5 second rule

Lend me your earlobes.

Promoting a book is weird. It's a swirling stew, equal parts thrilling, embarrassing, discomfiting, and wonderful. It's prideful and boasty, narcissistic and ego-y. It's one-tracky and tacky. But, listen, it's also important, not only because it represents the culmination of several years of work, but also because without promotion, books languish and die in warehouses and on store shelves.

And, so, Paulette and I have embraced the task before us and are getting out there -- in our hometowns and yours, at venues small, large, and medium-sized, together and apart. And you know what? Talking with people about colorful fruits and vegetables is fun. Super fun. It's even more fun than talking to computer screens, which is so squarely inside my wheelhouse I often get stuck in there and can't find my way out. Book promotion forces me to speak out loud and swallow big gulps of fresh air. It's good.

Above are some scenes from our early spring events and signings.

In the top row, I'm signing books (hello) at the Blossom Hill Certified Farmers' Market, my go-to market here in San Jose. I'm booked at several other local markets this spring and summer, and I couldn't be prouder to sit beside the farmers that grow my family's food. You can see their gorgeous produce in that basket in the upper right.

In the middle row, you'll see the favas I received from Melissa's Produce, a Southern California-based produce distributor that twice provided juicy pixies tangerines for Ripe parties, and shipped me not only those beautiful beans, but also chioggia beets, fresh edamame, kumquats, fennel, and cucumbers for the launch party at my home. I paid them in invisible money, so consider this a DISCLOSURE, FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION. The local produce from my area farmers' markets and the generous donations from the Melissa's crew intermingled on plates and in salad bowls. There was no fussing or fighting. Just fruit, vegetables, accompaniments, and libations all getting along in a riotous mash of color until it disappeared into waiting mouths and bellies.

Also in that row, you'll see the Ripe display at Rizzoli Bookstore in New York City, which hosted a wonderful launch for us in late March. There you will also see Paulette with her daughter Cassidy, a little girl so cute I want to nibble her earlobes every time I see her.

The bottom row of photos showcases squares of blueberry-nutmeg cake I served along with several other dishes from the cookbook -- grilled five-spice pineapple, cucumber-halloumi salad, chocolate-dipped strawberries, tarragon-lime green tea, and radish-olive crostini -- at a party my very dear friends Alison and Julia hosted at Alison's home last weekend. It was such a joy to talk about produce with so many interesting women. To all of you who bought 4, 5, even 6 copies of Ripe at Alison's house, I will nibble your earlobes as soon as I'm done nibbling Cassidy's.

And finally, in the lower right corner, a photo Colin took of me just before my event at Omnivore Books in San Francisco. God, I love that shop. I can't wait to get back there and sink into the walls.

Here's a recap of our press to date. 

And here's a list of our upcoming appearances, including events next week in Boston, Maine, Philadelphia, and Idaho.

They're all open to the public.

I invite you and your earlobes to come say hello.

...

One more thing. I read every single comment you left on my Mother's Day post. Every single one. As some of you know, the New York Times even linked to that post. I want to thank you all for sharing your words and thoughts with me. I found myself unable to respond in line, but you moved me deeply, and I am grateful.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

Bye, April. Hi, May.

April was a Very Big Month, as capital m months go. I did a lot of reflecting, soul-searching, stressing, and not sleeping. I am an excellent notsleeper, and April was a banner notsleeping month. I also spent a lot of time thinking about my mother, and my children, and how much my mother would have loved my children had she not died on April 10, 2002, six days after my younger son turned one.

I don't want to be morbid, and my-mother-is-dead posts tend to be very heavy and awkward and morose and sad. And that's not why I'm here. So I'll just be blunt and get this part out of the way: there are very few good things about having a dead mother. 

However.

Once we lose a parent, we really have no choice but to carry on and try to find blessings in our new reality as motherless children. And without any disrespect toward the memory of my own mom, there are some blessings, at least in my case, that are worth noting.

My mother's diagnosis, long illness, and death probably saved my life. I won't go into the specifics here, but her dark physical reality was a wake-up call to me, and I made major life changes to protect my health and longevity after she died. 

My mother worked exceptionally hard at building her career. She was a whip-smart woman who commuted by train each day to and from work, and she came home tired. She was really good at her job. And while she had moments of happiness and great joy throughout her life, I'd be lying if I said happy was the first word I'd use to describe her. 

Four months after she died, I enrolled in culinary school. I was 32. I'd been married for 8 years and had two toddlers at home, but her death screamed LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO DO ANYTHING BUT THAT WHICH WILL MAKE YOU VERY HAPPY to me in all caps, bold, underline, italics. I flung my prior career aside, stripped off my academic persona, and donned the garb of the creative. I reinvented myself.

