say "activity" because, like most foraging trips, it's all a crapshoot. Even when you know a fine wild patch of something - from berries to mushrooms to whatever else seems worth the effort - you always run the risk of returning home with an empty basket. You might have estimated the wrong date for ripe fruit. The birds, bears, and others might have cleaned it out first. It might simply be a poor year.

That said, we made out reasonably well, if you consider that we went for a hike, enjoyed a picnic dinner, and came home with some blueberries. A pint and a half's worth. Enough for baked goods - scones and pancakes and turnovers - but not so many that they needed preserving. With luck, I might even convince a few seeds to sprout into new plants, which'll help cut down on the mowable lawn surface.¹

And feed the birds, too, no doubt.

* * * * *

¹I'm always on the prowl for this sort of thing.

Strawberry booze.

Lewisburg.

We've had many a strawberry this year. Last time I checked in, we'd picked sixty-two quarts out of the patch. The final count - as of two weeks ago - ran up to seventy-two. We could have picked more, but after traveling out of town for a few days, the appeal of picking through lots of overripe berries had faded. There were still a few to pluck for nibbling as we walked the dog past - much like our raspberry picking for this season - but at least we could consider it done.

Plus, we'd moved into blueberry season, and they're easier to pick.

With so many strawberries, we've managed to preserve them in just about every way that comes to mind, from drying to making jam and syrup to freezing. And infusing¹ into alcohol. Now we can enjoy the flavor of the fruit without the constant vigilance for spoiled berries.



On the left, with its brilliant ruby red, is the first² batch of strawberry liqueur. The other is a strawberry ratafia made with white wine, which is distinctly colored, but nowhere near to the degree that the liqueur is. Part of that is due to using a smaller quantity of berries for the amount of liquid, though I've no doubt other factors play into it. In both cases, the strained-out berries were pale pink, worse than any off-season California strawberry you've ever seen.

Both sets had also given up a fair bit of flavor to the liquid. The ones from the liqueur had also picked up a kick of booze. Nibble a bowl full of them, and you'll feel it.

The color is a good indicator of the strength of strawberry flavor, with the ratafia having a subtle but unmistakable strawberriness, and the liqueur being like liquid strawberry candy. Both are sweet, but the latter is very much so. Which, considering its alcohol content, isn't such a bad thing.

They're both easy to make, and I'm assuming that the ratio I've used for this will work well for other fruits, too. (It had better; I have blueberry and sour cherry versions pickling away as I write this.) So:

Ratafia
Take one bottle of wine - red, white, what have you - and put it in a quart jar with a quarter cup of vodka, a quarter cup of sugar, and a cup of something with flavor. Fruits are lovely, but so are herbs and vegetables, too. Don't underestimate the appeal of cucumber. Store in the refrigerator for three weeks. Strain, bottle, and drink before the flavor fades.

Liqueur
Per 100g of fruit, use 60g of sugar and 125mL of vodka. Place in a large glass jar, and store in a cool, dark place for four weeks. Turn and shake every so often to help the sugar dissolve. Strain and bottle. Pay particular attention to the changing color as the fruit's pigments dissolve into the alcohol.

Presumably other flavors - such as herbs - would make for lovely liqueurs. Unripe walnuts are a fine choice, too. Only time, experimentation, and excessive quantities of fresh foods will tell.

* * * * *

¹As opposed to fermenting directly. I suppose that, if I'd planned for it, I could have juiced a good portion of our berries to make a strawberry wine, but I have to draw a line someplace.

²The second is due for straining and bottling tomorrow. They're essentially the same recipe.

Multicolored peas.

Lewisburg.

This may sound silly, but I'm thrilled to grow unusually-colored vegetables.¹ Sometimes, especially in the case of normally-green vegetables, it makes harvesting ever so much easier. Snap beans striped with purple and yellow; blue-podded peas; yellow squash; because they're easier to see, I'm less likely to end up with oversized - and then often less than desirable - vegetables. There are some who like their zucchini bigger than a baseball bat, I guess, though I can't imagine why.

Picking a golden-podded pea or purple bean runs the risk of growing something that looks good, but is lacking in taste, or texture, or what have you. It happens, though I seem to have dodged the bullet this year. Golden peas? Genuinely excellent. Blue-podded peas are also good, enough that I'll grow them again. And as for those Sugar Snap peas?

They're delicious, but in an odd position. Syngenta's PVP has run out, and it seems that seed quality is in decline. The upside? Anyone can produce and sell the seed these days. The downside? For a while, at least, finding reliable seed's going to be tough. So... the 2010 catalogs may need some careful perusal. Perhaps 2010 is the year for experimenting with Cascadia, or Amish Snap, or something else.

Until then, however, I've got many, many fresh peas to enjoy. Fresh, multicolored peas:



Extra bonus: I can pick peas into just one bowl, without worry that I'll mix up those with edible pods and those without.

* * * * *

¹Fruits, too, like yellow or orange raspberries, but they're more difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to play around with.

Oh, does the garden ever grow.

Lewisburg.

It's been a rainy, cool spring. (Today: raining yet again.) This is good for some of the garden - i.e., the lettuces and other greens, the onions, the peas - and less than awesome for other parts of it, such as the tomatoes and peppers. Those hot-weather crops are doing well enough, considering. But it's unlikely to be a bumper crop year.

That's how it works, it seems; I doubt it's possible to have a perfect year of vegetable weather, one that'll goad every plant into producing like mad. The superproductive ones make up for the weak links, and the farmers' market and CSA options fill in the gaps.

And then there are strawberries:



This is just one of very, very many. Yesterday's picking brought us up to quart number sixty-two. That's just a shade under two bushels, though, admittedly, packing strawberries into bushel baskets would be especially disastrous. Or, to put it another way: at an approximate pound-and-a-quarter per quart, that's more than seventy-five pounds of strawberries. For less than thirty bucks' worth of plants put in last year, that's not a bad return. Plus, we've got plenty of jam, syrup, liqueur, and goodwill from friends to tide us through until next year's harvest.¹

The peas are coming on, too. Lovely purple flowers...



...turn into delicious golden pods:



Prolific and delicious, and I've had the presence of mind let a handful of pods grow to maturity for next year's planting.

Also maturing: blueberries. The bird netting's gone up - though the occasional crafty avian has already figured out a way inside - so we'll be transitioning from one fresh fruit to another. And making more jam...



