Wicked Tasty Harvest

Local Eats in Rome

by Cynthia Graber

 

Two words: fried artichokes.

Before my trip, I'd watched an episode of Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie, which a friend had produced in Italy. They filmed one scene at Il Giggetto, a restaurant in Rome's Jewish ghetto. Apparently one style of artichoke hails from the ghetto - even elsewhere in Rome, they'll offer artichokes "Jewish style" or "Roman style."

The television show my friend produced showed the men, whose family has owned that restaurant for three generations, preparing the flowery vegetables. In rapid-fire succession, they peel off the thick outer leaves, shave the peel from the stem, and dip the artichokes into boiling oil. The tender inner leaves fan out into the shape of a flower. Then they dip the chokes one more time, and each leaf individually browns and crisps right up.

Needless to say, I made a beeline to Il Giggetto as soon as I landed in Rome and ordered one of those artichokes. As happened in Florence (see the previous post), I was hungry and exhausted and scarfed down every last bit of tangy crunchiness before I even remembered that I had a camera with me. You'll just have to take my word that it looks like a flower, and tastes fantastic. I tried this style again at another restaurant outside the ghetto, but it wasn't nearly as good.

In Rome, I sampled the amazing, classic trattorias that everyone (appropriately) raves about. I think my favorite meal was at a restaurant near the Colosseum named La Taverna de Fori Imperiali, where I ate a simple, wonderfully fragrant pasta and bean soup, and shared a plate of different vegetables: grilled radicchio, eggplant caponata, fried artichokes. In each dish, the flavors melded perfectly. I ate there my last night, or I might have gone back for seconds.

But here's a strange place that you probably won't read about in the guide books. That's because, at least from the outside, there's no name.

 

That's what it looks like. Here's one of their display cakes.

 

Appealing? I didn't think so.

Here's how I heard about the place. My first night in Rome, I had dinner with a fellow journalist. I told her that I'd made a mad dash to ghetto for artichokes, and she mentioned a great shop down the street that everyone calls the "burnt cookie ladies." Burnt cookie ladies? I had to check this out.

So the next day, I went back to the ghetto, walked down the street, and found this little nameless bakery with burnt offerings in the window. I walked inside. There were a few women behind the counter, much ruckus in the kitchen, and a handful of Italians ordering. In the display cases were stacks and stacks and stacks of - yes - burnt cookies. Everything in the shop had this dark brown patina.

I have nothing against ugly food. I don't think pretty means it tastes better. (You should see some of the tasty messes I concoct.) But burnt? Still, I figured all the Italians couldn't be wrong, and there must be some secret tastiness hidden there.

I ordered a long baked bar, clearly one of their specialties. The woman tried to warn me about something, but I didn't understand. She called an old guy out of the kitchen. "Not soft - hard!" he admonished. I nodded, and bought it anyway.

This is what it what it looked like.

 

As you can tell, I devoured it. There was flour, and honey, and almonds, and sugar-coated almonds with a hint of orange. And what looked like burn tasted more like an intense coating of caramelization. Despite the nearly tooth-shattering texture, I couldn't stop eating it. The next day, when my friend came to town from Switzerland, I took him there. Wouldn't you take a visitor to a burnt cookie shop? That time, we got another one of the same, and a bag of little biscotti. Bizarrely, the biscotti were significantly softer, and rather cinnamon-y.

I'm dying to know the story of this little unnamed shop, but my Italian is nearly nonexistent. (And despite my previous beliefs to the contrary, the fact that I speak both Spanish and French does not mean that I can automatically make myself understood in Italy.) I did consider switching to Hebrew - the bakery is kosher, so there's a chance someone who works there speaks Hebrew. But they were all too busy, and I didn't want to be a bother.

I've asked my food contact in Florence, who's thinking of expanding her Taste Florence tours to Rome and Italy, to check it out. Who are these women? What's the story behind the burn? Did some Jewish lady 100 years ago caramelize her cookies, and despite the unappealing appearance, everyone begged her for more? And her legacy has lived on? Have you been to Rome - do you know the answer?

Winter Eats

by Cynthia Graber

 

I'm feeling lucky. It's been snowing for days, and I've gotten to cozy up to baby bok choi stir-fried with tofu, and a fresh salad mix. 

In the course of reporting a story for Edible Boston on no- or low-heat winter greenhouse growing, I found out about Red Fire Farm's deep winter CSA. They were full, but to my great delight I got off the wait list. In last Friday's first drop, I picked up a colorful mix of salad mix, baby bok choi, sweet potatoes, onions, turnips, apple cider, honey, and sauerkraut made from their cabbage. Seriously, if Ryan Voiland (farmer/owner) would let me, I think I'd invest in his entire winter bok choi crop.

