Yet more zucchini

One of the most common thing you will hear home gardeners lament about , at this time of year is "what am I gonna do with all the ZUCCHINI?" Yup, it happens. No matter how viligant you are at cleaning the vines, cutting back flowers, and everything else you do to keep the populations in control.. there are always some that escape. Some that seem to grow, overnight, to the killers that my grandmother and I had so much fun with. I am told in New Englan there is a sort of "tag, you're it" kind of game that goes on with homegrown zucchini. The first gardener fills a basket with it, puts it on someone's doorstop and runs away. If he or she escapes, it is now the property of the home owner, who may add some of his or her own zucchini to the basket, and pass it on and on and on. The game goes on until someone gets "caught" leaving the basket. Then, that poor person is stuck with the squash.

This is one of the reasons why you will find so many dessert recipes that use zucchini: zucchini muffins, zucchini bread, zucchini cookies (don't even THINK about it). I have even seen deep dish zucchini pie (I'm feeling my guts churn even thinking about THAT one). (Incidentally, these recipes also developed because, during WWII, when people were encouraged to keep home gardens, fruit and butter were kept for soldiers. And sugar was rationed, so that the guys could get candy bars and whatnot. So making dessert was difficult. Carrot desserts and zucchini desserts were the result. ).

Living on the 12th floor of a high rise, I avoid, for the most part, the risk of the basket of zucchini. That does NOT mean, however, that I do not occasionally wind up the recipient of a "gift" (remember that "Gift" in German, means poison) of squash for which I smile gratefully and go home and think "what next?"

You've seen the recipes for zucchini enchiladas, and for cold squash soup. Here's another one. I think this may be one of my favorite things in the world.

I can't think of anyone I know who doesn't like fritters, or pancakes, or something like that. And zucchini make wonderful pancakes. They have a very neutral flavor, so you can play with them. I'm going to tell you one of my variations, and encourage you to make your own. And the key thing here is to play with what you put ON them. The recipe comes from Penzey's , my source for dried spices and herbs, but it's kind of a generic one you'll find everywhere.

You'll need a generous cup of grated zucchini. You should use the small ones, and that will be about two , grated on that teardrop side of the three sided grater (don't shred in the food processor here. It's not worth the trouble, and it produces too much water. Put the zucchini in a bowl with two large eggs, and a third of a cup of milk and mix it all up. Separately, combine a cup of flour with a teaspoon of baking powder, and a half teaspoon of salt. Mix that in the zucchini and eggs and milk until it's just combined.

Get a griddle hot, with a nice film of oil on it. You can use a frying pan, but I always find that it's difficult to get my spatula or flipper into the frying pan, so when I do stuff like this, if I can't get a griddle, know what I do? I turn the frying pan UPSIDE DOWN. Now, as Brini Maxwell would say "why didn't YOU think of that?"

You can make this as big or as small as you like. I like them better small, because they cook faster and they crisp up more. You don't want the heat too high, (the higher your heat, the darker they will be)and you need to be patient. I never am. Put you know when it's time to flip them when the uncooked side begins to look dry and glossy, and the bubbles have stopped forming. This is after about three minutes. Then you flip and cook for another two or so.

Move these guys to a tray that you can keep warm, like in a 175 degree oven until you've made them all.

One option that I sometimes use is to work a half cup of grated cheddar cheese into these. When I do that, I also add a tablespoon of mustard (dijon), and some pepper. That turns them more into light lunch than a side dish, which is just fine if you want a light lunch instead of a side dish. If you just want a side dish, leave the cheese out. So, too, with something like bacon (and then you can use the bacon fat, if you like, to fry them), or sausages or hot dogs or things like that. You can also combine the zucchini with corn (substituting corn completely is also an option). Perhaps the most elegant way I have ever had these, however, was with crab meat worked into the fritter. You have two ingredients that are subtle, but very much "singular" in their taste, i.e., you KNOW when you're eating crab, just like you KNOW when you're eating zucchini. And the combination is bliss (so, too, is zucchini and crab in pasta, but that's for another day).

So, what do you put on them? Well, plain, nothing beats sour cream or creme fraiche in my book, but then again, few things do. If you can stomach apple sauce in the summer (I really can't), use that. And perhaps, if you have some crab around , put that on top of them (I DO seem to be obsessed with that combination, don't I?). I think a spicy sauce would work, too, but I've not done that. Maybe an Asian based sauce, like the one you get when you order scallion pancakes from a Chinese restaurant? Play with it, and make up some combinations of your own.

Tag, you're it.

Rewriting a recipe

There is a tendency among beginning cooks to follow the Dalia Lama's statment about approaching cooking and love with reckless abandon a bit too freely. I say this from experience. You look at a recipe, and think "nice, but you know, it would be better if you...." Well, maybe it would be, but many times, it won't be. Or there will be some fundamental change that occurs in the whole dish, as a result of your change, that you have to be aware of.

Let me give an example. There are times when you can substitute butter for olive oil for vegetable oil, and vice versa. And then there are times where, well, you just can't. If, for example, you are going to slow saute a vegetable on the stovetop, and you think it may taste better with butter instead of oil, you are going to have to worry about the lower temperature at which butter burns. If you heat butter for too long, at too high a temperature, it scortches. Your food will NOT taste better than if you had used oil. In a case like that, if you want the taste of butter, I would say you should add butter at the END of the cooking. Looking at the other end of things, in cooking risotto, you are frequently called upon to "mount" the rice at the end, with a small knob of butter. You may be avoiding butter and want to use olive oil instead. Well, olive oil does not coat and get absorbed the way butter does. It also has a very distinct taste. So if you have been working very hard at making a classic risotto milanese, where the key ingredients are your stock and your saffron, you will lose that flavor to olive oil. The solution here? Leave out the butter, and don't add the oil.

There are many other examples I can give. Just one more before we go to recipes and cooking. I've used this one before. I have a wonderful Indian curry recipe in my repertoire, involving chicken and cashews. The cashews can be salted or unsalted, toasted or not, but they must be toasted. If you've eaten cashews, you know that buttery, mouthfilling feeling you get from them. I gave my recipe to my friend, who made it and complained it didn't work. "Oh, I made one change. I used sunflower seeds instead of cashews. Cashews are too expensive."

Do I need to go on about that one?

Ok, so here we are with the recipe. I was planning to cook a flank steak. Coincidentally, a recipe showed up in the New York Times, with an article, that talked about how it was an interpretation of a cuban type of dish. The recipe calls for orange juice, oregano leaves, and a flank steak, of course. I pulled something out of the freezer that looked like a flank steak to me, and thawed it. Then this morning, I opened the package and saw that what I thought was flank steak, was in fact skirt steak.

There is a very big difference between the two. Flank steak is thick, usually from the rump of the animal, and somewhat chewy. Skirt steak is the diaphragm of the animal. It is very THIN - almost like those minute steaks we all used to eat (or those disgraceful "steakums" you used to be able to buy for sandwiches, that were really processed, pressed meat by products). If it's a quarter inch thick, it's thick. And skirt steak is very chewy. Remember that the more a muscle works, the tougher it gets. This is the diaphragm of the animal. Animals breathe all day.

See what I mean? So this had to be done differently than the flank steak would have been done. Then in reading through the recipe, I had some more thoughts. The recipe talks about the use of sweet oranges in Cuban cooking. Well, that's wrong. Cuban cooking uses "seville" oranges, or "marmalade" oranges, or other sour or bitter oranges . These are oranges that you, literally, cannot eat out of hand. They will pucker up your mouth and make you very unhappy (Just ask Guy. I gave him one for lunch once. I SWEAR it was an accident. To this day, I don't think he believes me). The standard way to adjust for sweet citrus when you need sour, is to add lemon or lime juice.

As it happens, I still have some small mandarins from the last box that Eric and Kim sent me. But what I also have is a container of frozen orange juice and frozen lemon juice, from their harvest. This is a good thing to keep in mind. How many kinds of frozen orange juice or lemonade can you buy? If you wind up with a bumper crop of citrus, freeze the juice. So, instead of sweet orange juice only, I combined orange, lemon and lime. Because skirt steak takes up a greater volume of space than a flank steak, I increased the amount to a cup, from the recipe's half cup (for a pound and a half of meat). This is combined with 2 tablespoons of olive oil (no change from me), and two cloves of garlic, which I smash. Then a big fat tablespoon of fresh oregano leaves.

Digression here. Oregano may be the one and only herb that is more useful dried than fresh. And, strictly speaking, I should be using a variety known as "mexican" oregano, which has a sharper flavor than mediterranean oregano. Fresh oregano has been called, by some cooks, "vulgar" tasting. I don't disagree, but sometimes there is a place for vulgar in the kitchen, besides Annalena's foul mouth.

Cuban cooking has a bit of spice to it, but not a searing heat. So the teaspoon of cumin stayed, but I was generous with it. The recipe also called for a teaspoon of salt, which I omitted, because I had salted the meat overnight, as I usually do. Then a grind of pepper. I left out the grated orange peel, for a couple of reasons. The peel was supposed to balance the lack of sour, which I had put back with the limes. Also, because skirt steak is cooked faster and hotter than flank steak, the peel would burn.

Now, all of these ingredients, according to the recipe, should be put together in a blender and combined then poured over the meat. Well, that's well and good, but to be honest, you don't need to. The blending of the ingredients makes a smoother paste, which is not a bad thing if you want a lot of it to stick to the meat. You don't. What you're doing in a marinade like this is hoping that the oil and juice emulsion will also carry the flavors of the spices. The sugar in the juice will help it all to literally "stick" to the meat and carmelize it. In fact, this does happen, and it's a general tip for when you are in fact marinating and you want more flavor. Don't use a LOT of a sugar containing ingredient, but use a bit. You'll get more color and more flavor from the other ingredients.

I also changed the recipe in the instructions to pour the marinade over the meat. There isn't enough marinade here to do that and get all of the meat covered and soaked. So here's another tip. Get a sealable plastic bag, and put everthing in that and seal it up. It works much better. Let it sit for about thirty minutes.