Meanwhile, the garden proper is looking better by the day:



There is, of course, some very happy lettuce:



As well as some vigorous oregano, alive and well from last year:



The potatoes are happy, too, with clusters of flowers opening atop the Purple Peruvian plants:



They even have purple veining on the leaves, though it fades to green as the leaves grow. I was hoping for purple flowers, too, but I guess there's only so much purple one plant can produce.

Last, of course, is the so-far-lovely tomato cage:



Twenty tomato plants and three tomatillos. (They're the three smallish plants nearest to the camera. More sensitive to cold weather, they transplanted later than tomatoes.) They don't look like all that much now, but the Stupice are flowering, and the rest have flower clusters about ready to pop. In fact, they might have already; the rain's keeping me inside.

So far, it's been an effective deterrent to critters of all sorts. There's no roof above, and the crossbars are about six feet up, so I can open up the "gate"² and walk through unimpeded. I train the tomatoes to strings running down from the support beams, carefully removing unwanted suckers - one per plant's nice, and the occasional extra isn't a problem - and by midsummer, I'll be walking in a corridor of tomato greenery and fruits. With a little luck, of course.

* * * * *

¹We're not done picking for this year. But it's slowing down considerably. Peak picking, going out every other day: a dozen quarts. Yesterday was a mere seven.

²Extra netting attached to a length of conduit that's tied into place, so it's like the cheapest, laziest door ever built.

So many strawberries.

Lewisburg.

Last year, I filled a garden bed with strawberry plants.¹ After removing the flowers and letting them send out as many runners as they liked, we now have a bed that's fully packed with them. And with all those plants come an amazing quantity of ripe, delicious strawberries.

I picked the first quart about a week and a half ago, after working to remove the protective netting and yank the weeds. Every other day or so, it was time to pick again, until we ended up with this for yesterday's picking:



Nine quarts, which brings the total for the season to seventeen. These nine, it's worth noting, were those that had ripened since we'd picked on Friday, two days earlier. Strawberry season is officially in full force.

In addition to devouring them fresh, we've been doing what we can to limit the number taking up fridge space by preserving them.

Strawberry-rhubarb jam? Check. Straight strawberry's going to be the next batch - quite possibly tomorrow, given the rate at which the plants are producing.

Dried strawberries? Check. Especially good in scones; their flavor really seems to sing in baked goods.

Strawberry ratafia? Check. I'm planning to try a strawberry liqueur shortly, too.

We'll freeze some, too. They're perfect for summer smoothies, especially after coming home following a good run on a hot and humid morning.

* * * * *

¹I also planted some alpine strawberries, which are doing quite well in their second year, but they're a pleasure of a different sort.

Planters and transplants.

Lewisburg.

It's been a little while since I last wrote anything about the garden, but it's not as though I haven't been busy. It's just that plain dirt doesn't make for the most engaging photos. Now, however, with greenery abounding, I can blather on once more.

Behold, the mighty deck planter:



It's actually one of two. Currently, this one holds French breakfast and easter egg radishes, hakurei turnips, broccoli raab, and two kinds of peas: a yellow edible-podded variety from India and a blue shelling variety from the Netherlands, I think. Seed Savers gives the name as Blauwschokker, and it's certainly a shocking sort of blue. I don't know how they taste, since the deer ate the plants last year, but the ornamental blue pods alone are worth the space.

This planter's big, by the way. The plantable area's six feet long, twenty-one inches wide, and eighteen inches deep.¹ Big enough to plant just about anything short of a tree, which means I have options. Other than moving them, of course; they're heavy and unwieldy enough empty to require two people to maneuver.

Also visible here: Alpine strawberries, overwintered from last year, and quite vigorous; half of a pot of mint - the other half having moved out to the back garden to take over as much space as it likes; lavender about to flower; a miniature rose for Sharon; and lots of tomato and pepper seedlings.



I took the picture Saturday. Yesterday, the tomatoes moved outside (and into their protective structure, dubbed the "tomato cage"), and the peppers went today. All but for four of them, that is; the Fish and Red Thai chillis will stick around in containers on the deck. Fish, so that they can be seen; Red Thai so that I can ripen them indoors if the weather turns too early. They're hot, delicious, and dry well, and there were far too many sitting green on last year's plants when the frosts overwhelmed the plants.

Meanwhile, it's harvest time for salad greens and radishes, and I had my first ripe strawberry yesterday. (Full-size, not Alpine. Unbelievably good.) At this point, more than half of the season's planting is done, so it's down to trying to protect everything from the critters in the yard so there's enough to harvest. It's a progressive learning experience.

* * * * *

¹I got a little carried away, I suppose, but they're really quite nice to have.

A snapshot of spring.

Lewisburg.

Spring is here. The violets are out:



The crabapples are ready to burst into bloom:



The thyme is looking bigger and better than it was when I covered it up in the fall:



And the grow table is covered in miniature greenery:



Complete with lovely little true leaves on the tomatoes.¹



True to spring form, it's also raining today, meaning that the radishes, turnips, and shallots can wait a little longer for planting. I doubt they'll mind all that much.

* * * * *

¹They're looking even better today. This photo's from a week or more ago, and they're at the point where I need to seriously consider thinning them out.

Mussels.

Lewisburg.

I love mussels. I realize that they're not for everyone, with a relatively powerful shellfish flavor, and a pretty high "ick" factor for those who're squeamish about where meat comes from, but I just adore them. Even with all of the other seafood options available, it's one that I'll swing back to, time and time again.

For starters, there's less question of freshness and quality with mussels, as compared to, say, fish fillets. They're still alive when you get them, with a handy tag telling you when and where they came out of the water. No concerns about multiple freezings, or sitting too long in the cooler display, or any of that.

Unlike other bivalves, they're sand- and grit-free. As tasty as clams are, it's always aggravating when you realize another change of fresh water would've been appropriate. And they don't require specialized, hand-puncturing knives¹ to enjoy, unlike oysters. Also: no little hidden bones or other, uh, textural surprises.

The sand-free benefit comes from the cultivation method used, which involves suspending ropes seeded with mussel spat from rafts, thus keeping them well away from the ocean floor. This gets mussels a big thumbs-up from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, which notes that "[mussel] aquaculture operations often benefit the surrounding marine habitat."

Mussels are also very, very easy to cook, which makes them a real treat for busy days. I like to cook them the day that I bring them home,² if possible, but another day or two in the fridge has never been a problem. Even Emily Weinstein agrees that they're about as simple as can possibly be. My preferred method is how Sharon and I used to enjoy them at the Hopleaf Bar in Chicago: in wheat beer with shallots, celery, thyme, and bay leaf. Theirs also comes with a basket of heavenly frites and aioli - sometimes I'll make potatoes, but I'm too lazy for frites - but that's just icing on top.



