agua de jamaica

So we had a dinner party.
For now, this will have to stand in for my fulfillment of the salon challenge. And by stand in, I mean hold its place until I can follow my own rules, which I didn't quite.


My friend Jen and I made this dinner together, and fifteen minutes before everyone arrived, when I fully realized that we only had about half the food completed, I took a swig of my pre-guest arrival drink, and I asked Jen, "Will I ever learn to do this better? More efficiently? On time?" She answered that where would be the rush in that?

Last year we did a similar dinner party together, a benefit for the school like this one. That day was a bit of a mess, and by the moments before everyone arrived, we were actually sprinting through the kitchen. This time we didn't sprint, but I certainly lost a fair amount of hope, and I accepted the fact that dinner, in my hands, will almost always be later than intended.  Lucky for all of our guests, Jen's hands were involved too, and so they didn't go hungry for too long.




As soon as I let go of any hope of keeping it together, of course I started to have a much better night. Our intent was a Mexican feast, and all night we pressed tortillas and squeezed limes. And because the flavors might just come back into my mouth as a recount the menu to you, I will do my best to reconstruct the affair. Ready? Or rather, should I say, hungry?

We started out with rhubarb margaritas and chili lime popcorn. The margaritas, entirely responsible for my next day headache, were made with rhubarb ginger syrup.  They were worth the headache. For the popcorn, I melted butter, and whisked it together with lime juice, salt, and chili powder. That whole delicious mess went on the popcorn.

Then there was soup, a fish soup mostly from Diana Kennedy that was made from chicken broth, vegetables, and fish that I had brought back with me from Maine the day before. We floated little circles of lime in each bowl, a trick that I will be sure to repeat again.

And then there were pork tacos, but I've already told you about those. That time turned out to be practice for this time, and they were just as delicious. We pressed corn tortillas as we constructed the tacos. And then there was shredded pork, and radish and white turnip salad, queso fresco, creme fraiche, and guacamole.



Then there was salad, and because all the produce for the whole dinner was from Jen's farm, this was no slouch of a salad. She and her husband grow magical lettuces. I'll leave it at that.


Then, because we hadn't had enough homemade tortillas, we made more, and we topped them with swiss chard and garlic scapes, then Oaxaca cheese, a bean and corn salsa, and a fried egg.

 This was my favorite course to look at, but I was too full to clean my plate.

 
Then finally there was flan, which almost wasn't at all.  I burned the caramel twice, and then I had to send Joey out to buy more sugar. I had never made flan, and as we coated the pan in caramel, I couldn't figure out how this would actually work or why it would soften into the sweet brown liquid I knew it should. We stuck that custard in a water bath and said a prayer. And although we could have put it into little individual ramekins, I had the image stuck in my head of Penelope Cruz turning over a big flan in Volver, a move I found so inspiring and deeply sexy that I thought it needed to be attempted. If you haven't seen that movie, see it just for that moment. You'll like the rest too.

When we went to overturn that flan, Penelope Cruz was nowhere to be seen. Instead, it slid right out of the pan without turning over, but we cheered anyway because it was flan despite our failings.

 To drink through the night we had cheap Mexican Beer (I'm partial to Tecate in a can), and agua de jamaica, or, if you don't want to be saucy about it, hibiscus tea. I've had a big beautiful jar of dried hibiscus that Jen brought me back from her last trip to Mexico, and the last of those precious flowers went into our drink.

Again, absolutely worth it.

Before you go lamenting the fact that you have no friend just returned from Mexico bearing dried hibiscus, I'll tell you that it's not so hard to find. Some bulk herb sections in the store will have them, and if not, the online marketplace will help you out. In a pinch, however, a few Celestial Seasonings red zinger tea bags will do the trick here.

Agua de jamaica is sweet and sour, dark red and wonderful, and exactly what you need in your refrigerator on the hottest of days. That, and some cheap Mexican beer.