I also had the good fortune, errr, work assignment, to check out Ryan's presentation on winter farming at the Northeast Organic Farming Association's winter meeting. (Can you imagine a 750-person potluck? That's the type of conference this was. For Michael Pollan geeks, the keynote speaker was Polyface's own Joel Salatin, as hell-raising as ever.) Based on the standing-room-only attendance at Ryan's talk, I'd say there's a great deal of interest in winter farming. If we buy it, they'll grow it!

So let's do it. You can find all sorts of great local produce out there, even in the depths of winter. Natick Community Farm sells it every day right on the farm. And despite the fact that Boston still doesn't have a winter market, Natick does, as does Wayland. In the city, Sherman Market in Union Square sells local produce. 

As for the beans from my previous post? I used the flavors suggested in the comments, and I made a salad out of farro, cubed and steamed sweet potatoes, cooked red beans, plenty of olive oil, herbs de provence, and some spicy harissa powder. It's great on its own, and even tastier with some feta or goat cheese. 

Photo courtesy of Clagett Farm CSA on Flickr Creative Commons.

Beans

by Cynthia Graber

 

I accidentally made chili the other day.

This sounds bizarre, true, as if I tripped, fell against the stove, and poof! A pot of chili. It wasn't quite like that, though close. I had a mixture of fresh dried beans (not an oxymoron) that I'd picked up in Greenmarket in New York, from the wonderful Cayuga Organics. I say "wonderful" because I just finished up a container of flavorful, chewy spelt that I'd bought the same day, and I'm sad to see it go. I'm considering calling to see if they take orders.

I also bought this bean mixture that came with a bit of grain, too, as a soup base, and it was time to give it a try. Hmmm, I had one red onion, a shallot, a small onion, a couple of somewhat limp celery stalks. Perfect for soup, right? I chopped it all up with an entire head of garlic. Then I noticed canned tomatoes, left over from the cabbage recipe I posted earlier this week. After sauteing the aforementioned vegetables, I threw in the canned tomatoes and bean mixture and covered the whole thing with water. Suddenly, it no longer looked like soup. That mixture wanted to be chili. So as it bubbled away, I tossed in some tomato paste, dried chiles, and chipote and ancho chile powder. 

Three hours later - accidental chili.

But here's the real reason I'm posting. In my December CSA, I received the local kidney beans from Baer's Best, pictured above. I'm not quite sure yet what to do with them. Does anyone have any ideas?

Purple

by Cynthia Graber

 
 

I'm not even going to bother regaling you with the tale of the curried butternut squash red lentil soup that used up the last of the squash in the refrigerator. Yes, it was quite tasty. But it can be summed up in one word: orange.

Instead, I'll go for a different color today - purple.

One of my favorite ways to enjoy fruit in the winter is to turn frozen blueberries into a royal shade of blueberry soup. It takes about one minute. Take frozen blueberries out of the freezer (in the past I've bought frozen Maine blueberries, but this year I picked loads with C. and froze my own bags). Pour some into a glass bowl, sprinkle in some sugar, mix it up. Stick the bowl in the microwave for, oh, about a minute. The blueberries should express their liquid into a deep purple broth. If it's not hot and brothy yet, stick it back in the microwave for another 30 or so seconds, until it's done.

Then stir in a few spoonfuls of yoghurt, just enough to make it creamy, but still deeply purple. There, blueberry soup, a perfect mid-afternoon snack.

Onto another purple tale. In the last CSA bunch, I received, once again, a bunch of beets. You may recall that I lack a certain fondness for most root vegetables. There have, though, been beet dishes I've tried that I've enjoyed. They usually have a tangy marinade, perhaps citrus, paired with another flavor, such as goat cheese.

I flipped through a cookbook I'd taken out of the library (a revelation! taking cookbooks out of the library!). It's called The Book of New Israeli Food, by Janna Gur, and it's a stunning coffee-table book of Israeli cuisine. It contained a recipe for beet salad with pomegranates. I absolutely adore pomegranates, with their perfect jewel-like seeds, surrounded with a burst of flavor.

The recipe called for pomegranate concentrate, which I assumed to be pomegranate molasses. (When you look at the ingredients in pomegranate molasses, it contains, well, concentrated pomegranate juice.) It calls for cilantro, but I substituted parsley. She says to boil the beets, but I roasted them until tender and rubbed the skin off. 

It takes a while to deal with the beets, and a while longer to coax the pomegranate seeds from their white pithy cocoons. And be warned, your fingers and nails may remain purple for a couple of days. But it's worth it. The resulting dish was sweet and tart and exploding with flavor. I may have found a beet dish that I not only tolerate, but actually love.

