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.

Strawberry Fields—Not Forever II

Did I mention that strawberries, indeed berries of all kinds, cry out to be matched with corn? Strawberries are very nice as an accompaniment to this little cake, a plain, slightly sweet, eminently sliceable little summer dessert. This has the added benefit of being gluten-free and has no leavening aside from beaten egg whites. Made with stoneground Rhode Island jonnycake cornmeal, it has a satisfying bite and could not be more local. For a finer texture, use regular  yellow cornmeal.

 

Little Corn Cake

1 cup RI jonnycake cornmeal or yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tea salt
3 eggs, separated
1 stick unsalted butter, melted

 

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Butter a 6” cake pan, preferably aluminum. Line with wax paper and butter or spray with Pam.

Combine half the cornmeal with the sugar and salt; make a little well in the center and drop in the egg yolks. Slowly add the melted butter, stirring to incorporate until all is absorbed. Add the rest of the cornmeal.  Beat the egg whites until stiff and shiny, and fold into the batter. Pour into the buttered pan.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, until brown and a skewer comes out clean. It should be very brown, and will look sort of like a big Thomas’s corn toastie (don’t let it get as dark around the edge as in the photo; I don’t have the right pan with me).  Turn out onto a rack to cool, and cut into thin slices, and serve with strawberries or other fresh fruit, and a little Vin Santo or other light dessert wine.

 

 

  

 

 

Strawberry Fields—Not Forever I

Nothing lasts forever. For example, I am back in Little Compton (hurrah!) and you can bet that the time will fly and I will be headed back to dreaded Nashville well before the tomatoes hit their glorious peak in September. And the local Little Compton strawberries are here—it is June, after all—and those will soon be gone.

But fleeting pleasures are to be savored, so I am already deep into rural, coastal life and into the strawberries. I’ve made a small batch of strawberry jam, eaten a bunch of berries out of hand, used them to make the really nice Welcome to LC cocktail below, and garnished lots of stuff—cereal, salad, cake. And I’ve only been here four days. Maybe it’s just as well that strawberry fields are not forever. On to the blueberries!—next month.

 

Welcome to LC Cocktail

I adore Campari in the summer; it is remarkably refreshing on a hot day (we are in the 90’s this weekend) garnished with soda and lime, and it is a fabulous match with orange. This cocktail combines all. Serves 1.

Strawberry Syrup

1 ½ cups sliced strawberries
½ cup pure cane sugar or regular sugar
½ cup water
¼ cup Campari (optional)

Put everything together into a saucepan, bring to a boil, and boil for two or three minutes, chopping the strawberries with the edge of a wooden spoon. Remove from the heat and let sit until it is clear and settled, about 5 minutes. Strain, pressing down with the back of the spoon but not so hard that you force the seeds through. Makes about 1 cup.

The Cocktail

1 ½ oz Campari
¼ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
3 T strawberry syrup
3 oz, approx., brut rosé champagne or club soda
1 small sliced strawberry

Stir the first three ingredients in a cocktail shaker or jar with ice until cold. Strain into an 8-oz capacity glass. Top with champagne or club soda and garnish with strawberries and a slice of lime.

                           

Last Class: Food for Students

I am astonished to be posting for the first time without photos and a recipe, but also in a small way consider it a personal breakthrough for having transcended guilt over not doing everything, and also determined to be as reliably posting every week as I was for years. So. A post with no photos, but still, something. And it is, at least, about food.

At the end of every semester, I make a meal for whichever of my graduate classes falls on the last day of term. I of course did something different every time, until enough students who had taken classes with me previously started asking for the same thing again. That thing was: pulled pork with the fixins’: homemade barbecue sauce, my inimitable cole slaw (nothing, really, but for some reason the people who don’t like cole slaw love it), homemade rolls, pound cake­—sometimes pimiento cheese to start. I am, after all, in Nashville during the academic year.

I teach my last class before leaving for Little Compton on Thursday, and I am way too busy to cook tonight (OK, I made a piece of grilled chicken and some lemon-parmesan rice, but that’s not blog-worthy). But nevertheless, I am thinking about what I can make for the students for lunch on the last day of class. Something simple, that will not take too long. I am determined not to do the pulled pork again, despite the pleas. But most of all—and those of you who know me will know the horror with which I say this—I am trying to think of something that can be refrigerated. Without being ruined, that is.

This rules out chicken salad--completely. Quiche. Potato salad. Grilled lamb or flank steak. Enchiladas. Shrimp. OK, pretty much everything worth eating. What does one make when it must be done the night before and not served until Noon the next day, after teaching since 9:30 in the morning?

