Week 3 at the Ringwood Farmers’ Market was all about dogs and berries for us. It took almost an hour to make a full circuit as we stopped to play with other dogs, chat with their owners and meet fellow dog lovers who happened to be without canine companions at the time. One of the best things about heading out there every Saturday is getting to chat with the people in our neighborhood we’d never see otherwise.

And the berries – oh, my, those berries. See, I’ve always loved the idea of strawberry pie or tart more than the actuality of it. Reason consistently took a back seat to desire whenever I’d see those plump, glistening berries perched atop a golden crust until I took my first bite and found … nothing. No satisfaction, certainly, but not even much in the way of flavor. Too often, those strawberries bore a striking resemblance to supermarket tomatoes — beautiful, and about as tasty as plastic. With that disappointing history, I put the thought of a strawberry tart out of my mind until I realized the Orchards of Concklin’s berries are so juicy and luscious that any dessert featuring them must be just as spectacular.

To up the ante on the tart, I decided to go with a butter/lard crust instead of a regular all-butter one. To be honest, I chose to use lard as much for its reported baking benefits as for the cracklins that come as a by-product of the rendering process:

Cracklins and a quart of lard. Is it just me, or are you looking at that Mason jar and thinking, “This cow got into an onion patch,” too?

As far as I can tell, our local market doesn’t carry leaf lard, so I ordered a couple of pounds from two sources — Flying Pigs Farm and Bobolink Dairy. It’s important to me to get quality animal products from reputable sources; factory farms have horrible reputations for animal welfare and antibiotic use, so I just avoid them and (admittedly) buy more expensive meat, but eat much less of it than I used to.

The rendering process wasn’t as difficult as I’d imagined nor as smelly as its reputation. In fact, if a person is willing to eat lard at all, I don’t understand how they wouldn’t want their house to smell the way mine did while the lard was on the stovetop, bubbling away. If you’re looking to render your own lard, I found this to be an invaluable resource.

Despite the deep color of the lard when it came off the burner, the tart crust didn’t have a porky flavor in the slightest, but instead was slightly nutty with a rich and decadent feel. I chose an Emeril Lagasse recipe mainly because it came up first in my search and called for pastry cream instead of berries glazed with a sugary syrup; pastry cream is one of those things that just makes my toes curl. Instead of the crust in the recipe, I tried a gluten-free version, but wasn’t happy with the combination of flours I used. I’ll continue to experiment and will give you something that really works…soon, I hope. But for now, we’ll just enjoy the penultimate tart we have, instead of crying over missed perfection:

Later on, I glazed the berries with some of the raspberry-plum jam I’d happened to pick up from B&B Jams. It added a much stronger flavor than plain apricot jam would’ve without overpowering the fresh berries; in fact, I think it complemented them very, very well.

Oh, and the peonies we picked up a couple of weeks ago? Still beautiful, though decaying:

Next up: Vegetables of Insane Greatness.

Homemade bread’s a little like sex — even when it isn’t transcendent, it’s still pretty good.

To put it another way, this focaccia didn’t really come close to meeting my expectations for the Life List, but the charred bits of lemon rind and salty crunch were enough to keep me stealing bits all weekend whenever I found myself in the kitchen. And maaaaybe I found myself in the kitchen just a little more often than usual, but I’m not really helping my case here, am I?

I had two issues with it: The lemons were far too tart, even sliced paper-thin, and the bread itself wasn’t as pillowy as I know it could be. Using Meyer lemons would solve the first issue, but I’m not sure what to do about the second.

Any suggestions or recipe recommendations? I’d be happy to invite you over for a sample, assuming I don’t just park myself in the kitchen until it’s all gone.

This year’s Thanksgiving feast could only have been more low key if we’d gone the TV dinner route. My mother-in-law wasn’t able to visit, so I planned to simply roast a chicken and serve a few veggies for the two of us, but ended up doing even less than that when our neighbors invited us to share dinner with them. It’s a little embarrassing that I’ve lived here for four years as of this weekend (which reminds me, this blog just turned three!) and haven’t managed to get to know them yet. I blame Gil for not introducing me around when I moved.

