San Marzano Tomatoes

I've spent the summer canning. Obsessively. Pick a fruit. Any fruit. Okay, a local fruit. It's on my shelf. In a jar, in a syrup, a jam, maybe a jelly or a pickle. I've lost my fear of canning and for the first time I'm putting up everything. This week I'm on tomatoes. San Marzano tomatoes.

I would have passed the San Marzanos up at the farmers' market if I hadn't been told they were good. They look hot house, too shiny, too conformed, all the same size. They look like a chorus line, each one in the same costume. I shop for disheveled heirloom varieties. The lumpy, jowly varieties that are art when sliced in any direction.

The first time I sliced into a polished San Marzano I grimaced. Grocery store, I thought. Not a lot of meat or seeds, or, well, anything. It was nearly hollow. I tossed a few in a pan; with a little heat the skins came easily off. I worked them; but not too much, stirring, pulling out the peels. They became almost delicate.

Not expecting much I put a dimes worth on the end of the wooden spoon. The first taste I didn't believe. I put a nickles worth on the spoon, then a quarter. I was sure. The taste was sunshine. New sunshine. It tasted like the first part of the day when everything is still possible. It tasted pure, pure tomato, and it was love.

I've since slow roasted them, a few hours at 170, peeled back their skin, one half at a time and slid them directly into my mouth, the taste as brilliant as the inner mandala of an heirloom.

And I've turned the San Marzanos into sauce. It didn't take much; a warm pan, a food mill, they melted into sauce as fast as I could get them into jars and seal them.

Winter is going to be sweet.

I Love Beets

My husband doesn't like beets. He doesn't like them to the point that he has to tell me he doesn't like them each time I bring them into the house. And then he tells me every day they are in the house that he doesn't like them. He disassembles dinner asking, "are there beets in here?"

I love beets.

I loved beets when the only kind I knew came from a can. I don't even know how old I was when I first saw a real beet. I was older still when I first cooked one. All the scrubbing and peeling to cook them has quite frankly made beets in a can seem like not a bad idea. I know they taste better fresh but they've been such a stubborn root to prepare. Until now.

I've learned to simply cook the whole beet in a pot of boiling water. I know, where have I been? It feels like I'm getting away with something it's so easy. With a little coaxing the peels slide off leaving the pure beet jewel. I happily stop right there and eat it. Maybe a dash of salt but it's not required.

Then I saw that Doughgirl was canning beets and I wanted to can pickled beets too. So I did.

And I served them for dinner last night making noises of deliciousness.

"Do you want to taste the brine," I asked my husband.

He dipped his spoon, tasted. Went back for a quarter teaspoon. A little more. I was silent.

"Okay," he said. "I'll taste one."

I hadn't said a word. I was holding my breath. I wanted him to like them but I didn't want him to like them too; I'd only canned three jars.

He put a beet in his mouth. Chewed. No spitting. He didn't exclaim. But before he'd finished swallowing, he was reaching for another.

I found the recipe at Saving the Season. Cider vinegar, brown sugar, star anise, cinnamon, cloves. It's a keeper!

Rhubarb

Rhubarb season always bring memories of my Grandfather. He'd pick me up from kindergarten in his red and white truck. Lady, the collie dog, would meet us in the driveway at home, at the end of a forever row of eucalyptus trees, the song of red winged black birds through the open windows. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The red winged black birds still sound the same.

Later, in junior high, when he was driving a purple jeep, and I could walk to school, he taught me to make rhubarb pie. At first he made the crust, instructed me on the filling and with each successive pie he was further from the kitchen. Until the pie came from the oven; then he was first at the table.

All these years later, lifetimes really, and he's been gone more than a decade, I've not made a rhubarb pie. I honestly don't remember how. But on Sunday I improvised a stewed pot of rhubarb, adding flavor as I went.

The rhubarb, a squeeze of lemon juice, confetti ribbons of zest. I added candied ginger because I had it. Grandpa would never have considered it. And because I don't love sugar, like he did, I sweetened the pot with wild blackberry honey. And half a basket of strawberries. He adored a good strawberry.