With my husband's permission, encouragement, and full-on support, I grabbed my future by the teeth, pried open its mouth, and stared down its throat. If we're all going to end up dead anyway, I wanted my ride to the bottom to be a happy one. One filled with sweetness, color, creativity, and passion. 

I don't think about this stuff often, but now that Ripe is out and I'm being interviewed, people are interested in my career. They want to know when I started cooking, and why I chose this path. How did you become a food writer? they ask. And since Mother's Day is nearing, I figured I'd tell you the truth.

I started on this path the year my mother died. Had she lived, I'm not quite sure I'd be here. 

Hug your mother, if she's around. Tell her you love her. Make her a scone. Pick her a flower. Give her a call. 

If she's not -- if you, too, are a motherless child, then grab your future by the teeth, pry open its mouth, look down its throat, and let the looming darkness spur you to find meaning, fulfillment, and unbridled joy while you're here.

Don't wait.

...

Recipe for Iced Candied Fennel Cardamom Scones

These scones are a touch sweeter than I'd normally go, but Mother's Day is a sweet holiday. (Stick with 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar if you want to scale back.) Candied fennel is often found in pretty bowls by the hostess stand at Indian restaurants, and the brightly coated seeds make a surprising addition to the batter. You can find them at any Indian market.

This recipe is an adaptation of these iced lemon scones, which themselves are adapted from the Classic Scones in Lora Brody's book Basic Baking. 

Makes 11 scones

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 to 4 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/3 cups cold heavy cream, plus a bit extra for brushing
1/3 cup candied fennel (see headnote)

1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 to 3 tablespoons milk 

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Stack two baking sheets together (this helps keep the bottoms from burning) and line the top sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.

Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar, 1 teaspoon cardamom, and salt into a large bowl. In a measuring cup, stir the vanilla extract into the heavy cream, then dribble this mixture over the dry ingredients. Sprinkle in the candied fennel. Stir with a wooden spoon until you have a shaggy dough. Scrape the bottom to make sure you absorb all the dry bits into the dough mass.

Dump the dough onto a floured board. Knead about 10 times, then pat into a disc about 1" high. Use a floured 2-1/4" round cutter to stamp out circles, and transfer them to the baking sheet. Brush lightly with cream. Bake in the center of the oven for 20 to 22 minutes, turning the sheet halfway through.

Meanwhile, make the glaze. In a large bowl, whisk the sifted powdered sugar with the 1/8 teaspoon cardamom. Whisk in 2 to 3 tablespoons milk until you have a shiny glaze that falls slowly off the whisk and isn't too runny.

When the scones are ready, let them cool for a few minutes. Let the glaze fall off the whisk onto the scones. (Use a small offset spatula to smooth, if desired.) 

printable pdf 

Scenes from an Italian restaurant.

Two weeks ago, my extended family gathered at an Italian restaurant in suburban New York to celebrate my dad and stepmom's 27-year marriage. There was a long table, a crisp white tablecloth, a convivial proprietress ("I will bring more eggplant!"), and wine. There were 15 of us, and twice as many platters of food. There was a 6-year-old child, a couple in their 80s, half-siblings, step-cousins, boyfriends, girlfriends, a fiancée. We all took part to toast this couple who fell in love in the 80s, when I was the age my older son is now.

My east coast family. This is what we look like. Halves, steps, old, young, coupled, uncoupled, recoupled, united.

Out here in California, things are different. We don't use tablecloths, for one, and the proprietress, while convivialish, knows she's the only one who generally wants more eggplant. Only four of us fit around the table: one mom, one dad, two pre-teen boys. We eat in t-shirts, jeans, and socks. We serve meals from pots on the stove. We spill milk, we pass bread, we roll eyes, we laugh. Some of us burp, but I'm not naming names. (OK, it's Alex.)

I often think about my kids, and how different their upbringing is from my own. In broad terms, things are similar: two loving parents, one close sibling, a piano in the living room. Games, books, papers, cards, all splayed out in various configurations around the house. Plenty of food, a safe home, a pretty, tree-dappled community.

But in other ways, things are different. When I was young, my grandparents lived within a short drive. We'd see them each month, and on holidays. We'd share soup with them, and bagels, and lox, and pie. We'd celebrate birthdays, eat candy from their jars, muss the fabric on the arms of their recliners. 

New York reminded me that I miss having my family nearby. I don't just miss the actual people, though of course that's part of it. I miss the very idea of relatives in close geographic proximity. And not just for me, but for my kids. For every quiet Sunday we spend at home, taking bike rides, hiking hills, reading, running errands, that's a day we're not with their grandparents, cousins, uncles, and aunts. And as lovely it is to eat Sunday dinner in our socks, just us, with paper napkins and spilled milk and a single, solitary platter of eggplant, or pasta, or chicken with rice, it might be lovelier still if there were 11 other people around that table beside us.