Not wanting to go empty-handed, I pulled out the bag of almost-overripe persimmons I’d been storing for a couple of weeks and got to work on an upside-down cake that sounded like a perfect ending to a Thanksgiving meal — with two sticks of butter, it was possibly the most indulgent cake I’ve ever made.

I did a quick google search when the idea for the cake hit me (my standard approach, since very few ideas are truly new), and found only a couple of recipes. Joanne Weir’s parmesan flan has been one of the highlights of my summer for the past two years, so I opted for her version of the cake and came away very, very happy indeed.

Her secret for keeping things light and airy in such a rich cake? Whipping the egg whites, then folding them into the rest of the batter. Even so, the cake was much more soufflé-like in the pan than I expected:

Anyway, we had a wonderful time with the Edwards family and I feel like I finally have friends in the neighborhood, which is no small thing. They’re a creative family, into drawing, painting, photography, music, fashion…so you can imagine how much I enjoyed myself. Oh, AND I finally got a house tour with details of the major renovation they did last year! So we have lots of inspiration for our own house project, whenever we start.

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The next day, I roasted the Zuni chicken (with bittersweet pimenton added to the salt & pepper rub) originally intended for Thanksgiving and made a bread-based dressing with roasted acorn squash on the side. Nothing terribly exciting, but repurposed as breakfast this morning, I fell in love:

I pan-fried some of the leftover dressing, served it atop a thin drizzle of gravy and topped it with a fried egg. “X + egg = heaven” is undefined for Gil, so I waited till he was running an errand to work it up. (How anyone can snub a runny egg yolk over just about anything is beyond me, but hey, in sickness & in [mental] health, etc…)

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For Saturday’s dinner, there wasn’t a hint of Thanksgiving left over in the leftovers, though I forced myself to use the contents of my fridge and pantry in a stab at eating down the house. We ended up with a North African-inspired couscous dish that took maybe 30 minutes to make, but had a great depth of flavor mainly because it relied so heavily on leftovers.

To start, I made a quick harissa paste and set it aside for the flavors to develop while I worked on the rest of the meal. I hit the freezer for a package of caramelized onions, which I browned in some olive oil, then added two thinly sliced cloves of garlic, and reinforced the warm spices from the harissa — ground cumin, caraway seeds and ground coriander — in the sizzling oil. When the spices were fragrant, I added a package of Israeli couscous, bite-sized pieces of dark chicken, chopped roasted acorn squash, leftover chicken stock and two tablespoons of harissa paste. Only 15 minutes later, we were sitting down to a meal I wouldn’t even mind making from scratch someday.

I hope you add had a filling and fun-filled Thanksgiving. Now I need to figure out a way to work from home, because the last four days spent with all of my boys has been too good to miss again for 13 hours a day or more.

recipes and sweet doggy pictures after the jump

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sugared puffs

Sometimes, while recovering from a long work week, a woman (this one, anyway) doesn’t want to roll out of bed and think too hard about what to make for breakfast. She just needs her popovers — a foolproof and indulgent treat. Preparing the batter takes less than five minutes, which leaves plenty of time to get up to speed with a cup of coffee and the morning news while the magic happens in the oven.

I used David Lebovitz’s recipe for popovers rejiggered as “sugared puffs” and rolled half in butter + cinnamon sugar as called for and kept half plain to eat with butter and fig jam. The delicate, eggy batter wasn’t overwhelmed by the cinnamon topping, so the sugared puffs were more to our liking — even earning a “Nom-nom-NOM” from Gil — but with a less assertive jam, the plain janes might just give them a run for their money.

popovers with butter and fig jam

recipe after the jump

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Finally.