I am going to go for the notion that the last thing eaten will be the most remembered, and make my friend Trina’s Greek Lemon Nut Cake. Deceptively simple and delicious. But for the main event? Still struggling. Leaning toward a pasta salad of some sort, even though they are plebeian and I never really enjoy them (because they are, well, refrigerated). Some grilled red peppers, onion, and radicchio, maybe some asparagus, some grilled chicken, lots of olive oil and lemon and parsley and parm, perhaps a little smoked country ham and some nuts. At least it’s do-able under the circumstances. I content myself with the knowledge that the students will, for the most part, not know the difference from refrigerated chicken or not.

Or maybe I should just do the pulled pork?

Red Romaine: Bloody Caesar

It’s hot, hot, hot here—still 82 degrees at 10:00 at night, after a blistering 90s earlier today. Not complaining: I love the heat. But when it came time to turn on the grill to cook my pork tenderloin, I decided I just wasn’t that hungry. I was planning to make a salad anyway, but decided to make it my meal. One of the very best stand-alone salads, in my opinion, is a Caesar salad. It’s got protein. It’s filling. It’s got lemon and garlic. It’s tangy and delicious. And it’s finger food. My favorite way to eat.

OK, I may have just lost you at the finger food part. Yes, Caesar salad can, in fact was meant to be, eaten without utensils. You can dunk the whole leaves into the dressing, like giant crudités. Or you can do what I do—at least when I’m alone—and dress the leaves, then pick them up and eat them. It’s a bit messy, like eating ribs or something, but only a bit. And it’s very satisfying.

There is very, very nice red romaine lettuce from California available now. We’ll have our own within the month, but for now, imported will do.

 

Bloody Caesar Salad

I mix this is in a lasagna plan so the leaves don’t get bruised. Serve it in individual flat bowls or small oval platters. Use only good quality bread for the croutons, or skip them. Serves 2.

8-10 perfect leaves of red romaine or romaine, washed, dried, and chilled
1 clove garlic, peeled and lightly smashed
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, placed in a glass measure
Enough lemon or lime juice to reach the ½ cup mark when added to the oil
1 large egg, beaten
½ tea salt
8 or more twists of the pepper mill
½ cup freshly grated parmesan

Homemade croutons—sliced French bread, salted, peppered, and toasted

Add the garlic, salt, and pepper to the oil and stir; set aside for about an hour.

Just before serving, toss the lettuce leaves with the egg in a lasagna pan or other large shallow dish. Add the lemon/line juice to the oil/garlic mixture and whisk to emulsify; remove the garlic and pour the dressing over the coated lettuce and toss well; taste for seasoning. Lift the leaves out, shaking them a bit, and place them in the serving bowls. Garnish with a toasted crouton or two; you can toss them briefly in any dressing remaining in the lasagna pan if you like. Generously sprinkle the salad with the parmesan, about ¼ cup for each serving. Theoretically, of course, you could mix the egg, the vinaigrette, and the cheese all together and toss it with the leaves. I just like it this way.

                                                         

Asparagus for Supper

May is asparagus month. Get it while you can.

But dare I say it? Asparagus is not one of my favorites. I do like the looks of asparagus, though. I like its pointy little crowns, its combination of green and purple, set off by a purple rubber band holding the spears into a bouquet of not-too-thin, not-too-fat, spears. I like the little thorns that are not thorns, more like triangular petals. I like their presence on a platter, garnished with egg or red peppers, or fencing a big steak; they are a good accent, like a nice bag or pair of shoes. Food cuteness, or sexiness, or color, or luster, is always important to me, and can compensate enough for the meh taste that I will eat it. At least, occasionally and when, like now, it is at its peak.

 

Looks, of course, will only take you so far. Asparagus has a dull personality—always the same, not very versatile. I’ve learned not to expect too much from it. If I am going to eat asparagus—not too often—it needs to be quickly and simply cooked; it’s just grass, isn’t? OK, that’s unfair. But just as well that the season is short. I’ll cook it now, in honor of the novelty and its looks. By the time boredom sets in, it will be gone.

 

Browned Buttered Breadcrumb Asparagus Omelet

Buttered breadcrumbs improve everything. Serves 1.

7 or 8 small asparagus spears, broken off so that they are about 5-6” long  
½ cup fresh breadcrumbs
1 very small clove garlic (from the inner bulb), crushed
2 tea unsalted butter plus 1 tea more
1 tea olive oil
1 T, generous, freshly grated parmesan
2 large eggs, beaten with 1 T milk or cream
Salt and pepper

Melt the 2 tea butter and the olive oil in a small (9”) pan until hot. Add the asparagus and cook over high heat, tossing around with tongs, for a minute or two. Add the bread crumbs and the crushed garlic and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, until the crumbs are brown and have dried out a bit but are still moist. Salt and pepper to taste near the end of cooking, and remove to a plate. Add the parmesan and toss.

Wipe out the pan, and melt the other teaspoon of butter over medium heat until sizzling. Pour in the eggs, lightly salt and pepper, and cook, without stirring, until mostly set, lifting the edges and tilting the pan as needed to cook all the egg evenly. Place the asparagus and about half the crumbs into the center of the omelet and fold the edges over. Remove and scatter the remaining crumbs on top.

