(Good) food on the interweb.

Illustration: Hadley Hooper for the NYT

Harumph. The NYT has a round-up of local food access points. Just which local, exactly, is a bit ambiguous...I assume local meant NYC, but no. At the end of the article the author is placing a standing order with my beloved Farm Fresh To You. (Gold star for that.) I was surprised to read this on FFTY's web site today: "Currently over 800 families are participating in our family farm's CSA, Farm Fresh To You." I feel like I must know one eighth of their customers. I assumed they delivered thousands of boxes a week.

Michelle Slatalla did introduce me to Spud, which delivers in Seattle, SF, LA & Portland. They'll deliver Strauss glass bottle milk to my house. Distance feature is awesome. Clicking on Strauss shows "This supplier is located 52 miles from our San Francisco warehouse." Still, unless they'll deliver the big jars of A Bientot plain yogurt too, they're not the magical wonderland I'd hoped for. Hrm...bakery section notably missing Acme bread. Household section missing Mrs. Meyers.

Haney's asking a great question over on LinkedIn:
What online platform would work best to connect tens of thousands of individuals and organizations (for-profit and non-profit) in a long-term campaign to create a sustainable, non-exploitative food system in California?

Refrigerated.

Photo: Phil Mansfield for The New York Times

Ms. Puett sees the refrigerator as just as valid a territory for thoughtful arrangement as any other part of the house. "It's a really fun game," she said. "It makes moving through the banalities of life stimulating."

Good heavens, J. Morgan Puett must be an interesting person. Ooooh...and her kitchen is a showcase for her vintage chemist's glassware.

Permalink to photos linked above: kitchen is #6, refrigerator is #9

{Via The Kitchn}

Trendy.

If nothing else, I'm hip. I started making jam in 2004. I ate miracle fruit last year. I go on and on about authenticity.

hole.

Tonight I won't start eating. Nothing will fill me. I could eat half a loaf of apple raisin bread pan- toasted in butter with cup after cup of heavy Eagle Brand sweet PG Tips. I could eat the frozen whole wheat penne with vodka sauce, scaling it with sharded slivers of hard Parmesan. Defrost the single cheddar squash tamale and wolf it down with spicy kim chi and the tiny vinegary yellow Brazilian peppers. I could stew and salt the collards. Steam the kale, dipping entire leaves in lemon tahini sauce.

I could eat the whole pound of earlobe-shaped artichoke pasta, with butter and backyard Meyer lemon zest. There are cold blocks of duck-rich cassoulet, memory-thick bean stew. There are freezer dessicated haricots verts, revivable with lemon and olive oil. Garlic sharp crackers. Irish oatmeal with plump raisins, custardy boiled dates, and toasted walnuts.

Freezer jars of applesauce to heat in the chocolate brown Le Creuset saucepan from my mother's wedding set, adding sugar and cinnamon to invoke my grandmother. Navel oranges from last week's box. A square pan of Droste brownies with pecans. The last of the milk and two pale blue green Auracana eggs with a block of Scharffenberger into chocolate pudding. A jar of sour cherries from Eastern Europe with half a carton of eggs fork whisked into a clafouti, finished with the big raw sugar crystals I carried home from Maui, on the trip with the pool and the plums.

I can eat jar after jar of apricot jam, starting with the tiny jar saved from the 2007 batch. I would think of Sylvia's line, "I eat men like air" as I emptied my pantry, my refrigerator, my freezer. I could eat my kitchen as easily as breathing, fueled by the tightness in my chest. It is the only thing that is how I hoped it would be, how I expected, that kitchen. All else I have accomplished falls short by my measure, who I had hoped to be and to become. I am emptied, and tonight I will not start eating because nothing in my kitchen will fill the hole.

[napa 2001] 2. peaches from our tree

fragrant, originally uploaded by sassyradish.

In the summer of 2001 I was banned from making pies. This is the story of how that judgement came to be.