Beet and Pomegranate Salad

• 3-4 medium beets
• 2 tablespoons of pomegranate molasses
• 2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2-3 dried chili peppers crushed (I left this out, but you can add it in, or add in a sprinkle of your favorite chili powder)
• Coarse sea salt
• 1/4 cup delicate olive oil
• 1/2 cup of torn cilantro leaves (I used parsley)
• 1 cup pomegranate seeds

Either boil the beets until tender or roast in a 350 oven until tender. Cool, the peel (if you roast them you can rub off the skin). Cut into small cubes. 

Mix with pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, pepper and sea salt, and let sit for about 15 minutes.

Add in torn/chopped cilantro or parsley and pomegranate seeds, then pour olive oil over top. 

Photo courtesy of Darwin Bell for Flickr Creative Commons

Yes! It's the best...

Get ready. The holidays are already swinging and you still need to tackle the best part of your list. Of course you do—you always save the best for last. Wicked Tasty Harvest has drawn up a list of must-have and very-cool things to please anyone who loves food and local goodies. How do we know they'll love all of these things? Because we would. (Side-note to our stumped loved ones: Read on and stop fretting over which sweater we'd look hottest in. This season, we're all about the local treats.)

These amazing local treats make stunning gifts, and fill gift baskets and stockings deliciously well. If you arrive in style at the next holiday party with one of these in hand, the hosts will gush. These local favorites are all tasty, well-made, and sought after. 

Homemade jams and preserves from Bonnie's Jams in Cambridge. Flavors like apricot-orange, raspberry and strawberry-ginger elevate breakfast toast into something special. $10.95, Formaggio Kitchen, Savenor's Market, Russo's and more.

Effie's Oatcakes and Corncakes from Hyde Park, MA, are the perfect biscuits for tea and cheese lovers. These crisp, crunchy and rather addictive biscuits are slightly sweet and salty—and they're just right for tea time or snack. They're also fantastic as a cracker with cheese. Try them with cheese and apples, a dollop of jam, or just plain. The oatcakes are a favorite for straight-up snacking and the corn is perfect for cheesy accompaniments. $6, at your local specialty store or at Whole Foods. Or buy them direct.

Taza Chocolate, made in their Somerville factory, offers a wide variety of tasty treats, from bars to nibs to hot chocolate scented with almond. They say they're the only American chocolate-makers offering stone-ground organic chocolate, employing a traditional grinding method from Oaxaca, Mexico. They work closely with growers to ensure top quality and fair pay. You can find the chocolate at many area stores, including holiday packages at Greenward, but if you need to buy in bulk (and who doesn't?), they're now offering free shipping on purchases of more than $50. 

Lake Champlain Chocolates, made in Vermont, have some particularly appropriate holiday offerings, including a bag of silver- and gold-wrapped disks of dark chocolate and peppermint dark chocolate. They also have a lovely box of Chanukah gelt (and they're kosher), much tastier than what you ate in Hebrew school. Buy them at Whole Foods and Sherman Market in Somerville, starting at $8.

Perfect for someone who prefers sour to sweet: Root Cellar Preserves, local pickles that sell in stores around town such as Formaggio Kitchen, Harvest Coop, and Russo's. We particularly love their sweet and spicy pickle mix, $8.

 Ask your neighborhood cheese purveyor for some lovely local cheeses. Some of our favorites include Cabot cloth-bound cheddar, Twig Farm Tomme, Vermont Butter and Cheese Company's Bijou aged goat cheese, Great Hill blue cheese, and Shy Brother's Farm's Hannahbells (pictured). Check out our holiday cheese plate primer or let your local cheese shop select a great combination of cheeses. Formaggio Kitchen and Farmstead (Providence, RI) both do amazing cheese baskets—and they ship. Don't forget about the Concord Cheese Shop and the delicious and deftly edited selection at Central Bottle. Cheese-lovers on your list are well-cared for in this area.

Traditional Goat's Milk Caramel from Fat Toad Farm is crazy delicious. It's like dulce de leche, but it's made from goat's milk, like cajeta. You can taste the flavor profile of goat's milk instead of the slick sweetness of cow's milk (also good, but different). Fat Toad Farm is a small family-run dairy in Brookfield, VT, and they make several flavors of their caramel: original, vanilla, cinnamon, and coffee. The original is awesome on ice cream, tea cakes, or a spoon. $9 at Formaggio Kitchen, Cambridge Naturals, and Farmstead (Providence).

