Music and Cats

Four years ago, I picked up a copy of Gary Paul Nabhan’s Coming Home to Eat at our neighborhood bookstore. In this book, subtitled The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods, Nabhan wrote about his year of eating within his foodshed, which he defined for purposes of his experiment as “a 250-mile loop around [his] home.” Nabhan wrote:

I want to escape the trap that I, like most Americans, have fallen into the last four decades: obtaining nine-tenths of our food from nonlocal sources, with shippers, processors, packagers, retailers, and advertisers gaining three times more income from each dollar of food purchased than do farmers, fishermen, and ranchers. I want to reduce the distance that my food travels before it reaches my mouth and my mind…

When I read Nabhan’s book, Paul and I had been living in Seattle for a couple of years. We were shopping at our local farmers markets, and had bought a share in a winter CSA. I was thinking about eating more locally, and found Nabhan’s approach appealing , but it seemed to me too difficult, too time-consuming, too restrictive…

Fast forward four years (we’ll go back and look at some of that later), and I’ve changed my mind - enough so that I’m about to embark on a short-term experiment in coming home to eat. Tomorrow is the beginning of the month-long Eat Local Challenge 2006, brainchild of Jennifer at Life Begins at 30 and the Bay-Area-based Locavores. (What’s a locavore? Think carnivore, omnivore, herbivore…) The Locavore guidelines for eating well are as follows:

If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic.
If not ORGANIC, then Family Farm.
If not FAMILY FARM, then Local Business.
If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Terroir, which means ‘taste of the Earth’.

This approach to selecting the foods that I eat appeals to me tremendously. How, then, to fashion these guidelines into a personal plan for eating locally? Jen asked participants in the Eat Local Challenge to answer the following questions:

1. What’s your definition of local for this challenge?

My working definition of local is: fresh produce grown within 100 miles of my home; dairy, eggs, fish, and meat produced (raised/laid/caught) within 200 miles of my home; grains and beans grown in the Northwest: Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

2. What exemptions will you claim?

I will drink coffee, but will buy locally roasted beans. I may not give up chocolate entirely, but I will buy from small West Coast producers. I will use non-local spices, but will buy them in bulk to reduce packaging. I will buy lemons and olive oil from California.

I have some business lunches in the next month; I will attempt to eat foods that could be grown or produced in this area, even if the actual food I’m eating is not.

3. What is your personal goal for the month?

My goal is that at least 75% of my diet for this month be locally grown foods, and that the remaining 25% be organic, family farmed and/or locally produced. My larger goal is to learn more about food production in my foodshed.

Of course I’ll be letting you know how it goes. What fun would it be to keep this all to myself?

Technorati tags: Eat Local Challenge

I have a new desk chair in my home office. Sergei, ever solicitous of my health and well-being, feels compelled to study the chair’s ergonomics. When I ask whether he’s finished testing, he acts like I’m not even there.

The Friday Ark has left the building for a three-hour four-day tour. All of the McKittens - but Sasha in particular - will be happy to pad on over to Furry Paws on Sunday for the Carnival of the Cats.

This morning, I walked almost all the way to the back of the bus to find an empty seat. Settling into a spot on a bench seat running parallel to the length of the bus, I glanced up at the placards on the far wall, and read this:

Four Secrets

I was born with a tiny extra bone
camping quietly close to my clavicle.
The taste of envelopes reminds me
of communion. I carry my gandmother’s name,
Jane, tucked safely between my first and last.
I have no tattoos; thus far,
I have nothing permanent to say.

- Erin Jane Miller

Poetry on Buses; what a wonderful idea! This is what can happen when a community makes a commitment to public art, as King County has with the Percent for Art Fund, which funds this and other local public art programs.

I imagine that some of my glum-faced fellow commuters may have wondered - if they even noticed - why a smile crossed my face, and lingered as I reached into my purse for my book.

In how many wonderful ways can you finish this sentence?

I can think of a few:
When life gives you asparagus, you know it’s spring.
When life gives you asparagus, it’s an ‘eat with your hands’ day.
When life gives you asparagus, you must’ve done something good.

It is spring, and I must’ve done something good. The local asparagus harvest is in full swing, and at the produce stand in Ballard, they’re almost giving it away. This is the sort of $.99 (per pound!) menu that does a body - and its taste buds - good. After eating my fill (for at least a day or two) of simply steamed spears, I began thinking of other preparations.

When I have at hand some beautiful, locally-grown, seasonal produce, I turn to the man who introduced me to eating seasonally and regionally in the Pacific Northwest: Jerry Traunfeld. Paul and I have had two of the best meals of our lives at the Herbfarm, where Traunfeld prepares exquisite 9-course feasts using the finest, freshest raw ingredients available in Cascadia. I save Traunfeld’s first cookbook for weekend cooking extravaganzas; when I’m looking for something to cook for a weeknight dinner, I turn to Traunfeld’s new cookbook. Under asapargus in the index, I find two recipes: asparagus with frothy tarragon sauce (a variation on hollandaise) and asparagus and lemon thyme soup.

I love asparagus soup. Most, if not all, of the asparagus soups that I’ve eaten or cooked have been enriched with some combination of high-butterfat dairy products. Jerry Traunfeld’s asparagus soup recipe has only a small amount of butter, in which leeks are sweated until soft. There is no other dairy in this soup - no cream, no milk, no yogurt, nada. The soup is thickened with a small amount of rice and the pureed asparagus and leek. I had no lemon thyme, but I had a nice thin-skinned organic lemon.

