charlie the butcher's

In so much as you might like to hear all sorts of idyllic stories about the first annual camping trip of my not always so idyllic family, I cannot please you. I can tell you this. There were smores. And we did stay dry within our tent.
Even though there was plenty of rain outside of the tent.
And although when the weather report teased and threatened with severe thunderstorms for a straight 48 hours, we panicked and tried so desperately on my failing cell phone battery to find a hotel in which we could dry our sad non-outdoorsy little selves, there was, alas, not a hotel room to be found in all of Ontario.
No problem! We stayed dry within our tent. And of course, as usual, the weather report was wrong.
And so, non-idyllic as we might be, it was a success!
In other news, we saw our dear friends well married, we went to Niagara falls and could not find a parking spot (and so did a drive by), and we fed our children far too many Canadian candy bars so that they would stay quiet, which they of course did not, which you know if you have ever fed your children too many candy bars as a coping mechanism for a 10-hour car ride. As one who grew up as an only child, I felt like I was living the American dream. It was truly glorious. Joey and I jumped into some sort of scripted parent language, universal enough to be the stuff of all family odysseys.

Rosie: Sadie! Oweeeee! Sadie hit me!!!!
Joey: Sadie! Don't hit your sister...that hard!

and, just an hour or two before we finally hit home again,

Sadie: Rosie! Mommy, Rosie took my pen! Rosie took my pen! Ahhhhhhh! Rosie took my pen! Make her give it back! I hate you Rosie! My pen! My pen!

Me: Sadie, if you don't chill out and stop hollering, I swear I will never give you a pen again for the rest of your life. Ever. Pencils for you!

And you get the idea.
But we made it. I'm sure you're all very relieved. And of course, I have a few little food items to share with you.

The first night of our little trip, we camped in Ithaca, NY. It was a little out of our way, but I insisted. I wanted to go to the Moosewood Restaurant.

I know. I know. But I wanted to! I've been cooking out of Moosewood all my life- looking at those little black and white photos of the wooden tables in the utopian collective restaurant. I'll say now before I go on, that I will always love every single Moosewood cookbook. My experience in the room where it all started will stay entirely separate from my love of spinach ricotta pie and buttery onion soup.

Of course, it was bad.

The menu changes daily, which is usually a good thing except when there is nothing you want to eat. The featured appetizer was sliced bread with pesto. Or you could have some olives. And for dinner, it was either noodles with butter and cheese and cream and a little bit of sliced carrot and zucchini, or some sort of eggplant stew, or something wrapped in Filo (should have gone with the Filo! Always go with the filo!), or overcooked bluefish in some tasteless chopped tomatoes and sad drowning leeks. Joey got the pasta, Sadie and I shared the fish, and Rosie got plain noodles and butter. Rosie really summed up the collective response when she had a few bites of her never-fail menu choice and looked up at me in confusion. "Mom, I don't even like this!" Sadie tried to love it- she cooks from Moosewood too and had been looking forward to the meal the whole day. She passed over the rubbery bluefish after a few attempted bites, but swiped the roasted corn from the plate before I could get a bit. "The corn's good!"
I know that the Moosewood collective isn't known for it's inventiveness, but it was a little heartbreaking how entirely uncreative the menu really was. The ingredients did not taste fresh, or at least if they had been earlier that day, they had the life cooked out of them. The place smelled like dirty mop water. I figure this is one more example of something you really can do better at home.

I guess you can tell that I'm slightly heartbroken. I was the kid who had been dreaming of Disneyworld and then got there to a swearing actor under the Mickey Mouse costume. I know it makes sense- they really don't have to work for it anymore. People will come to Moosewood even if they serve McDonald's and call it a McMollieKatzen. But why go to all the trouble of seeming so fabulous, just to serve noodles dripping in melted butter for 14.95? Maybe it was an off night. Maybe if I were there today, I would melt with joy! I guess I'll never know.

I will say that our waitress was lovely, and that the dessert, a Moosewood Brownie topped with local ice cream, was flawless. So, if you too are on a pilgrimage to Ithaca, I suggest that you make sure that you get the waitress with the big flower pinned in her hair, and just skip to dessert.

The real joy in all of this, I must confess, was that although I dragged us hours out of our way to eat bland and overpriced food, Joey smiled through the whole thing, and never made fun of me once. You see, if anyone understands the food odyssey, it's Joey.

We don't get out to the nicer restaurants so often. But when we do, it's usually when we're traveling and I've heard something that makes me feel like we've just got to go there. But I'm not the one who usually leads our travel eating. That job belongs to Joey, the road food master.