One of the Wicked Tasty team lives very close to L.A. Burdick. Deliciously close. Too close. Burdick's chocolates rival those of the well-known European chocolate houses (and we're well-studied on those). A clear favorite is the truffle filled with caramelized lavender honey. The mouse and penguin chocolates may be too adorable to eat, but you'd never let that deter you from picking up a quarter-pound box. Heck, make it a full pound. Then, warm up holiday visitors with hot chocolate made with their shaved dark, milk and white chocolate. They're made in Walpole, NH, and they have a lovely café in Harvard Square. Boxes start at $15.

Made by Maureen Gallagher at the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center, the Sassy Sauces line includes an addictive rum caramel sauce, spicy dark chocolate sauce (Valrhona chocolate, chipotle, Vietnamese cinnamon and cayenne), milk chocolate caramel, bittersweet chocolate, peanut butter fudge and vegan butterscotch. All are sublime over ice cream, with fresh fruit or breakfast treats, or straight out of the jar. Recently, Wicked Tasty got to try the Vera Cruz sauce (the first savory Sassy Sauce product and so new that the labels were handwritten). We seared salmon on both sides then simmered it in the sauce to finish. Easy and delicious! Sassy Sauces are available online and at Bacon Street Farm in Natick, Savenor’s Market, and select Whole Food Markets in the Boston area.

What great meal is complete without well-lubricated conversation or a tasty aperitif? Here's where to go for a gift that says, "Capital, darling!" instead of merely Kappy's. 

Drink is one of our favorite bars, and with good reason. There's no cocktail list...but there are gift certificates for your friends. And for a mere $10, the bartenders will whip them up a custom libation based on their tastes (whiskey or gin? citrus or bitters?) and, better yet, indulge their inner cocktail nerds by happily dishing on the drinks' origins (often pre-Prohibition) and variations.  We find it's best to stick to our favorite base liquor and ask the exceptional staff to steer us seasonal. Recently, we've enjoyed a twist on the traditional Frisco (made with homemade pumpkin simple syrup) and the Leather Coat, which employed Scotch, apple butter and sage to a heavenly, fragrant end. For Christmas in a glass, ask for the Lion's Tail: bourbon, allspice dram, lime juice, simple syrup and angostura bitters.

Once the lovely staff at Drink have sent you home with a few handwritten recipes, you'll find the corner packie not up to your new liquor-buying needs. Hit Brix—with shops on Broad Street and Washington Street in the South End—to source Luxardo maraschino liquor for homemade aviations, small-batch bourbons, and St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram for that Lion's Tail. The shop also has a well-curated wine selection and handsome gift baskets capitalizing on that to boot. Next hit up The Boston Shaker—online and opening any day now in Davis Square, after starting as a mini-store within Grand in Somerville's Union Square—for the dash that makes the difference. The store has the most extensive selection of bitters we've ever seen (celery, cardamon, Xocolati mole, whiskey barrel, Peychaud's and many others), along with a strong supporting cast of simple and shrub syrups, heirloom-quality muddlers and perfectly sized 5-ounce cocktail glasses.

Gift card to Craigie on Main. Though perhaps better known for the delectable food out of the kitchen, the bar has gained acclaim for creative, delicious libations using small-batch spirits and local produce that change with the seasons.

 

Sometimes a cook needs some new and gorgeous things.

A slate cheese board from Brooklyn Slate Company is ideal both for a festive party or a regular Tuesday night dinner. Brooklyn Slate Company gets the grey, black or red slate from the family quarry in Upstate New York and offers the non-porous, food-safe pieces with a rough-hewn or clean edge. They also add in a soap pencil to write cheese names right on the board. They're very lovely and at a very reasonable price. Find these gorgeous cheese slabs at Formaggio Kitchen and Wasik's Cheese Shop in Wellesley. 7" x 12" boards, $20; 10" x 14" boards, $24.

When it comes to recipes, we often find that weight is more reliable than volume or size. After all, what does "three large potatoes" mean? Are the ones I've selected large enough? Some recipes today offer both size/volume and weight (for instance: "one medium-sized squash, or 2 lbs of squash"). A food scale is an incredibly handy tool, especially if you love cookbooks printed outside the US, where weights are the standard format. Make sure you get a scale that can do both pounds and grams, so recipes in metric are no problem. Electronic scales make taring a breeze. Try your local hardware store or cooking goods shop for one, like this Salter Baker's Dream scale that has an 11-lb limit and switches units with the click of a button. $39.95, Tags Hardware in Cambridge, and other kitchenware stores.