In the last ten minutes of marinating, start heating up your griddle or frying pan, and wipe it with a paper soaked in olive oil. For skirt steak, you're going to have to cut the meat into manageable sized pieces a few steps ago (like when you're salting it overnight, or at the latest, when it goes in the bag). When it's nice and hot, take the meat out of the bag, run your fingers over it to get the excess solids off of the meat, and sear it QUICKLY. No more than two minutes a side. Let it rest, and then make sure to slice it on the bias so that you can eat it without chewing forever.

The acid in this marinade will help to break down the sturdy muscle tissue, but it won't make it that soft. If you want tender meat, you should stick to something else. What I will tell you, however, is that there is very little in the beef field that is as tasty, and as "beefy" as a skirt steak. And while I've gone on for longer than usual today, if you center on the recipe, you'll see how little work you really spend cooking. Give it a try.

PROVECHO

Spud redux

Back in late 2007, I posted some ideas for new ways to make potatoes. And they are still good. In fact, I am very proud to say that one of my "students" (that's an unfair way to describe the guys who come and cook with me), took one of those recipes, and made it for me and some other friends, and it was as good as I have ever made it. I was SO PROUD of him.

Sometimes though, you want a recipe that is a little less involved, especially now. And interestingly enough, potatoes are a summer vegetable. What you get in late fall and winter are storage potatoes. New potatoes are available just about everywhere. These are the potatoes where, when you look at them, you wonder if you should peel them. You shouldn't. You'll waste more potato than you want to, and the skin is nice and thin. So just wash them, if you feel compelled to do so, scrape some of the odd bits off, and leave them alone.

I usually do this recipe in two parts. It actually reduces the amount of work to do it this way, and the heat. You can do it all at once, but I recommend doing it this way, for a reason I shall explain.

First, decide how many potatoes you want. That depends on how many people, and how much they like them. If my frind Kevin is coming over, I am going to make more of them, than I would if some other people are coming over. Kevin LOVEs his potatoes, and he earned them. So he gets more. But a serving of one, six ounce potato is the standard one (I usually plan on one and a half per person, or about half a pound of them). In the morning, I cut the potatoes into bite sized chunks, and put them into cold water with a tablespoon of salt. It's a LOT of salt, but potatoes can take it. They NEED it. Then I bring that pot to the boil, at medium heat, and let them cook for about ten minutes. It's not enough time to cook them through, but there's a reason for that.

I drain them, and then leave them out, to dry in the air. Why? Well, if your product is not dry, you are not going to get a crisp crust, and that's what we're going to do. We're going to crust up these potatoes. And this is how.

When you get home from work, get out your biggest nonstick pan. I'm not a big fan of nonstick, but with potatoes, because of the starch, I like them. Use more oil than you think you'll need. A quarter cup is good. Stick with vegtable oil here. Get it hot, and put down the potatoes, in one layer, and listen to them sizzle. Listening is the key feature here, because the sound will tell you when they're crisped. You'll go from a fast sizzle to a crackle that is slow and deep. And of course, LOOK. Turn some of them over. When they're browned nicely, flip em and cook the other side. Now, you don't have to be brutally efficient here in browning them, just get them nice and brown as you like them. Cook them longer if you are a person who likes the burnt french fries, less if you like the softer, sweeter ones. And when they're brown enough for you, you're done.

These are perfect just as they are. Interestingly, sometimes I feel compelled to use ketchup on them, but other times, I do something that I find very interesting. I squeeze a lemon over them, and add some chopped parsley. And those are REALLY DAMN GOOD. And, if I'm feeling extremely bad, and I've been evil and made fresh mayonnaise, yup.....

If there are any left over, they make great breakfasts, by themselves, or with eggs, or by themselves (Oh, I said that, didn't I?). Just make sure you make enough.

You never will.

More hearty food for summer

I have been neglecting this blog for a bit. Things have been a bit hectic in my life, including a short spell in jury duty that was, shall we say "an emotional upheaval" for reasons having nothing to do with the case at hand. Fortunately, I was not asked to sit on the final jury and this is over for another six years. Let me say that I feel, very strongly, that jury duty is an obligation that goes hand in hand with the right to vote, and I have NO patience with anyone who tries to get out of it, period. Do your time. For one of the few times I can think of, I agree with the promotional video that says "wouldn't YOU want a jury of YOUR peers if you were in court?"

OK, off the soapbox and into the kitchen. A few entries ago, I went on a rant about "cold food," and "hearty food," and all that stuff. I will not rant any longer, but let's face it: the thought of eating nothing but cold vegetables and noodle salads, even when it's very hot, is not appealing to anyone. Everyone wants something savory that leaves him feeling "full" or "satisfied," however you want to describe it. The trick to "getting this right" during the summer, if in fact I have, is to work with things that are quick to put together, that can get you in and out of the kitchen and get you a good solid dish that you're proud to serve.

Squash enchiladas are a dish that I make frequently during peak summer, i.e, now, through the end of September. It's a variation of a recipe that I learned in one of the cookbooks from Greens restaurant. Greens does not have the cachet now it once did, but make the recipes. They're really good.

You'll need about eight of the larger, flour tortillas. Fajita tortillas are a bit too small. If you like whole wheat, use whole wheat, but you don't have to. You will also want some kind of cooked tomato product, be it sauce or , as was the case when I made this, confit (See how having "staples" on hand will help you? If you've made a big pot of tomato confit, as I plan to do tonight, you can use it in many ways, and have an "arsenal" you can fall back on. And confit doesn't take a lot of work or require much time in the kitchen). You will also want about a pound and a half of squash that you cut LENGTHWISE, or a combination of squash and bell peppers coming to about a pound and a half. The final, REQUIRED ingredient, is smoked cheese of some kind. When I learned how to make this, I used smoked cheddar cheese,and I still love it that way. I have made it with smoked edam, and I did NOT like it. So, too , with swiss cheese. The last time, I had some left over smoked sheeps milk cheese and used that. Grate up about a third of a pound of it, on the big tears of a three sided grater. Put that aside. Chop up your tomato confit if you're using it, until you have about two cups. If you're using tomato sauce, use two cups of that. You can also use a green sauce of some kind if you like. I make my own green sauce, from peppers and tomatillos and cilantro, but you can use a bottled one, or you can make it a different way, or you don't have to use it at all. For me, green sauce means spicy, and I like that. If you don't, don't use it.

Preheat your oven to 375. While it's heating up, take those vegetables you've got lengthwise, into thin strips, and add them to a big skillet that has about two tablespoons of vegetable oil, or olive oil if you prefer, nice and hot. Add a pinch of salt, and stir the vegetables until they're "tender crisp." They shouldn't be too soft, because you're going to bake them too. If you want to, you could also use a sliced onion with the vegetables. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't.

You now have a pan of cooked vegetables, and either one or two sauces , tortillas, and grated cheese ready. Lots of stuff , huh. Well, time to start singing "bit by bit, putting it together. " Put some tomatoes on the bottom of a baking dish. 9x13 is probably right. First, get your tortillas, one at a time. Take them and hold them over the hot vegetables for a few seconds, to soften them. If you're using green sauce, put a dab of it in the center of the tortilla, then add what looks
like a skimpy portion of vegetables to it, right in the center. Now, you roll up the tortilla this way: take the end closest to you , and roll it up over the filling. Fold in the sides, and then finish the roll up. You'll have what looks like a "Mexican egg roll," and that's what you want. Do this until you run out of tortillas. You probably won't run out of vegetables, and that's okay. As the tortillas are filled and rolled, put them in the pan, on the sauce. When you've finished, pour the rest of your sauce or confit over them. If it doesn't cover completely, don't worry. Just spread it as nicely as you can, and sprinkle the cheese over it.

Put the dish, uncovered, in the oven, and bake it for a half hour or so, until the cheese takes on a color that's toasty and as dark as you like.

And that's it. This can feed four people very nicely, or two people twice, or one person who's had a few joints as a snack (Did I just say that???? I'm SHOCKED).

Seriously, I was thinking just yesterday that one of the "givens" of summer is squash. Use it as many ways as you can. This is a good way. In the winter, you can use that Mexican squash, chayote, and it's good too. If you happen to have red peppers and you can cook them with the squash, also good. But make it.

Annalena insists

Hearty food for hot times

There is a "tradition" or a "custom", depending upon your anthropological bent, that during hot weather, all people want to eat is cool, light food. "Oh, it's so hot I just want a little salad. You know, something green with a light dressing." "It's way too hot to eat, all I want is a few cherries and a peach or something like that."

I will bet you that a few hours later, the very people who said that are rooting around in the refrigerator, looking for the cream puffs left over from the night before, or a frozen Mars bar, or getting a big bowl of ice cream "because it's light , and after all , all I ate was salad."

You know anyone in that camp? Have to look very far? Hmmmmm. I ain't gonna deny my own guilt here.

Appetite is appetite. There is no rule that says that in the winter you eat hot food, heavy food, rich food, and in the summer, you turn it around. We have to break ourselves of that thinking. Admittedly, cooking with high temperatures, making slow simmers, etc, are more exhausting in summer. We sweat. We SWEAT big time. And there's so much that we want to do that there is always some resentment if, your loved one fesses up and says "osso bucco tonight sounds like it would really hit the spot," and you're looking at a thermometer that reads 92, and a humidity index of 87. "Sure dear, whatever you like... (asshole)."

Know what I mean? So, what we, as cooks have to have in our repertoires, are things that are somewhat hearty, and also fast. I think grilled meat may have been invented just for that kind of thing. There are few things that take less time, and are as satisfying, than a perfectly grilled steak. And there are other items as well. I would like to add an item to that list, something I made yesterday, a sort of chicken cacciatore.

If you read a few blogs back, you saw my rant about a badly written recipe for this dish. The one I'm presenting to you here, took me about thirty minutes to cook. It fed four or five people (I don't know if everyone got some), and whilst I consider , somewhat arbitrarily, this to be an autumn dish, it really isn't. When I served it to my farmers, no one said "Oh, I can't eat that, it's summer."