It took two weekends of tweaking, combining and adapting recipes, but I finally settled on a Concord grape focaccia (inspired by schiacciata, but less desserty) we couldn’t stop eating. Gil did his damage to it while I was away at work, but each night before bed, I stood at the counter nibbling on tiny pieces that always added up to the one large piece I should’ve just cut for myself at the start.

Apart from the focaccia, I didn’t really do any cooking last weekend because I was working on my first (paying) portrait shoot! Last winter, Cara Packard, the super-talented owner of Cara Linn Cakes, hired me to take some promotional pictures for her business. She’s getting married next month, so her sister did a little sleuthing to find me and arrange a surprise bridal portrait session in the city. I had a great time working with someone so natural and relaxed in front of the camera, and found that taking pictures of humans is even more fun than taking pictures of food. Go figure.

a few bridal pictures and focaccia recipe after the jump

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Restorative.

That’s what this weekend has been for me, and I couldn’t be more grateful. It began Friday with an afternoon spent wandering Tribeca searching out lonely cobblestone streets for a portrait session next weekend. I found a couple of candidates that will work wonderfully, but the best part of the afternoon was simply being alone with my thoughts, not working, not stressing, just being. 13+ hours of working and commuting each day is draining during good weeks, but has been especially brutal for the past few months with no hope of vacation between April and Christmas and deadlines upon deadlines. It really got to me.

So that simple half day meant more to me than I can say. I returned home that evening practically dancing and ready to greet the weekend. We paid our weekly visit to the farmers’ market Saturday morning where I loaded up on produce, fresh cheese and grass-fed beef, then spent the rest of the day out and about. So there was no cooking until today, really, unless you count the white chili I made last night with the remnants of our mid-week roasted chicken. It was nothing out of the ordinary — just the usual suspects with cannellini beans and some Rancho Gordo hominy (and cooking liquid) thrown in for good measure. Oh, and topped with farmer cheese and some of that green salsa from a couple of weeks ago. Yum.

I skipped the greyhound hike today to spend a little extra time cooking, so as soon as the boys left, I cranked up some bluegrass and got to work on this pear tart. I went savory instead of sweet, and finally got to try Clotilde’s olive oil tart crust (which deserves every rave review it got). It featured the goodness of caramelized onions, fresh herbs, gorgonzola, walnuts and fig vinegar. Again, nothing too out of the ordinary, but why reinvent the wheel when this combo is so very, very good?

But the first bite proved it was still missing a little something, so I sprinkled it with a little fleur de sel and grated a little Balinese long pepper over it. Yes, I sound like a brat, but this pepper is amazing stuff and went perfectly with the tart. Per-fect-l-y. It’s been sitting in my pantry since Memorial Day, and I can’t believe all the time I wasted not using it.

Bosc pears channeling Rosalind Russell

recipe after the jump

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On a cool and rainy Monday afternoon, it’d be easy to grumble a bit and wish the vestiges of winter would just leave for good already, but memories of our perfect weekend weather keep my emotions in check. The sun and warmth had such a curative effect on my doldrums that I BAKED, people — and if that isn’t a testament to spring’s power, then I don’t know what is.

So welcome, Spring, and please don’t rush off so quickly. Perhaps I could tempt you to hang around with a nice lemon tart or two…

Pucker up!

recipe after the jump

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I finally realized a couple of years ago exactly what makes northeastern winters so difficult to bear. The weather plays a large part, of course, but mostly it’s the lack of anything to look forward to between the holidays and spring (or the start of baseball season, if you’re so inclined). It’s just one long, dark slog through gray skies, snow, and wind chills in the single digits. Harumph.

Contrast that to the time and energy spent on balls and parades during carnival season in Louisiana. Beginning on Twelfth Night (January 6th) and going straight through to Mardi Gras day, even if you’re not into the whole parade thing, at the very least you can get a king cake at a local bakery. But most people catch a parade here and there in the weeks leading up to the big day, even if they don’t go all out and make the trek to New Orleans.

I’ve only been back to one Mardi Gras since I moved away from the area, but I’ve made it my annual tradition to have a little taste of home as Endymion and Bacchus roll. The winds may be howling here in New Jersey, but barbecue shrimp and king cake keep me warm inside.