Agua de Jamaica

adapted from Diana Kennedy, The Essential Cuisines of Mexico

2/3 cup dried hibiscus flowers
4 cups water
1/3 cup sugar, or more to taste
1/4 cup fresh lime juice

Combine the hibiscus and 3 cups of the water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Let the mixture boil for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat. Stir in the sugar and the remaining water, cover, and let sit for 4 hours. Strain out the hibiscus flours and add the lime juice. Adjust sweetness to taste.
Agua de jamaica can also be topped off with a little bubbly water if you prefer.

Because this is functioning as my salon challenge until I get to the real one, it's a perfect time to tell me about your dinner party! Anyone take the challenge out there?

sea glass

We are finding some excellent pieces for our collection.

We have been to this little beach, "sea glass beach" as we call it, so many times. We have jars of smooth glass we have collected here.

This time, there are so many pieces of glass that aren't quite ready yet, with sharp edges still. We throw them back into the mix so that they can be churned for another year or two.

  

We'll come back to collect them next time. 

away

Yesterday, we packed up the car and we drove away.
10 minutes into our trip, we stopped in our neighboring town of Stockbridge to gas up the car and get some money from the ATM. Joey and the girls waited for me as I walked the block from the car to the bank, and as I made my way through all the tourists who had come to see Norman Rockwell's very own Main Street, the whole town looked different to me. Because with the slam of the trunk that contained our bathing suits and books to read for the week, I became one who is on vacation. And even being in Stockbridge, the town that I drive through most days to pick up the girls from school, I felt different, like I could wander down the 2 or 3 alleys that the town has to offer, like I could discover something and then have an ice cream cone. Vacation, it seems, is all about a certain way of thinking about it all.

And today we are in Maine, on our favorite island of Peaks, just 20 minutes off my favorite city of Portland.  The girls have planned out their ice cream flavors, and they have brought special sea glass collecting bags. Happy Monday, friends. I hope there is some part of your day today that feels at least a bit like a vacation.

fire escape farms

Someone once told me that one's thirties are the time to conquer the world. I was in my teens at the time, and 30 seemed outstandingly old.
In the last few years, I have seen the truth in this prediction.  All around me, friends who once had ideas and hopes of what they wanted to do are making those ideas into real life wonderful things.

The other day, I got a little package in the mail from my friend, Naya. She has started Fire Escape Farms, a resource for the urban and small space gardener. She has a great website, and she's also taken over this gallery all summer as a pop up store front.  Just the thought of it makes me miss San Francisco.  Naya has an inspiring aesthetic sense- she has always loved beautiful things, and her store is filled with them. Handmade pots, classic and satisfying tools, and the most beautiful seed packets that have ever arrived in my mail.

I love that no space is too small to grow your own food. I love that gardening uses what you have and makes the best of it. Go take a look at Naya's website, or if you're in San Francisco, pop in and introduce yourself. Just be ready to walk away with at least one package of seeds.

I may be a country gardener with a whole acre, but I'll plant these seeds all the same.


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carnitas

 Due to the events of the weekend, I ended up with a very large pork shoulder in my refrigerator. A VERY LARGE PORK SHOULDER.  It had been rubbed with every chile in my spice drawer, and it took up nearly half a shelf of the fridge. There had been a dinner party in the works for Saturday night, a benefit for Joey and the girls' school that involved the pork shoulder, and when the kiddo got sick, the plans changed. But Sunday morning, I awoke, bleary-eyed and relieved at Sadie's lack of fever, to see the pork shoulder sitting there. And it was a little tragic--all that meat and no big party to enjoy it.

That problem is easily solved, of course.

There is nothing like a sick kiddo getting better to make me feel endlessly thankful for everything.

And so, all day long, we shuffled around in our socks. Joey made art. I organized my desk. Maia played piano. Sadie ventured outside and Rosie spun her around on the swing. 

And through it all, that pork shoulder in its evening gown of spice made its way through the day,  bubbling away in a gentle bath of chicken broth.  An extra chile and a bay leaf were tucked into the pan as its only accessories. And the smell fed us, good fat and red chile and the aroma of an anticipated full belly.