I use chicken thighs in the recipe, because chicken thighs are the best part of the bird for me. They're juicy, they have good mouth feel, and relative to other parts of the bird, they're cheap. I don't know why they're neglected, except perhaps for the fact that it's dark meat. Get over it.

For this recipe to come together quickly, you have to have your ingredients ready. Have eight chicken thighs, patted dry and salted, waiting. Get one, large onion, a pound of mushrooms, two or three cloves of garlic, four bay leaves, and about two cups of tomatoes of some kind. What I mean by this is exactly what it sounds like. I don't care if it's tomato sauce, or the confit I wrote about before (that's what I used), or fresh tomatoes, or whole canned tomatoes, whatever you have on hand. You will also need olive oil.

Slice the pound of mushrooms into about 1/3 inch slices. Use creminis if you can find them, and if you can't , use the plain button ones. Don't get fancy here. Then, cut your onion, lengthwise, into quarters, and slice them, so that you have a pile of quarter moons. Crush the four garlic cloves and peel them.

Get about 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, and then heat it up. The pan should be big enough to hold all of the chicken. When the oil is hot, put the thighs in the pan, skin side down, and let them cook away until you get them as brown as you like. It's gonna take about 6 or 7 minutes. Then, remove them to a plate. Take a look at the fat in the pan. You will probably have more than you started with. Dump some of it out. What you have now, is flavored fat, with the taste of chicken to it. Add the onions first, with a good sprinkle of salt. When they begin to get translucent, add the mushrooms, and the garlic, and the bay leaves. Stir everything together. The mushrooms will almost immediately start giving up their liquid, and when they do, keep an eye on them. When it reduces a bit, put the chicken thighs on top of them, skin side up and then put your tomatoes on top of the chicken. Cover the pot, lower the heat, and put it aside for about twenty minutes. In that time, the chicken will cook through and get very, very tender. It gives you time to make some polenta, or boil some potatoes, or my favorite, a pound of plain, boiled pasta. And once that's done, you've got a meal that is fit for summer. It probably took you a bit longer than thirty minutes to put together, and you're feeding a nice group of people, with something tasty. And if you have someone who insists "all I want is salad," make him one. And leave a plate of this in the kitchen . He'll be in there.

Do you lie them hairy, or smooth?

Ok, this is a question that gets asked a lot in my circles, and not necessarily about fruit. Ok, about fruit. In a metaphorical sense.

I'm going to stop here before I get in more trouble. Apparently there is a midwestern contingent that does not like the racy character of my blogs. If you're one of them, I have a suggestion. STOP READING IT.

Now, off to the topic at hand. Think: I've said fruit, and I've said "hairy and smooth." Who's astute out there? How about you, the hairy one? Or you, the smooth one. You know, the guy with skin as pink as a peach.

How big a clue do I have to give you? Today we're talking about peaches and nectarines.

Many people feel that the best dessert you could ever have, is a perfect, ripe, sweet peach, just as it is. The kind of peach where you have to lean over when you eat it, because the juice runs out all over your shirt and stains it. The kind of peach that makes your mouth feel like it's exploding with flavor.

How often do you get that? Not often, because unfortunately, like so many things, modern agriculture has done all that it can to make peaches taste like nothing, or awful. Eating peaches out of season is ridiculous. Peaches need to be nearly ripe when they're taken off the tree, or they will never soften to the point of luscious ripeness that we all love. You'll never get that juiciness. So, wait until it's hot. Wait until those days when you don't feel like eating anything other than fruit, and that's when you should be buying and eating peaches. And nectarines. As often as you can.

Science tells us that the only difference between a peach and a nectarine is one gene. That is the gene for "fuzz" on the peach. And some years ago, there was a tremendous amount of research on trying to eliminate the hairiness from peaches, but not turn them into nectarines.

HUH? Actually, I can see one reason for this. For a while, my partner Guy had an allergy to peach fuzz. It just made his mouth blow up like a balloon. I have heard of this in other people too. Then, one day, it all went away. Now he can enjoy peaches the way I do.

Anyway, back to that one gene difference. If they say that's it, well, ok. I'm somewhat skeptical, because while they are close, and interchangeable in many dishes, I find peaches and nectarines to be two different animals. To my taste, nectarines are always a bit more acid and tart than peaches are. This is true whether they are the yellow ones, or the white ones. The white ones, incidentally, in both types of fruit, are less acid than the yellow.

There are countless varieties of peaches and nectarines, and you should try to taste as many as you can. Interestingly, you will have an easier time getting the names of different varieities of peach than nectarine, and I'm really not quite sure why that is. For example, anyone "of a certain age," recalls that "Elberta free stone peaches" were considered the pinnacle of good fruit. You almost never see an Elberta these days. They're too hard to ship. But you can get Suncrests from California (read the wonderful "Epitaph for a Peach" by Mas Matsumoto if you think you'd never get excited about saving fruit trees from destruction), and others. And you'll hear people talking about "cling" peaches versus freestones. You never hear that about nectarines. I don't know why that is, either, because the distinction exists for nectarines, too. In peaches, "cling" peaches come into season earlier, and it refers, essentially, to the difficulty of getting the flesh of the peach off of the pit. They are considered not to be as good eating as the freestones, and I agree with that. Amongst the freestones, I am very partial to Red Havens.

Nectarines come into season later than peaches do, at least here in the East, which is another one of the reasons I question whether the only difference is the fuzz. And to be honest, I cannot think of as many varieites of nectarines. There is one called "summer flame," and one called "fantasia," and there are many others, but that's what I remember now.

So, how about some recipes? Ok, yeah, let's cook. And let's make them easy.

Well, it doesn't get much easier than this. When I was a young boy, one of the the things we all did, late in the summer, was put up bottle after bottle after bottle of peaches in red wine. I was actually allowed to have them, once in a while. For my family, it was a way of getting summer during the winter (maybe our version of "Dandelion Wine?"). I still love peaches in red wine, but here's a fact: the tannins in red wine toughen the skins. And it HAS to have something to do with the fuzz, because it doesn't happen with nectarines. So I'm giving the recipe with nectarines. If you want to do it with peaches, I suggest you peel them. Here's how you do it: cut a small 'x' at the bottom of the peach. Put them in a pot of boiling water. YOu don't need much water - the more peaches you put in, the further up the water mark will go- and then fish them out after thirty seconds. Toss them into a bowl of iced water and just peel away the skin. This assumes the peaches are ripe. If they're not, well... It won't work.

If you use nectarines, you just slice them up. You want six of whatever variety you use. Cut the slices about a quarter inch thick, but don't feel like you need to be scientific about it.

Separately, take a full bottle of a good wine, not a great wine. A young zinfandel is good, or something that tastes of fruit. (I'm not sure what that means, but that's what people recommend, so I included it in case you do. I just use zinfandel). Stir a cup of fine sugar into it. This is sometimes called bakers sugar. DON'T use confectioner's. Then add the fruit, and let it sit. I let it sit, unrefrigerated for two days. You don't need to let it sit that long.

DONE. Now, this sounds like a dessert that is too simple, but let me tell you a story. I made this dessert for a party once, and because I thought it was too simple, and not enough, I also made a cherry pie. No one ate the cherry pie. But everyone had seconds on the nectarines. One gentleman went and got some soft white cheese to eat with his, which seems fine to me.

I'll be coming back to more on peaches and nectarines in days to come, but start with this. You'll like it.

Mr. and Mrs Spratt

I am referring to the old nursery rhyme that goes something like this:

"Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean
So between them both you see, they licked the platter clean."

I will bet you that there are "compound" dishes out there, where you like part of the item, but not all of it. Years ago, as a very small boy, I remember a cupcake that was devils food, with a clog of "creme" in the middle, and a pink, marshmallow coating with coconut on it. The pink stuff could come off like a coat. That's the part I ate. I never ate the cupcakes. I could easily go through six or seven of them, eating all of the pink and leaving the chocolate. That was fine for us, because my sisters loved the chocolate part, so we had a good deal going - until Mother found out about it. To this day, I don't understand what the problem was, since we were finishing everything, albeit untraditionally. Oh well.

And of course, you have them, too. I remember a comic strip once where someone goes into the fridge after Thanksgiving, looking for leftovers, and finds "a bowl of sweet potatoes with the marshmallows eaten off the top." And how many of you eat the muffin top and toss the bottom? Or eat the crunch layer on macaroni and cheese and leave the soft stuff? Or peel away the cheese on a piece of pizza and dump the crust (I don't blame you with most pizza). You get the idea.

I began thinking about this concept after two thoughts came together in my head, both of which related to snails. Some time ago, when having lunch with our friends Ken and Craig, Ken remarked that his favorite way of eating mushrooms was in the style of escargot. Now, that threw me for a loop, and I began wondering what he meant. Yes, mushrooms sort of have the texture of snails, but I don't think that's what he meant. I didn't try to look up the recipe, but I was intrigued. I had never heard of "in the style of snails."

Then, last week, the New York Times published a recipe and a story about snail butter.

Ok, lets have those of you who admit to liking snails, answer this question: do you like the snails? NO. You like the soft butter they come in, and taking French bread and dipping it in and just sopping it up. If someone asked "would Monsieur/Madame prefer a bowl of butter and bread without zee snails?" I can imagine a very broad, smiling face saying "OUI OUI." I certainly would.

So, now the thought was complete: perhaps Ken was talking about the butter used to cook the mushrooms.

I had never thought about deconstructing the standard recipe for snails, to make the butter for something else, but here it was right in front of me. And I HAVE written about compound butters before. So, I gave it a try, with the squid that the recipe talked about.

Let me say this at the start: squid is one of those EWWWWWWWWWWWWW foods. So don't make this with squid if it's that way for you. Put the butter on cod. Or on vegetables. Or just make toast. Now that tomatoes are fully into season, I am seriously considering making this butter, spreading it on some grilled bread, and piling tomato confit on it, not that the confit needs any help. Nonetheless....