With a bit of water the rhubarb cooked to a sauce, the consistency of pie filling. I ate it from the pot. Until it cooled. Then I spooned it, the biggest spoon I could find, over a bowl of meyer lemon yogurt.

If Grandpa had been able to taste it, he would have been first at the table. Even with the ginger.

It seems like such an old fashioned food, unfortunately forgotten. But a guarantee that it's not commercial. I like that, that I find it, unbunched, loose, on a small farmers fold out table, priced with a paper and felt pen sign.

How about you? Do you eat rhubarb?

Strawberries and Cream

It was so simple I feel silly really, writing about it. But I can't get it out of my mind. Strawberries bought from the farm in Santa Cruz. Organic strawberries. From the girl that always has me smiling. Her mother helps on Sunday mornings. Sometimes. Selling strawberries, artichokes, blackberry jam. How I love the blackberry jam. Swanton Berry Farm it's called.

That's how it started; this simple idea from a friend. I bought the strawberries. Carried them to the birthday celebration, whole, in our big red bowl. Each berry flower-side-up and a layer on top, upside down for pinching. We voted to slice them. A quiet moment in the kitchen. Slicing, tasting. Mouths silently watering.

And then I poured on the cream. Thick, pearl white cream.

Saved the empty jar for little girl nosegays. Returned the strawberry baskets to the farmer.

Strawberries and cream.

Not a thing wasted. So simple I feel silly.

Butternut Squash Soup

My winter squash obsession has become more refined. That's overstating it a bit though. Let's just say I'm learning the names of the different winter squash. To date I have nine varieties and know the names of eight. One I can't pronounce and one, the one pictured, remains unknown. This is progress.

I grew up on butternut squash baked in boat shaped wedges filled with butter and brown sugar. Later I discovered pumpkin raviolis in a buttery white sauce at a country restaurant with a chef named Pierre. I never ordered anything else. "I'll have the ravioli's," I'd smile returning the menu without a glance.

The last pumpkin ravioli I had was at that restaurant too many years ago. The restaurant, the dirt parking lot, I think they're both gone.

The next time I ate squash it came in a box. Butternut squash soup in a box. I'd add green curry, ginger. Top it with chopped cilantro. It looked good, thick, golden, like the baked squash I grew up with. But it didn't have the dense flavor I remembered. It was butternut light. Butter without the nut. That must be what happens when its put into a soup, I reasoned.

My reasoning was flawed. I made my own butternut squash soup last week. It was as densely flavored as I remember those butter filled baked boats my Grandmother served. It was better than boats. And nearly as easy as opening a box but without the resulting trash.

Even Pierre, I imagine, would sit on a bar stool, his white apron half untied and kiss his fingertips over a bowl of this butternut squash soup. This then is for him.

Wherever he may be.


Butternut Squash Soup

Three Parts Chicken Broth
One Part Butternut Squash
Thyme
Ginger
Peanut or Almond Butter
Serrano or Jalapeno Chili
Creme Fraiche

Peel and cut butternut into two to three inch crooked cubes and wedges. Add to chicken broth and cook on medium heat with a small bouquet of thyme. Add one teaspoon of minced ginger and one teaspoon of nut butter for each cup of broth. For a medium spicy soup add half a teaspoon of minced pepper for each cup of broth.

Cook until squash is soft, remove thyme bouquet. Blend with an immersion blender and add salt to taste.

Serve topped with a circle of creme fraiche.


(Please note all measurements are approximate as I've yet to refine that fine art.)

Grilled Peaches

I had an awakening last weekend. It happened after dinner, after the sun had set and dusk had settled in. Dishes were still on the table but we served the final course around them. Maybe they were moved to the side. I don't remember and honestly I'm sure no one noticed. The lake was pink, the air warm, the big dragon flies had come and gone. We were intoxicated on the sky and everything it touched.