And so, the day after our dinner at Moosewood, Joey pulled off at a random exit near Buffalo, and he drove towards the airport. "Oh, this is going to be good," said to me, but even more to himself.
It seems that we have an agreement when we are out in the world and searching for a meal. As long as our hearts are in it, we will follow the other around. And as Joey said as we ate the lunch that was about to occur, it all works out. Because sometimes the places are bad, and we have both been responsible. As he said in Buffalo, for every Moosewood in Ithaca, there is a Caiola's in Portland. And for every Teo's (what is that on the chili dog? That's not..no..it can't be...it's too gross to even say!) in Pittsfield, there is Charlie the Butcher's.


Way back, we stopped in at another Roadfood success, All Star Sandwiches in Cambridge, MA. I had a beautiful thing called a Beef on Weck, a perfectly cooked roast beef sandwich on a soft kaiser roll sprinkled with coarse salt and caraway seeds, smeared with horseradish. It was one of the best sandwiches I've ever had, and we learned there that the Beef on Weck hails from Buffalo, and it is in that northern and desolate city that it finds its perfection. When we finally reached Buffalo, Joey had of course done his research, and so we found ourselves at Charlie the Butcher's.

Charlie the Butcher is an actual person, and you can identify him by the hard hat he wears while carving roast beef. There are many branches of his restaurant at this point, but only the location on Wehrle Drive can boast that Charlie himself is doing the carving. He's been doing it for quite a few decades, and I sure hope he's teaching the secrets to others. This is an art that should not be lost.

What is a beef on weck? Well, quite simply, it is the exact opposite of a plate of overcooked bluefish in tasteless tomatoes and drowned leeks. It is the thing that might save you on a long long drive. It is your turn off to the airport, even though you are not going on a plane.

And so, as we return from our travels, wet tent spread out on the lawn, I can say that although I cannot offer so many idyllic outdoor family stories, I can tell you that we are damn good at finding lunch off a random highway. I'm fairly sure that there will be a whole lot more family camping in the future, but I am even more sure that we will always be up for a food adventure, and the sad buttery noodles will be always be worth it for the hidden beef on wecks.

spinach ricotta pie

For some reason, pie crust has been coming up a lot lately.
"I just can't do pie crust!"
I kid you not. I have heard this four times in the last week.

I wouldn't call myself a pie crust master (if only I were master of anything except this mess!), but I no longer get an anxious clench in my stomach when I pull out my rolling pin. And I'd say maybe 4 times out of 5, the crust is damn good. So, I'm getting there. Those other 1 out of 5 crusts are usually hard as a rock, but we won't talk about those, at least not today.

Some people who don't do the pie crust thing just avoid the whole topic altogether. They say they like frittatas better than quiches anyway, and they make crisps instead of pies. I have certainly gone this route, but, like I said, the rolling pin and I are getting to be better friends.

But then there is the other option. There is, ahem, the frozen pie crust.
As I've mentioned here before, this is the crust on which I was raised. My mother's brand of choice was, and still is, called Orenoke. To this day, I hand her a piece of pie made in my own crust, and the best I can get out of her is "yeah, it's pretty good."
I guess I can't really blame her. She just loves that Orenoke pie crust.


Honestly, I think if frozen pie crust is your thing, use it! I say that guilt and the kitchen don't mix. We do what we can, and if it works, then amen to that.
But for those of you who might like to try their hand at pie crust again, or for the first time, I'm thinking we should do a little work together here. Yeah? Maybe next week, after those peas are in the ground? It's supposed to rain a little bit here, and I'm thinking that will be a good time. I could use a date with that rolling pin.

I've got a couple of tricks, and I'm guessing you might too. Will you help out? Together, we might just master this thing.

So what do you think? Are you in? It might be good to get a handle on it before berry season comes around. When there are that many strawberries, it's good to have options.

Just to get started, I've got a pie for you today. This was one of my mother's favorites when I was growing up, and she brought it to every single potluck dinner that I can remember. Of course, the crust was always Orenoke. So, if you want to wait until our little pie crust session to get the rolling pin out, go ahead and use that frozen pie crust. My mother would say it's better that way, anyway.

Spinach Ricotta Pie
adapted from Mollie Katzen, Moosewood Cookbook

1 recipe all-butter pie crust, single crust, or a frozen pie crust, or what have you
1 pound ricotta cheese
3 beaten eggs
1/2 pound chopped spinach, fresh or frozen
1 small, diced onion
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
dash nutmeg
paprika, for the top
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup sour cream

Prepare the pie crust and lay into a buttered 9-inch pie pan. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a small skillet or sautee pan, melt the butter. Add the onion. When the onion is translucent, add the spinach (if it is frozen, you can put it right in there). Cook for about 2 minutes over medium heat, stirring frequently. Add a pinch of salt and a dash of pepper. Remove from heat.
In a medium mixing bowl, combine the spinach mixture, ricotta, eggs, flour, cheese and nutmeg. Spread into unbaked pie shell.
Top with one cup sour cream, spread to the edges of the crust with a rubber spatula. Top with a generous sprinkling of paprika.