Also good if you've got some: a fine Breton or Norman dry cider. Traditional? No. But never not delicious.

* * * * *

¹Okay, I've never actually tried shucking oysters before, but my access to high-quality ones is extremely limited, anyhow. I'm perfectly happy leaving the shucking to the professionals, and only having them as a very occasional treat.

²Ideally Wednesday, since the trash goes out that night.

Yogurt.

Lewisburg.

Harold McGee makes his own yogurt. Now, so do I.

The process is so wonderfully simple that it doesn't even merit a recipe sidebar:

• Heat milk until it reaches 180° to 190°F. I picked up a gallon of whole milk, and ladled out half for ricotta when it hit the 160°F mark.
  
  
• Cool to 115° to 120°F. Mix in two tablespoons of live yogurt per quart.
  
  
• Keep warm for the next four hours, or until it's set and appropriately tangy. I poured the cultured milk into - of course - old yogurt containers, wrapped them in kitchen towels, and set them inside an insulated cooler.¹

Then it's either eat or refrigerate. I can't imagine how this might get any easier. (Or cheaper.)

* * * * *

¹It's insurance against accidental dog collisions as much as anything.

Spring dandelions.

Lewisburg.

Growing up, I used to think of dandelions as weeds. As far as my parents - and just about everyone else in the vast suburban sprawl - are concerned, they're plant pests that need to be dealt with. Often via a mysterious granular substance spread across the lawn every spring.

Now I think of dandelions as food. They're edible. Delicious. And both free and freely available from my untreated lawn and garden.



Right now is prime season for tender dandelion¹ greens, though the rapidly greening grass outside makes it somewhat more difficult to spot the bursts of little sawtooth leaves all around. Even so, it only takes ten or fifteen minutes of wandering about to fill the salad spinner, hardly making a dent in the total harvest out there. Those that I miss will go on to flower - I enjoy eating the flowers, too - and then there's always the opportunity to dig and roast the roots for making chicory "coffee".²

The leaves are just a tad bitter these days. Not so bitter that I can't enjoy eating some raw, but a salad of them exclusively is toeing the line. Ruth, who gave me some hop rhizomes, likes that edge of bitterness tamed with a classic bacon dressing, though she admitted she's having difficulties finding a suitable replacement for her vegetarian husband. I have the same trouble: Sharon doesn't go for bacon. Also, she's less enthused by the leafy bitterness than I am.

Instead, I took an approach more like Mark Bittman mentioned a few weeks back. His take was a Ligurian dish mixing dandelion (or other) greens with mashed potatoes, which do indeed look good. Except that we're all out of mashing potatoes - and only have about one meal's worth of fingerlings left, anyhow.

So: tortelloni.³

The key is to blanch the greens first. A minute in plenty of boiling, salted water completely eliminates any trace of bitterness, leaving sweet, wilted leaves that taste unmistakably of dandelion. Sure, a little bit like spinach - in the same way that all greens "taste like spinach" or all mild meats "taste like chicken" - but different and wonderful for it. Out of the boiling water, into cold water, and then drained and squeezed of excess moisture, they're ready to go.

I chopped them coarsely, mixed in about half as much ricotta, and added a few ground walnuts that were left over from a batch of walnut brandy truffles two weeks ago. Just salt and black pepper for seasoning. The ricotta held it all together and gave the filling a bit of creaminess, but nothing masked the dandelion flavor (or color).

Wrapped in a bit of egg pasta dough, they've got a rustic sort of prettiness:



Since I wasn't sure how Sharon would react - turns out she loved 'em - I didn't build dinner entirely around them. Instead, I cooked them in a lightly seasoned duck stock⁴, and served them with their broth. Topped with some grated Parmigiano and some finely minced wild onion greens.

Also from the backyard. Also a fine edible plant I'd grown up thinking of as a noxious weed.

* * * * *

¹I'm sure that I've picked plenty of chicory leaves, too. They're similar in appearance, and pretty much interchangeable as far as flavor goes.

²Haven't done that yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it.

³Tortellini, the really little ones, seem like far too much effort for a more-pasta/less-filling alternative.

⁴Duck bones being in the handiest stock-makings bag in the freezer, of course, but it seemed a good enough idea that I decided to cook up a pair of duck breasts I found in there, too.

Shiro miso.

Lewisburg.

Miso might very well be the most unusual thing I have ever made, which is no small feat when the other contenders include kimchi and sauerkraut, olives, and, of course, head cheese. Fortunately, I'm thrilled with the results, both because it tastes great and doesn't appear to be poisoning me.¹



Making miso - and shoyu, which I'll be starting up soon - is a multi-stage process.² Also of concern³ for the novice miso-maker: unless you're Japanese, odds are you're no connoisseur of miso, and thus the line separating good from bad is rather fuzzy; the entire process takes weeks, months, or even a year before you have a final product; (warm) temperature control is especially important; and the fermentation relies on a whole host of different types of microorganisms - molds, yeasts, bacteria - so it's not as predictable as, say, brewing beer. Plus, you need to have some miso before you can make miso.

I think of it as a helical process. It circles about to where it began, but it's also taken a step forward. Like a sourdough starter, each new batch contains some (ever smaller) fraction of the original.

Let's say you want to make miso at home. Here's a brief rundown on the process.

Miso starts with a mold and rice culture called koji. Steam white short-grain rice until it's thoroughly cooked. Inoculate with Aspergillus oryzae - which you can order in packets of dry spores - a mold that breaks down the starches and other compounds in rice and soybeans. Keep it warm - 85°F - for 48 hours.⁴

If all goes well, you've got koji, which looks like rice dusted in flour. It smells good, mushroomy and yeasty, and just a bit sweet. The individual grains or rice are intact, but are brittle, and you can see the white mold all the way through to the center.

The next step varies slightly, depending on what sort of miso you're making. White shiro miso ferments quickly - a few weeks, rather than months - and was the first batch by default. It calls for cooked soybeans, salt, and a bit of seed miso. The soybean cooking is another time sink, because it takes in the neghborhood of four hours⁵ to boil soybeans until soft.