So, I'm going to give you the recipe as it was presented, with one change. In making the butter, the recipe calls for pernod, or some other anise flavored liqueur. Were I making this solely for myself, I would have used it. But this is one of those flavors where, honestly, those of us who like them are in the minority. Even amongst people who love licorice as a candy, the anisey liqueurs are not well received. So I used lemon juice instead. Substitute as you like.

Also, in writing about the squid, the recipe called for splitting them open, lengthwise, and grilling them flat. I did not do that, and should have. My squid were very small, and I thought I wouldn't need to. I forgot that when they heat up, squid "puff". So I had squid bodies basically turning into little balloons on my grill, and I needed a heavy pan to put on top of them to hold them down. It was no big deal, but you don't want to be surprised. Also, remember that squid give off a LOT of liquid, and they shrink. A pound is just about enough for two people. The butter makes more than enough, so you can use it for more than one thing.

Here goes.

To make the butter, put a big handful of parsley leaves in a food processor (the precise quanity is 1/4 cup, which ain't nuthin. Use a lot.), with the juice of a lemon, a chopped shallot (the recipe said two teaspoons. I guestimated that one large shallot would do this), 3/4 teaspoon of salt (you MAY want to cut this back to 1/2 teaspoon), a few turns of fresh black pepper, sliced garlic (coming back to this), and a stick of softened, unsalted butter. On the garlic: this recipe called for four cloves. When I looked at the cloves from my farmers' market garlic, they were huge. So I cut it in half, and it was STILL only for garlic lovers. What I would suggest is that you start with one nice sized clove, and after you've finished, taste it. If you want more garlic, add more and process it again. All you're going to do with the ingredients is whirl them in the food processor until you've got a green flecked paste. Put this in the fridge for when you need it.

If you're using squid, get a pound of it, and pat it really, REALLY dry. This is important. You don't have to cut up the tentacles, but DO split the bodies so that they lie flat. Mix them with a good tablespoon or so of olive oil and some salt (this is why you want to consider cutting back the salt on the butter. My finished dish was on the salty side).

Get a frying pan, or a grill pan ready. You don't need to oil it. When it's hot, put the squid into it, trying not to have the pieces overlap. If you see excess puffing, put something heavy on them. You won't need more than about a minute and a half to a side. Turn them, and after both sides are done, toss them in a bowl with a big hunk of the butter you just made.

And that's it. We had it with the okra vegetable dish I described a few entries back. I left the cream out, because of all the butter and olive oil in the squid (balance is everything, chickens).

With the exception of the saltiness, this is a dish I would come back to again. Certainly with the butter. I have about half of it left over, and I do see it being used in the future. Maybe on green beans, maybe in a risotto, but somewhere.

I wonder if I could find some of those snowballs again.

Pie, "simplified" : galettes

You've been reading about my new adventures in pie land. And I've been having a ball. I'm actually looking forward to trying my hand at a peach pie in the not too distant future, maybe even an apricot one.

Whilst I have stayed away from "pies," I have a certain reputation (yes, I know you all know about my certain "reputation," I'm talking about MY COOKING) for my galettes. And I don't want to give them up, because on a very basic level, galettes are wonderful.

One person called them "the sloppy cook's pie." Well, I don't know about that. I WILL admit they are easier for me than pies, but I don't think that they require any less finesse than a good pie does. They are different. And a galette does need some special or some modified equipment to make properly.

You CAN call a galette and "open faced, free form pie," as I have seen them called. That's somewhat accurate. But because of the way they are cooked, you really can't compare them to pies. A galette almost always has a much more concentrated, carmelized flavor. They are far less juicy than many pies, and while you could make a galette out of any berry, I don't see them working for me. My favorites are fig, apricot, rhubarb, and apple. In fact, the apple galette may be my very favorite, especially if I can get a variety called "pink pearl." This is an "heirloom" apple (and I will talk about "heirloom" fruits and vegetables, in days to come), with a yellow peel, and a pink flesh. A TRULY pink flesh. When I serve a pink pearl galette to people, there is always a hush in the room, because of what it looks like. A rhubarb galette elicits the same kind of response, because the rhubarb cooks to this dark, ruby like intensity that is unmatched for color by anything else. Figs concentrate their flavor to the point where eating fig galette is like eating a big slice of fig newton, and the flavor of apricots, and peaches, concentrates so that a small piece is just about all that you need, but you'll have seconds. Apricot galette is what I'll talk about here.

First, to make the galette dough. You need a stick and a half of butter, and a cup and a half of all purpose flour. The butter should be cold, and cut into small cubes. If you have a food processor, but them in, together, and add half a teaspoon of salt, and a tablespoon of sugar. Pulse the mixture until you get something that is sort of like corn meal. Then start adding ice water. Just like with pie, but you'll need more. I usually need somewhere around five tablespoons. You're looking for the stuff to begin to form big clumps, without forming a ball.

Dump this all out on a counter top and take the back of your hand and smear the stuff, until it all comes together. This technique is called..... frottage. I wish it weren't but it is. And now there is at least one reader saying "now I know why he enjoys them so much. PIG!

Okay, after you've frottaged, gather the dough together into a disc and put it in plastic, or aluminum foil , and let it refrigerate, preferably overnight.

Take the dough out about an hour before you're ready to bake and preheat your oven to 425. Before you start putting things together, decide on your pan, and here is where people have their problems with galettes, because they don't plan this step well. Galettes are big, flat creatures, with no real support underneath them. You're not putting them in a pie pan. If you happen to have a big, round pizza pan, that's great. If you don't, a baking sheet will work, but pay attention to this step, it's realy important: you are going to turn the pan UPSIDE DOWN. The reason for this is you are going to have to get the finished galette off of the pan, to cool. If you bake it on a baking sheet, or in a pizza pan, when it comes time to get it off, the edges of the pan are going to make it nightmarishly difficult to do. Trust me on this.

Also get your ingredients together. The only thing you really do NOT need to have ready ahead of time is the fruit. You will need a half stick of unsalted butter, melted, about a half cup of sugar,(more, if you're making rhubarb galette), and some crumbs of some kind. Plain, unflavored breadcrumbs will work. If you have cookies that are "appropriate" for your fruit, use them. When I say appropriate, think flavor combinations. Surely no one is going to put crumbled oreos under an apple pie, are you???? But ginger snaps? Hellyeah. For apricot galette, I suggest amaretti, but short bread will work. In fact, shortbread could be considered the "default" cookie here. That's what I use with figs, for example, or if I just don't have the impetus to go and get the ameretti. Anyway, crush yourself about a half to 3/4 cup of cookie crumbs, either in the food processor or by putting the cookies into a plastic bag, and working out your agressions.

Now, time to roll out the galette. Here's a tip that I have learned over the years. If you read cookbooks, when it comes time to roll out dough like this, they tell you to "lightly flour" your surface. Do you have any idea what this means? Not me. And then I started watching cooks roll out crust on tv. They would say "lightly flour" the surface, and then dump out enough flour to make it look like Kmart started selling cocaine. I would say that a good quarter cup of flour on your surface is NOT too much. And have some at the side, because if things stick, use more.

Roll out the dough, and what I have found, in making a dough circle like this, is that if I think of the dough as a clock, and rotate it an "hour" every three or four strokes, I can pretty much keep the even circle. You want to roll this to fifteen inches in diameter. That is a pretty big circle, but bear with me. BEFORE YOU FILL IT, move it to your baking surface. Put parchment down on the back of the baking sheet, or the pizza pan, and put the crust right on top of that. You're going to be glad you did this.

When you have this rolled out, sprinkle your crumbs all over the bottom. Then, start cutting up fruit, and put it in the center and toward the edges, either in a decorative pattern if you like, or just heap it up. Try to keep an even thickness of a layer, and stop about 2 inches from the end of the circle.

What you do now is fold up that two inch circle, all around the fruit. Some of it will be covered, most of it will not be. Brush melted butter over that crust, and then sprinkle sugar over it. You should use very little sugar on the rim, and sprinkle the rest over the fruit. If you think your fruit may not be that sweet, add another quarter cup. Like I say, you MUST do this with rhubarb , but if you have a sweet tooth, or the fruit just isn't all that ripe, add more sugar.

Now, think for a minute: if you had made this galette on a surface, like a countertop, and now had to get it onto the baking pan, how would you do it? See how I make it easy for you? And I guarantee that if you look at any recipe for a galette, even the recipes from my friend Dana (from whom I have shamelessly stolen this galette crust recipe), you will NOT be told to do this ahead of time. You've just saved the day.

Anyway, slide this construct into your oven, and bake for about 45-55 minutes. You might want to put a baking sheet under neath it, just in case you get boil over. Juicy fruits will do that. You won't have it happen with figs, and not with apples. You may have it happen with rhubarb or peaches. Apricots usually don't bubble over, but they can. A favorite of quinces and huckleberries doesn't bubble either.

After forty five minutes, you will have a lovely creation, with unevenly browned edges. That's what you want. IF you are so compelled, what you can now do is melt about a quarter cup of good quality jam. I said GOOD quality. Look, if you went through all this trouble, and you're going to put smuckers on your galette, you shouldn't have made the galette. Get good stuff. Heat it gently till it breaks down and either brush it or pour it over the galette. Try to get the edge crusts too.

Now, again, you should be thanking me for this. Since you baked it on a parchment sheet, if you put a cooling rack right next to it, you can slide the thing off and let it cool, with air circulating all around. When you're ready to serve it, move it to a nice platter or tray, get a sharp knife and go at it.

Galettes are a wonderful, rustic way to present a pie. If you're doing a dinner where that kind of "rustic" look is called for, do this instead of a formal pie. You can also do this with vegetables, such as tomatoes (use bread crumbs underneath them, and omit the sugar), with cheese and olives, or even zucchini.

I want you to cook this. In fact, I want you to cook EVERYTHING.

P.S. this dough makes a wonderful quiche crust too. And there's enough to make two quiches.

The second gift

One of the most precious gifts you can give to a cook, is the option not to. Most of us love spending time in the kitchen, we really do. And we forget that we have options: It doesn't ALWAYS have to be us who does the cooking. So if you're thinking of giving a gift to your friend, the cook, think along these lines: a meal out, or something even better. You cook for them, in one way or the other.