I was born across the alley from an apricot tree. A huge apricot tree in the backyard of a large brick Victorian with a turreted tower with a resident clan of hippies. Those apricots were my first food, and I remain fascinated and comforted by ripe apricots. As a kid, sometimes we still had access to that huge tree. At some point in my childhood, the monster was cut down. I would not encounter limitless access to seasonal fruit, except for semi-yearly apple orchard trips and hot days gorging in pick-your-own strawberry fields, until the summer of 2001. In the interim, my appetite for picking ripe fruit grew unchecked for 20 years.

Finding myself in baking ingredient paradise, I commenced with an unchecked pastry manufacturing orgy. Meyer lemon meringue pie (our own eggs! our own lemons!), a meringue-frosted tall cake decorated with tiny marzipan toys for a baby shower, a double-stacked plum upside down cake, blackberry pie, strawberry pie, blackberry crisp, peach cobbler, and an endless stream of peach pies. Eventually, K --who despises mushy foods as a category and consequently seems to loathe Thanksgiving, banned the making of pies. I still came home from work and, after a trip to the tree, sat at the oak kitchen table prepping peach slices for freezing. The juice ran in streams down my forearms, pooling at my elbows. It was heaven.

Thanksgiving 2002 I showed up at their house with 9 pies, including a still-controversial fresh pumpkin pie made apple pie-style. I figured I could get away with flaunting the pie-making ban. I'm not sure that I did.

Story two, in a series of 48.

anchor & hope

Over a lovely lunch at shiny new Anchor & Hope (shared Ceviche with Lime & Coconut, butter-slathered Lobster Rolls with Old Bay Spiced Potato Chips) I had a restorative conversation with friends. We talked about Japanese baths, and community baths in general, L complaining strongly that Kabuki does it all wrong by enforcing silence. I shared my adoration for Cathedrals of the Flesh, a dead-on perfect gift from E. Doug and Steven stopped by the table, talking acoustics with our party.

One of us is headed to Paris, so I recounted my fall visit with E to the worn hammam at the mosque there, and the intense experience of being forcefully gommaged. It is indeed like being licked by a cat's tongue...a hand-sized one.

While in Paris, I 'borrowed' a lovely tiny guide to historic restaurants, Historic Restaurants of Paris. It was filled with gems and lovely turns of phrase. When a turn in the Jardin du Luxembourg slid into bolting from a downpour, we ducked out of the rain and into
Restaurant POLIDOR (41, rue Monsieur Le Prince, 75006 Paris). The banned napkin storage cabinet was indeed there, as was the Turkish toilet, in much too small of a room. We started out lunch alone, and by the time we paid the check the many communal tables were packed cozily with soggy refugees from the deluge. I often think of E's fragrant chicken with morels in cream sauce. Very often.

The fresh chips were so melt-in-my-mouth salty good that I took the unfinished remainder back to the boys at the office. As I walked the two blocks back to finish a stressful day, I noticed Anchor & Hope's hot mermaid (above) tastefully embossed on their paper takeout box. Well done.

[napa 2001] 1. plums from our tree

Elephant heart plums, Slow Food USA

In the summer of 2001, I lived in a house surrounded by edible things for the first time in my life.

One of these things was plums, or rather, four of these things were plums. There was a small Italian prune plum tree, from which we plucked hard--almost juiceless--little oblong fruits with sharp pits.

And the other tree...that tree was magical. It was an amazing grafted concoction with three main branches, each a different variety. One branch was most favored, big-in-your-palm green-skinned monsters, crisp-skinned juicy with exploding fuschia flesh. Their bud-ends tapered, shaped like human hearts. I brought them to Copia for Jeff Dawson to identify, and he declared them Elephant Heart plums.

They changed my mind about plums, and I invented the double-stacked Elephant Heart Plum Upside-Down Cake to honor them. I'll add the recipe soon. Shocking pink layered with dense vanilla cake. I decorated the birthday cake platter with fresh baby fig leaves and pistachio marzipan figs the size of my little finger tip.

Story one, in a series of 48.

list from the summer of 2001, napa.