It's good to eschew plastic water bottles in lieu of tap and filtered. But what if you prefer bubbles? Then it's either plastic bottles or glass ones shipped at a high carbon cost, right? Not so. In looking for a local soda water delivery service, we found this iSi soda siphon. Like their whipped cream canisters, you charge the filled water canister with CO₂ cartridges, making the tap bubbly and wonderful. The soda from the siphon is not short on bubbles, either. It makes a fierce soda water, which is lovely. Since Boston-are tap water is very good quality, the end result is very tasty, indeed. No more bottles, no more shipping our beverages from Italy, and yet no compromising on the brisk drinking experience. If you're so inclined, you could add flavors or juices right into the siphon. $69.99 at Tags Hardware and local cooking goods stores.

The Ratio iPhone app is not really a gadget at all, but still a completely cool tool. This program transforms your iphone into a cooking assistant based on Michael Ruhlman's book Ratio, which offers up the ratios of ingredients needed to make nearly anything without a recipe. You can store the recipes you devise and share them on Twitter and Facebook. $4.99 on iTunes.

We love a bit of class. Cooking class, that is. An evening of cooking (and learning, and eating, and drinking) is a great gift for someone you love—or or yourself. Two of our absolute favorites would be the highlight of anyone's holiday.

Get a gift certificate or sign someone up for a specific class at Stir Boston, Chef Barbara Lynch's fantastic demonstration kitchen and cookbook library in the South End. We've gushed about the classes there before and with good reason. The small-sized classes not only show you foods and techniques up close, but also provide an evening of stellar food and amazing drink as you taste it all and chat with chefs and students. The food you eat is on par with No. 9 Park, Barbara Lynch's flagship restaurant, but you leave knowing that you can do it in your kitchen, too. The cost may seem high but think of it as dining at the chef's table while asking your chef friend to ply you with wine and share his or her secrets. Totally worth it.

Learn to cook with local produce and meat from Ana Sortun, award-winning chef at Oleana and Sofra Bakery. Sit in Sofra's cozy dining room and watch and learn as Sortun and pastry chef Maura Kilpatrick guide you through a handful of flavorful recipes—and you then enjoy the tastes of their labors. The recipes are fantastic when made in a home kitchen, too; we've know, because we've tried. Ana even offers an entire class in the spring focused on making the most of your CSA.

A good cookbook is part story and part culinary sherpa. They help you get where you're going, whether it's how to boil water or the lofty heights of specialized cuisine.  

Craft of Cooking, by Tom Colicchio. Sure, Top Chef-viewers love him. You know why he's really loved? Because his food is so damn good. A trip to NYC is lacking if not for a stop at one of his many Craft incarnations. This cookbook gives you the simple tools to transform lovely ingredients into stunning food with some simple techniques and ideas. Your home cooking will get easier and tastier after reading this book. It works so well with the CSA/local ideas because the recipes make the most of quality ingredients.

Stir: Mixing It Up in the Italian Tradition, by Barbara Lynch. This local chef (and head of her own growing No. 9 Park empire) has a cookbook that just came out this fall. It's named after her South End demonstration kitchen and it has some of her signature dishes. Check out how to make your own ricotta and some of her amazing pasta dishes that have made tables at her restaurants a hot commodity.

At Wicked Tasty Harvest, we love eating local and getting to know neighborhoods through their food. That's why Savoring East Somerville: A Taste-Based Guide to the Neighborhood is on our wish list. The new cookbook from East Somerville Main Streets promises recipes and full-color portraits from 26 East Somerville restaurants and business owners and family-cooking traditions from 25 neighborhood residents. Recipes from large Italian families, Salvadorian cooks and Brazilian bakers? Um, yes, please!  Order your copy (gift wrapping and shipping available).

I Know How to Cook, by Ginette Mathiot. Not only does it have a fantastic pink cover and a title that offers a fun variety of dramatic readings (I know how to cook, I know how to cook, I know how to cook), this book is a wealth of awesome French cooking techniques. This tome has been a standard for French women for decades and was on every French woman's grandmother's shelf. It's recently been translated into English and is a sort of French version of The Silver Spoon. It's full of wonderful recipes updated by Clotilde Dusoulier. French food, we find, does very well with the excellent produce, fantastic meats, and gorgeous dairy we have in New England. Might as well know how to do it the way it's been done in French homes for decades.

Gifts are more than lovely little things that make our lives delightful. They're also about those gifts that make the world a better and safer place. What gift guide could be complete without including organizations that are doing their part to improve the reality of the world. If you're giving gifts this season, consider a gift to an organization that is out there changing the world. And if you're getting this season, think about passing along some of that great feeling to others in the world. 

