Arizona to Little Compton: Blog Limbo

I tried to plan my packing for RI around the blog, I really did. Now that I am too far away to drive back and forth without eating up two weeks, I ship a few boxes to Little Compton in advance, timed so they will arrive a day or so before I do. Into the boxes go the heavy clothing—the sweatshirts and cotton sweaters for walks on a windy beach, the rubber shoes for walks in dew-soaked early-morning fields—the farm dresses and other country clothes, and the stuff I will need to get some work done. That is the tricky part—deciding what can be packed and sent off weeks in advance that will not be needed in the meantime, and what has to be held back to bring on the plane.  Fear of forgetting a certain item can color one’s judgment, and regret invariably sets in a day or so after dropping the boxes off to UPS, when you suddenly need something that you were a little too worried about leaving behind.

This year it was the cable for transferring photos from my camera to my computer. I like to use a camera rather than my iphone for blog photos, although in practice I tend to use both. I packed the cable in one of the boxes because I didn’t want to forget it, and now I can’t transfer the photos I took for the blog this week. The cable from my old camera (this one is new), doesn’t fit; it has a microscopically different shaped plug that goes into the camera. Really, Olympus and Canon, get with the program.

So I can’t show you the peach and raspberry tart I made with the really nice Arizona cling peaches I bought at the farmer’s market this week. They were, like the strawberries a few weeks ago, from Yuma, and they were drop-dead gorgeous: juicy, sweet, tender. That’s them mixed in with other local produce (fabulous tomatoes); the growing season is in full swing here. I’ve been drawing down inventory prior to leaving for the rest of the summer, and made roughly this peach pizza recipe, but used a butter-lard pastry I had in the freezer and added 6 ounces of raspberries (they’ve been incredibly cheap). This was the most psychedelically colorful tart I’ve ever made: the bright orangey peach slices and the brilliant cerise of the raspberries (odd how the names of two different fruits seem more descriptive here than their own). A picture is worth many words, so I will post one when I am reunited with my camera cable. See you in LC.

P.S. I just noticed that a post from a few years ago on grassfed beef has appeared as a post for today. Haven't got a clue...

Rhode Island Red Fruit: Currants and Raspberries

I stopped by the fruit lady’s this weekend, timing my visit from long experience with the hope of catching, not just the fruit before it was gone, but the farmer herself and her husband. It was nearly the 4^th, which means: time to negotiate the delicate dance of acquiring a share of the sour cherries. Over the years I have come to realize that one reason that this is so tricky is that they want some too. The nerve.
Fortuitously, the fruit lady was driving out in her golf cart from the field just as I got out of my car; when I pulled up, there was no fruit on the stand, and no one in sight, and I had determined to risk offense by venturing out behind the house. This is not always prudent, as, of course, neither am I. So I was glad to see her coming toward me.
We (her husband soon buzzed up on his little tractor) had the first of several conversations (negotiations) about the cherries that would culminate a week or so later in my securing, with great difficulty, two quarts of fruit, about which more next week. For now, there were the currants and the first raspberries, and I thought how early July truly is the time of red fruits in Rhode Island. Hence, the little in-joke of Rhode Island Red Fruits, and Rhode Island Red muffins. Couldn’t resist.
As you know from prior rants, I truly cannot stand the common bakery muffin—cake-like, sugary, huge. The one I offer below is an old-fashioned muffin of the non-mutant, non-cake type. It has a nice balance of crisp outside and tender, crumbly inside—as it should.
Rhode Island Red Muffins
No, not muffins made of chickens, or muffins for chickens—just a little play on words. These are all currants, but you could use half currants and half raspberries; I just happened to eat all of mine. Makes 12-15, depending on your pan.
Topping 1 c bread flour
½ c lt brown sugar, packed
5 T unsalted butter, melted
½ tea cinnamon
Big pinch (about 1/8 tea) baking powder
Small pinch salt
Muffin batter 2 c a-p flour
½ cup RI jonnycake or other white stoneground cornmeal 
4 tea baking powder
½ c sugar
½ tea salt
6 T unsalted butter, melted
¾ c half and half
2 T pure maple syrup
1 lg egg
1 cup, generous, currants or half currants and half raspberries

Preheat oven to 375F. Generously butter a standard muffin tin.
To make the topping