For those of you who made it to the parades today, laissez les bon temps rouler, and may your hangovers be mild.

Confession time: I wasn’t raised on anything even resembling homemade biscuits, an especially shameful admission for a Southerner. The closest to “from scratch” my family ever got was Bisquick, but more often Dad would crack open a can of flaky biscuits and call it breakfast. So I don’t know where I developed a taste for the real stuff, but I’m glad I did, because there’s just no comparison.

This was a big biscuit weekend around here. I woke Saturday with a craving and set the wheels in motion, but the results were unsatisfactory, so I followed up with a second round Sunday because I just knew there was a better recipe out there. And of course there was; Gourmet ran an article on Ms. Edna Lewis and her protegé Scott Peacock not so long ago, and the magazine was practically staring me in the face as I blithely searched recipes online. Why would I look for second-rate when the ultimate was right there? It’s like reading Adrian Tomine when all you want is Dan Clowes or popping in a DVD of When Harry Met Sally when you know you’d be much more satisfied by Annie Hall. My ways are mysterious, sometimes even to myself.

So Ms. Lewis (via Mr. Peacock) was very particular about her biscuits, you’ll probably be unsurprised to hear. From the brand of flour to the method of cutting the biscuits, it’s all very precisely laid out in the recipe. White Lily flour — a Southern staple made from a soft wheat — is preferred. Naturally, it’s nearly impossible to find around here, so I made a close approximation with 2 parts cake flour to 3 parts all-purpose flour. And because I just don’t keep lard at hand, I used Plugra instead, figuring it has a higher percentage of butterfat than most supermarket brands, so it’d be closer to lard. And really, who can complain about Plugra?

I worked the butter into the flour with my icy hands (which, though naturally chilly, were perfect for the task after a mile-long walk with Rufus on a 15-degree morning), then stirred buttermilk into the mixture juuuust until the dough came together. After kneading the dough briefly on a well-floured board, I rolled it out and began cutting the biscuits. Did you know that you shouldn’t twist the biscuit cutter as you do this? Well, it’s true, and it was more difficult to break myself of that habit than you might think, but all turned out well.

Just a short time later, we were enjoying pillowy, crusty biscuits brushed with melted butter. Gil went the standard route, smearing his biscuit halves with butter and jam, but I ate my biscuits dipped in pure cane syrup, just the way I have since I was a tiny tot. Oh, man, it just curls my toes. Excellent stuff.

Do give this recipe a try if you’re ever craving buttermilk biscuits. Just remember to take the recipe as gospel (except for the lard, I suppose); if you do, you’re guaranteed one heavenly breakfast.

recipe after the jump

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I’m a terrible neighbor. Oh, I don’t let Rufus pockmark neighbors’ yards with calling cards or have crazy drink-till-dawn parties or have a car on blocks in the front yard, but I’ve found other less obvious ways to be a bad person.

Those of you who are lucky enough to be in warmer climates at the moment might not have heard, but it’s cold here. Negative wind chill cold. Unacceptably cold. AND it snowed like a sonofabitch last weekend. So we’re all miserable, is what I’m getting at. When it snows over the weekend, Gil and I sometimes shovel the driveway, but more often he just drives over the snow in his Honda Element and we don’t think too much about it. Last weekend, however, in the midst of all the wintery misery, our neighbor came over with his snow blower to take care of the dirty work for us.

As he was doing his thing, I looked over at our fruit bowl and noticed a few blackened bananas there just begging to be made into banana bread. So I dug out my version of a Cooking Light recipe and got to work on some bread for this wonderful, generous man.

And when it came out of the oven, I took a few pictures.

And then we sampled a slice just to make sure it was gift-worthy, which of course, rendered the entire loaf un-gift-worthy.

And those being the last of our bananas, there was no thank-you banana bread. Therefore, I am a bad neighbor.

But a happy one.

recipe after the jump

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