I enlisted the cute guy, gave him a plate of halved peaches, a spoon full of olive oil and asked him to grill. He acted like he'd done it before, this cooking of fruit, pulling the peaches from the heat as they frayed at the edges, their skins slipping off. I sliced them into bowls, juice everywhere. And covered them with cream.

The only sounds were our spoons against the bowls, the unseen crickets and then someone asked, "Is there more?"

And I appreciated for the thousandth time and the first time again the sheer beauty of simplicity.

Art Food

I don't think anyone has left on vacation this month. The farmers' markets are jammed. And with good reason. Forget carbon bites or food miles, forget taste and local economies; the markets this month are a visual destination.

I stopped on Sunday before I left the market to consider if I'd bought any food at all or if it was all impulsive food for my eyes.

I had handfuls of candy pears, three in each one. "Have a taste," the vendor insisted. I didn't care what they tasted like. They were miniature sculptures, Rodin's with a stem.

There were french prunes in my bag that inspired a vision of pheasant feathers, the whole bagged bird, burgundy roses, falling petals, hydrangeas and grapes so heavy on a table it sagged.

I had one pink lady apple, the first, chosen in a scented cloud of lavender. The basket of figs I'd filled myself was already almost gone. I'd bite into one, study it, the maroon and purple of it, and because it was prefect, picked before it was too soft, but only moments before, I'd stand in the center aisle, people coursing on either side and I'd practically pour the rest of those colors, their winey sweetness into my mouth. I should have bought more.

There were the tomatoes; sungold tomatoes, beads of sugary sun, a rope of summer jewels. And a musky red Russian tomato with deep green cheeks, "Paul Robeson, it's called. He was an opera singer," the grower sang. I wanted them all.

There were Gravenstein apples I couldn't resist for their freckles, eggplants purchased for their purpleness. I carried a rainbow of radishes, blue potatoes, orange cauliflower, raku stained Asian pears, elephant heads of garlic bursting from their seams. And three hand held squash blossoms. Three twisted, concubine orange squash blossoms.

All of it art but only temporarily so. We're eating it all way too fast.

What's beautiful on your table this month today?

Haiku Friday

Did Grandma know the
Bodega Red Potato?
I wish I could ask.

Local Food Testimonial #1

It was dainty how he picked a single leaf from his plate, between thumb and forefinger. Held it out the way people do when they're far from home. "What is this?" he asked.

"Arugula."

"Arugula," he repeated as if explaining something to himself. He looked at it from all sides. "Do they do something to it?"

"It's local," his sister answered. "Fresh."

He studied it again but this time more intently. I started studying it too, wanting it to be special.

Then he put the leaf in his mouth shaking his head.

"It's good," he finished and reached with his fork for more.

Early Treat Peaches

I love it when I'm wrong. Not really, but this case was an exception.

I don't buy the first of the season. Somewhere I planted in my head, fabricated rather than from a reliable source I'm sure, that the first picked fruits and vegetables of the season are forced; brought to the table too soon. There was an imagined immaturity, a lack of taste, of refinement. Too early meant too much pushing and pulling. Ha.

Last week I bought the first peaches on the market; Early Treats. They're way to early, I told myself. I put three, the size of golf balls, in my purse. Half an hour later at the office the peaches were ripe. Mistakenly I took a bite at my desk. Juice flew while I watched, motionless.

For a split second I expected to see someone flicking water from a glass over the papers in front of me. The juice was easier to explain than the flavor in my mouth though. Flowers, I thought. I'm eating flowers. Soft pink flowers.

The peach dripping in my hand and onto my blouse brought me to.

I moved away from the desk, grabbed a napkin and studied the taste. It was unmistakably peach. As real and ripe and honey laden as those in the heat of summer.

Being wrong never tasted so good.

Party Food

I dangled carrots this weekend. Not actually dangled but served a big basket of scrubbed plain old carrots pulled from a wrinkled canvas bag at the cute guy's birthday gathering. There was a long moment of toying with leaving the hairy roots on the bottom but the moment passed, the tops and tips came off and onto the table they went.

Derek used them as horns in a group shot, resorting to eating them as the shooting took longer.