At four o'clock we transferred the pan to the counter, and the shoulder fell apart as we snuck bites of meat. I turned the heat up on the spicy stocky sauce, and it steamed out its water until it was dark and thick.   Shredded meat in the sauce, homemade tortillas, radishes.

 Lissa and Mark and Will showed up. Joey and Mark talked about baseball and The Kinks. Will entertained the girls as only a 15-year-old boy can.  Lissa started the guacamole.

We didn't even need forks. And Sadie, cheered by the fact that I had told her she was in the clear to go to school the next day, had her third pork taco.

I was having tea with a friend of mine last week who's in her early twenties. She's living alone, on the brink of some transitions, and she's working a lot out right now. We were talking about the feeling when you are medicating yourself with food, and she said she'd been struggling with that in the past weeks.  She always been a food lover--all through her teens she cooked and baked and traveled and enjoyed food. And as we talked, I was thinking about that phrase, "medicating with food." I've certainly used it, and I've absolutely done it. And I think that so often, it's looked at as a negative thing. We need love, or inspiration, or comfort, and so often food does the trick. And in times in the past when I've done this more, I know that I've started to hate food and to feel like I should avoid it altogether.

Nasty cycle, that one. 

And so, as we ate our cake and drank our tea, we talked about how important it is, through that frustration, to keep loving food. To remember that there are very few things so wonderful as a really good meal.

I think that after all, food really is medicine.

Carnitas
serves many, for days

One 5 to 7 pound pork shoulder (ask your butcher or farmer for the pork shoulder, usually they hide it in the back and give it to you for not much money)
1/2 cup chile powder, or some combination of chile powders, if, like me, you collect chile powders
3 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoons salt (or wood smoked salt, if, like me, you collect unusual salt)
fresh ground pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups chicken stock
1 dried d'arbol chile
1 bay leaf

Three days before you intend to cook it, rinse and dry the pork shoulder. Combine the chile powder, oregano, salt, and pepper in a bowl, and then massage the mixture into every sensual curve and crevasse of that beautiful piece of meat. Keep rubbing until the entire thing is very covered in the mixture, and then rub a bit more just because you might be enjoying yourself. Put the shoulder in a casserole dish, lightly cover it with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for three days. Admire it regularly over that time. It will make it more tender in the end.

Take the pork out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter for 30 minutes.  Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.

In a large cast iron skillet or roasting pan, heat the olive oil.  Drop a bit of water in the oil, and when it sizzles, it's ready. Put the pork shoulder into the pan, and let sit for about 3 minutes, or until browned. Repeat with the remaining sides of the shoulder as much as you are able.  Remove the shoulder from the pan and let it rest on a plate.

Pour the chicken stock into the hot pan, then bring to a boil.  Scrape any brown bits that have gathered in the bottom of the pan so that they can incorporate into the stock.  Return the pork shoulder to the pan, and tuck the bay leaf and dry chile pepper into the stock. Cover the pan (if the pan has no lid, cover with tin foil.) Transfer to the pan to the preheated oven, and cook for 6 hours. 

Remove the pan from the oven, and transfer the meat to a plate. If it falls apart, you've done well. Put the pan, uncovered, over medium high heat to reduce the stock to a sauce. Let it bubble away until reduced by about half. 


Meanwhile, shred the pork.  Stir the meat into the sauce. 

Invite friends. Ask them to bring cheap Mexican beer. (I prefer Tecate in the can.) Serve on corn tortillas with the toppings that inspire and excite you, including, but not limited to, guacamole, radishes, fresh lime juice, salsa, creme fraiche, queso fresco, lettuce, pea shoots...

rhubarb clafoutis

Eesh. I have just come off of a kid in the ER morning, and so let's talk rhubarb for a few minutes before I fall into bed for a nap.

All are well (ish, as there is still a fever to contend with), but Sadie was a tiny superstar in there, and I will say here, as I've said before--I feel very fortunate and grateful to have health insurance. I cannot imagine being in a situation where I had to pick and choose medical care for my child because of the prohibitive cost, but I know that there are so many in exactly that predicament. We use our health insurance so little, but when we do, this always strikes me again. Sadie was tested and pricked and poked and imaged today, and not once did I have to say, "Stop! We can't afford that."  Yes, I am lucky, but I know that this system is broken, and for this reason among so many, I feel that health care is a right. No one should have to say no to medical treatment for their children because they can't afford it. I hope that someday we'll be able to figure this out as a nation.