Found yesterday written on a scrap of a pale moss green envelope, from a letter never sent from Vineyard Lane:

written in order to exercise my obsession with itty bitty letters, on finding nothing suitable to quote.

excellent things this summer:
1. plums from our tree
2. peaches from our tree
3. dark chocolate sandwiches on sourdough
4. learning to embroider
5. being terrified of snakes
6. not losing sunglasses
7. being adored at work
8. new blue shirt
9. sewing projects
10. cabernet
11. ping pong potluck
12. point reyes picnic
13. belle & sebastian at green apple
14. the sun
15. the sky
16. the ocean
17. golden gate bridge
18. chrissy field
19. starfish
20. the stars
21. living with chickens
22. blue pie plate
23. meyer lemon cake
24. plum upside-down cake
25. small peach pies
26. farmers market
27. aspen
28. stripy grosgrain ribbon
29. humboldt fog cheese
30. fig season, however breif
31. riding to yountville
32. the new blue danube
33. my white light bedroom
34. bob and nadia
35. david sedaris
36. oak knoll
37. grilled pork loin
38. getting stuck with abby
39. erin
40. letters
41. squarepusher
42. baby rattlesnake
43. courtyard at work
44. kara
45. green socks
46. julia child
47. jeffery steingarten
48. not being at school and learning anyway

The summer was idyllic, a surprise of riches. Today begins an irregular recollection on each of the 48 glories of the summer of 2001, and what part the 48 magical things play in my life today. {Update: I'll add links to the list as they're completed.} My dearest Naya, I hope your summer in Napa is as lovely as mine. It was the first long stretch I recall being truly happy in.

It's spring, bitches.

From a heavy earthenware pitcher on my worn oak table orange tulips are leaning into the last afternoon sun. Their delicate yellow edges cup the light.

Recommended
The carmely crusts of two day old bread from Tartine, too sharp to bite until today.
Purple Haze, a goat cheese wrapped with lavender and fennel pollen
Cal del Solo Albarino

Please consume in a plain hot bath.

Team tiny pots

to start
Still-warm country bread from Tartine
Purple Haze
Cowgirl's St Pats
Pt Reyes Blue
Tiny apple jam
Ca del Solo Albarino, Monterey, 2007

and then
Two mini cocottes, enameled in cobalt, of simple mushroom soup

and after
Pomegranate marinated leg of lamb, seared and baked at 350 to 140
Two 5" granite-wear frying pans of Farm Fresh To You potatoes au gratin
(simple, just in Strauss milk & salt)
Goisot Bourgogne, Cotes d'Auxerre, 2oo4

And then I was so happy I forgot to offer the Eluthera.

Compas Box: Eleuthera, 2002-2005
“Eleuthera” was our very first vatted malt. Typically it combined 15 year-old malt whisky from the village of Brora, aged in re-charred hogsheads, with 12 year-old malt from the village of Port Askaig. Jim Murray said of our first release: “Quite simply, one of the most complex and truly magnificent vatted malts of all time. A collector’s piece.” Sadly, when the 15 year-old malt we needed was no longer available aged in re-charred casks, we decided to retire “Eleuthera” rather than overhaul the recipe.

Next time, remind me, A.

Reunion dinner.

Last night my little kitchen held six. The Queen of Fun was sick, and we missed her. The Prince of Intense was away at school, but I put in extra garlic for him anyway. And S fell off the boat. Otherwise, it was a most magical dinner reunion.

We started with L's crazy new cocktail.
1 shot Canadian Club
Dash Pernod
Dash Stirrings Blood Orange Bitters

Shake with ice, strain. Serve up, garnish with orange twist and a Ciliegie di Vignoa allo spirito.

Bridey brought a lusciously ripe hunk of Humboldt fog. L dished out little Dijoned stacks of salami and 4 year aged gouda. E called just as the artichokes were being served with little backyard Meyer lemon halves, and she scored a great parking spot.

We cleared off the artichoke petals, and I hefted the 14” cast iron skillet of crusty bubbling cassoulet out of the oven.