Asparagus and Lemon Thyme Soup
serves 4

1-2 large leeks
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons white rice
4 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 pounds asparagus
Juice and zest of one lemon (if you have lemon thyme, use 2 tablespoons instead of lemon juice)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Finely chop white and light green parts of leeks; you should have about 2 cups. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Saute the leeks until softened, but do not brown. Add the rice and chicken broth; cover the pan and simmer until the rice is very soft, 15-20 minutes.

While the soup simmers, snap tough ends off the asparagus. Chop into small pieces (1/2″ max.); you want the asparagus to cook quickly.

When the rice is done, add the asparagus and simmer until tender, 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in lemon juice and zest (or finely chopped lemon thyme).

If you want a perfectly smooth soup, use a blender to puree the soup one cup at a time. If you’re OK with a little more texture, you can use an immersion blender to puree the soup. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

This soup is the essence of spring: light, fresh, and green in color and flavor. While I don’t know what I’m missing by not having used lemon thyme, I can say that the lemon zest and juice that I substituted complement the other flavors in the soup beautifully. And while the soup is delicious on its own, you could do worse than to stir in a dollop of greek yogurt, as I did last night.

(more…)

In comes I, Saint George,
from old England have I sprung.
I’ll fight the Dragon bold,
for my wonders have begun.
I’ll clip his wings, he shall not fly;
I’ll cut him down, or else I’ll die.

– English Mummers’ Play

Today is St. George’s Day, and in honor of England’s patron saint, Sam of Becks&Posh and Monkey Gland of Jam Faced have declared this to be a day of feasting on that finest of English culinary offerings: the pudding.

The pudding that I chose to make is a called a honeycomb mould. While I could not find much on the history of this pudding, I did find references to recipes from as far back as the 1700’s. This particular recipe is from Jane Grigson’s Good Things, by way of Laurie Colwin’s second glorious collection of essays on food, More Home Cooking. In the chapter “Desserts that Quiver,” after describing her attempts “to make a gelatin dessert that [her family] could all stand,” Ms. Colwin writes:

Next I set out to find some gelatin desserts that a person might serve at a dinner party. I wanted to go beyond Bavarian cream, which is a nice enough dessert but rather dull. In Jane Grigson’s sacred tome, Good Things, I found just what I was looking for. Jane Grigson was never as famous in this country as she ought to have been. I simply could not do without her books, all filled with inspiring prose, plain, elegant recipes, and sound advice. If I were allowed only one cookbook, Good Things by Jane Grigson would be it. One reason is that it contains a recipe for “honeycomb mould,” the three-layered dessert of my daughter’s dreams.

Of this splendid dish Mrs. Grigson writes: “This delicious pudding of childhood should not be relegated to the nursery. Its clear, true flavor (not to be found in the packet-mix versions) is a luxury these days.” It is a wonderful dessert and quite easy to make. If you have an ornamental mold, use it. […]

In Mrs. Grigson’s words: “[The dessert] will have a cap of clear lemon jelly, then a thin band of opaque cream jelly shading off a honeycombed spongy base which makes a slight crinkling noise as it’s eaten.”

As a child of the American South, I have faced far too many a jello “salad” filled with canned fruit (pineapple, mandarin oranges, fruit cocktail), a dairy selection (cottage cheese, cream cheese, even condensed milk) and chopped nuts. For years, I swore off cooking with gelatin; only recently have I attempted to make peace with my jello-stained past. First panna cotta; now honeycomb mould. Just stop me if you see me reaching for the crushed pineapple.

Honeycomb Mould ‘After Jane Grigson’
(Three-Layered Lemon Gel)

3 large eggs, separated
3/4 teaspoon lemon zest, freshly grated
1/4 oz. envelope unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups milk (or half-and-half)
2 lemons, juiced (about 6 tablespoons)

In a metal bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, lemon zest, gelatin, sugar and cream. Heat milk until almost boiling, and whisk gradually into the egg yolk mixture. Set the bowl over a pot of simmering water (or use a double boiler), and stir until mixture cooks into a thin custard sauce.

Stir lemon juice into custard. Beat egg whites until stiff; fold into the hot custard. Allow the mixture to stand for a few minutes, then pour it into a 1-quart mold or bowl. Chill, covered, overnight, or until well set.

To unmold, run a thin knife around the edge of the pudding, dip the mold in warm water for 10 seconds, and turn the pudding out onto a plate.

I have no ornamental one-quart mold, but I do have a mini-bundt-cake pan, so I portioned the warm eggwhite-lightened custard into its six small tins. Rather than taking overnight to gel, the mini-moulds were set within four hours. I discovered upon unmolding the first of them that the advertised three layers had not materialized; rather, I found a thin layer of translucent jelly atop a relatively homogenous chiffon-like base. Perhaps there was a bit of that middle line of “cream jelly,” but it was not readily visible between the other two layers. My guess is that the small, heavy metal tins caused the gelatin to set before the ingredients could separate to form the layers.

Even in two layers, the honeycomb mould is delicious. Tart, sweet, creamy, and very lemony, with the interesting texture - more mouth feel than noise - that Mrs. Grigson calls “crinkling,” it’s an English pudding to slay this Southern girl’s jello memories.

Technorati tags: What’s For Pud? + St George’s Day