Yesterday, the dear friends David and Keith I write about so often, spent the day with us. A languid, hot, humid, summer day, where it is fair to say that conversation didn't "snap, crackle and pop," but a day where four friends who really care for each other and look out for each other just spent a relaxing day, together.

Of course, I started planning some kind of elaborate lunch. And as things got out of hand, David stepped in and said, very bluntly "we don't want you to cook. We'll bring over some stuff and we'll have a salad."

Honestly, at that point, I would not have minded cooking. I LOVE cooking for these guys. Perhaps it's a sense of wanting to take care of them, in one of the ways I know I can. But it's difficult to remember that that kind of sense, is reciprocated. If it's not, then it's not a good friendship. It's certainly not a great friendship. And we have a great one, one where I think "friendship" falls far from describing the relationships.

So, after we had seen a matinee, we came back to our apartment, and David and Keith became the hunters and gatherers. In came chorizo and other sausage, manchego cheese. Drunken brie cheese. Olives. Bread. All the makings for a wonderful salad, which is indeed what we ate. A great salad of lettuces, the chorizo, the cheeze , olives and a sherry vinaigrette , made with Spanish sherry vinegar . Also grilled bread with the tomato confit.

Now, I will tell you that this is a PERFECT summer lunch. the total time in the kitchen was maybe ten minutes. And we had great food. Thanks to the boys. But.. we also had a lot of leftovers, and that is, in fact the second gift.

If you are bringing over something to a cook to help him or her along, bring more than enough. Don't worry about doing things like two pounds of caviar or an ounce of saffron. No. But if youre bringing sausage, bring a quarter pound extra. Or cheese. Or something like that.

One of the reasons I love these guys so much is they "get that." They care about me, they want to take care of me, and they understand how to do it. I am blissfully grateful for that, and I STILL want to feed them everytime we're together. But having made our lucious salad, with the leftover sausage, and cheese, I began thinking: what next?

The answer came, after a quick inventory of the refrigerator, and my desire to continue a theme.

David LOVES Spain. He spends time there, speaks Spanish, and knows way more about the food there than I do. So, David, this was constructed from the leftovers, and is dedicated to you.

One of the common rustic foods of Spain is the tortilla. Now, it's important to understand that a tortilla, in Iberia, is not the same as a tortilla in Mexico. Tortillas in Spain are built aroumd softly cooked, fried eggs - amost like an omelet. Inevitably, they contain potatoes, either fried or boiled. And then the rest is pretty much up to you. So, David, here's the tortilla we made. Wish you were here to have some. How about I make you one?

First, cut about a pound of potatoes into small slices and cook them in salted water until they're beginning to soften. How long this takes depends on the size of your potatoe pieces. For me, it was less than ten minutes. Drain these, and let them cool. And now, the rest is up to you. For this tortilla, I sliced up a nice piece of very smoky Spanish chroizo into thin lozenges. I also took a cup of peas that we had saved from a recent shucking. Finally, an onion. Because I browned the onion, I did not brown the potatoes. And the rest of the manchego cheese, broken into little bits.

Put ample olive oil (maybe quarter of a cup) into a nonstick pan, and add one sliced onion, and a teaspoon of salt. Cook it gently, letting it go to translucent. While that's happening, crack and beat six to eight eggs in a bowl , just breaking them up and mixing them nicely. Put them aside for the minute, and add the potatoes, the chorizoand the peas, to the onions. You can add herbs now if you like, but dont' go nuts. Parsley is fine, the stronger herbs really aren't. When that's
all in there, slowly pour into the eggs. You'll get bubbling around the side as the eggs cook. They're cooking on the bottom, and you want to keep the cooking slow - cook it for maybe ten minutes.

While that's happening, push up your oven to HIGH - maybe 425 - and then sprinkle the cheese over the top of your tortilla. Put the whole thing into the oven and keep an eye on it. You are waiting for the top of the tortilla to set up and get firm. This may take five minutes, and it may take ten, or longer. Just keep your eye on it. when you've got it firm, if you want to, turn on the broiler and make it a nice, brown color. Wont take long.

Protect your hands, and pull the pan out of the oven. Let it cook for about five minutes, befor you do something more difficult than it sounds. Put a large plate over the pan. Protect your hands with oven gloves of some kind, and then bravely, flip everything over, and the tortilla should "Plop" right into your plate. IF it sticks , just dislodge the stuck part, and put it back whereit belongs.

The wonderful thing about this dish is that you are supposed to eat it at room temperature. There is many a Spaniard who left for work, or a trip, with a snack of a chunk of tortilla in his hand or pocket. It's great on some good bread, and it's great on a salad.

I want to make this dish with David sometime. Maybe I'll learn something from "hijo del sol."

David, you listening? Thanks for taking care of me, bud. Let me make you a tortilla.

Okra's on

Remember the old series of TV commercials for Oprah Winfrey, when she was the new thang? It was something that always ended with "Oprah's on." Well, this blog has nothing to do with celebrity except for mine, but it DOES have to do with food, and today I'm addressing one of the vegetables about which people have the strongest feelings: okra.

'TOO SLIMY' That was the response that I got from not one, not two, not three, but FOUR people when I told them, last year, that I was cooking with okra. And yes, it IS a slimy vegetable, no doubt about it. When you cut into an okra pod, you will almost always get a bit , or a lot, of a very thick, not so nice, slimy liquid (there ARE ways to reduce it, by the way, and I'll talk about them, but any techniqe that tells you it eliminates it, is lying). The only other vegetable I've encountered that does this is cactus paddles. I have found out that it's the same compound, chemically, and while there is usually some kind of botanical relationship between plants when they share this kind of property, I know of none between these two.

Now, in addition to the "too slimy" comment, I also got a handful of comments along the lines of "I LOVE OKRA. What are you making with it?" But again, this was always followed by "How do you get rid of the sliminess?" Yes, we all deal with it. If you like okra, you basically try to ignore it. If you don't like okra, you don't have to deal with it, since you don't eat it.

Well, here are some ways to lessen it. Okra only "bleeds" the sliminess, when it's cut. So if you do something like dip the okra into eggs, and then a coating, and deep fry it, you don't get it very much. You eat the hot okra so fast, that you almost don't know it's there. And deep fried okra, especially coated in corn meal, is GOOD. But as one person once said on TV "you could deep fry your big toe and it would taste good."

Clearly she had never seen MY big toes, but let's move on, shall we? Indeed, it is true that deep frying sort of makes everything taste better, but it's not a true test of the vegetable.

The bigger and older the okra get, the slimier they are (there's probably a parallel to be drawn here, but I'm not going to draw it). So, if you want to try okra, buy smaller ones. An inch at most. If you do this, it will take you time to get a good amount in your bag, but that's the trade off.

Also, if you're going to try cooking okra, cut it as close to when you're going to put it in the pot or pan as possible. The shorter okra sits, cut, the less sliminess. In the recipe I'm giving you below, you do it at the very last minute. It's a good recipe, either with or without the optional cream.

The recipe came out of a fascination with succotash, and a disgust about lima beans. I love okra, I hate lima beans. Well, succotash is essentially corn and lima beans. So, how could I replace the lima beans? For reasons that remain embedded in fog somewhere, I decided on okra. And when I thought about the sliminess issue, I thought of an Indian recipe for okra (bhindi), that my sister in law had given me. And I wound up combining the two of them, and adding an Italian twist, via olive oil. Here it is.

You will need a half cup, each of diced onion, diced red pepper, and cut up green beans. You will also need the kernels of 4-6 ears of corn, and you will also need a cup of okra. Wait on this one, but prepare the other vegetables ahead of time. Then, put about a tablespoon of olive oil into a pan, and keep that olive oil nearby. Get your pan hot, and add the onions. Sautee them until they begin to get t ranslucent, adding about a half teaspoon of salt. Now, take them out, and do the same thing with the peppers (you're doing this separately so as not to murk the flavors, especially since you may be adding cream). Follow with the green beans. Finally, when you're set to add the corn, switch to a tablespoon of butter. And sautee the corn just until it begins to get tender. You now have all these vegetables cooked and ready. NOW you slide up your okra, and get it into a hot pan, with enough oil added to bring the quantity back up to about a healthy tablespoon. When it begins to brown, add the corn, and all the other vegetables and stir them together. Correct the seasonings, by adding salt and pepper.

You can stop the recipe now, and if you're going to serve this next to a rich dish, that's the thing to do. But if you're only grilling fish, or meat, or something like that, pour a good measure of heavy cream - say a third of a cup or so - into the pan, and stir it all together until the cream thickens a bit.

And there you have it. Two choices, with a vegetable you haven't tried enough. Try it again. Betcha you'll like it.

Kansas in August

If you recognize that line, you know what I'm writing about, unless I'm being sneaky. Sneaky? Misleading in a title, MOI? No, gentle reader, I do not play "25,000 Pyramid" type games. Remember, when the clues would be something like "blue on blue" and then someone would pick it and Dick Clark would say "Ok, Shelly. Describe things that have to do with rainbows for Betty White."

You don't? Oh. Okay. Take my word for it. And I bet you have no idea what the title means either? Ok, I'll fess up. We're visiting corn again.

I have written before, and I'll write it now: I do NOT like corn. Call me anti-American, but I don't get it. I just don't get it. But I am clearly in the minority here. If you go to the farmers' market about this time of year, you will see hordes of people descending on the corn, as if they were awaiting a CARE package (you do know what that means, don't you? You don't. Oh, dear. Go and ask your mother).

This is the time of year when corn begins flooding the market, and if you like it, you will get your fill, very easily. People who love the stuff tell me that they can make a meal of it, eating six ears or eight ears of corn at a sitting.

I could eat eight ears of corn and not feel full. Give me a big bowl of pasta, and I'm in heaven. Give me corn, and you'd best have something else to give me.