If you'd eaten this cake, you might have married my husband.

The first time I tasted this cake was the first time I celebrated a real Christmas. The year was 1992. I know this because I have a picture of myself from that December, and I look 19 years younger than I do today. 

Until that point, the idea of Christmas had always been vague. A tree would be involved, and I guessed there would be stockings. And gifts. But beyond that, this New York Jew was pretty much in the dark.

That year, I flew to Dallas with Colin to spend the holiday with his family. I'd met his parents a few months earlier, in the summertime. Back then, we were just boyfriend-girlfriend, but Colin's mom kept introducing me to people as her son's fiancée. This unsettled me, largely because we weren't engaged. I'd remind her time and again that she was jumping the gun, but she paid me no heed.

That October, Colin slipped a ring on my finger.

The base of the Rules' Christmas tree was heaped with presents, and the stockings, the twinkling lights, the music, the whole Christmas thing just about knocked me over with its foreignness. I remember thinking, "OK, wait, what?" And then I had another glass of eggnog.

Several times that week, Colin's mom baked up a date nut cake. I say "several times" because we kept polishing the cake off, and then magically, within hours, another one would appear in its place. A serrated knife held court at the cake's side, and anytime anyone walked by, they'd lift the glass dome, grab the knife, saw off a cake hunk, and go about their business. In that family, walking around at Christmastime with a fistful of date nut cake was, and continues to be, the most natural thing in the world. 

I already knew that Colin was the man for me. But was I sure about his family?

I'd had a good feeling about them that June, and by late December, with all those disappearing and reappearing date nut cakes, it became pretty clear that, indeed, I'd found the right in-laws as well.

...

Recipe for Clifton's Date Nut Cake

My adoration of the date/nut combo preceded my introduction to the Rules by many years. I grew up eating date nut bread (not cake). Whereas date nut bread is gentle and tender, this date nut cake is heavy, dense, and could be employed, if needed, as a weapon against an unwelcome intruder.

You can use any kind of chopped, pitted dates here. I've pictured Medjools above, which produce a moister result, but you can also use commercially packaged chopped dates. If using moist dates, halve them, pit them, and then toss them with a teaspoon or two of flour to make them easier to chop.

Finally: this is definitely a breakfast cake or snack cake. I wouldn't serve it for dessert.

Serves 8 to 10, or more, depending

4 large eggs, separated 
1 pound chopped, pitted dates
1 pound pecans
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Position a rack in the lower part third of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees. Generously coat an angel food cake pan with nonstick spray. Line the bottom with a donut-shaped piece of parchment for easier removal.

In one bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff. Set aside.

In a separate, very large mixing bowl, stir together the dates, pecans, flour, sugar, and baking powder. 

In a third bowl, add the salt and vanilla to the egg yolks. Beat on high speed for several minutes, until thick and pale. Fold the yolk mixture into the date mixture. Mix well. Then fold in the egg whites thoroughly, so no white streaks show. The batter will be very heavy and tough to mix.

Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake for about 75 minutes, or until nicely browned and a tester comes out clean. (Check after one hour and cover lightly with foil if it's getting too dark.) Cool thoroughly in the pan. Run a knife along the inside and outside edge, then invert onto a rack. The cake should pop out.

printable pdf

Down the block, and around the world.

It took an American-born, Guatemela-raised North Carolinian and a grocery clerk with a Puerto Rican dad to lead me to a Mexican tienda twelve blocks from my California house.

What the?

Sandra Gutierrez and I met a few years ago at a food writing conference, and her smile stayed with me even after I'd crawled into bed, shut the light, and closed my eyes that first night. Hers is a big, warm, sincere smile, the kind that lingers and makes the world a sweeter place.

Sandra's first cookbook, The New Southern-Latino Table, fuses her Latin American roots with her Southern sensibilities, and the results are steeped deeply, and equally, in both traditions. Biscuits meet chiles, grits meet loroco (an "edible vine flower" common in Central America), and peach cobbler meets mango and tequila.

You'll find a solid introduction to ingredients with which you may be unfamiliar -- from chayote (a squash) to chiltepan (a fiery pepper) to yuca (a popular tuber). I'm game to try them all. That said, Sandra also seems quite fond of the Southern staple pimiento cheese, and I'm afraid I need to draw the line somewhere. Lo siento.

Happily, however, the two recipes I've made so far were wonderful. Sandra's Chile-Cheese Biscuits with avocado butter were rich, flaky affairs. I served them with a potful of her Nuevo Red Beans and Rice, thick with andouille sausage and meaty pork ribs. My Texas-bred husband -- a man who knows a thing or two about biscuits -- and my children, who enthusiastically welcomed all the bold flavors -- gave firm seals of approval to both.