Arthur had carrots in his pocket. "For my sisters," he said.

Jacob fed the tops to the chickens.

Dustin looked surprised. "Good carrot," he said and took another.

Then the conversation moved from carrots to summer gardens and grass fed beef; completely unprompted by me. Well, unless you count the basket of sweet local carrots. But I didn't say a word. Honest. I simply listened and smiled.

And the food spoke for itself.

Kale Flowers

I've found something better than kale - kale flowers.

The cute guy insists on calling this new food broccoli, but it's not. It's kale before it's gone to seed, before the flowers have had a chance to bloom. And it's baby kale leaves on tender stems; perfect to eat raw. Which is what I did, chopped into a salad with coins of carrots, greens and avocado.

The stems provided a satisfying crunch, the baby leaves a taste of living on a farm (my constant dream) and the scatter of kale buds simply looked pretty. Which is precisely why I bought the kale flowers to begin with. The taste is a cracker jack surprise.

To the tell the truth I thought I was buying broccoli with a purple green mixed in. The stems are identical to young off shoots and without glasses the leaves looked the same too. Thankfully another shopper asked the grower what it was. I would have simply called it, that funny broccoli.

Now that I know though, I will enjoy kale primarily as a means to get to this sweet time of the blossoms.

Haiku Friday

Ten pounds of oranges
piled in a bowl are art;
too pretty to peel.

Haiku Friday

At the edge of the field.

I long to burrow
beneath the soil to watch
a sweet carrot grow.

Time Out

Saturday morning at Boulettes Larder.
For the first time this year it has felt like winter and I'm taking a break, except from Haiku Fridays, to read books, poetry, take pictures, go to bed early and reevaluate what's important.

Local food is still important. The farmers' markets have been stormy and I wouldn't miss them for anything. I ate a mandarinkuat for the first time and it was inauguration day 2009 good! If you can find one don't hesitate to make it yours.

Reducing plastic continues to occupy my mind too. I've cancelled the daily delivery of the paper and opted for Sunday only. One plastic bag a week instead of six. And no more plastic produce bags! Nada, zip, zero. Three months ago I wouldn't have believed it possible.

The worm bin was a year old and they eat more than ever and still make noise. I love them.

The cute guy and I ate at a new restaurant where the waiter, unasked, told the table where the fish came from, "local". And how it was caught, "single line". I nearly kissed his hand and wanted everyone there to be our new best friends.

And every where I look I see simple beauty and great waste but I need a time out from the words. I need to clean my house, go for a walk, plant seeds, talk to people, bake bread.

It will be spring with more words soon enough.

In the meantime, be well and know about the fish you eat.

Kyocera Knife

I'm not one for fancy kitchen gadgets but the cute guy and I received a new Knife for Christmas that has changed my kitchen life. We have an average assortment of knives that previously got the job done but now, now I'm an artist.

Three nights ago the Kyocera Knife cut effortlessly through a butternut squash; a job that used to involve stabbing said squash, whacking it against the counter with eyes half shut and then cleaning up the seeds planted about the kitchen. (The Knife actually cut out some of the excitement as I think about it.)

Last night I made dimes from a frozen jalapeno I added to a pot of beans. I couldn't stop smiling. And for the first time in my life I cut thin slices of sourdough with no tearing. The possibilities are endless.

We're eating carrot sticks because they're easy to make. I topped a salad with apple slices thin as a ten dollar bill. I stand in the kitchen and cut things simply because I can; because I have the Knife. Walnuts, dates, roasted chicken, onions, cilantro and I've not cut myself once.

I reach for a potato in the bottom drawer with visitors. "Cut this," I say, handing them the knife wishing I had two so I could be slicing au gratin too.

My best friend in the kitchen used to be an impossible smooth can opener, also a gift. I miss the fast and easy charm it offered but eating local means produce and produce means preparation, which elevates the status of a good knife. I don't know how I've made it this long without one. The Knife is definitely my new best friend in the kitchen.

Do you have a best friend in the kitchen?

Seasonal Fruit

Me: "I didn't know cherries were in season."