But Guy likes corn. No, Guy LOVES corn. So do many of my friends. We even had a cat once who would fight to get his ear of corn. Oh well, let's just say "Annalena, J, dissents." (the attorneys out there will get it).

But just because I don't really "get" corn does not mean I don't cook it, nor does it mean that I don't know a lot about it. Because there is a lot to know about corn. I will leave out a lot of the stuff and advise you to read up, but there are a few things you know. Corn is what is called an "obligate" plant. What does that mean? It means that corn does not grow without human intervention. It's true. Corn is ultimately derived from a wild grass, which you can see from time to time. If corn is not cared for , fertilized, pollinated, by human intervention, there is no corn. There is no such thing as "wild corn, they way you'll find things like wild strawberries or cherries or grapes ("scuppernongs. " Isn't that a great word?). Also the corn on the cob that you all love, is unripe corn. When corn on the ear ripens, it's a mess. It sort of looks like someone with a bad set of teeth. And it is NOT easy to cook. Go and read about hominy. So, really, even though you don't call it this, what you are eating, is "green" corn. So how do you like that?

Now, when you have decided to buy corn, there are some dos and donts. First, if you want to make sure that you keep in good graces with the farmer, DO NOT pull back the husks to see if the corn is good. Suppose you don't take it? Well, you just condemned that ear of corn to dry out and become unsaleable. How do you decide whether or not to buy the corn? Well, DO do the following things. Squeeze it gently. Squeeze it all the way up. If the corn got enough water, and enough time on the plant, it will feel full, all the way up to the top. If it feels like it's missing things, don't buy it. It is. DO look at the silks. The older an ear of corn is, the more brown those silks get. So if you find one with "silver silk," it's for you.

When you've decided on your 6/8/10/24 ears of corn, DON'T put them in your bag, topside up. The bottom of corn ears is sharp. And the ears are heavier toward the bottom. It's a very good way to tear your bag, and let the ears you so painstakingly chose, fall all over the place. No, put them UPSIDE DOWN. If you do that, the farmer will assume you know what you're doing, and perhaps give you a break on the sale. Probably not, but won't you feel proud?

You don't care? Well, do it anyway. Who needs to go running after errant corn?

I'm going to give you a recipe that is extremely easy, but at the same time, extremely difficult. You'll see what I mean. It's a recipe for a cold soup. For each serving, you will need two ears of corn at a minimum. You will also need a cup and a quarter of water, and you will need salt.

That's all. See how simple it is? Well, what if you didn't buy good corn? See what I mean?

What you need to do now, is get the corn off of the cob. I have used every one of those devices designed to make it easy. They don't. The only thing you will get is corn kernels all over the floor. The only way I have found to get corn off of the cob easily is to break the cob in half, turn each half on its side, vertically, and get a sharp knife and cut off the kernels, and push them to the side.

Now, the most important part of this recipe: take the back of your knife - the non-sharp side, and rub it, up and down over the cobs, about ten times per cob. Look at what you've got. You have all kinds of white, soft stuff on that knife. Now, taste it. This is the sugar part of the corn. Compare how it tastes to the kernels. Remember the old line "the closer to the bone, the sweeter the meat?" (you don't remember that either?). Well, the sweetest part of corn is right in the cob. So get all of that out. Some people call that the "corn milk."

So you now have your kernels, your corn milk and your cobs. You ain't done with those cobs yet. Oh, no. Here's my little trick for making a tastier soup. For every four cups of water you're working with, take four cob halves and put them into the water. Bring the water to the boil, turn it off, and let the cobs sit in it for about fifteen minutes (if you happen to have a basil sprig around, add that, too). What you're doing is adding just a bit more flavor to the soup you're going to make. Now, take the cobs out, add the kernels and the corn milk, and cook them, over low heat, until the kernels are very soft. This may take about twenty minutes. Let this cool.

Get out a food processor or, better, a blender, and start processing the soup in batches. Puree each batch for about two minutes. L onger than you might think, but you want to get as much out of that corn as you can.

If you have a food mill, now push this stuff through the mill, discarding the solids. Otherwise, press it through a strainer. Taste it. It will be bland, and sweet. Now add salt to taste , and you will be overwhelmed with the taste of fresh corn, in liquid form. You now have to do a bit of adjustment. Measure out how much soup you have . Add liquid to make sure that you have at least a cup and a quarter, preferably a cup and a half for each serving. The flavor won't be that diluted. Again, adjust for salt if you need to. Chill the soup, and serve it any time over the next three days.

You can put this out just as it is, and it's really good. If you happen to be in the mood, make some crispy pancetta or bacon to garnish it, or add a few halved cherry tomatoes (red ones), or some sliced avocado, or a bit of cucumber. Anything you might think would go well with corn, probably will. And there it is.

I think of this recipe as the vegetable version of pork cooked in milk. Minimal amount of ingredients, but you'd better make sure that things are drop dead great, and you have to be careful every inch of the way, to extract as much flavor as you can.

You probably don't remember when we were all instructed to ask "when was the corn picked?" and not to buy anything that was more than a day old, and to cook it as fast as possible, i.e, the old story of "hitch up your skirts, start a pot of water boiling, go out, pick your corn, run back, shucking as you go, and drop the corn into the water, and take it out in five minutes."

YOU DO remember that? Well, you don't have to do that anymore. Modern corn has got enough sugar to survive over more than a few days. I'm not sure I'm happy about that, but it is what it is.

And you don't even have to go to Kansas

Deciding what to cook: a few thoughts on recipes

A few days ago, I received a "freebie" in the mail, a collection of recipes called "Italian Classics." It is the second in a series of little pamphlets (I don't know what happened to the first one). They are manageable in size and number of recipes. This one contains only fourteen, and they range from appetizers to desserts, wtih some of each.

I looked through the recipes titles, and I know how to make all of them, or variations on them, so I thought about giving it to a friend. Then I read the recipes.

No.

Putting aside the issue of complexity (some of these recipes are VERY complex and time consuming to make), many of them are just plain WRONG. Either they have wrong ingredients, or the cooking times are wrong, or , and this is the thing that bothered me the most, the context is wrong. Let me give you some examples.

There is a recipe for spaghetti alla carbonara, and while the notes on the dish are right, the ingredients are wrong. They use pancetta, which is a standard substitution for guanciale, which IS difficult to find. I think they ought to explain the substitution. The recipe for minestrone calls for "cooked beans," without explaining how to cook them, and a recipe for ossobucco calls for cooking the meat for "about two hours, until the meat is fork tender and falls off the bone. " Rest assured that if you cook a veal shank for two hours, it will NOT be fork tender, it will NOT fall off the bone, and you will NOT be happy. You have a LOT more cooking to do.

But perhaps the item that bothers me the most is the recipe for "chicken alla cacciatora" The comments on it explain that this is a dish that Northern Italian housewives made for their husbands, before they went out hunting. The recipe then calls for olive oil.

Well, no. This is a southern dish. It has olive oil in it. That's your first clue. Second, the traditional knowledge on this dish is that it started as RABBIT in the hunters' style, because this is what they cooked while they were out hunting, and they made it with what they could carry. Later, it became codified as chicken cacciatore because everyone had chickens at home. You used the older birds who had stopped laying for the dish. And the killer here is that they recommend serving the dish with plain white rice.

No.

There are no Italian dishes that I know of that serve a main dish (a "secondo"), with rice. The other alternative, potatoes, is somewhat canonical for the dish, but the rice is purely an American conceit.


Now, having said this, one cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater. When you get a group of recipes, go through them, and 'edit'. There were two in the pile that I knew very well, and they are spot on. And it was good to see them, because I will make them both.

As you do more cooking, and learn more things, you will learn what recipes will and will not work. I can almost always look at a recipe and say "never going to work." That of course is different when you stick up your nose, as I have a few times in this piece and have said "nice, but not authentic." That's a personal choice. For example, if you like spaghetti alla carbonara, and you don't have access to guanciale (which IS hard to find), by all means, use the pancetta. I'm sure that there has been more than one cook who has done so. So develop your sense of what's right and not, and also develop your sense of what you want to do. There are very few wrongs and rights about cooking. Calling a dish what it's not is one of the wrongs. Giving poor instructions is another. And with experience, you'll be able to tell what's what.

Here is one of the recipes. One of my favorites, using a vegetable that I'm learning is much more loved than I thought it was. It is "finocchio con burro e parmagiana," and it encapsulates all that is right about Italian cooking.

You need about eight fennel bulbs, which unfortunately is going to be not inexpensive. Fennel costs more than it should, and you'll have a lot of waste with the fronds, because you wont' use them. Save some and chew on them at the end of the meal, the way Italians do, to sweeten your breath. You'll also need half a stick of unsalted butter, and parmagiana cheese, freshly grated.

What you'll do is bring a pot of salted water to the boil. While that is happening, trim off any "uglies" on the fennel bulbs, and then quarter them, lengthwise. Put them into the boiling water and cook them for five minutes, then drain them.

On the burner next to the pot of water, melt the butter in a big pan. Add the fennel to that melted butter, and toss in some salt. Taste, and add more if you need it. You'll be turning this for about fifteen minutes, and don't be alarmed if things brown a bit. That's good cooking. Then, dump it all into a serving dish and toss the cheese into it. Use as much as you like: half a cup is a good amount.

And that's it. This is a rich, very full tasting side dish, and I would put it alongside a simple grilled piece of chicken, or even better, some fish. Perhaps a grilled seabass or something like that? If you were doing a complete meal, what you might do is make a risotto before hand, maybe using some of the fennel fronds and a different seafood, like scallops.

SO, there you have it. One of Annalena's periodic diatribes, and a recipe too. I hope that helps make your day more interesting, mi ragazzi

Salad without greens

It is no secret that one of my favorite things is a green salad. "Garden salad" is what it's sometimes called, which seems to be a misnomer to me, since that means anything you want could go into it. "Simple salad" is what some people call it, which is also a misnomer, since there's nothing simple about a basic green salad. And when you think about it, "green salad" is a bad name too, because you could have beans, squash, etc, in it, and it's still "green." "Lettuce salad" or "Leaf salad" might be more precise, but let's not be picky. We all know what I'm talking about here.

