In the New York Times, Mark Bittman has written a terrific piece about a recent trip to Detroit. As readers well know, Detroit has fallen on some very hard times and indeed has lost much of its population. But, with abandoned buildings and lots have come opportunities for farming and food, and Detroit seems to be in the process of making a comeback as a city that gardens. Very encouraging for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which there is something about farmers’ markets, local bakeries and restaurants, and community gardens that bring a town or a city together. In short, along with providing tasty, nutritious food, they also build community, something we all need, no matter where we live.
Monthly Archives: May 2011
SHANNON AND MIKE’S FIRST DINNER FOR GUESTS
On Sunday, my husband, Clif, the dog, and I went to South Portland to have dinner at Shannon and Mike’s new place in South Portland. It’s been two weeks since Shannon and Mike moved in, and they felt that they were sufficiently unpacked and organized enough to host a small dinner party. Along with inviting us, they invited our friends Bob and Kate, who live in New Hampshire, about an hour away from South Portland.
It didn’t take us long to realize that Shannon and Mike’s new apartment is a halfway point for Bob and Kate and Clif and me to meet. Luckily for us, Shannon and Mike love to cook and have company. Shannon made what is coming to be one of her signature meals, and it is so good that I am thinking it should become one of mine, as well. Shannon served Cornish hens stuffed with lemon and fresh thyme and drizzled with butter, more lemon, and more thyme. What a moist, lovely, fragrant dish! Elegant, even. With it she served a green bean, fennel, and feta cheese salad and roasted red potatoes.
I brought appetizers—a couple of boxes of store-bought crackers and a homemade cream cheese spread with walnuts and a bit of brown sugar. I also brought a spicy yogurt cheese spread purchased from Wholesome Holmstead in Winthrop. And homemade bread.
Kate came with her incredible chocolate cake, one that she made once when we went to their place for a visit and one that I daydream about from time to time. I am not really a cake person. Although I like them well enough, I am much fonder of pies, mousses, and crisps. This cake, though, is at the top of my list of desserts I love. When Kate told me what went into the cake, I understood why: 12 eggs, a pound of butter, chocolate, two cups of sugar, and, most important, only 1 cup of flour. I am a real fan of low flour/no flour chocolate cakes. I love their rich, chocolate intensity.
So we had quite a feast in the new apartment, which is becoming so cozy and comfortable.
Equally good was the conversation. We all just love talking with each other about the usual favorite subjects: books, movies, food, art, politics, and family. The time just sped by. In fact, it sped by so quickly that when Kate asked, “What time is it?” and Bob answered “Twenty past seven,” we were all shocked that it was so late.
As we said our goodbyes, Kate recommended that in the future, we should take turns making the main meal, that it wouldn’t be fair to Shannon to have to provide it for us every single time we get together. A good idea, and Shannon suggested that we do a round Robin, where one person brings dessert, another the appetizer, and the third the main meal. I expect this is exactly what we will do.
While I am still sorry that Shannon and Mike are no longer 20 minutes away, how fun to have them in South Portland, where they are a halfway point for all of us to meet and eat and talk.
ROAST BEEF SANDWICHES FROM PETE’S ROAST BEEF
I have a confession to make. Despite the fact that my husband, Clif, and I recently made the decision to be “mostly vegetarian,” we have discovered a shop in downtown Winthrop—Pete’s Roast Beef—that has such incredible roast beef sandwiches that we are often sorely tempted to stray from our mostly vegetarian path. All I can say is I am glad we added the word mostly to vegetarian, thus giving ourselves some wiggle room. On the other hand, if we had decided to be true vegetarians, we never would have gone into Pete’s Roast Beef to try their sandwiches, and we would have thus avoided temptation. But then we never would have had one of those sandwiches with beef that that is sliced thin, a little rare, moist, tender, flavorful, and roasted right there in the shop. As if all this weren’t enough, the prices are as incredible as the taste—$6 will get you a good-sized sandwich.
I love the sandwiches so much that I am constantly scheming to find an excuse to eat at Pete’s. The only way I can really justify it to myself is if I meet friends there for lunch or a light supper. Last week, we met Joel Johnson on Saturday. His wife, Alice, was singing in a concert at the Winthrop Performing Arts Center. Unfortunately, she couldn’t join us, but Joel, Clif, and I had a tasty roast beef supper before the concert. Alice instructed Joel to bring her a sandwich for after the concert, which he did.
Yesterday, I met Claire Hersom. We were supposed to go to the Congregational Church for their fish chowder, but Claire was busy until after the luncheon ended.
“Why not meet at Pete’s Roast Beef?” I asked.
“Why not?” she agreed.
We not only got roast beef sandwiches, but we also shared a small order of French fries. While the fries are not hand cut—they are frozen—they are of higher quality than average and taste very good hot from the fryer.
