Morsels

Well, there is much food to report up here in Maine. First, there is the best rabbit stew I have EVER had made by my own mama who says the only secret to it was cooking it longer than usual with a rest in between. She found the rabbit with mustard cream sauce recipe online and is busy looking it up even as we speak. Found it. She had no creme fraiche and just added cream on the top as it finished in the oven.

Meanwhile, there was also my aunt Mary’s birthday last night and that had to be accompanied by a meringue (made again by the mom) that was then filled with Roundtop Ice Cream (this, the ice cream of the childhood may no longer be the best around but it’s like your perfect childhood dog — you conveniently forget the burping and the smelly ears and the silent farts just outside the dining room…. the dog is just perfect, past-perfect as the french like to say). And then, the meringue, coffee ice cream concoction is topped with homemade warm chocolate sauce and chocolate shavings and one birthday candle carefully stuck just SO by little cousin Sarah. We ate and ate and had to add ice cream to get the sweetness balanced and listened to the time my cousin Kinloch ate so much of a similar desert that he had to punch his brother Robert.

And this morning off to the farmer’s market to eat cinnamon buns made with croissant dough.  I have never had a success with that but am very happy for the nice crazy lady who has made it her livelihood.

Now off on the boat to go find some islands and passages and views.

I had an episode this morning involving brisket, feelings of utter organization, competency, rapid shift to INcompetency, safety glass, disintegration and the sense that if anyone actually peeked in my kitchen window they might get very, very worried.

Here’s the thing. I decided this weekend to try and “live out of the freezer” as my mother used to declare (usually towards the end of the month, hmm) and yesterday grabbed a huge Bucky Brisket from the freezer. Last night I made a chinese beef stir-fry from it but it was really large and so there was plenty to put in my trusty crock pot this morning at about 7 am. So, I salted and pepper and dried herbed that old brisket and sauteed it in a pan (meanwhile, packing C’s lunch, checking my email, the headlines, inhaling first cup of coffee — the usual). And I popped it in my crockpot with a couple of cups of beef broth and headed upstairs for a shower. Well, it all took longer upstairs. There was laundry to move from one place to another, earrings to select, and so forth. I got downstairs feeling somewhat on the late side and went to check said brisket.

Ever have one of those moments when you are looking at something that you simply do not expect and therefore can’t quite see? Think Escher or one of those crazy eye/mind exercises where you are supposed to see a fish in the midst of something if only you could get that soft-focus thing happening. What I saw was just not registering at first because it was so unexpected.

The top to the crock pot had shattered. The handle plummeted with various bits of glass all over my lovely seared brisket. First I tried lifting the top, hoping to get if off of the pot without getting any more glass on the meat. I had this wild thought (not kidding) that I could remove the top, rinse the meat and re-cook the whole thing.

Luckily, it was GARBAGE DAY. So I gathered my trusty, mis-matched potholders and took the crockpot, brisket and all and dumped it in the garbage can which was waiting expectantly on the curb. And I hoped that none of my neighbors were watching. Because if they were it seemed to me that I looked as if I was violently rebelling against my suburban existence. TAKE THAT! Damn brisket. Damn crockpot.

So much for planning ahead.

Here’s the thing. When your nineteen year old calls you up in the afternoon of say a Friday and says “mom, I’ve been thinking” it’s best to drop what you are doing (in my case packing frantically for Finger Lakes) and listen up. Turns out that Arthur has made friends with a Sri Lankan prince — or so he says. In any case, the friend has invited Arthur to Sri Lanka and Arthur is wondering, umm, can he go. Well. It seemed unwise to say no immediately. Instead I mentioned that it might be expensive. And he allowed as how he might need to save up. Course, it entirely depends on what airline you choose. Air India seems to be a mere $1200 give or take while Saudi Arabia Airlines is over $6k — guess that latter is for those who need to find interesting ways to spend all their extra money. Arthur says it could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance, which is true — Bennington tends to attract various and sundry international kids — probably a few other royal-types hanging around. OU? Not so much. Also, Arthur says his friend hangs out with elephants. That of course, cinches the deal.

I told him to work over the summer and save his pennies and then asked him if he was at all worried about travelling over there. Isn’t there some sort of civil unrest? I asked….Tamil Tigers and such? He agreed that it would be reallly embarrassing if he ended up being the American-who-gets-kidnapped. How about just plain old killed?