Friend: "If you shop at Costco cherries in Chile are in season."

We laughed because she knows I would never buy them and because I knew she would enjoy them.

Aside from the fact the cherries are shipped from halfway across the world, packaged in single use plastic that even if recyclable is not going to return to the natural world in the life time of any generation I'll ever know, I wouldn't buy them because I'd miss out on what's in season right here. I live in California and can only eat so much fruit. Why eat fruit from Chile?

It's big citrus season right now. Today I had the first grapefruit of the year from the Capay Valley. I've never known one to be so smooth. Eating it was a well rehearsed choir. There were no sour notes, no puckered moments that I expect from grapefruit.

And the same grower has clementines. They're great for work because they can be peeled without getting sticky fingers. And yes, they sing too. Bright voices with perfectly high pitched notes.

There are kumquats in season that I'd never trade for imported fruit. Kiwi that are actually grown locally (I thought they were all imported). And there are limes in our back yard, meyers lemons in everyone else's.

As soon as all this citrus becomes repetitive it'll be over I'll be on to the next season. And maybe it's just me, but the fruit tastes sweeter when I eat what's grown in the same season I see when I look out the door. The local season for cherries is worth waiting for.

Broccoli & Meyer Lemon

Have you ever ate a meyer lemon? I mean the entire lemon? Okay, maybe not all of the peel but some of the peel?

I have.

I didn't plan on eating the lemon. It started with a tentative lick to determine the sour factor. It was a scientific lick. But the sour was far away so I licked the lemon again; more information was needed. I took a bite. Skin and all. Another bite and I was ripping away the peel, eating drinking, biting until the lemon was gone. And yes, the sour stayed at a distance even though I kept anticipating it. I could have eaten three but I'd only purchased one.

Broccoli and Meyer Lemon

One Head of Broccoli
Olive Oil
Sea Salt
One Meyer Lemon

Steam the broccoli until it screams green and is still crisp. Dress with olive oil and sea salt to taste. Top with a small squeeze of meyer lemon juice, toss broccoli and sample again. Repeat adding lemon juice as necessary keeping the taste of it faint as a lick.

I promise an empty of bowl of broccoli when the meal is done. And enough lemon left over to eat later.

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

One of my favorite holiday moments ...

Being told the brussel sprouts were delicious by someone who had never liked them before.

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Halve six to ten brussel sprouts per serving. Toss and coat completely with olive oil, sea salt and pepper. Crowd without heaping onto a cookie sheet.

Roast at 400 degrees and turn at eight minute intervals until outer leaves have browned and sprouts can be easily pierced; approximately 35 minutes.

Serve hot.

What was your favorite moment?

Consider The Farmer

Since I began eating seasonally I keep a piece of fruit on my desk in a nearly flat celadon green bowl. A bowl the size of my palm with a single painted stem of bamboo. It's the perfect pedestal for a late summer peach, a newly shined apple, one blood orange, three figs or a winter persimmon. The fruit is elevated to art, displayed as if it were still a flower on the branch.

I study the fruit as if I were going to draw it, paint it, as if someone else already committed it to canvas. I notice the places the colors fade, stretch, pull forward, the texture, stem. The places where the juice is held in its miraculous skin.

I consider the farmer that planted the tree. That waited moons and storms for the tree to produce, worried over it, watered and watched it as close I do at my desk. I consider the field worker who picked the fruit, boxed it, put it on the truck for market. And I consider the person I handed my cash to. A simple exchange of smiles, a balancing act of bags in a weathered market with a tent.

It's not until I've lifted the fruit from it's perch, one bite removed, that I reach back for the landscape from which it came. The apples that were barely formed during the California fires. Is there a flavor of the haze that hung over us for days and weeks? And the peaches, they taste like more sunny days then I remember the summer containing. How is that possible? The first fall figs are nearly bland, rushed somehow, hesitant to invest their sugar. What do they know that I don't? I suppose I'll have to watch and see.

It's a small pleasure this one of contemplating the fruit. But it feeds me well.