Simple Cassoulet
2 ½ cups flageolet beans (navy work too)
Bacon fat
2 large onions, diced
1 tsp. thyme
1 lb multi-colored carrots, hunked
1 ½ lbs duck confit
Salt
3 cups good breadcrumbs
¼ c (one stick) butter

Soak beans 4 hours, then cook 1 hour until edibly soft but not mushy. In a large (14”) cast iron skillet brown diced onions in bacon fat, add thyme. Add 2 cups water and the hunked carrots and simmer until the carrots are soft. Place the duck confit over the carrot/ onion mixture in the pan. Salt well. Melt butter, mix with breadcrumbs. Transfer beans into cast iron pan, reserving bean cooking liquid. Add bean liquid to almost cover the beans. Sprinkle on buttered breadcrumbs. Bake at in the middle of the oven at 350 for 2 hours, then move to the top of the oven and cook for an additional 30 minutes.

Serve with sliced cabbage sautéed in butter.

Erin brought a pear custard tart, and even baked it in the tart pan we lugged home from France.

I miss my grandma.

A recipe directly in her voice:

Spaghetti Sauce

1 Tiny onion
Couple stalks celery
Couple of carrots, you don’t want a whole million. Big carrots.

Put in a spaghetti pan and simmer with a little water. Not big chunks. Cook for a while, at least half an hour. If the chunks are too big, get out your boat motor. Have you got one of those?

Add:
2 Big cans DiFretti crushed tomatoes
All kinds of like oregano
A little basil
Squash a couple cloves of garlic

Just cook that up. If you need more tomatoes, throw those in.

When it’s done, throw in Prego.

Wow do I adore my grandma.

Breakfast alone at 2

Slept and slept today, woken with the rain lashing the windows, sounding like hail. And curled again to warmly sleep. Finally up, shocked to learn it’s after 2. Such thick cloudcover that my light-clock is confused.

T’s truffle-oil funky mushrooms last night reminded me of my preferred truffle oil vehicle, toad-in-a-hole and English-style baked beans, mild and sweet. I first ate it as an appetizer at Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack. Two days later it had entered my breakfast list permanently.

Emmy’s Breakfast

Baked Beans

1 Can Navy Beans
2 tsp. molasses
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp ketchup
1 tsp Dijon mustard

Combine in a saucepan, simmer 15-20 minutes.

Toad-in-a-Hole

(per person)
1 thick slice crusty white bread (I used Acme’s Sour Batard)
1 tasty egg
2 tsp butter

Remove most of the soft middle from the slice of bread. Place it in a frying pan of sizzling butter, and carefully crack the egg into the middle. Cook til the white is visibly whitened, and the edges toasty and flop, cooking the yellow to your desired egg state.

Serve the beans and toad drizzled with truffle oil.

Good: harney & sons bangkok green tea

O, tea of suntan oil soaked, and sun-toasted bikini flesh I am happy you are back in my life. (Allegedly green tea flavored with coconut, ginger and lemongrass. I know you are green tea flavored with joy.) And thanks to dave, who gave me a lovely assortment of tea in a presentation box, unwittingly introducing me to the Bangkok long ago.

Girl's dinner: Abundance for four

Abundance, originally uploaded by miss_rogue.

Radishes with fancy ass salt
4 year gouda and Sweet Grass Dairy tomme
Small pots of simple mushroom soup with tiny tarts of Humbolt Fog
Chicory with red & yellow beets, blood oranges, grapefruit, mint and olive oil
Tiny artichokes
Local halibut poached with leeks, fennel, lemon zets and young carrots
Cauliflower gratin
Bi-Rite chocolate ice cream with bergamot olive oil and fancy ass sea salt
Tea with silver spoons to melt dark chocolate in

Winter dinner for Erin

Fizzy Lizzy Lone Star grapefruit greyhounds

Tiny pots of simple soup of wild mushrooms
Tiny tarts of French goat cheese, herbs and pink peppercorns
Beet and supremed orange salad
A lot of prosecco
Cauliflower gratin
Chocolate pudding served in vasoline glass custard cups that might be radioactive. Maybe

Monday dessert: Kumquats, assorted

kumquats, originally uploaded by tofu666.