We agreed to discuss it more. But that was before I read the State Dept’s travel warning. (which is linked to under the word “killed”) I support adventure and travel but I’m thinking I will have to draw the line.  Instead, I will be sure to make him some baked cheese prawns. And when the Cleveland Zoo has elephant rides I’ll make sure to encourage a visit.

Since I had this (mis) adventure, I have wanted to tell it. But the weekend got past me I guess. Anyway, I will start at the end, which is when I sat on my phone and called my mama. Now that in and of itself was amusing because she and I are so pleasantly surprised to be speaking to one another whenever that happens but it was doubly so because I had just at that moment been thinking… “well, only the daughter of a debutante who dropped her gloves in the road on the way to the dance and had them run over by a truck (that would be my mama back in the proper 50’s South – not the truck, the debutante – wow, syntax sucks) would have such a thing to happen to her.”

So here goes. I finished my painting class, which just keeps getting better and was loading things into the car when Jeff called me from the door of the building. I had meant to take a book on Thomas Eakins to study how to paint water and I had forgotten it. So I ran back, grabbed the book and cradled it on the way to the car. I was thinking about the chapter on how Eakins used photography and the other chapter about his use of tones and all the other things I would want to read about. And I got in the car, drove home and unloaded.

Only to discover that my palette was nowhere to be found. I had been working hard that evening to mix the right colors and didn’t want to “lose” them so I had been careful to keep the palette full of paint and had placed it oh so carefully on the top of the car so that I could arrange it gingerly in the back. Only I hadn’t. It was someplace between home and studio. I could only hope that it had careened off in the parking lot. But even so –  how embarrassing to have to go back and poke around and pick up the damn thing. Well, there was nothing to do but go and get it, reminding myself all along that I really ought to have paid more attention to that scene in Raising Arizona where the guys forget the baby.

I called Dennis who was on his way home from a boy’s night out for moral support. He’s so darling not to make fun of my episodes. And sure enough, there it was, half-flattened on Lake Road, which was annoyingly busy for a Thursday night. And there I was, pulling a U-ey in the parking lot by the studio and keeping my patient husband on the phone while I put on my hazards and grabbed the tray (keeping Dennis on the phone just in case I got hit – I figured he would want to be with me in my last moments, even if only telephonically). But I managed to retrieve my palette with the paint surprisingly intact. Drove home, sat on my phone, called mom and that’s the end of that.

Meantime it has been weirdly hot here (88, 90 degrees) and I chose this weekend to have dirt delivered for my new vegetable garden. It occurred to me, about ½ hour into it this morning that Christopher would appreciate earning money and I would appreciate not shoveling and hauling dirt. We made a deal. Now, all I need is my seeds and the spare time to plant the garden (and hopefully, hopefully some helpful boys who will get out there and weed – ha! Hope and vegetable gardens and weeds spring eternal)

Well, this is nice enough… sitting at the kitchen table in the NY house. The sun is out, it is working its way up to a 58 degree day and my biggest responsibility is how to treat two very nice pheasants who are shivering in my fridge. I take this sort of responsibility seriously though and it has been weighing on me since my friend (he was also the generous donor of the incredible venison we had awhile back) gave them to me mid-week.

So I’ve been poking though my cookbooks.  Julia Child had a recipe in Mastering the Art (and etc) which involved aspic. Really? I am going to have enough of a time getting young Christopher to ingest these guys without coating them in cold meat-flavored jelly. Then there was Julia’s partner-in-crime, Simone Beck whose book, Simca’s Cuisine is one I always turn to when I am really stuck and need “just the thing” my dear. She does have a recipe but it is naturally pretty complex and I am more interesting in great flavor but relative ease. Hmm, might be a new motto.

I called mom in the midst of all this because that really is the thing to do in these cases. She offered to pore through her books but reminded me that she had cooked pheasant only once and that was when I was very young and we were in France.