The biscuits call for queso seco and the stew called for achiote oil, a mixture of achiote seeds steeped in olive oil.  My local supermarket had neither the cheese nor the seeds, but the young clerk whispered that his Puerto Rican father shopped at a small Mexican market that -- it turned out -- was just a few blocks from my house. I'd driven by it a thousand times without noticing it.

Later that evening, I had everything I needed.

Thanks to him -- and thanks, too, to Sandra, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Guatemala, and North Carolina.

It takes a village, and sometimes the whole world really is right outside your doorstep.

...

For the past several weeks, Sandra's friends and colleagues have been helping her spread the word about her book. More recipes from The New Southern-Latino Table are aggregated on Sandra's blog and on the website of her publisher, The University of North Carolina Press.

...

Recipe for Chile-Cheese Biscuits with Avocado Butter
from The New Southern Latino Table by Sandra Gutierrez

[[csr notes: This recipe yielded 17 biscuits for me, rather than the 12 indicated in the recipe. They freeze beautifully. If you have trouble finding the queso seco, take the time to look for a Latin or Mexican market in your neighborhood. You'll love knowing where it is. Also, if you don't have self-rising flour, simply add 1 tablespoon of baking powder and 1 teaspoon salt to 2 cups of all-purpose flour and proceed as directed.]]

Excerpted with permission of the University of North Carolina Press (2011).

For the biscuits:

2 cups self-rising flour
1 cup grated queso seco (use Parmesan cheese in a bind)
1 teaspoon ancho (or pasilla) chile powder
1/4 cup chilled lard, bacon fat, or shortening
1 poblano chile, roasted, peeled, seeded, deveined, and finely chopped
1 to 1-1/4 cups buttermilk
3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream

For the avocado butter:

2 Hass avocados
2 teaspoons lime juice
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Pinch freshly ground black pepper
Pinch dried Mexican oregano (optional)

Preheat the oven to 475°F. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cheese, and chile powder. Using a pastry blender (or two knives), cut the lard into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse sand. Stir in the chiles.

Gradually add the buttermilk, mixing the dough with a wooden spoon or your hands just until it holds together (you may not need all of the buttermilk). Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead it gently a couple of times.

Pat it into an 8-inch circle (about 1/2 inch thick). Using a well-floured 2 1/8-inch biscuit cutter, cut out 12 biscuits (you'll need to gather up the dough and pat it down again lightly after the first biscuits are cut to get all 12).

Place the biscuits, with sides touching, in a 10-inch springform or cake pan. With your knuckle, make a small indentation in the center of each biscuit; brush the tops of the biscuits with the cream. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.

To make the avocado butter, halve and pit the avocados; scoop out the flesh with a spoon into a medium bowl and mash into a smooth paste. Add the lime juice, salt, pepper, and oregano (if using) and stir until combined.  Serve the hot biscuits with avocado butter.

printable pdf

Tasting Oregon: a deeper look (pt. 2 of 2)

A tightly run, highly organized press trip is many things: fun, entertaining, and broadening. If you're lucky, you'll get to experience the very best a particular region has to offer.

And that’s great. But it’s only part of the story.  Oregon is an entire state, where there are kind people and jerks, sunny days and rainy ones, up-and-coming artists and those who can't make ends meet no matter how hard they try. To pretend otherwise, to pretend that this place is somehow uniquely devoid of the crime, poverty, hunger, and unemployment present in every other state of the U.S. would be silly.

A colleague of mine who has lived in Oregon for a decade and a half referred me to this article published just last week. Titled "Why are Oregon's children so hungry?," the piece notes that twenty percent of the state's population is on food stamps, and Oregon has the highest rate of food insecurity among children in the U.S.

And yet, she notes, the mayor of Portland is actually quite proactive in trying to combat these trends. "He's doing amazing work in making sure people at risk, in Portland anyway, have access to fresh local food. He's building orchards, taking the city's fallow land and turning it into gardens, getting funding for food stamp matches at farmer's markets, and even grows vegetables in his yard to give to the neighborhood." Pro.

There's also a high rate of homelessness: con.  And yet, "Most of them,” she says, “come here because the assistance for the homeless is better here than elsewhere." OK, so, pro. Meth is a big problem in the state: con.  And yet, treatment programs are available: so, pro.

I'm writing all this simply to provide some context -- a bit of a reality check, if you will -- for the wonderful food, wine, and genuinely impressive culinary artistry I encountered. It’s great, but let’s keep our feet on the ground while we enjoy it.

On to the food. As before, the descriptions below correspond to the slideshow above.