                                                                                 

Celebrate With Strawberries: Mother’s Day, and LCM 3rd Anniversary

 

It is Mother’s Day, and as typical since I began spending the academic year in Nashville, I am alone in my kitchen, without my son, who is a thousand miles away in New York, to cook for. Now, I know that most people don’t want to cook on Mother’s Day, but being in the kitchen is my idea of relaxing. And cooking for my son…well, that’s the best.

It is also the third anniversary of Little Compton Mornings this weekend. Looking back on my first anniversary post, I feel the way I suppose most mothers do from time to time: that they have, in some way, failed their offspring. Since moving to Nashville during the academic year, I have been less attentive to my blog-child than I would have liked, and feel guilty and neglectful. Or perhaps it is just that my blog has been going through the terrible two’s.  Fortunately, many of you seem to understand that, like all mothers, I do the best I can. Thankfully, it’s not children who expect you to be perfect.

Today, I cook what I like, and for no particular reason other than the fact that there are local strawberries, and very good ones I might add. One compensation for spending September to May in Nashville is that I enjoy two growing seasons, one here and one in Rhode Island. I get “the first strawberries” twice. I bought enough to make some preserves, to eat some out of hand, and to make this classic strawberry tart.

To all of you mothers among my readers, Happy Mother’s Day. Now that I’ve made this tart, shown next to the beautiful flowers my son sent me, I think I will go to the movies.

 

Chocolate, Vanilla, and Strawberry Tart

This tart involves a few steps, but is very easy; you can even make some jam while the pastry is chilling. It is a celebration in itself.

Chocolate Pâte Sucrée

1 cup less 2 T a-p flour
2 ½ T cocoa
8 oz unsalted butter, cool room temperature
½ cup + 2 T confectioners’ sugar (10x)
1 egg yolk (freeze the white)

Sift the flour and cocoa and set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer, place the butter, cut into 4 or more pieces, and sift the 10x over it. Cream together on medium speed until the sugar is blended. Add the yolk and mix again until completely incorporated. Gradually add the flour/cocoa mixture, stopping after you have added about half it to scrape down the bowl with a spatula, then continuing until the dough comes completely together. Remove, pat it into a disk, and wrap in wax paper and chill for at least 2 hours.

Remove the dough and soften enough to roll by cutting it into several pieces and kneading them with your hand, then forming them back together into a disk. Tap the disk with your rolling pin, then roll it out quickly on a floured surface; once soft, it gets really soft. Lift the dough carefully into your tart pan, trimming the overhang to about ½”, and turn this overhand to the inside against the edge. Chill again for 30 minutes or so, preferably in the freezer. Preheat the oven to 375 F while it chills.

Remove the pan and flute the edge or press it with a fork. Prick the bottom with fork, and line the pan with foil and some weight (beans, rice, etc.) or a smaller-size pan, lightly greased. Bake 10-12 minutes; gently remove the foil/weight or pan, and bake another 3 minutes or so, until you can smell the chocolate and it the interior is mostly dry. It will look a bit like a large brownie. Cool on a rack.

Vanilla Pastry Cream

I use a standing mixer for this, but it can be done entirely with a whisk. I don’t strain it; you can if you want. Makes a generous 2 cups.

2 cups whole milk
½ vanilla bean, split and scraped into the milk
6 large egg yolks (freeze the whites)
2/3 cup sugar
2 T flour
2 T cornstarch

Bring the milk and vanilla bean to a boil in a 3-4 qt saucepan. Remove, cover, and keep hot.

Ribbon the egg yolks and sugar on medium-high speed; it will become pale yellow. Sprinkle the flour and cornstarch over it and beat at low speed until incorporated.

Fish out the vanilla bean pod from the milk and discard. With the mixer running on low, pour the hot milk into the egg and sugar mixture until combined, then pour the entire mixture back into the saucepan; you may need to wash the pan first if it has milk residue. Bring to a boil, whisking constantly and vigorously so it does not burn or stick, and boil for about one minute until it is thick and creamy and any foaminess is gone. Pour into a bowl and rub the surface with butter. Cool completely in the refrigerator.

Assembling the tart

While your pastry shell is cooling, core the most perfectly ripe, heart-shaped, medium-small strawberries in your batch; you will need about 40-50 for a 9” tart. Set them, peaks up and with space between them, on a towel.

When the pastry is completely cool, fill it with the pastry cream, smoothing with spoon or spatula, and set the strawberries, peaks up, into the cream, pressing down a bit. Begin at the center with one or three larger strawberries, then work out toward the rim in concentric circles, trying to match the berries by size.

Optional (recommended if your strawberries are not real red, or if you just like the shine): Melt a little strained strawberry jam; I make very fluid strawberry preserves, so just pour off a little and heat it. Brush the tops of the berries with a thin jewel-like layer. Chill for an hour or so before serving.