My next plans? As a thank you for all their hard work, I have offered to buy lunch for Richard and Shane, two of the town’s librarians. And where have I offered to take them? Guess.
Looking ahead…our daughter Shannon is keen on trying the roast beef sandwiches, and the next time she and her husband come for a visit, we will no doubt hit Pete’s. Then, when my friend Sybil comes back from England in a couple of weeks, she will want to tell me all about her trip. What better place than Pete’s?
So opportunities do present themselves, and if they should somehow run out, well, I guess Clif and I will just have to go on our own for our weekend treat. (We more or less follow a regime of six days of healthy, vegetarian cooking and one day of fried food or meat.) Suddenly, the Red Barn (great fried chicken) and Bolley’s (great fish and chips) just got some serious competition for our weekend treat.
OH, TORONTO!
On his blog in the New York Times, Mark Bittman has written about a recent trip to Toronto, and some of the things that city is doing to promote sustainable agricultural. The links he provides to the various websites are well worth checking out.
They include The Stop, a “community food centre” that believes “in the power of food”; FarmStart, a nonprofit organization that lends money, equipment, and land to people interested in finding out if they truly want to be farmers; and Spadina House Musuem, with its orchards. (Spadina House is even part of a Rail Garden Route, so that it can be visited in a green way.)
Then there is Not Far from the Tree, an organization dedicated to gleaning unwanted fruit from Toronto homeowners. According to the Not Far from the Tree website, in 2010, their organization picked 19,695 pounds of fruit, which was then split equally between the homeowners, the volunteers who picked the fruit, and various organizations that provide food for low-income folks.
Nearly 20,000 pounds of gleaned fruit from a big city. Very impressive! And what’s even more impressive is Not Far from the Tree’s assertion that “this was only from 1/4 of the trees that were registered with us.” Imagine how much fruit could be picked if more trees were included in the harvest.
Canada has the reputation, according to the late, great Canadian author Robertson Davies, of being England’s “dutiful daughter.” The United States, on the other hand, is the “wayward child,” and it was Davies’s belief that the wayward child is actually the favorite child.
This might be the case—modest, quiet, unassuming Canada is not in the news the way its flashier sibling the United States is. But maybe it’s time for the wayward child to start learning some lessons from the dutiful daughter.
FISH AND CHIPS, WITH A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT ENGLAND THROWN IN
Last night, my husband, Clif, and I went to the Red Barn in Augusta to have fish and chips. The prime reason we did this was for “research” for an upcoming piece I am doing for Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine, but we couldn’t quite contain the glee we felt about having this kind of meal in the middle of the week. Generally, fried food is reserved for the weekend, a treat, if you will. However, when one is doing research for a project, one must occasionally break the rules. (I know. It’s a harsh life, one I try to bear bravely.)
As the before and after photos indicate, we ate every last crispy bite of our pint of fish and our order of chips. I thought we had plenty with what we ordered. Clif would have liked a bit more, so we went all out and had ice cream for dessert. Again, all this on a Tuesday!
As I ate the fish and chips, I couldn’t help think about my friend Sybil, who on Monday left for a trip to England. She has a friend who lives in a village in Cornwall, and Sybil will be staying there for 16 days. (Sybil went armed with a little cookbook, so she can help her friend with meals.) This village has plenty of shops and a train nearby for trips to a larger town that has a cinema and other amenities the village doesn’t have. No car is necessary, and how I envy that friend to be able to live a car-free life.
Before Sybil left, she spoke by phone with her friend, who had recently gone on a ramble with another friend.
“The bluebells are in bloom,” Sybil’s friend said. “I hope they last long enough for you to see them.”
“Never mind!” Sybil exclaimed. “If the bluebells have gone by, there will be cowslips to admire.”
With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder that Sybil has a good time nearly everywhere she goes.
Buebells. Cowslips. Scones. Tea. Steak pie. Fish and chips. Cuckoo birds. Ah, England.
MAINE LOBSTER
In the New York Times, there is a link to Beth Quimby’s piece in the Kennebec Journal about Maine lobster. I decided that if the Times thought it worthwhile to link to the KJ, then I should take note and do the same.
The piece is indeed quite relevant, not only to Mainers, but to those “from away” as well. Among other things, the piece discusses the price of lobster and how the high cost of diesel makes it increasingly difficult for lobstermen (and women, too, presumably) to make a profit.
Quimby writes, “Mother’s Day is the informal kickoff for the lobster season in Maine.” The implication is that Mother’s Day will give an indication of what kind of demand there will be for lobster during the upcoming tourist season.
In my recent post about Mother’s Day, I wrote about how a corner market in SoPo sold out of lobster rolls by 12:30. If other Maine shops selling lobster had a similar demand, then it’s my prediction that despite the high price of diesel, 2011 will be a banner year for lobster consumption in Maine.