Father-daughter team Erica and Bruce Reininger of Arrowhead Chocolates represents the merger of two generations into a single, family-owned company. Bruce was a fish biologist, then a logger, then a web designer, and then he decided he wanted to learn how to make chocolate. So he studied like mad to master his craft. Erica is his apprentice. A graphic designer by trade, she helps her father create beautiful chocolates in the family's 1,500 square foot shop in Joseph, a small town in Eastern Oregon. Erica and Bruce taught us to make the dipped salted caramels pictured in last week’s slide show.

Jenn Louis of Lincoln Restaurant and Sunshine Tavern appears next. A former caterer, she operates two successful restaurants (her early efforts a few years ago tanked with the rough economy). In 2010, she was named a semifinalist by the James Beard Foundation for Best Chef Northwest. Her grilled octopus with mizuna, cucumber, and pimenton was outstanding.

Cousins Kim and Tyler Malek operate Salt & Straw, a “farm to cone” ice cream company that has enjoyed a sharp uptick in local and national interest in an extremely short time. The pair started with a cart on May 26, 2011, and upgraded to a brick-and-mortar “scoop shop” less than 3 months later. We tasted a flight of ice creams, among them lemon-basil sorbet, strawberry ice cream with coriander, and melon ice cream with coppa, an Italian-style dry-cured pork. Fatty, creamy, unique, and very, very tasty.

Stephen McCarthy is a distiller, and we got to visit the orchard where he sources the pears for his liqueurs and eau-de-vies. Because pears grow on the end of long branches, McCarthy and his staff affix bottles to the trees -- so that the pears actually grow inside the bottles. Walking the property is both amusing and surreal, with bottles hanging upside down everywhere you turn. Among several other fruit-based spirits, McCarthy’s Clear Creek Distillery also makes a Douglas Fir eau-de-vie, which is bright green, and very boozy. It tastes like a tree.

Another chocolatier brings up the rear of the show. David Briggs founded Xocolatl de David 2½ years ago with $50 from his paycheck as a savory chef at Park Kitchen. He grew his business and acknowledges the enormous amount of support he has received from other local chefs and artisans. His “savory-forward” chocolate-making style means he’ll incorporate ingredients like chiccharrones, which he makes himself, into his chocolates, many of which skate on the  less sweet side. I’m not much of a pork-in-my-chocolate kind of girl, but I’m crazy for his two-bite Raleigh Bars. These blocks of pecans, nougat, caramel, and chocolate, with a hint of fleur de sel, are ridiculous, and I’ve been hiding them from my family.

The trip ended late Saturday night, September 10^th. This meant I would be flying home the next morning, on the 10^th anniversary of 9/11, a fact that gave me tremendous anxiety and pause. I got to the airport early, bought a cup of tea, and heard a woman playing guitar. I wandered towards the music, unchaperoned for the first time in days. A sign said her name was Gayle Ritt.

She sang Home on the Range, and it was slow, and beautiful, and haunting. My shoulders relaxed. Then she sang America, The Beautiful, sweetly, and softly. I breathed in. I breathed out. When I boarded my flight 30 minutes later, my stress was gone.

When I got home, I emailed her. I told her how much her music meant to me on that particular day.

She emailed me back.

I asked if I could use her music behind my slideshow.

And she said yes.

And that part – that part was totally unscripted. That part was pure Portland.

Tasting Oregon: land of freekeh, cow parsnips, and verjusette (pt. 1 of 2)

Last weekend, Travel Oregon invited me and about 20 others to experience the culinary scene both within and beyond Portland's borders. Disclosure: they paid for everything.

My hope is that even though my expenses were paid, I can still provide meaningful, informative food coverage of some locales worth visiting. I try to be thoughtful. I try to approach these experiences with a critical eye. But whether I've succeeded is ultimately for you to determine yourselves.

Below is a key to my photos, which appear in the slide show above. In a follow-up post, I'll introduce you to some local artisans and their food crafts, and give you my sense of this changing, growing, youthful, and very quirky city -- warts and all.

Frame 1. Lovely Mt. Hood on a clear September day. Kayaks drifted. Trillium Lake sparkled. Flowers flowered.

Frame 2. A picnic bench at Penner-Ash Winery (15771 NE Ribbon Ridge Road, Newberg, OR). Dusk. I wanted to lie on that table, flat on my back, and gaze at the sky.

Frame 3. Powell's (flagship: 1005 W Burnside, Portland). I wandered the 68,000 square-foot bookstore, then got lost walking back to the hotel even while using the turn-by-turn on my phone's GPS. This is not unusual for me.

Frame 4. Dinner at St. Jack (2039 SE Clinton Street, Portland), named 2011 Rising Star of the Year by the The Oregonion. Highlights included the crispy-salty frites, chicken liver mousse, and...

Frame 5. ...a dessert of plums and vanilla poached pluots.