A properly made salad of baby lettuces, fresh and crisp, is a glorious thing, either on its own, or at the end of a meal, or at the beginning of a meal, and so forth. I try to make one every night.

Unfortunately, there comes a time during the summer when a leaf lettuce salad is not possible. Lettuces do not do well in the heat. They need cooler days . When it gets very hot, they either "bolt" , that is, go to seed very quickly, leaving behind tough, bitter leaves, or they just do not grow at all. With the "vegetable line" we have here in the Northeast, normally, there is always some source of salad greens. Southern Jersey gets them when it's too cold for upstate NY to have them, and when it gets too hot for southern Jersey, Upstate is coming in with their crops. But there is always a cycle of about two weeks when it's difficult to get those lovely greens, and we're in it now.

When that happens, I turn to other ideas for salads. One of my favorites is this one, inspired by some cooking shows, and by combinations of colors.

I have written in the past about some underappreciated vegetables, like carrots, and celery. Well, let's add cucumbers to that list. I love cucumbers. It seems, in fact, that my favorite vegetables are the ones that have no nutritional value at all. Many people don't like them, and I don't know why. I have heard that they cause gas in some people, and maybe they do and that's why, but I also think that if you regulate the amount of them you eat, it may be a different story. In any event, I love the cool green color that kirbys and other small cucumbers "bring to the table," so to speak. And I think that they combine beautifully with dairy based products, like creme fraiche. And with herbs like dill.

Interestingly enough, so do beets. Recently, I wrote about how good they were when they were slow roasted. And now, since we both love beets, we have tons of roasted beets in the fridge. Chioggias, those wonderful pink striped ones. And yellow ones. I stay away from the red ones when the other colors are available, because while you can minimize the bleeding from those dark beauties, you can't eliminate it.

So, last night, I made a salad as follows. I took five cucumbers, and sliced them on what they call a "benriner." I will explain this useful tool. You've all seen those big, massive dangerous looking slicers they call "mandolines." They are expensive, they rust, and they ARE expensive. And just about no one who cooks at home needs one. Some years ago, the "benriner" (I have no idea what the name came from), because available. This looks like a small paddle, with a guillotine blade in it. You can get one in a straight cut, and one in a frill cut. I use the straight one. They come with a handle so that you can protect your hand, but I don't use it because I'm very careful with these things. The blades are VERY sharp. But they make incredibly thin slices. And I went to work on the cucumbers, producing a mess of thin slices. So, too, with a handful (say six), small to medium sized beets. I can't really describe the beautiful color contrast of the pink beets and the light green cucumbers. It was a thing of beauty.

Onto the dressing. Creme fraiche, made at home (you don't make it? Okay, here's how you do it. Get a pint of unpasteurized heavy cream. Put it in a container with a quarter cup of buttermilk. Shake it. Cover it and leave it on a counter, unrefrigerated, for 2 or 3 days. BAM. Creme f raiche. Put it in your refrigerator and when you begin to get low on it, pour in some heavy cream, shake it and start all over again). I put several big spoonfuls of it in, together with several sprigs of fresh dill, left over from pickle making , that I had chopped. Salt, and the juice of half a lemon followed (more for flavor than acid, the creme fraiche has acidity). Finally, about three tablespoons of olive oil. Then a whisking, and then in go the veggies, folded into this thick wonderful white stuff.

And that was the salad. It went on the menu with a cold roasted chicken, the squash soup, and a cold stuffed artichoke. Yes, I had spent a fair amount of time in a hot kitchen, making cold food, but it sure was good last night.

So, get a bit creative with your salads, especially when the lettuce isn't all that available. I may be making this again in the future, with my favorite green beans. I can see some chopped nuts going onto that. Stay tuned....

Expanding horizons: I make a second pie

This summer has been a season of expanding limits, and exploring new territory , in all kinds of ways. I have loved just about every minute of it. Much of that enjoyment has come from the friends who have been with me as it happened. This one is really about some of them, and how one change, somewhere else, can have a change in a place as different from the first one, as the kitchen.

Maybe it's unfair to say "this summer" has been when those changes happened, because as I think about it, as early as writing about "the squash king," I have been talking about these issues. And that was back in the early fall of last year. And the changes just keep on coming, friendships keep on deepening, and growing, and proving not only that "yes, you can do it," but rather "we ALL can do it. We ALL HAVE to do it, and we ALL HAVE to do it TOGETHER."

My friends Keith and David have been aboard for much of this ride, and you may have read about my foray into pie baking for Keith's birthday. Well, in a way, I can sit here and get emotional and say "my little brother is growing up," and perhaps I will. Keith has his own apartment now. Of course he's excited. But if you think I'm not, you're misreading me completely. And tomorrow, I get to see it! Keith is having a small party. Only six of us.

Being invited to a party like that is the height of an honor that someone can give you. We all know dozens of people, but to be among five guests, when it's someone you love? Now that calls for something special. But what did Keith ask for? Something that another friend would love. Nothing for himself.

Well... we'll see about that... But in terms of what he asked for, bottom line is , if he asks, I'll do it. And he asked for something with blueberries, our mutual friend David's favorite fruit.

Can you think of something more glorious than blueberry pie? Have you read about my pathological fear of pie baking? But, thanks to my successful cherry pie on Keith's birthday, I fearlessly plunged ahead and did my research, and found myself back with Rose Levy Beranbaum's book in hand. At first, I thought of a standard double crust pie. But then, when I read her description of how stunning an open faced pie was, and I thought of those dark, bluish purples in a shiny glaze, there it was. Open faced.

But... The crust was not the one I had sort of mastered for Keith's pie. It was another one.

Remember what I said about expanding boundaries? So, with a quick prayer to my Nana, who seems to be around these days, I went into the kitchen.

If it tastes as good as it looks, it's a smashing success. And I will admit that I tasted the filling, and it's good. In fact, it's VERY GOOD. More to the point, as Keith would say "it doesn't suck."

Here it is. First, you make your crust. And to do this one, which is a very short, butter crust, you need a stick of butter, divided unevenly: five tablespoons and three. Make sure it's unsalted butter. Cut each piece into small cubes. Put the three ounces of butter into the freezer, wrapped. You can keep the five in the fridge. Then, mix up 1.25 cups of flour with a quarter teaspoon of salt and a quarter teaspoon of baking powder, put that in a bag, and freeze that too. You can freeze them for as little as thirty minutes, I used about half a day.

When you're getting ready to mix the crust, get a half cup or so of iced water ready. You won't need a lot, but it's good to have it there, so you can just dip in, freely. And also have about a tablespoon of cider vinegar ready. Again, you won't need it all, but it's good to have it there in case you do something silly like spill it (NOT that I did that....). Put your flour mixture into a food processor, and then add the five tablespoons of butter. Process this for twenty seconds, that's all. You'll get something like corn meal. Now, add the frozen butter, and pulse. I counted, and it took me twelve pulses to get something like small peas. Then, toss in 2-3 tablespoons of iced water and a teaspoon and a half of the vinegar, and pulse a few times. You won't get a ball of dough, and you shouldn't. You'll get something that begins to clump. Pour that all back into your flour bag, and seal it. Then, press it with your palm, your fingers, etc, to get a nice round disc. You'll be surprised how easily this happens, and how clean your kitchen stays. Then, put that disc into the fridge, preferably for overnight. I wouldn't take it out in less than five hours. What you're doing is giving everything a chance to rest.

The next day, get the dough out of the fridge. I was stunned as to how soft it was. I thought I would need to let it set for several hours, but I was ready to roll this in twenty minutes (It is here, that I realized, I had erred on putting in too little water, and it was difficult to roll out an even crust. I would go with 3 tablespoons of water, unless you have a very humid day). Use enough flour to make your work easy, and roll on parchment if you have it, or a cloth, something to keep the dough from sticking. Ms. Beranbaum says to roll to a 12 inch circle. I don't think mine was quite that big or as even as a circle should be, but it worked. I pressed it into a pie pan, and then refrigerated it for another two hours.

When I was ready to bake, I preheated the oven to 425, and then covered the crust with parchment, and lots of old brown rice that I'm not going to cook. This is, in fact, the way most open faced pies are baked, i.e, "blind," with weights to keep them from puffing up. During the twenty minutes of baking, the kitchen smelled wonderfully toasty and buttery. Then I took the pie out of the oven, and pricked the surface with a fork. (this is called "docking" by the way. You can buy a professional pastry docker, which is also a tool used during sex play on feet....(not the same one you use on your pies, please), but a fork is fine.)

Don't go there.

After five minutes, I took the crust out of the oven and let it cool for three minutes.

This pie gets a wet filling. So to keep the crust from becoming too soggy, you need to seal it. You can do this well with an egg white. Or, two egg whites if you forget you have one on the counter, pick up the bowl it's in, toss the liquid and then say "where the hell is that egg white?" (NOT that this happened to me). Once you DO have your egg white, brush it all over the inside of your crust. You may see the albumin in the egg cook to little white strips, but if you don't, that's okay too. In fact, it's better. It means the crust isn't too hot.

Now, time to make the filling. And this is really, REALLY neat. I have found that most pie filling recipes are too chintzy for me. The one I was working with called for four cups of fruit. I did something that you should always do before you fill a pie. I took the pie plate I was working with, and filled it with four cups of berries. It looked REALLY stingy. So I used six. That meant, of course, that I had to increase all other ingredients by half. No problem. The "other ingredients" were water, sugar, lemon juice and corn starch. Start by taking two cups of blueberries and mixing them with 3/4 cup of water in a pot. Cook this over low heat. The boiling water will begin to break up the berries, and after 3-4 minutes, or less, you'll basically have "sauce." That cooking time will give you enough time to measure out 3/4 cups of sugar, and mix 3 tablespoons of cornstarch with three tablespoons of cold water. Also, squeeze the juice out of one half lemon (Go easy here. Lemon can easily overwhelm blueberries, but don't leave it out, because....).