MOTHER’S DAY
This Mother’s Day, we gathered the dog and headed to South Portland to spend the day with our daughter Shannon, her husband, Mike, and Mike’s mother, Gail. Because Mike and Shannon just moved to SoPo a week ago, their apartment still has plenty of unpacked boxes lining the walls. This meant we had to keep everything simple, which was just fine with all of us.
Our day included sandwiches from a shop down the street. We had hoped to get lobster rolls, but there had been a Mother’s Day rush on these delectable sandwiches, and the beleaguered but good-natured owner, who has only had the place for two years, spoke in a bit of daze as he described how last year on Mother’s Day, all he had sold was wine and beer. It seems his lobster rolls have gained a reputation in the neighborhood. No matter! We’ll get some on another visit. For this year we ordered more pedestrian but still tasty fare—roast beef, pastrami, and steak and cheese.
Despite the disarray of the apartment, Shannon wanted to make something special for Mother Day’s, and she came up with apple tarts made with puff pastry. The tarts consisted of thinly sliced Fuji apples—just the right mixture of tart and sweet—apple preserves, a bit of sugar, and some cinnamon sprinkled over the top. These desserts can be made ahead, popped into the freezer, and then baked for about 40 minutes while guests are talking and eating lunch. Warm, perfectly sweet, and flaky, these apple tarts can’t be beat, and the only thing that makes them better is a bit of vanilla ice cream on the side.
There were even little presents—a silver bracelet for Gail and silver swirl earrings for me. Our eldest daughter, Dee, who lives in New York City, sent me a beautiful heart necklace with a design taken from the Renaissance.
After having dessert, Gail unfortunately had to leave so that she could get some sleep before going to work. The rest of us went for a neighborhood walk, and what a lovely one it was. Flowers and trees were abloom, and birds were singing—I especially loved the song of the red-winged black bird in the marsh we passed.
After our walk, we were ready for pizza from Pizza Magnolia, a shop that uses as much local and organic food as it can. While they have traditional pizzas—cheese, tomato sauce, and herbs—they also have funky ones such as bacon, potato, and cheese sauce. We ordered one of each. The shop also sells gelato, and after those wonderful tarts, we should have resisted. But we didn’t. It was, after all, Mother’s Day.
As many places do, Pizza Magnolia sells T-shirts, and they have one that is on my must-buy list for the next time we stop there. The shirt is very simple—black with white letters that read, “Love Your Food.” A wonderful message, especially in a world where so many people go hungry.
The young woman who waited on us was bright, friendly, and had that sparkle that is so often present in employees who work at places where both the food and the philosophy are good. As she handed me the boxes filled with crisp-crusted pizzas, she smiled and said, “Happy Mother’s Day.”
I smiled back and said, “Thank you so much.”
Coming from this luminous young woman, it felt like a benediction, and I hope readers far and near had a happy Mother’s Day.
JUST GIVE ME DESSERT, PLEASE
In an article in the New York Times magazine, there’s a lovely picture of a plate of…something. In the center of the plate, there is an oval of green that could be some of kind of jell or anemic guacamole. This oval of green rests on four (?) white balls that appear to have been rolled in crumbs. Surrounding the white balls and the green oval are three curled bits that resemble beef jerky or some kind of edible leather. The finishing touches—a nest of swirled green stands on top of the oval and to one side of the plate, two splashes of something dark as blood.
What could this be?, you might wonder, and I wondered the very same thing when I first saw the picture. Readers, this is dessert, created by New York pastry chef Brooks Headley. However,“ ‘I don’t think of myself as a pastry chef, exactly,’ the 38-year-old Headley says. ‘I just make food that happens at the end of the meal.’”
And what happened with this dessert I just described? Well, the green oval with the nest is celery “sorbet with a little dressed celery salad”; the white balls are “goat-cheese-mousse balls coated with olive-oil-sautéed bread crumbs”; the leather, “macerated figs with balsamic vinegar.” The two splashes of something dark as blood? The article’s writer—who just happens to be Mark Bittman—didn’t say, but I’m guessing it’s balsamic vinegar.
Would I try this dessert, if given the chance? Sure, I would. It’s odd, but none of the ingredients are really that far out. Mark Bittman says it’s “incredible,” and I’m inclined to believe him.
Would it be something I would eagerly order for dessert after a good meal? Since I haven’t actually tasted the celery sorbet concoction, I can’t really say for sure, but my guess is that it wouldn’t be my first, second, or even third choice for dessert.