Frame 6. I like tea. This is no surprise. Portland is home to a fine little shop called Steven Smith Teamaker (1626 NW Thurman Street, Portland), which I'd toured back in 2010. Pictured is one of their herbal bags (Meadow?). I'd like to tape it above my desk, for art. It's prettier than what's up there now, which are some crappily framed postcards I bought when I was 17.

Frame 7. Dr. John Kallas led us on a leisurely forage through the woods and took care to point out several leaves and berries that would cause hemorrhaging and instant death should we consume them. I'd had romantic visions of piling a wicker basket high with chanterelles, or pretty twigs, but there was something equally pleasant, and less taxing, about listening to him speak knowledgeably about huckleberries, thimbleberries, baneberries, and cow parsnips, the lower stem of which can be peeled and eaten like a banana. I bet you did not know this.

Frame 8. A foraged salad at Timberline Lodge (27500 E Timberline Road), a ski lodge founded in the 1930s in the throes of the Great Depression under Roosevelt's New Deal. If you're an architecture buff, you'll enjoy this place and its historical importance. There were a lot of old people milling about, but that didn't faze me because a) I enjoy old people, and b) I was fed a salad of smooth yellow violet, indian paintbrush, wild ginger, tiny tomatoes, bush berries, huckleberries, and verjusette. I swear I did make any of that up. Executive Chef Jason Stoller Smith knows how to make food plucked from the forest taste like it came right from the earth. Oh, wait.

Frame 9. He also knows how to make ice cream threaded with pineapple weed, which pairs especially well with peaches and something he casually refers to as vanilla-olive oil powder.

Frame 10. Picturesque McCurdy Farms orchard (2080 Tucker Road, Hood River). The pears here grow in bottles. I'm not kidding. They grow inside bottles. More on that next time.

Frame 11. Here is a pear. I do recognize that this one is not, in fact, growing inside a bottle.

Frame 12. This man is making burgers on the roof-deck of the Wieden+Kennedy Ad Agency, which  handles accounts for Nike, Kraft, Target, and (dingdingding) Travel Oregon. The building itself is crazy-ridiculous and security guards about the same age as my kids are apparently keeping all kinds of corporate secrets very safe. I'm glad they were there protecting me, too, since I was very busy eating sliders.

Frame 13. Sliders! These are the beef ones from Chef Gregory Denton of Metrovino (1139 NW 11th, Portland). They had a fancy sauce. (The menu actually said "fancy sauce.")

Frame 14. A close-in, mildly disorienting look at a gorgeous freekeh salad with toasted hazelnuts, pickled cherries (!), and borage flowers (!) from Chef Scott Dolich of Park Kitchen (422 NW 8th, Portland). Freekeh is a grain. Borage is a flower. They are both real things.

Frame 15. Dark chocolate-dipped caramels with sea salt. I dipped them myself. More on those next time.

Frame 16. And this is the real spirit of Oregon right here. There were 3 unscripted moments in the trip, all on the last day. Passing this sign while boarding my flight home was one of them. You'll have to wait for the other two.

Go on now.

Get out of here.

If aliens invade, I shall sleep well.

Let's start with the recipes in Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty that I have no interest in. This will prove that I have a critical eye and don't always give a ringing endorsement to everything in my possession. Of course, this criticism has never actually been leveled at me, but given my generally paranoid personality I'd like to prepare a preemptive defense.

Resolved: I will not make the following four dishes.

Cabbage and kohlrabi salad
Okra with tomato, lemon and cilantro
Stuffed onions
Scrambled smoky duck eggs on sourdough

I think that's pretty much it. The remaining recipes in this stunning 287 page book I will probably make, eat, and hyperventilate about at some point, which is why I plunked down $35 (full price!) at an actual, physical bookstore just over a month ago. Locals who have never been to Books Inc. on Castro Street in Mountain View should really get some shabu-shabu and then walk over to show this indie bookshop some love. If you invite me to join you, I probably will. Let's shabu!

Also, did I mention that Plenty has a pillow-top cover, like a mattress? I would totally fall asleep on it should aliens invade the Earth and steal my bedding.

Several recipes speak to me in seductive, come-hither tones, including the Very Full Tart (with red and yellow peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, feta, and ricotta), the Artichoke Gratin, the Cardamom Rice with Poached Eggs and Yogurt, and the Figs with Basil, Goat Cheese, and Pomegranate Vinaigrette. Add to that list about 50 more.

I recently commandeered the book's Green Couscous to make this huge salad, which I brought to a pool party at my friend Becky's. The dish is quite substantial, plus I tripled it, so it fed about 60 million people. The spray of summer vegetables elicited oohs and ahhs, and since I used whole wheat couscous, I also earned a perfect 10 on the whole grain richter scale. Take that, Nadia Comăneci.