Bake for 40-50 minutes.

egg-free pancakes

Way back when there were still leaves on the trees, I finally took Sadie to the doctor for her constant tummy ache. Although it seemed certain that some of the tummy holding was due to a certain level of anxiety in the darling and quintessential first child of mine, it also looked to be a distinct possibility that there was something on her plate that was making her sick.
Sure enough, her blood tests turned up a sensitivity to wheat and eggs. The doctor said that three months should probably do the trick.
Because she is something of a trooper, and she was feeling done with the tummy ache, Sadie didn't put up much of a fight. We all started eating rice pasta, and Sadie had her own loaf of fabulous bread, and it was okay. I was not the best mom I could be, however. I bought a box of egg replacer and barely used it. Although I purchased many lovely gluten and egg free treats, I did not embrace the experimental baking adventure that I could have. I always made sure that Sadie had something yummy, but I knew that if I was truly a good mother, I would have written a gluten and egg free cookbook by now, or at least bought one.
Maybe Sadie is the only one out there with the wheat/ egg combination, but the resources for both wheat and egg free baking recipes are scarce. There is a fair amount of help for gluten free and vegan, which of course applies, but I feel like if I can use butter and dairy products, it can only help the situation. Feel free to disagree with me here, but almond milk and vegetable oil are only acceptable options if I can't use buttermilk and butter, two foods which wholeheartedly agree with my little Sadie Pearl.

On New Year's eve, Sadie ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The plan was to add in wheat the first week, and eggs the second. The new year arrived with a happy belly and we cheered!
But a week later, Sadie had her first breakfast tata in months. It took about 24 hours for that tata to inflict great pain, but I am thankful that it was so clear. My girl is allergic to eggs.

Now, I have a different attitude about it. It is no longer so temporary, and slowly I am beginning to rise to the challenge. With all of the food restrictions out there, eggs are easy! As one reader told me, we have applesauce! We have banana! There are all sorts of ways to bake that girl a cake without breaking into that horrible egg replacer.

This weekend, Joey was away for the night and I stretched out in the bed. The girls made valentines all morning before waking me up at 8:30(!), and I felt that it was utterly necessary to fill them with pancakes.

Although I'm the cook in this kitchen, there are a few areas in which I always defer to my husband: grilled cheese, omelets, and of course, pancakes.

Joey has a recipe that he adheres to, a fluffy cloud-like thing from the King Arthur Baker's companion called the zephyr pancake. In certain circles, he is know for these pancakes. So you can see why I leave the flipping to him.
Lately, however, there have been very few pancakes puffing around here. He got fairly adept at the gluten free baking mix plus egg substitute buttermilk pancakes, but really, they just weren't all that good. And so we've all been forgoing pancakes.

But when I woke up on Sunday, I knew it was the day. Joey was away, and no one was going to make that breakfast but me. And I'll be damned if I wasn't going to make some really good egg-free pancakes. I had even made butter on Saturday, and I had real actual buttermilk begging to be stirred into flour.
These are vegan pancakes, but I substituted buttermilk for almond milk , so they are no longer vegan. Oh yeah, and I cooked them in bacon fat, also perhaps denying them their vegan status.
They fluffed, they piled, they held their maple syrup like they were born to do it. As Sadie said,
"Mom, I think that we should make this recipe a family favorite."
Fine by me. Done and done.

Oat and Walnut Pancakes
loosely adapted from Moosewood Restaurant New Classics

3/4 cup unbleached white flour
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup walnuts
1/4 cup rolled oats, ground in a blender or food processor to a fine powder
1 1/3 cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup

Bacon fat or butter, for oiling the pan

First, toast the walnuts. Put them into a small skillet and cook over medium heat, stirring, until they start to smell fragrant and deepen in color. Turn them out on a cutting board and roughly chop them. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir in the chopped walnuts and ground oats.
In a separate bowl or large measuring cup, stir together the buttermilk, oil, and maple syrup.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Stir until just combined.

Lightly oil a skillet or griddle with butter or bacon fat. Heat the pan on medium high heat. Use about 1/4 cup of batter per pancake. Cook on the first side until bubble appear, and the sides of the pancake begin to color, about a minute. Flip the pancakes and cook on the other side for another minute or so.

Serve topped with plain yogurt and maple syrup.