With prepared koji and cooked soybeans, it's a simple matter of mixing the two with a little of the soybean cooking water, some salt, and your seed miso. That last ingredient is super-important, because that little tablespoon of unpasteurized miso contains the wide array of microorganisms that will help turn your moldy rice and beans into richly flavored miso. As the whole mixture ages, the aroma changes and intensifies, until finally it's ready to be used. In theory, it should remain at 77°F during that time, but that's not a target temperature I can provide at home; mine fermented longer, at a lower temperature, which I've no doubt influenced the distinct aroma it has. It may be shiro miso, but it smells and tastes distinctly different from the shiro miso I'd used to seed it in the first place.

Most misos are salty, and between that and the long fermentation, they're relatively safe stored unrefrigerated, or so I hear, but they'll last indefinitely if kept cool. Shiro miso, though, won't last outside the fridge, so I now have about a quart and a half - minus what we've eaten so far - ready for enjoyment anytime.

I'm still looking for ideas on how best to use it. Miso soup is good, of course, and I rather enjoy having it for breakfast from time to time. (I just make a mug of it.) Mixing it in with ground peanuts, sesame seeds, and soy sauce makes a delicious dressing for vegetables like broccoli or green beans. Dark misos are excellent with meats - especially as a pre-grilling rub - but I don't see the shiro miso taking on that role. I'm thinking about using it as a filling for some northern Chinese-style steamed buns, just to see how it goes.

* * * * *

¹Always a bonus.

²Red flag.

³More red flags.

⁴Unless you happen to have an incubator handy - which I don't - it's a job that calls for some serious attention. A cooler, some towels, and a large pot of warm water - regularly replaced and adjusted - did the trick, but it was immensely distracting.

⁵Or half an hour if you've got a pressure cooker. Which I don't.

The 2009 season begins.

Lewisburg.

The planting has begun. Yesterday, a couple of these went in the ground:



Hop rhizomes. With little buds all ready to go. Ruth, Tom's wife, the gardener and hops caretaker, offered me some when she divided hers, and they went more or less directly from her yard into mine. My guess is that they spent fewer than four hours out of the ground, which I'm hoping will result in vigorous growth this year.

By next year, I'm planning to have a wire support system that spans the deck - they're planted along one side - to enable the hops to become an annual green roof for outdoor dining. Fingers crossed.

For more immediate gratification, this morning I planted three flats' worth of seeds for May transplanting: one of tomatoes, peppers and herbs; two of various flowers that Sharon selected. The 2009 gardening season is officially under way.

Seven kinds of olives!

Lewisburg.

It's the six-month mark today, so it was high time to sample olives. I ate one from each of my seven batches, and they're all edible. (I'm avoiding the handful of black/moldy/etc. ones, though, so they don't count.) Some are distinct favorites: citrus, garlic, and bay leaf flavors really match well. Cinnamon? Not so much. Also, I found some more bitter than others, and all of them firmer than the ones I'm used to from the store. Plus: the olive flavor is wonderfully intense. These are not olives for the faint of heart.

From what I understand, they'll keep for at least another six months in their brine at room temperature. Refrigerated, even longer. If the flavor starts getting strong in time, refrigeration'll slow 'em down. But will they last that long?

Also: the citrus-intense variety (lemon, lime, orange, celery) is pretty damn good in a martini. More details once I've had time to give them all some serious attention.

Fromage de Tête.

Lewisburg.

It's difficult to state it better than the late English food writer, Jane Grigson:

"Anyone can grill a steak or chop; the cheaper cuts require careful and sophisticated cooking. This does not mean that the methods are difficult or tortuous, but they do require judgement and care over detail. Lack of proper care ... and insensitivity to flavour make many manufactured meat dishes in England uneatable. This commercial debasement ... has misled people into feeling that only the expensive parts of a pig are worth eating."

It works as a fairly general statement, but Grigson is referring specifically to dishes such as fromage de tête. Brawn, in her native England. Head cheese here in the States.

The last - and in fact only - time that I can recall having head cheese was at a tiny Alsatian restaurant in Strasbourg. I asked the owner to bring me the sorts of food I wouldn't find outside of Alsace, and my appetizer was a well-made head cheese. From a pig's head, he told me; not from a calf's head, like you'd find more commonly elsewhere.

It wasn't until recently that I had everything I needed¹ to make my own. Important things on that list: a very large pot; a meat saw²; and this:



One pig's head. In this case, skinned, since it seems nigh impossible to find someone who'll sell a hog with skin on.³ A shame, since the skin's so tasty, but what can you do? I got the head for pretty much free; the farmers said that I was welcome to have as many as I like in the future. The butcher just throws them out, and wouldn't mind in the least.

It doesn't look so terrifying in this picture, though getting up close and personal - with the saw, in particular - made the source of my upcoming meals pretty damn clear. (Like when you find that jamming a thumb into an eye socket gives a better grip.) What made it look something like a horror film prop was when I'd sawn the nose off, exposing some truly fascinating shapes of cavities within the skull. That and big ol' pig teeth. No, I didn't take any pictures.

Brief aside: sawing through a skull is serious work. Cutting turkey carcasses to fit into gallon-size freezer bags? Easy. Trying to hold meat and bone stable enough while ensuring my fingers stay intact? It's enough to make me dream of owning a band saw.

Once that's done, the cooking process couldn't be much simpler. Both Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie and Grigson's Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery recommend much the same process; I followed the former, because they're more precise - and use easier-to-measure ingredients, like pink salt instead of saltpeter - and I don't have to worry about British-American conversions. In brief, making head cheese goes like this:

1. Brine a pig's head and trotters, or, in my case, a fresh hock.⁴ Pink salt's optional, though the pink color and cured flavor are nice. Got a cured tongue? Add it to the cooking pot, but not the brine.
   
   
2. Simmer for hours in a large pot with aromatics (garlic, leek, onion), spices (quatre épices - white pepper, cloves, nutmeg, ginger; peppercorns), herbs (parsley, bay, thyme), and a good bit of white wine, plus plenty of water to cover. It's done when the jaw detaches easily.
   
   
3. Remove the meat from the cooking liquid, and strain it. Reduce the liquid until it's gelatin-rich enough to set into a firm gel when chilled. Dice the cooked meats,⁵ and place in a mold with enough aspic to cover. Chill overnight before slicing.

There are some variations, of course. Grigson recommends coating the firmed fromage with toasted breadcrumbs, or lining the mold with slices of hard-cooked egg. Others might add brightly-colored vegetables, such as carrots, sliced and trimmed into flower and leaf shapes. Mine's nothing fancy:



But with some fresh bread and mustard, it's excellent stuff. A green salad and vinaigrette wouldn't hurt, either.