Gardens for Health is a Cambridge-based organization that provides tools, seeds, equipment and assistance to people living with HIV/AIDS in Rwanda. It helps them create food co-ops where they can grow food, improve their nutrition (which in many regions of the world is lacking in people suffering from HIV/AIDS), and earn income when they might otherwise have no jobs due to illness. This organization helps stop the cycle of poverty, malnourishment, and illness. Like Heifer International, your gifts are paired up with actual tools and supplies: $4 for a hoe, $180 for 100 plum tree seedlings, $500 for 8 wheelbarrows. 

Share Our Strength is trying to end childhood hunger by supporting school breakfast and year-round meal programs, improving access to fresh produce to families, encouraging farmers' markets to accept food stamps, and creating programs that teach families how to make nutritious healthy food on a limited budget. You can make a donation, order gift cards to share with other people, or buy tickets to their benefit, Taste of the Nation. The benefit is set for April 2010 and will feature Andy Husbands of Tremont 647, Jody Adams of Rialto, Gordon Hamersley of Hamersley's Bistro, Jason Santos of Gargoyles and about 70 restaurants and wineries. Tickets to the event and silent auction are 20 percent off by January 1 when you enter the code JINGLE10.

There are plenty of other organizations that bring food and giving, together. Take a closer look at the Greater Boston Food Bank, Heifer International, and City Sprouts, just to name a few.

Here's to a Tasty New Year!

 

Butternut squash-apple-cheddar soup

by Cynthia Graber

I made the same soup three times in as many weeks, so I think that makes me something of an expert when it comes to this particular dish. And I discovered a truth that those of us who play around in the kitchen come to again and again: it's all about the ingredients. You can have a fantastic recipe, but if the ingredients aren't great, it just won't sing. (And, personally, I enjoy singing food.)

Anyway, here's the story. I found an old recipe I'd clipped and finally scanned in to a new computer-based recipe book I've created with Scrivener (which is a godsend of a program that helps me organize my writing projects). I'd made an entire folder for squash recipes, because we're heading into squash season. With a friend coming over for dinner, I decided to give a new soup recipe a try. It's from Food and Wine, written by Jeremy Silansky, for butternut squash-apple-smoked cheddar soup. According to Silansky, the key to the soup - the ingredient that will make it sing - is Grafton smoked cheddar.

But I didn't have time for an extensive search. When I went over to Sherman Market - the new local food market in Union Square! - they had no smoked cheddar, but sold me on a beautiful cloth-bound cheddar. 

I came home and lined up all the ingredients. Then I remembered I have this wonderfully smoky crushed black pepper that I bought at Christina's. It almost fools me into believing that I'm flavoring dishes with bacon. (I know, I know, I haven't eaten bacon in nearly two decades. Still, I know what it smells like.) The pepper is so strongly smoky that it can overpower other seasonings - but I thought it'd make up for the missing smokiness in the cheddar.

My other secret soup ingredient is the stock I use: Better Than Bouillon organic vegetable stock paste. It's fantastic. Since I don't have much freezer storage space, I haven't taken to making my own stock. (Unlike April.) But this is a great substitute. 

I made the soup, cooked the squash, blended it, added the cream, then added the smoked pepper. Suddenly that rich, smoky smell filled the kitchen. With briefly-cooked apples and grated cheddar, the soup was easy, filling, and delicious.

I went home for Thanksgiving week, and my mom requested that I make it for her. So I did. But this time, I used boxed stock that she had on hand. Half-and-half instead of cream. And no smoked pepper. I bought smoked salt, and smoked pepper corns in a little grinder, but both had such mild smokiness as to be almost non-existent. 

The soup was fine. Tasty. But not the kind where you jump up for seconds.

Then I came home, and realized I had left-over cream, apple cider, and cheddar from making it the week before. All I needed to make the soup again was another butternut squash. So I bought another one, and made it for the third time. This time, once again, that soup sang.

So, that's my reminder lesson for the day: Use great ingredients. 

Butternut Squash Soup with Apple and Smoked Cheddar, inspired by Jeremy Silansky at Food and Wine

• 2 tablespoons olive oil (I just used a generous splash)
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 3/4 cup apple cider (I used more like a cup, because I wanted it a little more apple-y)
• One 1 3/4 butternut squash, peeled and cut into inch cubes (he wrote that should equal 5 1/4 cup, I just bought probably the smallest butternut squash they had and used the whole thing, it might have been two pounds)
• 4 1/2 cups stock (chicken or vegetable, just make sure it's good stock) (you can reduce it a little if you increased the apple cider earlier)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream (half-and-half will work as well)
• Butter
• Apple, diced into small bites
• 1/3 cup coarsely shredded smoked cheddar cheese (or the best cheddar, plus smoked pepper)

In a soup pot, heat the oil. Add the onions and cook for a few minutes until starting to turn golden. Add the cider and cook until it gets a little syrupy. This could be about five minutes more. Then add the squash and all the stock, bring to a boil, then simmer it, covered, until the squash is tender. (Taste it to find out, it should take about 30-40 minutes.) At this point, it's time to blend. I prefer an immersion blender, because it saves taking the soup out of the pot and putting it in a blender.