L made coq a vin, and the usual thousand side dishes. I made marzipan squares (fail), tiny cookies, and and individual marmalades from three types of Berkeley Bowl-sourced kumquats.

Lunch for a new dad.

February 22: U-Pik Meyers, originally uploaded by gwen.

Pasta Shop lemon ravioli filled with lemon ricotta, simply tossed with rough-chopped backyard Meyer lemon (preserved) , and frozen peas warmed on olive oil. Golden pillows of joy, much tastier than the durian variety of the same name. Good to see T.

At Leslie's: An alledged potluck

° p i s t a c h i o s °, originally uploaded by ° d i + m a r s °.

Leslie always cooks too much food, and a zillion courses. She's a dinner party rockstar. She apparently only invites brilliant and witty conversationalists. I know she didn't really mean it when she invited me over for a potluck. She did only cook one dish, but it had seven condiments. Piffle. Some break she took from being a culinary goddess. To show my loyalty and support of her pretend potluck I invented:

Dessert of Seven Tiny Things
One tiny scoop pistachio gelato
One tiny scoop (different) pistachio gelato
One tiny scoop pistachio ice cream
One tiny sandwich of pistachio-studded cookie with backyard apricot jam
One tiny sandwich of pine nut-studded cookie with Buddha's hand citron marmalade
Spoon of rose petal jam
Leaf-on clementine

Tiny Butter Cookies
(adapted from Maida Heater's Fruit Cake Icebox Cookies, Book of Great Cookies,1977 p 136)

1/2 lb. butter
1 C confectioner's sugar
1 egg
Zest from a lemon-sized citrus fruit (lemon or small orange, 2 clementines, 1/4 grapefruit)
2 1/2 C Flour
2 cups total dried fruits or nuts (For the dessert above I divided the dough in half and added 1 C pistachios to A, 1 C pine nuts to B. There were a christmas cookie in my family, made with dried papaya cut into 1/4 inch cubes and pistachios.)


Cream the butter, add sugar, cream it too. Add the egg, beat well. Add zest. Gradually add flour on low. Mix in the fruit and or nuts with your bare hands, and mean it. Grab out lumps the size of your fist, roll into snakes the diameter of a bratwurst. Roll up in waxed paper or parchment, twisting the ends. I prefer parchment, because I have turned into a maniac about material things and you can reuse it by baking the cookies on it. Refrigerate, or if you're in a hurry, toss them in the freezer. When hard (frozen is okay, but not required) slice them like coins 3/16 inch thick. (I know...specific. But 1/8 is too thin, and 1/4 too thick.)

Bake on parchment @ 350 degrees until very slightly toasty on the edges. Watch like a hawk, they'll burn in an instant. Impress the pants off your guests by serving them hot.

Mini gougere, goodbye 2007

Made in an edition of two, a Tartine-based delight of cheesy poofs. Will post link, second edition was (ha!) for television.

Mini Gougere

Modified from Chef Elisabeth Prueitt’s recipe, published in the Tartine cookbook.

1 1/4 cups nonfat milk
10 tablespoons unsalted butter
Coarse salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
6 large eggs
3/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese, plus more for garnish

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.

Place milk, butter, and 1 teaspoon salt in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Cook until butter has melted and mixture comes to a boil. Add flour; stir constantly until mixture is smooth and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 3 minutes.

Remove from heat and add 5 eggs, one at a time, making sure each is fully incorporated before adding the next. Mixture will be thick, smooth, and shiny. Stir in cheese.

Using two teaspoons, form rounds about 1 inches wide and ½ to ¾ inch high on prepared baking sheet, spacing each about 2 inches apart. In a small bowl, whisk together remaining egg and pinch of salt. Brush each pastry round with egg mixture and sprinkle with cheese. Also, you can forget to do this and do it half way through the baking process.

Transfer baking sheet to oven and bake until puffed, golden brown, and light for their size, 20-25 minutes.