Add the sugar to the glaze mixture. You'll get an immediate change in color, to something nice and glossy. Then add the lemon juice and BAM. Watch what happens. I don't know if this is universally true, but most food colors that are red or pink are acidic, and most blue or purple ones are basic. If you change pH by adding acid, the red elements in the blue colors come out. That's why you add vinegar to red cabbage, for example (which, for some reason is called blue cabbage in Southern Germany: blaukraut). The lemon pushed the blueberry color from dark, midnight blue, to a midnight fuschia. GORGEOUS. Then, off the heat, stir in the whole berries, all four cups, very gently.

Pour all of this thick, wonderful, tasty mess into the pie crust, and then let it cool at room temperature. Keep a cover on it, because, this being summer, you know you have flies in the house.

Don't refrigerate the pie. That fridge will dry out that beauty so fast, you'll regret it. No, leave it out, safe from yourself, pets, lovers, visitors, and it will keep for a couple of days, which is all I really need.

I want to take pictures of this one. There are few times when I say "I'm really proud of how my food looks." This time, I am.

And I couldn't think of a better occasion for it. My friends, my pals, my loves, this is for you.

Nana and the three pound zucchini

Ok, the story couldn't wait. After I wrote the first entry, I kept on thinking about that story. Here it comes.

When I was about ten years old, my mother remarried. I think, but I'm not sure, that she petitioned the court to grant her divorce by abandonment (my biological father had left us when I was about three years old), and Ernie, the man she had been dating for a long time, became our stepfather.

Nana was NOT a fan of Ernie, from day one. My sisters and I started off differently, but as time went by, we were in Nana's camp. He was a Nazi. No, I don't mean just temperament, although that was true. He belonged to the Nazi party. He had an illegal gun collection, a uniform from the Third Reich, you name it, he had it. And that wasn't the worst of it. His dream was to buy a piece of land in Montana where he could move us all and protect us from the up and coming race riot.

But in the meantime, to make himself useful, he used to do the grocery shopping for Nana. Until she put an end to it by walking on her arthritic feet to the stores, every day, to get the groceries.

Well, as a typical "macho but really not" kinda guy (you know the ones: use a BIG hammer. Get MORE POWER on that electric drill, put MORE lighter fluid on that fire), bigger was better for Klink (his nick name, after "Colonel Klink in Hogan's Heroes). So, one day, when he was "helping" Nana with the shopping, one of the items on the list was "zucchini - 3 pounds."

I still remember the look of horror on Nana's face as she pulled the three pound monster squash out of the bag. I don't think you can really imagine something like this. If you consider that a medium to large zucchini weighs about 6 ounces, or that a typical butternut squash may come in at a little LESS than three pounds, well....

So after she stared at this thing for about ten minutes, she began to mutter to herself in Italian. Dialect. Now, when Nana went into dialect, you KNEW she was talking to herself to try to calm herself down. It wasn't working. She started to snicker. And then to laugh. I understood enough dialect to understand why. Briefly, she had begun to construct this story as to WHY he had bought this huge "thing," and how it really wasn' t intended for the kitchen but how Joann (my mother) "was gonna be happy for the first time in a long time." Finally she just couldn't take it anymore and put her head down on the kitchen table, and began laughing hysterically.

Nana had what we called a "cry laugh." It didn't sound like laughing. It sounded like crying (her crying was very quiet, almost silent. Years later, I learned that she had developed that silent cry because her mother used to beat her if she caught her crying). But if you saw her face, you knew she was laughing. Of course, with her face on the table, you couldn't see it. But I knew. I had heard the talk she gave herself.

My mom came into the kitchen and saw it and I still remember her saying to Klink "Aw, hon, look. Ma is so moved by what you did for her, she can't hold it in." Well, that just made it better, or worse, for Nana, and the "cry laugh" just got louder and she really was having trouble breathing.

I, however, did not have a cry laugh. It was very clear that I was having a really good time with what was happening. This did NOT sit well with Mom, who gave me a stern yelling , in her shrill voice.

'YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY YOUNG MAN ? WELL, YOU CAN GO WITHOUT DINNER TONIGHT. WE'LL EAT ALL THAT ZUCCHINI OURSELVES."

Uh oh. Yup. Nana looked up at me , stuck her tongue out and then went back to the table , trying to get her breath back.

I, in contrast, was sent to my bedroom to go without supper. No zucchini for me. No big loss. Dinner at home was NOT the most pleasant of meals when Klink and Mom were there. And I got to read!

Well, Nana had her bedroom just down the hallway from me, and when she came up to say her prayers (a two hour event, every night), before she went to bed, she brought me a plate of food she had hidden in her apron.

No zucchini. I THINK that Klink had figured out what was going on, because she told me he had eaten four helpings. Even then I was bad.

"So I guess Mom won't be happy tonight, Nana?" She started laughing. "Of course she will . He ate like a pig. He'll be asleep in ten minutes. She won' t have to watch any John Wayne movies."

Good squash, bad squash, little squash, big squash. I guess I should feel blessed that I can laugh about some of those stories now.

Nana, you still make me laugh.

Cold Soup: revisiting squash

Some years ago, Fran Lebowitz wrote an incredibly funny book, called "Metropolitan Life." It included an essay on food and cooking, which made a great number of many "on point" comments. One comment had to do with cold soup, however. I'm paraphrasing, but she wrote, essentially, that cold soup is very hard to pull off, because inevitably your guests wind up thinking that if they had just gotten there a bit earlier, they could have gotten it hot.

Well, my guests are just about always on time, and when soup is supposed to be hot, it's hot. I have no problems serving hot soup during the summer, but sometimes, a cold soup is just what you want. It IS true that there aren't that many cold soups that come to mind: gazpacho, of course, which I love, and all of the dessert fruit soups, which I don't (once, I had a cold cherry soup that reminded me of pepto bismol, both in terms of color and taste). You can eat vichissoyse cold, and I have. I thought it was like eating cold mashed potatoes. I DO like Italian panzanella, which is more a "sop" than a soup, because of all the bread in it, but that's served at room temperature, rather than cold.

There is also something ironic about people wanting cold soup during the summer, because "who wants to spend time in the kitchen?"
Uh, before you can make it cold, you have to cook it, dimwit. You save NO kitchen time in making most cold foods. You just make them well ahead of the time you plan to eat them, and then cool them off. But don't fool yourself for a minute in thinking that most cold foods involve no cooking. Uh uh.

Well, this past weekend, the weather reports called for even hotter weather during the week. And there is one day of the week (Tuesday), where my schedule is absolutely crazy. So having a complete, cold meal ready for eating on Tuesday was appealing . I roasted a chicken and it's sitting in the fridge. And there will be a salad, probably some cold potatoes too.

I also had a whole bunch of the most exquisite looking, baby squash from Franca, the madwoman of the strawberry in the fridge (Franca's farm is called "berried treasure," because of her wonderful strawberries. But she grows other, incredibly beautiful vegetables. And her farm is in upstate NY, while Nevia's is in Southern New Jersey. So, when the season has past for Nevia, it is just beginning for Franca. Double dipping with two wonderful women, the goddesses of the south and north).

Having beautiful vegetables in your fridge is very inspiring. Instead of feeling threatened, with the thought of "what in God's name do I do with a three pound zucchini (remind me to tell you the story of Nana and the three pound zucchini sometime), you feel like "Should I do this or should I do that, or what shall I do with these veggies?"

Ok, maybe I feel that way. We all know I need a life. But the squash were inspiring me, and out came cold squash soup. And out came a LOT of it. Easily, two quarts. So we had it for lunch on Sunday, with the tomato confit, gave some to Laura, and the rest is for dinner tonight. Try this. It's worth the small time investment, because the yield is terrific.

You'll need two medium sized onions, and two pounds of small squash. I used yellow zucchini, but you could use Lita squash, or baby patty pans, or anything you like. The color of the soup will change depending on the squash you use, but it will all be lovely and cool looking. You will also need a quart of stock of some kind. I used chicken stock, but you could make this a vegetarian soup, with vegetarian stock. I would stay away from water, because squash doesn't have a big flavor profile, and it will need some help. Herbs are nice, but not necessary. If you decide to use them, go for something with a lemony profile, like lemon thyme or lemon verbena, or a mint, if you like mint. Finally, you have another option, which I used, in dairy products. Anywhere from half a cup to a full cup of milk, cream, yogurt, buttermilk, whatever you like.

Chop the onions fine, and then cut up the squash into uniform, but uneven pieces. You don't have to be precise here. Put a few tablespoons of olive oil or vegetable oil in a big soup pot, and add the onions, with a teaspoon or so of salt. Start sauteeing them until they get translucent. It won't take long. Then add the squash, and stir everything together. You want the onions and the squash to mix, nicely. After about five minutes, add the stock and the herbs, and lower the heat. Cover the pot, and leave it alone for about twenty or thirty minutes. You want the squash to be very, VERY soft, and that will happen under these conditions.

When the vegetables are so soft that they're falling apart when you prod them with a fork, let the whole mess cool. You can eat the soup like this, but you can also put it through a blender, which is what I did. I did it in batches, because there was so much of it. I got this beautiful, yellow soup, that needed just some more salt to make it really good.

I could have stopped there, but I had about 3/4 cups of heavy cream left from ice cream making, and I poured that into the pureed soup and stirred. This , of course, enriched the soup, and also lightened the color.

Interestingly, in sitting in the fridge, overnight, the soup went from a mild, creamy flavor to one with a decided tang. I'm not sure if the squash "soured" the cream, if it "soured" on its own, or what happened, but the bottom line is, it has the taste of creme fraiche about it, and it's GOOD.

You could probably do the same thing with other vegetables of the season. Carrots sound good, and actually, so do cucumbers for that matter. Peppers too. So, maybe we can treat this one as a "master recipe," and come back to it with other vegetables. What do you folks think? You gonna try it with another vegetable? If you do, I want reports back.

Yeah, you DO have to spend some time in the kitchen, even though it IS very hot. So you may as well maximize the time. Roast chicken and cold squash soup? Is it summer, or what?