Of course… this is a family legend and a very early memory for me so I am bound to tell it. We were all three of us very young. I am two or three so that makes mom 25 at the most and dad 24. We are living in Aiguilles in Provence, a tiny town surrounded by vineyards. I remember most of all the soft beige and rose stone walls (the very same colors I have been trying to capture in my painting!) and the great old house (manse) our apartment was in. The house was surrounded by a walled-in garden and I used to run through the paths with my best little pal, Richard. But this was Christmas and it was chilly. Maybe there wasn’t quite enough snow. Everything was covered in a light powder, like the sugar on the pastries in the shop mom and I went to every day.  I remember the sun was beginning to head its way down but that would still put us in early afternoon and I wasn’t sure where mom was. So, calling and walking in the tall rooms and the sun slanting down and then there she was on the balcony overlooking my secret garden with a multi-colored bird in her lap. Very still and the feathers tumbling about her in an incredible fall of color and softness. For a minute, the light was all. It bathed her and the bird. But then I took her in and saw — she was literally blanketed and weeping. For the bird’s beauty. For Christmas without her father for the first time. For being alone with this tremendous responsibility (me? the bird that ought to be perfect for our first Christmas? — I couldn’t tell. ) All I knew, really was that she was terribly sad and the bird was like a dream. I don’t remember how it tasted at all.

So pretty daunting to try and cook that up again, right? I have found a fricassee in James Beard’s book. Of course that good man would have a large section on game birds and many ways to cook them up. H says the following about game birds in general: “(They are) a gamble. One is never quite sure of their age or previous athletic activities. Sometimes they will seem perfect and one anticipates a tender morsel, but I’m afraid 90 percent of the time they are a risk”

Which is why I am not broiling, not roasting. I am fricasseeing. Even though I am pretty sure this pair, raised to be shot at in the lovely hunt club — they probably are, actually, quite tender. Well we will certainly see.

And a footnote — anyone who doesn’t have the above cookbooks and is interested in building their collection should immediately buy the books I mention. (I’m so bossy!)

I wrote this while we were in Reunion,  Florida — a tribute to the bland and everything poking its way out from under:

Night and the freeway

has emptied. There’s peace

in the long way forward.

The orderly cat’s eyes.

Kleig lights sweep placidly

over this magic kingdom.

Where once there was scrub

and swamp and chicken and king snake

Now landmarks for Magic

and Celebration, Joe’s Crab Shack

and other Happy Havens.

Up and coming, and going.

Mike’s General Auction House

displays 300 backhoes, 20 cantilevered cranes,

60 cherry pickers, lined up justso.

In 4 days at Reunion, we met no one,

spoke only to each other and watched

the Sunday Golfers

hell-bent

in this morning’s squall

to get through the hole.

They curved over their clubs,

braced against the whistling wind.

Grimm brothers.

Years ago and not so far away,

two sisters caught chicken snakes

and sold them at 10 cents a foot to Roy’s Snake Farm.

Oh Apopka, Ocallala, Kissimee.

Celebration. Magic. Animal.

Yield.

My apologies to those of you who do read this relatively regularly and the different looks I am throwing around — think of it as someone trying (ok, me) on new dresses. I’ll settle on one soon enough. Meanwhile, do I look fat in this one?

Couldn’t help myself… we are readying ourselves to head back home and I am glad. I’ll post something I wrote about Reunion later when I have time. But in the meantime, this thought came to me earlier.

It is much better to feel safe TO create than to feel safe WHEN creating.

Chew on that for a bit.

Man is it cold outside! And here’s an “only in Cleveland story…” I had a meeting yesterday downtown (we had come to the client) and at the end of the meeting he thanked us for coming over to his office. We said it was no biggie and then he allowed as how it was at least warm out. So, yesterday I think it was 25 degrees? He meant warmer than today which is 16 degrees. But, really? We are an optimistic bunch. You sort of have to be.

But this post is about the warmingest food I can sometimes think of and that is pea soup (it also happens to be Dennis’s favorite soup so that is warming too). I titled the post “thick as…” referencing, of course, fog as in “thick as pea soup” and while I was thinking about writing this post last night I remembered sailing in the dense fog in Maine as a kid with my family and one day in particular.  Dad’s boat is now all tricked with GPS this and radar that but back then all we had was a compass and a watch to calculate how far we ought to have travelled through fog that was so thick the folks back in the cockpit got a little misty if you went forward to help spot for the mark.

As the oldest kid, it used to be a real point of pride to be the first to spot the mark and Dad would often send my up to the bow to look and see if I couldn’t find whatever bouy we were aiming for (this all sounds, in retrospect, very haphazard but we never did get ourselves into any trouble). But it was certainly serious business what with those buoys often marking some pretty rocky spots. You really didn’t want to miss. And, so staring into the endless fog, your eyes would play tricks — you would see shapes that dissolved, or the misty air, itself would begin to sort of glitter, like snow falling. On this particular day, as we headed for a bouy, I remember peering intently and Dad calling out asking if I saw anything? And I wanted to see the bouy, believe me. Time slowed to a crawl, my eyes blurred and teared up and I leaned forward, forward. Suddenly, the sky seemed to be filled with long, dark cracks. In seconds, I realized (as did my father, he veered the boat) that we were looking at long fissures in the tall coastline of the headland. Not the bouy (which we eventually found and here I am, living to make commemorative pea soup).