I have also been fortunate not to have to make too many medical decisions for my girls, as they've been pretty healthy.  But when they do happen, there's something about those moments that bring the responsibility of parenthood right to the front, when we realize that there is no one else to make these decisions, and it is our instinct and action in the moment is all we have. Watching Sadie navigate through this morning made me feel so proud of her courage and her strength, but also thankful for the trust that she puts in me and Joey to take care of her. I'm thankful for that trust, but it also scares the shit out me.

These babies come into the world and they trust us--I think they even choose us. It's big and scary but that trust is probably the thing that keeps me trying to be a good person. 

In honor of two new amazing little girls who have come into the world in these past weeks, let's sing the praises of rhubarb. (we had to get to rhubarb sometime, right?)

One, Lola, who has arrived to join her two older brothers who I predict will protect and love her with such fierceness. Any combination of her parents attributes will serve her well, and may she grow stronger and more wonderful every year, like the perennial rhubarb. 

 And Eden, born just a few days ago, a fourth to some of my favorite three out there.  For Eden, let's roast some rhubarb.

 

 It was Ashley who made the suggestion that rhubarb was a feminine vegetable, and it has stuck with me ever since.  Pink and complex, a this vegetable masquerading as a fruit is prolific, endlessly generous, versatile, sexy, perplexing, and filled with vitamin C.

This rhubarb clafoutis was for my sister, Maia's womanly 13th birthday. I remember the stormy morning she came into the world too, eyes open before she was even fully out of my mother's body. She is coming into the time where she is learning to trust herself to make her own decisions, a moment equally big and scary as the one that came 13 years before. And so, for Maia, it was rhubarb, strong and sour sweet in the cape of a French tea snack. If you've never made a clafoutis, it's time, it's time. It's more custard than cake, and the fruit stands with the custard in one bite, holding together a crumb provided by the tiny bit of flour. 

Welcome, sweet girls. You have chosen your parents well, and we'll do our best to support them. The world is a better place with you here. 

 

Rhubarb Clafoutis

from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage Every Day (yes! the newest River Cottage book- fantastic)

serves 6 (but I doubled it, and served it in a large springform, which worked great)

1 pound rhubarb

a pinch of cinnamon

grated zest of 1/2 orange and the juice of the whole fruit

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

a pinch of sea salt

3 eggs lightly beaten

1 cup whole milk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the rhubarb into 2-inch lengths and put it into a baking pan with the cinnamon, orange juice, and 2 tablespoons sugar. Toss well, and roast for 20 minutes until just starting to caramelize. Let it cool, and drain it in a sieve.

Turn the oven down to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-inch round baking dish or springform. Arrange the rhubarb on the bottom of the dish.

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and stir in the sugar. Make a well in the center and add the beaten eggs.  Stir the flour into the eggs, and then whisk in the milk a little at a time. 

Pour the batter over the rhubarb and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the clafoutis is golden and puffed. Serve warm or cold, with whipped cream.

 

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melissa clark and her artichokes

 Yesterday I had a surprise visit from my friend Hedley.
Since the last time I saw her, she has traveled through India and moved to Pittsburgh, and although I have regularly mourned the loss of Hedley and her sweetheart Zoe from our daily lives, I didn't  recognize it fully until she appeared and I felt a full breath of air in my lungs.  She is all sparkle in the best of ways.

And of course she appeared, and I had these few open surprise hours, and so we walked to town and back and then we sat on the bench that is almost back up to my house before you reach the crest of the hill--it's right where you need a rest. It belongs to a neighbor I have never met who flies a very big American flag over their driveway, but they have been kind enough to put a bench right there on the side of the road where it is so obviously for those just about to make it to the top of the hill, and on the  occasions that I use it, I say a quiet thanks to those neighbors.