One reader’s comments sums it up perfectly for me: “Why does this look like the dejected remnants of a dessert rather than a lusty dessert itself? The tongue, I assure you, does not easily tire…”
I’ll take this one step further: In our house, except for ice cream, dessert is not common. We do not always have a tin filled with, say, chocolate chip cookies or brownies at the ready for whenever the urge for something sweet hits us. Much as I like making apple and blueberry pies, there usually isn’t a pie just tucked in the cupboard on top of the plates. (My resting place for pies.)
We have desserts on special occasions—for holidays, for birthdays, for when company comes for dinner, and because we have them somewhat infrequently, “the tongue does not easily tire…” Just the reverse, the tongue eagerly awaits a “lusty dessert,” and celery sorbet with a little dressed celery salad somehow seems a little, well, anticlimactic.
So please, just give me dessert—chocolate cream pie, mousse, apple crisp, lemon squares, cheese cake, strawberry short cake. The list is long. And save the celery sorbet for an in-between kind of course, maybe even for a salad.
APRIL:THE LET THEM EAT BREAD REPORT
The project: To bake and give away at least one loaf of bread each week in 2011.
The reason: A personal protest against the rampant selfishness of our society.
The bonus: It’s good spiritual practice.
From now on, I’ve decided I will write a monthly Let Them Eat Bread Report. Somehow, it seems better to combine them and give a monthly bread count rather than a weekly report and count. (I reserve the right to change my mind, of course.)
In April I gave one loaf of bread to Jenn Currier, whom I’ve already written about; two loaves to my daughter Shannon and her husband, Mike, who continue to be quite the bread recipients; and one loaf to Judy and Paul Johnson, who recently returned from their travels to the Southwest.
We met Judy and Paul at The Senator Restaurant in Augusta, where I could order fish and chips for an upcoming article in Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine. (How I love to combine things!) Paul and Judy spoke about the Southwest, and no talk of this region can avoid the subject of water and how little there is to go around. In specific, the Colorado River is being diverted by the United States for various uses—electricity, agriculture, drinking water—so that little of it reaches the natural end of its run—Mexico, which desperately needs the water, too. According to ABCNEWS.com, only 10 percent of the water in the Colorado River reaches the border of Mexico, with the river sometimes “dying out in the desert during dry years before it reaches the Gulf of California.”
In Maine, where we are blessed with abundant rain (and only the occasional flood), we tend to take water for granted. Even in our so-called dry spells, the well on Narrows Pond Road has never run out of water. (Yes, I knocked on wood before I wrote that sentence.) As our friend Diane Friese has noted, “We should be so grateful that we have such an abundance of fresh water.”
In fact, the lack of water in the Southwest influenced Diane’s decision to stay in Maine. She loves the Southwest and had been debating as to whether she should move there when she retires. Quite sensibly, Diane spent a month in New Mexico, to get a sense of how it might be to live there full time.
“There’s not enough water for everyone,” Diane told us upon her return. And she couldn’t, in good conscience, as someone who really cares about the environment, add herself as another resident to an area that already has more people than it can comfortably support. Diane would like to go back for a visit, but not to live year round.
Bread might be the “staff of life,” but without adequate water we are in big trouble.
Total loaves of bread given in April: 4
Total for the year: 24
I’m almost halfway to my goal of giving away 52 loaves of bread this year, and we’re not even halfway through the year yet.
SOME GOOD FOODIE POINTS
Here are a couple of posts that make some good foodie points. The first is Julia Moskin’s New York Times review of the restaurant Buvette, which is in New York City on Bleecker Street. Buvette is a French restaurant, but casual rather than formal. Moskin describes many of their dishes, which certainly made my mouth water, and then ended with this: “Buvette stands for wallowing gracefully in modest luxuries: a well-made omelet, a well-seasoned horseradish cream sauce, a well-balanced chocolate mousse.”
I love “wallowing in modest luxuries.” It gives me pleasure just to think about this lovely phrase, and it is exactly the right approach to food—a way filled with pleasure but also a way that is sustainable, not at all over-the-top, and definitely not snobby.
The second piece, written by Anne Mahle, is in the Portland Press Herald, and it addresses the extreme concern that some people have about eating the right thing—always local, always organic, always perfectly good for you. Then, in their busy lives, when they slip and buy, say, a frozen pizza or nonlocal milk, or, the worst horror of all, they actually slink into a fast food restaurant for something to eat because they have a meeting in a half hour and there just isn’t time to cook and eat before the damned thing starts, they have guilt, guilt, and more guilt.
Mahle briskly does away with these dark blots on our foodie consciences: “The guilt and stress we create for ourselves around food are, to my mind, a complete waste of energy….It is the striving that is important…”
Mahle is right. The striving, the work that goes into being, if I may borrow from myself, a good eater, a responsible eater, should never end because even though progress might sometimes be slow, success does come with practice.
And if we slip from time to time, as most people will? Then there is always tomorrow, when we perhaps we won’t slip.
Notes From the Hinterland 