Blend the flour with the cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Dump in the packed sugar, pour the butter over, and use a fork in a chopping motion to combine the sugar with the flour until the flour the mixture is moistened and crumbly. Set aside.
To make the batter
Stem and pick over the currants and put them in a small bowl.
Mix all dry ingredients in a 2-qt bowl. Remove a large handful of the mixture and add it to the currants, tossing gently with your hand to coat.
Pour the milk into a measuring cup; add the maple syrup and the egg. Beat with a fork til blended. Add to the dry mixture, stirring just long enough to combine, with a wooden spoon. Pour the currants and any excess flour mixture into the batter; fold it in using your hand.
Drop the batter into buttered muffin tin, filling about ¾ full. Sprinkle each muffin with some of the crumb mixture to reach the top. Bake about 18-22 minutes, rotating the pan once, until the tops of the muffins (a little will show through the crumbs) begin to turn golden and the fruit starts to ooze a little; the currants, though, will mostly hold their shape. Remove to a rack; let cool for 5 minutes; then turn out on the rack to cool ‘til warm enough to handle. Break with your hands and serve with butter. If you freeze the extras, be sure to re-warm either in the toaster oven of, if in the microwave, at low power as briefly as possible.

        

Drawing Down Inventory IV: Frozen Strawberries and Raspberries

 

For several reasons, I am under pressure to get the freezer fully cleaned out a little earlier than usual. More about that later. Spring is the time of anticipation, so that can wait.

Taking stock, so to speak, of the freezer, reveals an awful lot of frozen berries (it should be spelled aweful, not awful, because what could be bad about a lot of berries?). I often make muffins with frozen berries, an item to which they are well suited; muffins are quick, and when you are cleaning out the freezer, that is perhaps the most desirable feature in a suitable application. Another is recipes that use a large quantity—with muffins, that is usually not the case.

So I made some muffins—lemon-strawberry (lemons are cheap again right now). But also some coulis, which has the virtue of letting you easily use as much as you have and will keep nicely in the refrigerator for a few weeks to garnish other items made from other freezer inventory. Hmm. There’s something wrong with this picture, but I don’t have time to puzzle it through. I’m sure, however, that it has to do with some sort of major philosophical question about the weird cycle of hoarding and disgorging, or about pareto optimality—are we making things we would not otherwise make? Thankfully, I am not an economist, so don’t feel compelled to answer that one. And can take comfort in the knowledge that any answer the economists come up with will be wrong.

Frozen Fruit Coulis

I like to use a coulis for its fruity berry flavor, not for sweetness. This does not contain much sugar. The touch of pepper gives it a subtle edge. Makes about 2 ½ cups.

4 cups whole frozen berries (I used about half raspberries and half strawberries; the raspberries dominate) 
1 ½ cups cane sugar
Juice of half a lemon (about 2 T)
Pinch salt and white pepper

Combine all ingredients in a nonreactive, preferably slope-sided, pan. Bring to a boil and cook, skimming and stirring, for about 5 minutes, breaking up the larger berries with the edge of a wooden spoon. Strain over a bowl, pressing the solids against the side of the strainer. Strain again to catch any escaped seeds (if you have a small strainer, you can do this directly into jars). Pour into jars or other containers; store in the refrigerator and use to garnish cakes, desserts,  and cold meats/composed salads.

 

                   

Early Raspberries

I’ve been considering a revision to Mark Twain’s oft-repeated words about New England weather—to paraphrase, if you don’t like it, just wait a minute. A little arrogant, I know, but surely anyone in New England would agree to a change, or at least an alternate version, of “If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a year.” Last summer was an unmitigated disaster for everyone from farmers to merchants and restaurants and vacationers. It rained. It was cold. And it never stopped. We went from winter to winter with scarcely a break, with only the calendar to tell us what season it was. This year is its polar (ha) opposite: sunny, warm, already bursting with bounty. Everything is early.

My father, trained as an Air Force pilot in World War II, used to look up at the sky and say things like, “It’s going to clear in an hour” when it was deeply and threateningly gray, or “it’s going to rain at around 3:00” when it was sunny and pleasant. I have my own version of that predictive skill. I can tell, based on spring weather, what summer is going to be like, and based on early summer weather, what fall will be like, and by late summer, what winter will be like. Actually, it’s not skill; it’s the product of close observation, my more than 40 years of living in New England and being someone who is very sensitive to weather (simply put: thrive in summer, hibernate in winter).

Two scenarios present themselves at this moment in time. One, and currently what I consider to be most likely, is that “summer,” weather-wise, will come to a close by mid-August, when it will turn so-called unseasonably cool and rainy, a harbinger for a not-so-nice fall and a hard winter. Always hopeful, however, there is the possibility that our present glorious weather will persist through the summer, a good sign for a nice fall and mild winter—and extended agricultural bounty until the end of October. We’ll know soon enough.