We sat and talked about her life and my life and the food that we have eaten since we last saw each other. And I left the conversation standing up straighter, sad to see her drive away, and so grateful for those surprise hours.

I've mentioned Hedley before here- she is so many things, but among them a cook and a baker.  She patiently taught me how to make real buttercream and aioli and how to chop an onion. And yesterday when she asked me how it was all going, and started with the short answer (well!), but then she looked a little harder at me, and I had to admit that I've been batting around a few words in my head lately, and when I opened my mouth, there they were.

I'm afraid that I don't actually know how to cook.

She started this smile that began small and turned into a laugh. And then she said, "okay, well, I can tell you that in the at least hundred times you've fed me over the course of our friendship, I've never thought, wow, this girl cannot cook."

(sigh of relief)

It's not just cooking. I've been having one of those times when I'm stepping in my own way a lot, when I waste time worrying about a thing instead of actually doing it. Maybe you know what I mean?

And yes, yes, I know that I know how to cook. I can make puff pastry and strawberry jam and beef stew. I can figure out a sauce for most things, and only half the time I'll curdle it in some way.  But sometimes the great expanse of what I don't know feels more like a weight than a challenge.  And I forget that last year I knew less, and the year before that, even less. I forget to remember what I always say, that life is long, that I love that there is so much to learn!

A real friend will pull you out of the way of yourself.
Hedley said something so delicious just then, I feel like I need to pass it to you.  She said, "Hold on! Stop it with all of this!" She repeated something that she has said before, that cooking is not rocket science or a innate skill that either you have or you don't. Cooking is about skills. Every skill can be learned. And one skill at a time, we learn how to cook. The rest of the time, we fake it, and that works too.

I feel the old and wonderful familiar phrases coming back in a way that I actually believe them.Life is long! I love that there is so much to learn!



Before last week, I had never trimmed an artichoke.


I had eaten hundreds, even grown a few. But when I was instructed to trim, I scoffed.  I can handle the prickly thorns--why break out the scissors? For my whole life, I've steamed and eaten untrimmed artichokes, and it's always gone well for me.
Besides, I didn't know how.

 
 But oh, Melissa Clark! You, with your personable down to earth "I've written so many cookbooks but I'm just here in my kitchen, piecing it together like you, so let's make some delicious Brooklyn-y food together" tone! I cannot help but say Yes to you. And with so much kindness, you share your skills. Thank you for being such a friend through your pages.

Do you know how to trim an artichoke? If so, make this.  But if not? Watch Melissa first, she'll show you.  And then, make this.

And what is fregola? I don't actually know. And because I'm feeling nostalgic for the time before google when I could actually have an unanswered question, I'm going to wait until the answer comes to me. But Israeli couscous was excellent here, and life is long! There is plenty of time to learn about fregola.  (I love that there is so much to learn!)

at the market: radishes

 Radish-es! (I'm singing here, a little off key)
I can not stop singing your praises. You are, in essence, love with a root and a leaf. Round or cylindrical, sensual in your crunch and shocking bite, I will love you forever.

 These, in no particular order, are some of my favorite things about radishes.

1. Radishes get spicier as the season moves in. It is the heat and sun that gives heat to your radishes. So in April? Mild. In June? Wowsa.

2. Yes, you can eat the greens! Saute with garlic!

3. Radish butter.

4. I love that there is a radish called the French Breakfast Radish.  I believe that this name has inspired many people, including myself, to eat radishes for breakfast.



5. This is a very exciting way to use salt.

6. Radishes are wonderful to grow. Sow your seeds, don't even thin them out, and the radishes will be up before you can blink. When they start to show themselves poking out of the ground, take your pick.

7. Roasted radishes. Yes, Nigel Slater does say that we should "ignore any suggestion of cooking them," and he claims that "the writer is surely deluded." But still, roasted radishes.

8. Radish dip. On a bagel.

9. And then of course, there is the fanciness of the radish. Blame it in the French for elevating this anything but ordinary mustard. 

Radish-es!