As for the name: according to Alan Davidson's The Oxford Companion to Food, it "is usually moulded in a cylindrical shape, like a cheese". I'd really hoped for a more colorful - even potentially bogus - story for it, but I guess that'll have to do.

* * * * *

¹Including the time and inclination.

²To help, uh, fit the head into the pot. Even the 4-gallon stockpot that I have couldn't handle the whole thing. I could have used the 10-gallon pot I use for brewing beer, except that it's difficult to clean, especially when coated with cooked-on protein-y junk.

³As I understand it, scraping the hide clean is more difficult and time-consuming than simply skinning the carcass.

⁴You can't get real trotters - feet - unless the pig's been scraped clean. They have less meat and more connective tissue than hocks, which is of some benefit here, but you work with what you've got. In my case, half a dozen hocks, though only one went into this batch. Even so, it may have furnished as much meat as the entire head did.

⁵Finding all of the meaty bits around the head is kind of fun. Who knew there was a (relatively) good-sized muscle running up behind the eye, protected by an arch of skull? Plus, you can see where all of the nerves - eyes, nose, etc. - disappear into little openings to reach the brain. Sadly, I couldn't figure out how to extract the brain without making a serious mess, so I couldn't cook that up. Next time, maybe? (Grigson heartily recommends it.)

Hopalong Cassidy.

Lewisburg.

Homebrew. It's a delicious sort of thing. Back in the fall, Tom Cassidy invited me over to his place to harvest some of his excess of hops. I picked a two-gallon bucket full of hop cones, dried them,¹ and stuck them in the freezer for future brewing. They're aroma hops² - i.e., not for bittering - and so lend their distinct quality to whatever they're brewed in.

Bonus: it's an idea for a label. Behold:



It's Tom, in some stylin' Western gear, courtesy of Photoshop. I had to keep the label secret from him, of course. After telling him that I'd left something with his name on it in the math office refrigerator, he responded with, "You didn't say it had my face on it!" In a good way. And it tasted good, too.

Then, for an extra dose of Tom + wide-brimmed hat, he was willing to pose with his own picture:



This year's cider labels aren't so interesting, though the ciders themselves are quite delicious. The latest batch just went into bottles, and is carbonating, ever so slowly. Also coming up in fermentation experiments:

• That batch of olives I started curing back in September is almost ready. After five months of slow going in salt brine, I was able to eat (and enjoy!) one. Still bitter, but not so much that I wouldn't finish one. Just one month left.
  
  
• Homemade miso! Another week or two - maybe - and it'll be ready to eat. I'll explain the process when I have some photos. For now, though, I'm fascinated by the fact that it has the most amazing berry-like aroma. If it's a success, I have a second batch almost ready to go.

* * * * *

¹Once dried, it ended up being about six ounces.

²Mt. Hood and something else, but I forget what. Not that it matters all that much, since they're all mixed in together.

I'm just crackers for...

Lewisburg.

Do these count as bread?



In addition to the usual breadmaking around here, I've been making crackers. Lots and lots of crackers. I'm trying to keep a jar of crackers full at (nearly) all times, because they're a real treat to snack on occasionally. The ones pictured above are whole wheat with celery, which we devoured with a vegetable soup; the next set, on the counter now, are made with rye flour and poppy seeds. Other versions have been topped with a variety of seeds - fennel, caraway, cumin, etc. - and flavored with spices like smoked paprika or sweetened with a little sugar. They're extremely easy, and flexible to boot.

I'd made less-than-special crackers every great once in a while, but mostly before I really got into baking bread. Before I started paying close attention. Besides, in Madison, I could just pick up Potter's Crackers at the Willy St. Coop. Why mess with success?

Now I no longer have that luxury. And then I spotted this article in the New York Times. More specifically, I watched the little video that accompanies it, which made the whole process look easy. Too, too easy. So I had to try again, only with a little more precision.¹

Important note: crackers are easy. I've adjusted the Times recipe to make things more consistent, but a little care and attention will definitely turn out fine crackers every time.

Here's the general process, which is as close to a recipe as I follow:

1. In a small bowl, mix together 200g of flour. I tend to use at least 50-75% bread flour, with something more flavorful - whole wheat, barley, rye, etc. - to top it off, but anything with some gluten in it should work on its own. I'm certain that 100% whole wheat will turn out well; all-barley and all-spelt should be okay, too. Not sure about cornmeal yet, but it might be the next experiment.
   
   For lightly sweet crackers, try adding 30g of sugar. The dough's more difficult to work, as most sweet breads are, but they're especially crisp when done. Dusting the tops with sugar also makes for a fantastic gloss.
   
   
2. Include salt, ground spices, and herbs in the bowl. Poppy seeds work, too. I use about 6g of salt (a scant half tablespoon of kosher salt), and plan to use more for the top. Mix it all together well.
   
   
3. Stir in 120g water (60%). Or so. It just has to be a kneadable dough. Stir to bring it together, then knead smooth-ish. There's no need to overdo it.
   
   
4. For consistency's sake, I roll mine out with a pasta machine. (Number 6 on my Atlas, which is a slightly thick and chewy linguine size.) That way, I can cover two half-sheet pans² without crowding. If you're rolling by hand, just beware of thick spots, especially around the edges.
   
   
5. Brush the tops of the sheets of dough with water, the sprinkle with salt, seeds, etc. Score into whatever shapes suit - a pizza cutter or pastry wheel is handy here - and slide into the oven.
   
   
6. Bake at 350°F for 20-25 minutes. I usually switch and rotate the trays after 10 and 20 minutes to bake them evenly. When they're brown and crispy, they're done. Move them to a rack to cool - which only takes a few minutes - and break them along the score marks. In an airtight container, they'll last... until they're all eaten, I guess. It doesn't take very long around here.

* * * * *

¹In short: I'm using fewer and fewer volume measurements in baking, instead swapping them out for weight, which is far more reliable.

²The usual size in a home kitchen. Full sheet pans won't fit in my oven.

Mmm. Stripey tomatoes.

Lewisburg.

Let's talk tomatoes.

There are a small handful of vegetables that the average American garden includes. Sweet corn's up there, as is the zucchini. Green beans often make a showing, and snap peas seem pretty common. But nothing rivals the tomato for popularity, in my experience. A warm, vine-ripened tomato is a luxury that even the poor saps buying grocery store tomatoes¹ this time of year can appreciate. I even remember an excellent "News from Lake Wobegon" bit from years back that was entirely devoted to the effort and pleasure that goes into growing the perfect tomato.