But the real reason you should give this book a look is the lusciousness of the photographs and the sheer splendiferousness of the recipes. This is a book I am very thankful came out a year before my own. I hope it will prime the pump so that when RIPE hits, people are all, YES! WE LOVE VEGETARIAN COOKBOOKS WRITTEN BY PEOPLE WHO ALSO LOVE SHABU-SHABU!

Not that I know whether Yotam Ottolenghi even eats shabu-shabu. But if he does, and he invites me to join him, I probably will.

...

Recipe for Big Couscous Potluck Salad with corn, feta, and herbs

This salad would make an ideal contribution to a Labor Day potluck. Go ahead and swap in any vegetables that are abundant near you. The herb paste makes it green, and beautiful, and special.

Inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty (Chronicle Books, 2011)

Serves 12 (may be halved)

6 ears corn, husks and silks stripped and discarded
1/2 pound green beans, trimmed
3 cups whole wheat couscous
2-1/4 cups boiling water (I use a tea kettle)
1/3 cup (loosely packed) flat-leaf parsley
1 small bunch cilantro, leaves and upper (tender) stems only
1 cup (loosely packed) mint leaves
1/2 cup (loosely packed) basil leaves
2/3 cup olive oil, plus more for drizzling
4 to 8 small ripe orange, red, or yellow tomatoes, quartered
4 to 6 ounces crumbled feta

Prepare an ice bath and set aside.

Bring a tea kettle and a large pot of water to a boil. Boil the corn in the pot until tender, about 4 minutes (more or less), assuming it's very fresh. Work in two batches, if necessary. Remove the corn with tongs and set aside to cool. Before dumping the water, drop in the green beans and boil for 2 to 3 minutes, until al dente. Drain the beans and transfer to the ice bath. Drain again and pat dry.

Set the couscous in a large serving bowl. Pour 2-1/4 cups boiling water from the tea kettle over the couscous, cover, and set aside for 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

Meanwhile, make the herb paste. Drop all the herbs into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Drizzle in the olive oil and whirl until blended and emulsified. Scrape over the couscous and fork through. Cut the corn kernels from the cobs. Fork half of the corn through the couscous.  Taste, and season with salt and pepper, if desired. Transfer to your widest, largest serving bowl.

Sprinkle the remaining corn on top. Mound the tomatoes and green beans in the center of the bowl. Sprinkle the entire lot with the feta. Just before serving, drizzle generously with additional olive oil. Serve at room temperature.

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They were old, and I was young, but then things changed.

A year used to be a gulf. Two years, an ocean.

When I was a high school freshman, my best friend and I met two boys on Casino Night who were juniors. I'm going to skip the rest of the story, but suffice it to say that the fact that these boys were 16 to our 14 was an enormous deal, and pretty much all we could talk about.  "They're JUNIORS!"  "I KNOW!!!"  "Can you believe they're seriously JUNIORS?" "I seriously KNOW!"

Two years later, when I was a junior myself, I occasionally gave a sophomore a ride to school. I could drive, and he was on my way. And I thought to myself, you know, I am just so grown-up and he is such a young kid, and isn't he lucky to know someone as old as me who has this amazing ability to transport him in a working motor vehicle.

Fast forward.

This morning, I had coffee with someone a decade younger than me.

And in two weeks, I'm having coffee with someone born in 1988.

I was not born in 1988.

And yet, somehow or other, we are peers. This amuses me.

My professional circle, like yours (I'm guessing), is vast, broad, and diverse. And the age range is tremendous. Depending on whom I'm with, I either feel like a crypt keeper, or a fetus. It's all relative, and I kind of love it.

Food is relative, too. On sweltering days, hot soup is a death wish. On breezier days, it's just the ticket -- welcome, comforting, and altogether perfect.

Make this on a breezier day.

...

Recipe for Golden Split Pea Soup with summer squash, tomato, and za'atar oil

Though I know it's summer, try this beautiful, silky soup on a cool evening. Don't skip the lemon or the tomato, but if you can't find or don't have za'atar, simply substitute dried herbs of your choice. And fresh sweet corn kernels would make a fine stand-in for the squash. (Just add them at the end.)

Serves 4

1-1/4 cups yellow split peas
1 medium or 2 small yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced
1 bay leaf
3 tablespoons + 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 small onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, smashed and minced
1 large carrot, diced
1/2 large or 2 small yellow squash (unpeeled), diced
2 tablespoons za'atar, divided
1 large, ripe tomato, diced
1 lemon
Salt and pepper

Examine the split peas and pick out any stones. Rinse under cool water in a fine mesh strainer and dump into a medium pot. Add the potatoes, bay leaf, and 6 cups cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer steadily (uncovered) until the peas are tender, about 30 minutes, adding 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper towards the end of cooking. Remove from the heat.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet over medium heat, warm 3 tablespoons of the olive oil. Add the onion, garlic, carrot, squash, and 1 tablespoon of the za'atar. Season generously with salt and pepper. (Don't skimp.) Saute for 10 minutes, stirring once or twice, until the vegetables begin to brown. Then lower the heat and saute until tender, 5 to 10 minutes longer. Sprinkle the tomato on top.