So phew! Onto more prosaic things…The last pea soup I made (this weekend) is so loosely based on the one from Laurel’s Kitchen that I hesitate to post it and it changes all the time. I have posted about this one from Jack Bishop, which I make a lot and which is very good — so here it is again. Stay warm….

I have a favorite go-to Lentil Soup recipe from Greens Cookbook that I just assumed I have posted because it is such a staple but I don’t seem to have done that. So, here it is. But when I went to make it yesterday I didn’t have celery and I wanted to use up some baby carrots that were losing their um rigidity?? anyway, I had to use them up. And then there was a beautiful leek from the farmer’s market that was begging for attention. And it seemed like those might be natural ingredients to mix with my lentils. So I took the basis for the soup and made my own, which was very good.

And it was so nice to get to the NY house by six pm last night and heat the soup up, grate some parmesan cheese over our bowls and then sit together at the dinner table happily slurping and sipping the wonderful dry riesling from Hermann J. Wiemer. It was very romantic and I felt compelled to tell Dennis that I thought it was so romantic that we ought to be having escargots (that being one of the most romantic foods I can think of, maybe because it means I am in Paris). There then ensued a conversation about what really is a romantic food. Dennis thought chocolate (big surprise). I changed my mind to oysters but didn’t share. He doesn’t like those either.

Tonight I will make the buffalo steak marinated with soy, balsamic vinegar and maple syrup. I’ve made it before and it is quite tasty and easy. In the meantime, I am busily destroying our bedroom quilt in the dryer. I didn’t think it was on purpose until I was dragging it out of the washer where I should never have stuffed it and hauling it into the dryer and thinking very, very spiteful thoughts the whole while. I’ve been wanting a new comforter for our bedroom here and couldn’t really justify the expense when we have a perfectly good one already. I’ll teach it a thing or two. More anon but I bet the thing is not happy when it comes out. I’m expecting lumpy filling and an overall bedraggled result. Hours later…. poo. It is just fine.

We were off at Bennington to visit Arthur this weekend which was wonderful, stressful and, in the end comforting. It was great to see Arthur in his environs, clearly at home and well-liked by his (mostly female) housemates. The mountains are beginning to be streaked with various shades of turning leaves; apple-picking was in full swing and the roadside pumpkin stands were replete with carefully arranged pumpkins.

We ate in the dining hall for several meals and, I have to say, I was a little disappointed with the vegetarian fare. Tofu Stroganoff? Apparently, according to Arthur, they take basic meals like Stroganoff and just re-make them with tofu. No one seems impressed. There are a pair of woks over in the corner and kids can make their own stir-fries which seems like a good option. On Sundays they have an ice-cream sundae bar in the evening and make your own waffles in the morning. So it’s fine but (and now I sound like every whinging, financially-strapped college parent out there) where the heck does all the tuition go? It’s not immediately obvious. Saturday night we did take Arthur out to a “real” meal at a local restaurant called Pangaea. This restaurant, owned by Bill Scully is really very good (that link is to a review of the place,  not to any more info about Scully — but it’s a nice review and does a good job of giving a sense of the place). I had grilled swordfish (sorry — bad but so yummy!) over a warm, wilted spinach salad. The dish was drizzled with a balsamic reduction vinaigrette and topped with a fan of avocado which melted right into the fish. It was really excellent. Scully also owns a market (Powers Market) across the street which has been around for 175 years (obviously not all under his stewardship). Again, excellent sandwiches, wraps and pastries (I am particularly regretting not buying the cinnamon roll yesterday morning because I think I am now going to have to make some to see if I can’t recreate what was obviously an amazingly rich, buttery dough).

What does this all have to do with marinated steak you ask? Well, naturally being away I did no shopping so we will be eating simpler meals this week, most of them derived from the freezer. I pulled out some bison rib eyes last night and am marinating them in a combination of equal parts soy, balsamic vinegar and maple syrup and some chopped garlic. I grabbed the recipe from this month’s Gourmet and felt pleased with the Vermontian maple syrup touch. I will report back on the results.