That said, I don't aim for perfection. I aim for delicious, delicious variety. This year, I'm planning to grow nine different varieties of tomato. I'd plan on more, but space constraints - both in garden area and stomach capacity, even considering the canning and drying options - limit me to somewhere in the range of twenty plants. Which is still a lot, of course.

The majority of our tomatoes come from the Seed Savers Exchange, a non-profit group devoted to preserving heirloom seeds. If you're a member, you have access to an alarming variety of plants, but even we peons can find a phenomenal variety of interesting things in the annual catalog. Especially when it comes to peppers, melons, squash, and tomatoes.

Oh, the tomatoes. SSE offers 72 different varieties in their catalog, and they run the full range of possibility in terms of color, size, shape, and flavor. Reds and pinks, yellows and greens, oranges and browns and blacks; some with stripes and some with peach-like fuzz. The Brandywine (Sudduth's Strain) will produce fruits of up to 2 lb. each, while the Gold Rush Currants are a mere quarter-inch in diameter. The choices are so interesting that it's tough to choose.

I've ended up with nine types of tomatoes for 2009; eight come from SSE, plus the Sun Gold hybrid from Johnny's Selected Seeds. It's such a fine little tomato that it's tempting to grow it alone, just a field of bright, sweet, orange-colored fruits ready for eating out of hand. But we need variety. So, after a series of little red dots beside everything that looks good², it's time to narrow it down.

Sometimes it's easiest to make up a few semi-arbitrary rules to simplify the process. For example: no beefsteak varieties. Sure, they're good, but we're less likely to use them. Another: no Sun Gold-like varieties, since we've already got that covered. And: a mix of colors is essential. Finally: what worked best last year?

What does that leave us with? More than enough, still. Admittedly, flipping back through the catalog makes me want to second-guess myself; maybe I should have picked the Plum Lemon or the Nyagous. But the seeds are already on their way, so I suppose these are enough:

1. Black Plum: Oval 2" fruits ripen from deep mahogany to black-brown, better color than other blacks. Some prefer this variety for spaghetti sauce because of the nice rich color. Indeterminate, 80 days from transplant.
   
   We love these little tomatoes, and have grown them with success a number of times. In addition to having good flavor and a really interesting color, they've got a perfect little size that lets them ripen well even in an off year (like 2008). They're also spectacular when dried, because the meaty flesh holds them together into perfect slices.
   
   
2. Federle: Beautiful, blemish-free 6-7" long paste tomato, rich full flavor unlike most other banana pepper-shaped tomatoes. Productive plants. Very few seeds, excellent for processing, especially good for salsa. Indeterminate, 85 days from transplant.
   
   These are going to be an experiment. We didn't have great luck with the Amish Paste tomatoes last year, so a lot of these are probably destined for canning or drying. If we get enough of them, then we'll probably start canning our own jars of salsa again this year - assuming the peppers have a good year, too.
   
   
3. Green Zebra: Green 1½ - 2½" fruits with various shades of yellow to yellowish-green stripes, sweet zingy flavor. Very productive plants, sure to be a best seller at market. Introduced in 1985 by Tater Mater Seeds. Indeterminate, 75-80 days from transplant.
   
   Hands-down, my favorite tomato. Juicy, uniquely spicy in flavor, and really striking when they ripen to green and yellow tiger stripes. They're perfect for the home garden, because they're almost impossible to transport when fully ripe; they're so tender that it's all you can do to get them inside the house intact.³
   
   
4. Jaune Flamme: Beautiful apricotshaped heirloom from France. Great for drying, retains deep orange color. Excellent bitey flavor. Very productive, fruits borne in clusters and weigh 2-3 ounces, about the size of a large apricot. Indeterminate, 70-80 days from transplant.
   
   One of Sharon's favorites. 2008 wasn't a good year for them, but they have such a great flavor that I'm trying again. We'll have to see how they compare with the...
   
   
5. Moonglow: Medium-sized bright orange fruits. Solid orange meat, few seeds and wonderful flavor. One of our favorites since we first grew it in 1996. Indeterminate, 80 days from transplant.
   
   Will these be as good or better than the Jaune Flamme tomatoes? Who knows? At least we ought to have plenty of orange tomatoes this year.
   
   
6. Speckled Roman: Developed by SSE member John Swenson as a result of a stabilized cross of Antique Roman and Banana Legs. Gorgeous 3" wide by 5" long fruits with jagged orange and yellow stripes. Meaty, great tomato taste, ideal for processing. Very productive, few seeds. Still throws an occasional yellow striped fruit. Indeterminate, 85 days from transplant.
   
   We've picked these up at farmers' markets before, and they're really cool-looking. They taste pretty good, too. I'm thinking of them as a complement to the Federle tomatoes for processing, in addition to looking good on a plate of sliced tomatoes.
   
   
7. Stupice: One of the four Czechoslovakian tomato varieties sent to the U.S. by Milan Sodomka. Potato-leaf 4' plants loaded with 2½" by 2" diameter fruits borne in clusters. Extremely early, great flavor. Heavy yields all season. Produces well in northern climates. Indeterminate, 55-70 days from transplant.
   
   Here's our workhorse tomato. Sharon remembers us growing them - with good results - in Madison, though I can't quite recall. I do remember seeing them for sale at the market, and figure it's worth a shot. If nothing else, they're early tomatoes - as early as 55 days, compared to the 70 or 80 days more common for similarly-sized fruits.
   
   
8. Wapsipinicon Peach: Heavy producer of 2" peach-shaped fuzzy yellow fruits. Sweet excellent flavor. Our favorite “peach” tomato, from Dennis Schlicht, named after the Wapsipinicon River in northeast Iowa. Winner of SSE’s 2006 Heirloom Tomato Tasting. Indeterminate, 80 days from transplant.
   
   Now this is one delicious and productive tomato. Just all-around excellent, and we're going to continue to grow this variety for as long as we can get the seed. Also interesting: the skin is slightly fuzzy, and the flesh blushes pink in spots when ripe, making these alarmingly peach-like in appearance.
   
   
9. Sun Gold: Intense fruity flavor. Exceptionally sweet, bright tangerine-orange cherry tomatoes leave customers begging for more. Vigorous plants start yielding early and bear right through the season. Tendency to split precludes shipping, making these an exclusively fresh-market treat. The taste can’t be beat. Indeterminate.
   
   Yup, these are a pretty phenomenal tomato. Perfectly delicious eaten out of hand, or just barely cooked, warmed through and softened ever so slightly. If left whole and slow-roasted, they're the most amazing tomato-flavored candy.