In a small bowl, stir the remaining 1/4 cup olive oil with the remaining tablespoon of za'atar. Set aside.

Discard the bay leaf. Puree the peas and potatoes. (I use a stick blender right in the pot.) Squeeze in a generous amount of fresh lemon juice, to taste, and correct the seasonings.

To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and spoon a giant heap of vegetables on top. Drizzle with the za'atar oil and spritz with more lemon, if desired.

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Pasta Never Really Left (But It's Back Anyway)

I remember, back in the 80s, when all of a sudden you were allowed to eat pasta all the time.  When sun-dried tomatoes took over the world, and pink vodka sauce was the height of sophistication.  My mother and I would order penne alla vodka at a little place on Third Avenue in New York City, and I would feel Extremely Grown Up, because, you know, it had vodka in it.

Those were good, pasta-loving times, the 80s were.  On happy days, I'd slurp linguini with white clam sauce, and on sad ones, I'd drown my sorrows in Velveeta shells and cheese.  It was all pasta, all the time, with an occasional break for a Yoo-Hoo or a bag of Smartfood.

So it was with great delight that I learned that my friend and colleague Domenica Marchetti, an expert in authentic Italian cuisine, devoted her third cookbook to pasta in all its carbo-loaded glory.  The Glorious Pasta of Italy (Chronicle Books, 2011) is a classy, almost rustic-looking cookbook filled with Italian recipes both elegant and homey.  In it, Marchetti teaches how to flavor fresh pasta sheets with pumpkin, saffron, and spinach, and how to enrich hearty sauces with vegetables, meats, and shellfish.  While accessible to the home cook, there's a lot to chew on here, so I'd recommend it more for a serious pasta enthusiast than a scatterbrained dilettante.  Some of the recipes do take time.

But not all. The BLT Bucatini, for example, was ready in about 35 minutes. (I cheated -- see below.)  Others, like Pot Roast Pappardelle, yield two meals at once, creating instant leftovers with no extra work.

Marchetti is the genius behind some of the most popular recipes on 5 Second Rule, including these smoked mozzarella arancini and this rib-sticking pork ragu. Her recipes really work, and they leave no one at the table hungry. 

To see more sample recipes from The Glorious Pasta of Italy, visit Domenica Cooks.  There, Marchetti has aggregated links to posts such as this one, so you can get a little taste of the book and try some recipes out for yourself. 

Slurp.

...

Recipe for BLT Bucatini, adapted from The Glorious Pasta of Italy by Domenica Marchetti

If you like BLT sandwiches, you'll love this clever variation. Pancetta stands in for the bacon, arugula for the lettuce, and pasta for the bread.  Also, while the recipe instructed me to roast cherry tomatoes for 2 to 3 hours in a low oven, I roasted mine for only 15 minutes on the convection setting. I tell you, the results were fantastic, and even with more time on my hands, I'd probably cheat like this again in a heartbeat. 

Serves 4

1 pound grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 ounces thickly sliced pancetta, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 pound bucatini or thick spaghetti
8 ounces arugula (baby or regular)
1/2 cup freshly shredded pecorino romano (or parmesan) cheese

If you have a convection setting on your oven, preheat it to 250 degrees / convection.  (If not, preheat it to 275 degrees, and cook the tomatoes about 25 percent longer, or as long as time allows.  The longer, the better.)  On a rimmed baking sheet, set the tomatoes cut-sides up and drizzle with 3 tablespoons of the olive oil.  Sprinkle with the garlic, and season well with salt and pepper.  Roast in the oven until their juices exude and they begin to shrivel, about 15 minutes, or longer if time allows.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil.

Warm the remaining one tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet and over medium heat.  Add the pancetta and saute until the fat renders and the meat turns crispy, 12 to 15 minutes.  Tip off about half the rendered fat.  When the tomatoes are ready, scrape them (and their juices) into the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.  Cover to keep warm.

Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to package directions, until al dente.  Before draining, reserve 1 cup of pasta water.  Drain.

Transfer the pasta to the skillet with the tomatoes and toss to combine thoroughly.  Add a bit of the pasta water to loosen the sauce, then toss in the arugula one handful at a time, turning everything with tongs so the heat wilts the arugula.  Serve hot, sprinkled with the shredded pecorino.

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