Either way, I kind of win, weather-wise, because I will be departing in August. Meanwhile, the raspberries are in. (The strawberries, which improved over the weeks as the weather became dry and sunny, are in their final picking.) The currants are here, and the gooseberries, and, amazingly, the first sour cherries. The Harts of fruit lady fame say that even the blueberries are ripening way ahead of schedule.

One might well fear that this sudden and rapid abundance will be followed by a long stretch of nothing before the peaches and apples come in. But compared to last year, when all we had was nothing, I’ll take that. And doesn’t that mean the peaches and apples could be early too? This could be my best summer yet.

Just a prediction.

Raspberries with Pourable Tapioca Cream

It is hard to do anything else with the first raspberries than eat them out of hand. But this old-fashioned dessert treats them lightly and maintains their fresh state. Good for breakfast, too. Serves 4.

Tapioca Cream

2 cups milk (2% is OK)
1 generous T instant tapioca
Pinch salt
1 egg, separated
¼ cup, scant, pure cane sugar
¼ tea vanilla

Fresh raspberries or other juicy fresh fruit such as strawberries or peaches

Scald the milk; add the tapioca and salt and cook, stirring, over medium heat for 15 minutes. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolk with the sugar. Stir a few tablespoons of the milk- tapioca mixture into the egg and sugar, then stir the entire egg-sugar mixture back into the pan of milk-tapioca. Bring to a low boil and cook, stirring, for a minute or so, until it begins to thicken. Remove from the heat, pour into a bowl, and add the vanilla. Beat the egg white stiff and fold into the tapioca until completely incorporated but still airy. Chill. Pour the cream over raspberries or other juicy summer fruit, or layer in a coupe or wine glass. Leftovers may be refrigerated; just stir lightly to reincorporate any liquid that has settled.

P.S. Anne just brought me a piece of sour cherry pie for my breakfast. Life is good.

Raspberry Riches

 

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many, and such beautiful, raspberries as over these past few days. Both the stand itself and the counter of the sorting trailer at the fruit lady’s were a veritable showroom of raspberry perfection. Off to the side were the equally wonderful currants, including the last of the white ones; a few pints of big blueberries; and one pint of jostaberries, a flavorful black currant and gooseberry cross. But the raspberries dominated the scene.

Their abundance fits into the pipeline theory of supply and demand. The raspberries continued to ripen up over several non-picking days of rain, and by the time it cleared (temporarily; we are getting inches of rain as I write this) there were two or three times the usual daily amount to pick—I’d estimate a good 6 quarts in overflowing 1-cup containers were out when I stopped by late in the afternoon, and that is after the heavy morning buying. All too often in past summers you would arrive too late, or stand politely over the last cup with someone else, taking turns saying, “no, you take it,” or “no, you” (or, just as often, someone would come up behind you while you were getting your money out for the can and snatch that last cup with a determined, needy entitlement). So many raspberries in the pipeline means that farmstand graciousness prevails, everyone gets their share, and we can pop an entire container in our mouths on the way home and still have plenty for baking. We are truly long in raspberries in today’s market.

I will confess, though, that raspberries are not my favorite for baking. Of course they are very good. But their flavor is sweetest and raspberry-truest when fresh, so for the most part I eat them out of hand, and I think most people do too. Subjected to heat, they become a bit sour, although nicely juicy, and a bit overpowering. Compensate with a little more than usual sugar, and use them for plain things that you don’t want too sweet anyway, such as sour-milk pancakes, muffins, or buckles—or go the other extreme and use in them in a sorbet, which has a high proportion of sugar. Also on the high-sugar side, raspberry jam is always nice, and there are enough now that you could easily do that; be very careful not to overcook it to preserve the flavor. And of course, there are also plenty available for freezing for the dead of winter, which I recommend. Spread them out on a cookie sheet, place in your freezer for a few hours, then seal in quart plastic bags.

 

Raspberry Cardamom Muffins

This is a standard muffin recipe. Makes 12.

2 cups pastry or a-p flour
½ cup sugar
½ tea cardamom
½ tea salt
4 tea baking powder
1 cup whole milk
2 T unsalted butter, melted
2 T lard, melted
1 large egg
1 cup, generous, raspberries

Optional

2 T sugar
½ tea cardamom

Preheat oven to 400 F. Lightly grease a muffin tin and set aside.

Sift dry ingredients and stir together. Lightly combine milk, egg, and fats, and stir in, folding the mixture over, until just combined. Fold in the berries. Distribute the batter in the muffin tin and, if desired, sprinkle with a little cardamom-sugar. Bake for about 20 minutes; let cool in pan for a few minutes before turning out onto a rack.