Once the soup is all blended and velvety, add the cream, swirl it around. If you don't have smoked cheddar, now's the time to add the smoked pepper. It should make a significant difference. 

In a small pan, add a small chunk of butter (he said two tablespoons, but I thought that was a bit much). When it melts, add in the apple chunks, and cook for a couple of minutes until they start to soft.

Serve the soup with a spoonful of apple and grated cheddar on top.

If you have left-overs, store the soup, apples, and cheddar separately, and warm up the soup on its own before adding the toppings.

Photo courtesy of judywross on Flickr Creative Commons

 

Mystery Root Vegetables

by Cynthia Graber

I ate something tonight, and I have no idea what it was. Okay, I have a bit of a clue. It's a tuber. And it's gorgeous. 

Truth be told, I'm not much of a root vegetable fan. There are some I do love, such as, of course, potatoes. I also love manioc, or cassava. But (fill in the blank: beets, turnips, rutabaga) leave me cold. Even carrots are a tubular turn-off when cooked - except for a fantastic soup I made with a friend recently, which I'll detail in another post.

When I picked up April's Siena Farm CSA last month, I received many beets, and I used them for Rosh Hashannah dinner. I'm still not a beet fan, but the dish was pretty good.

There were two other loose bulbous lumps among the vegetables, dirt covering what looked like a pale fuchsia skin. They most certainly did not look like the beets I had on the table alongside. I could tell they were a different creature. I almost roasted them all together, but then a friend said she thought they might be rutabagas. I looked that up - yep, they did look similar. 

I left them alone. A week later, I was at Copley Square for the market, and at the Siena Farm stand I saw what looked like the same tubers, with a sign calling them - oh, I don't quite remember, maybe purple turnips. So is that what I had in my kitchen? It seemed likely, but I still wasn't sure.

The bulbs kept well in the fridge, well enough to allow me to continue to avoid them. Finally, though, it had come down to the truth: cook, or toss. I didn't want to toss, though I wasn't sure I wanted to cook. Finally, last night I wrapped them in foil and placed them on the oven rack. I have no idea how long I left them there, basically until a knife slid in easily.

After they cooled, I stuck them back in the fridge, as I'd already eaten dinner. I was clearly still avoiding them. But tonight, once I got back from yoga, I sliced off the tough outer skin and diced the rosy innards. I cut off a chunk of butter into the pan along with the unknown root dice. I fried two eggs, because, well, everything tastes better with runny local eggs.

The tuber was sweet and earthy. Almost too sweet, but still kind of bland. Some might call the flavor delicate, though I, as a non-root vegetable fan, think it was simply not that exciting. I added salt, which barely cut the sweetness. Mostly I loved the look of the root and the taste of the egg. (As I said, almost everything tastes better with eggs.)

So, what did I eat? And is there a better way to prepare it?

Quick dinner

by Cynthia Graber

I'm going to continue April's theme below about how to throw together a quick meal. I spent the weekend away visiting a friend and her family in Albany. I drove back to Boston on Sunday and stopped off to do some work with another friend. From there, I headed to the gym.

By the time I got home, at about 7:30, I certainly didn't feel like doing much cooking. Nor was I sure just what awaited me as an option.

I rummaged in the fridge and saw that I had some leftover plain pasta from a fennel dish I'd made before I left (the post about it will soon follow). I started digging around in my labeled freezer bags, considered defreezing some kale. Then I came across my ice-cubes of pesto, both basil and parsley. I looked in the pantry and had a can of Alaskan salmon.

There was dinner. I threw a couple of cubes of basil pesto on top of the pasta and put them in the microwave to heat up. Then I flaked salmon on top, and sprinkled on spicy harissa pepper. Delicious! (And just as filling as I wanted after running miles and miles on the treadmill.)

Even if I hadn't had pasta ready-made, that would have taken fifteen minutes, tops. The dish would work just as well with left-over rice, or quickly prepared couscous. If I'd had broccoli in the fridge, I could have cut up a few florets and steamed them in the microwave. 

Sure, I put in some time to make that pesto from my CSA basil, but that seems so long ago that, to me, I finagled a delicious meal in about two minutes. It was so good that I ate it for breakfast, too.