What'll work this year, and what won't? Will twenty plants be far too many this year? What varieties will I be salivating over for 2010? Hard to say, but I'm excited to find out.

* * * * *

¹Why? Seriously? They have the taste and texture of cardboard. I could try to explain it by assuming it's part of some lizard-brain habit, except that my lizard-brain is occupied solely with things that I like, including sleeping in, sex, cocktails that taste of alcohol, and guilty-pleasure foods. Not necessarily in that order, though extra sleep is so much nicer when the dog gets you up in the pre-dawn hours every single day.

²Relatively speaking. Honestly, there probably isn't a single one in the catalog that I wouldn't be happy to be growing, so there's a distinct pressure to be selective.

³Exaggeration? Sure. But only slightly.

Pizza.

Lewisburg.

We had pizza for dinner last night. It's been an evolutionary process to get here:



Let me note that getting a pizzeria-like crust from a home oven is far more difficult than you'd expect, for one reason: professional pizza ovens (and wood-fired brick ovens) hang out in the neighborhood of 700° to 800°F. Sometimes up near 900°F. Mine only threatens to get near that range during the self-clean cycle, during which the door latch safety mechanism makes it really tough to get the pizzas in and out. So even cranked up to full blast, a home oven can't get a traditional pizza crust, well, crusty.

At least not beneath the sauce, cheese, and other various toppings. It'll still taste good, of course, but it's just not quite right. It's frustrating.

I stumbled across a key bit of information on Baking Bites, in a post for the Perfect Pizza Crust. Higher-protein flours absorb more water, which helps keep the crust from drying out in the professional oven... but results in a soft crust at home. Switching to all-purpose flour is an improvement, but still not quite perfect. The Baking Bites solution - from a recipe in Cook's Illustrated - uses a combination of all-purpose and cake flours to achieve crispiness.

Problem: I don't like cake flour. Yes, I do have some in the pantry, but I avoid it whenever I can. It's undergone some serious bleaching and other treatments, which I'd just as soon not rely on for situations that don't demand it. I'll even make cakes with all-purpose flour, which still makes for a delicious dessert, though with a slightly denser and drier texture.

Solution: pastry flour. It's low-protein flour, with great flavor if you've got a whole wheat version, like most organic brands.

In brief, here's how I'm making pizzas these days:

1. Make the dough for the crust with a mix of all-purpose and pastry flours. I like 225g total for a 12-inch pizza, and, though it may need some tweaking, I think 175g all-purpose and 50g pastry flour works well. Add 5g salt, an appropriate amount of yeast¹, and 157g water (70% hydration). Mix together, knead briefly, and set aside to rise.
   
   
2. Make the sauce, with whatever tastes good. Cook it down until the tomatoes have completely lost their structure and a lot of moisture. Puree and set aside.
   
   
3. For toppings, I keep it very simple. A small amount of thinly sliced or shredded cheese when we're not feeding vegans. Perhaps some mushrooms sauteed until crispy, or a few caramelized onions. Fresh herbs, in season, can wait until the pizza comes out of the oven.
   
   
4. Stretch the dough into a 12-inch round. If necessary, set it down during the stretching process to let the gluten relax. You'll want it thin, but avoid tearing it; fold over holes and pinch together to patch them. I like to grab about an inch in from the edge to create a rim of crust and pull apart gently while rotating the dough. It's not nearly as impressive as spinning and tossing, but a lot safer. I also think it's even easier than laying the dough flat and stretching, because you're letting gravity do a lot of the work.
   
   
5. When the oven's as hot as it'll get - 550°F here, with the pizza stone well preheated² - lay the crust on a peel dusted with cornmeal. Make sure it's not sticking. Brush on a light layer of olive oil, then spread with just enough sauce to almost cover. Top with cheese or whatever, and slide into the oven. Bake until it's brown and crispy. I find that seven to eight minutes works. Allow to cool on a rack for a few minutes, which'll help keep the underside from getting soggy after all that work.

Years of fighting with pizzas and home ovens, and it's that simple. The most difficult part, I think, is stepping back enough to treat the entire process with a light touch. Don't work the dough too much; a minimum of effort gives maximum rewards. Resist the temptation to embellish with too many toppings. A good crust just can't handle it, and gets lost underneath.

Enjoy the fact that it's good, simple food. But no less impressive for it.

EDIT: Mis-typed the quantity of salt for the pizza dough. It's a lot less over-salted now.

* * * * *

¹Half a teaspoon works for a one- or two- hour rise; scale it back to a quarter or an eighth for overnight, depending on how long it'll go. Or use the fridge to retard the rising. I pretty much never do, though it's mostly a function of lack of space.

²The oven beeps (or whatever) to say it's preheated? It's lying. They all do. Give it at least another half an hour, especially to ensure that the pizza stone is up to temperature, too.

Garden planning: the "good parts" version.

Lewisburg.

'Tis the season for very little gardening, but lots of planning. The first package of seeds (along with some other useful odds and ends) is due to arrive from Johnny's today, and the bulk of the rest from Seed Savers not long after. This step, of course, comes after the spreadsheet-based mania that I use as the main planning process. Steve, you asked for it; here's how I'm planning the 2009 gardening season.

I'm amazed that I find it as interesting as I do. After all, I haven't often (ever?) though of playing with spreadsheets to be especially fun. At the moment, I'm wrestling with how I can put the gist of it up here without making my eyes glaze over with boredom, let alone anyone else's. At this point, I'm going to take a cue from William Goldman¹ and just run with the "good parts" version. In brief, it goes something like this:

1) The days grow short in November and December, and the ground starts freezing over. With any luck, I take this as a sign to let the garden rest, and I've had the foresight to harvest everything that's harvestable.² Exciting discovery from 2008: the Brussels sprouts can nearly freeze solid and still cook up beautifully. Also: when the planters on the deck freeze solid, the cold-hardy plants in them will wilt. Bring them inside, though, and they come back to life.

2) In mid-December, the new catalogs arrive. They're all possibility and no effort; with pretty pictures and enticing descriptions, they make the argument that there isn't a bad choice among them. Examples that I've selected for my garden:

• Listada de Gandia (Eggplant): Beautiful purple striped eggplant. After selecting for over 5 years, this is the best strain out of 10 for consistent deep color and earliness. We can say with certainty that this is the best strain available on the market. Reliable, heavy yields of excellent quality, 6-8" thin skinned fruits.
  
  
• Noir des Carmes (Melon): One of the easiest to grow and most luxurious of all melons. Extremely dark green skin, almost black when immature, ripening to mostly orange mottled with green. Sweet, aromatic, orange flesh. Very productive. Sure to be a new family favorite.
  