Local Food Outing

by Cynthia Graber

field trip with Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli to the Copley Square Farmers Market

Recently, I had the chance to wander downtown with one of my local food loves. But the story begins earlier.

I was thrilled last year that Craigie Street Bistro was doing so well that chef Tony Maws decided to expand and move his operations to a new home. (Which, of course, was no longer on Craigie Street, and so morphed into the aptly named Craigie on Main.)

This brought a note of danger into my life - danger to my wallet, that is. I'm a huge fan of Tony's cooking. And when the restaurant had beautiful little tables in a cozy, basement hide-out of a restaurant, I only went a couple of times a year.

But last November, Craigie moved into its new digs on Main Street in Central Square. Right down the street from my old apartment. With a bar area. (And an open kitchen, which you can read about in my Boston Globe article from last February.) Suddenly, a place I'd held in reserve for special-occasion dining became a neighborhood hang-out.

And Tony now has to share my undying affection with a new love in my life: Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli, who runs the bar. Tom recently won Boston's best mixologist from the Improper Bostonian in July. His name may also ring familiar to many of you locals, as his uncle is Chris Schlesinger, chef/owner of East Coast Grill and the nearby All Star Sandwich Bar, both in Inman Square.

Tom shares Tony's obsession with quality, taste, and local ingredients. I love to sit at the bar, watching him measure, pour, chop, muddle, shake. He's happy to share tales about what he's made lately, what he's experimenting with, or what he's seen at the market. One of my recent favorite drinks was a short-lived concoction made with his own "corn syrup": he took the best of the local corn, boiled and strained and concentrated until he had a syrup of pure corn sweetness, then mixed it with alcohols I can no longer remember. It was light, sweet without being cloying, with a hint of corn's earthiness.

Last Friday, Tom and I went on a jaunt over to Copley market together. I was curious to watch him interact with the produce, and I wanted to hear more about how he works it into his drink menu.

I wish I had a transcript, but I didn't want to tape a casual conversation with a friend. So instead, I'll be as exact as I can be. As these aren't direct quotes, I'll use dashes. (Tom, feel free to correct me.)

Tom told me one tale from before he took over at Craigie, from when Tony visited him at Eastern Standard: - It's difficult to be as seasonal as I'd like to be, because I have to use citrus all year round. Tony came to Eastern Standard an I made him a drink, and it had lemon in it, and he asked, is it local? -

At which point we both laughed. Citrus of course is never local in Boston. Florida and California, sure. New England? Maybe not until global warming wreaks havoc on our local climate.

We wandered around Copley, picking up husk cherries to snack on (tiny, sweet tomatillo-like delights, you can read about them in an Edible Boston article I wrote). He scooped up a bunch of peaches and nectarines. He mentioned a drink he's working on with apples and celery.

We were staring at about ten different types of apples, and I commented that I haven't yet learned to tell one from the other. He selected four different varieties and tossed them into bags.

- I'll use them in mocktails and get to know their flavor profiles, - he said.

It turns out mocktails, made for the alcohol-averse, have become something of a surprise hit. Tom even creates a flight of mocktails to accompany dinner, upon request, and he enjoys cooking up drinks that compliment and play off Tony's food. (He course creates alcoholic versions!) For example, he explained, Tony may use one flavor in a dish as an undertone, but Tom will seize on it as the main note of a drink.

- This is where I get to use more savory, - he said.

Tom said he's also looking to expand the season by canning, and we chatted about all the different methods for preserving fruit. Unfortunately, our summer downpours shortened both the strawberry and raspberry season. But he's now got a couple hundred jars of fruit, such as blackberries and peaches, behind the bar.

"What will you do with them?" I asked. "Muddle? Blend? Chop?"

- I don't know - he shrugged. - Whatever I feel like. -

Which, of course, sounds a bit like his creative approach to drinks in general. And I can assure you that 'whatever he feels like' usually tastes fantastic.

We sat outside in the sun, ringed by farmers and produce, surrounded by the sounds of the city, talking about food, cooking, eating, life. There where many times I thought - oh! this would be great to share! But I had no interest in taking out a notebook and making it official. I just drifted along with the lazy meander of our word and enjoyed the afternoon.

So you'll have to forgive me for not writing down more of our conversation. Instead, I'll offer this advice. Next time you go to Craigie on Main and somehow manage to squeeze in at the bar, see if Tom has a spare 30 seconds or so as he's putting the finishing touches on someone's drink. Ask what local flavors he's enjoyed lately, tell him what types of alcohol and drinks you like, and ask for his recommendation.