  
• Hon Tsai Tai (Brassica rapa): Purple flower stems and buds. A Chinese specialty. The young plants soon branch and produce quantities of long, pencil-thin, red-purple, budded flower stems. Pleasing, mild mustard taste for use raw in salads or lightly cooked in stir-fries or soups. For multiple harvesting of tender stems and leaves. Can be spring sown, but yields best when sown June through October for harvest from midsummer through winter (in mild areas).
  
  
• Sun Gold (Tomato): Intense fruity flavor. Exceptionally sweet, bright tangerine-orange cherry tomatoes leave customers begging for more. Vigorous plants start yielding early and bear right through the season. Tendency to split precludes shipping, making these an exclusively fresh-market treat. The taste can’t be beat. Indeterminate.

And so on. I spend a few weeks looking through everything, marking the interesting ones with a red pen. The Listada de Gandia and Sun Golds were successes in 2008, but the others are new experiments. This year brings the new experience of being able to check off vegetables that we're thrilled to be able to grow (and eat) again.

3) Inevitably, there are far too many little red dots. This year, I've limited myself to about forty-five different types of vegetables and herbs; the total number of varieties is a little over one hundred. (Nine types of tomatoes and fifteen kinds of peppers'll do that.)

Figuring out what to grow becomes a back-and-forth process between individual garden bed layouts and the catalogs. There are thirteen beds - fourteen including the planters on the deck³ - in a particular rotation schedule to (in theory) minimize pest and fertility problems. Each is approximately nine by twenty-five feet, separated by bands of untilled lawn and smaller patches with flowers and herbs. Most of these large plots will be devoted to vegetables, except for a few with cover crops. I go through them, one by one, filling in the available space with the varieties that look most interesting, or that worked out last year, and set aside a few pockets for scattering flowers and herbs.



This is the 2009 arrangement of garden beds. It's oddly-shaped because of the edge of the property and the various trees already growing around. The little two-letter markings are a shorthand for coordinating placement in spreadsheet columns; writing "br" instead of "brassicas" means I don't have to scroll left and right as often when typing the details in.

4) The next, deeply exciting step is to try to coordinate multiple plantings to make the most effective use of space. Also to avoid having one massive harvest of, say, lettuce, that we can't possibly eat and can't preserve for later. I'm not especially good at this, though I'm getting better. Fortunately, the garden's productive enough that it can easily feed two people with regular dinner guests for the bulk of the season.

It's also time to make sure that I have enough space at any given time to start seedlings. Since long-season crops are a little hard-pressed to produce in the window between frosts in Pennsylvania, the seeds need a head start beneath a row of fluorescent tubes for a few weeks. Without a greenhouse handy, I'm limited by the size of my table and number of fixtures. (It's plenty.) Any spare space will be used for flowers, so we can have some colorful blooms early in the season.

5) Final step: order seeds. After using the spreadsheet to figure out how many I need - length of row times seed spacing, plus extras for starting transplants; accounting for any seed I have saved from last year - I spend the better part of an afternoon clicking the "add 1 packet" button on the seed company websites.

In brief, that's it. Later I'll probably post something to highlight a few of the interesting varieties I'm trying out this year. After all, for the price of a cup or two of coffee, I can get enough heirloom tomato seeds to make pizza sauce regularly throughout the winter. Or a year's worth of basil for pesto. Or, if all goes well, more watermelon than I know what to do with.

* * * * *

¹Author of The Princess Bride.

²This might change next winter, if I get around to constructing a few cold frames to extend the season.

³For both convenience and deer- and rabbit-proofing. Salad greens, baby carrots, radishes, turnips, peas, and plenty of herbs are all planned for the deck. So are a few small pepper plants that are both ornamental and edible.

Walnut brandy.

Lewisburg.

I have a backyard full of edible things. Some of those I've planted, like the multitude of vegetables in the annual - and slowly expanding to year-round - garden.¹ Then there are the existing fruit bushes and trees, like the blueberries and pears that were so productive that we weren't prepared for it all.

Then we have the apples and walnuts. The apple trees, it seems, have never been pruned², which means we won't have a chance at harvesting anything halfway decent until I'm able to bring them back under control. And the walnuts? Well, I never did find any ripe ones. My hunch is that the squirrels managed to swipe them all well before I could.

It's okay, though. I have a backup plan: walnut brandy. In addition to making use of the nuts months before the squirrels are even paying attention, it handily solves the issue of preservation. Plus, it's potent mojo.

In short, the process goes like this: harvest unripe walnuts; steep in vodka or brandy with spices for several months; add sugar to take the edge off; drink when the weather's turned cold and damp. I have English walnuts handy, but I don't see any reason it wouldn't work with the black walnuts that grow like weeds around here. There's no doubt that the flavor will be different - black walnuts being especially strong-flavored - but probably worth the (minimal) effort.

The recipe comes from Elisabeth Luard's European Peasant Cookery, a real gem of a find from the library. I've tweaked it slightly, reducing the quantity of sugar³, but it worked so well that I fully intend to work up multiple batches next year.

Walnut Brandy (Broux de noix)
Makes 2 liters
Time: Start 6 months ahead

Ingredients

• 10 fresh green walnuts
  
• 2 liters eau de vie or vodka
  
• 2 sticks of cinnamon
  
• Zest of 2 lemons
  
• Scrap of mace
  
• 2 cloves
  
• 500g sugar

Directions

1. Pick the walnuts in early July, when tender enough to pierce with a needle. Cut them in half and remove the outer husks; wear gloves, as the flesh will stain fingers for days. Chop the nutmeats as finely as possible, using a food processor if possible.
   
   
2. Place the walnut paste, cinnamon sticks, and alcohol in a large jar. Seal tightly and set in a warm place to infuse.
   
   
3. At the beginning of September, strain the liquor through a cheesecloth and discard the walnuts and cinnamon. Return to the jar and add the lemon zest, mace, cloves, and sugar. Set aside to infuse for another month. Strain again, bottle, and set aside until late December. Serve in small glasses, preferably in front of a burning Yule log.

* * * * *

¹I intend to post some significant chunks of the garden planning information this year, but I'm still hammering out the details. I hope to be ordering seeds very shortly.

²Our neighbors can pretty much confirm this.

³Maybe. There's a typo in the recipe, such that it calls for either 500g or 1kg of sugar, depending on where it's noted. I opted for the smaller amount, which is still undeniably sweet.