Change - Stress - Happiness

Life’s upheavals and unexpected turns takes you to places you may never imagined. I have gone from an urban forager of daily markets to a backyard garden on the outskirts of a congested metropolitan area to now, a resident secreted away in a bucolic setting of rolling hills where horses lazily graze on rich pastureland. I cannot wrap my head around the idea that this town has less people in it than the apartment building I use to live in.

I made this move just around the time my seedlings needed to be set free from their incubators but the move delayed their ability to take root in the earth. Everything is a bit off schedule and nothing is benefitting from a known routine – change is grand but the transition is stressful.  The dogs are not sure if we are just visiting, and continually sit by the car waiting to go “home.” My spouse and I are still searching through boxes and organizing never finding enough hours in the day to get what needs to be done. A first priority for me was tilling a spot and getting those seedlings to ground. I hope I have not over-shot my timing and the increasingly intense heat does not fry them. Those seedlings carried along in their earthen padded cradles, which they clearly had out grown, have been the first to settle with love and generous soakings will flourish and provide me with the happiness I get from fruit laden plants – however, in the interim this pastoral surrounding provides enough access to farms and a myriad of markets dotted throughout the region, and I am grateful for all the others who till some land. For me, nothing can surpass the pleasure and excitement I feel when I present a table resplendent with the gifts of my own tending. While the peas, radishes and strawberries of spring maybe of someone else’s touch I hold on to the promise that the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and watermelons will be from those later started newcomers. 

Spring Salad – yields 4 to 6 servings

1-pound baby beets – boiled and peeled

½-cup fresh shelling peas

¼-pound baby carrots – thinly sliced

4-scallions – thinly sliced

1-teaspoon chopped Texas tarragon

½-teaspoon chopped thyme leaves

1-teaspoon chopped lemon verbena leaves

¼-cup chopped loveage leaves

¼-cup Balsamic vinegar

¼-cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

¼-pound baby lettuce leaves

Tossed all the ingredients together, correct seasoning and serve.

on the menu tonight

We are deep into winter with swings from bone chilling days to this past Sunday when I found myself in shorts and a T-shirt. Now, in the next 24 hours I need to anticipate rain, snow and a hard freeze. It is going to be difficult to plan when to put my seeds in their germinating cups. But I am about a month away from considering if the time is right, and I hope by that time the weather patterns will have stabilized. Until then I am augmenting my collection of seeds that I have saved with packets of more seeds arriving by mail. I needed more golden beets, watermelon radishes, lettuces, sweets peas and lemon cucumbers. Though I am sure in the month there will be a few more envelopes within an envelopes arriving.

While I am planning for next season’s harvest I am feasting off last season’s bounty. Yes, my stores in the chest freezer are diminishing, and a few of my pickle jars are now emptied. And, I still have a winter garden that is producing beets, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower and turnips as well as kale, Swiss chard and arugula. Everything is getting covered with their thermal blanket for sure to offer whatever protection I can against this impending climate shift. I have until the third week of February to keep fresh cut vegetables on our table – that is the weekend we’ll get the rototiller and prep the garden for its spring plantings.

Until, sometime in May, when I harvest my next batch of radish and snips of lettuce this household will continue to feast off all the goodies I have preserved from summer’s abundance. 

Rye Berries with Beets – yeilds 6 to 8 servings

1-1/2 cup rye berries

2-tablespoons canola oil

1 medium onion

2-teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary

1-teaspoon chopped fresh oregano leaves

3-garlic cloves chopped

2-beets (green tops as well) (about 1/2-pound)

1-medium carrot – diced

2-tablespoons fresh Italian parsely leaves

1/8-pound crumbled feta cheese

¼-cup pitted Kalamata olives – cut in half

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Cook the rye berries in 3-cup of water over a medium flame until tender, approximately 20 minutes. Drain and hold to the side.

Dice the onion.

Dice the beets. Remove the center rib from the beet greens. Wash the beet greens and then roughly chop.

In a 8-inch saute pan add the oil, onion, pepper, rosemary, oregano and garlic, and cook over a medium-high heat. Cook the onion mixture until the onions just start to turn golden. Then mix in the beets and carrots. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Mix in the beet green and parsley, and reserved rye berries -- reduce the heat to low. Cover the pan and cook another additional 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and mix in the feta and olives and season with salt and pepper.

Dear old new friend

Ever since last spring I have been dedicated to three new but old pans. Last winter a cousin passed on, after a long-lived life and assisting in cleaning out the house I salvaged from the trash heap a trio of well-seasoned, family worked cast iron pans. My cousin and their family lived in the same house for the about 60 years, and I can only imagine how old the skillet, dutch oven and grill pan were. They are a testament to fact that cast iron, for me, are heirlooms to be cherished and passed along. They are so well seasoned, with a layer of carbon so set that I fear not it rusting, though I still never use more then a soft sponge and always dry it over a flame for there would be no greater loss than those years of dutifully preparing the family meals that are deeply enbedded within.

My cousin who onced owned these pans was one of the first foodie I had ever known. I remember back when I was in my late teens she came into New York from Atlanta for a culinary run. I was a bureougning foodie myself, and spent the day running around Manhattan with her on the hunt. I totally recall a small, floor to ceiling crammed stored in Chinatown where she was told a dragon and butterfly cookie-cutter could be found. In cleaning out the kitchen I was hoping to come across those detailed, delicate cutters perhaps her daughter found them and took them home with her. A cookbook collection spanned 5 decades and was rife with local self-published “Junior League” style contibutions that represents the anthropological development of the area and time – I scooped those up; even though I know I was never going to make a 7-up  Cake or Coca Cola Chicken.

I would never have thought that I would have ended up a chef, a hoarder of pre-loved rolling pins, apothecary jars and cast iron skillets. The history of food and cooking inspires, informs and releases me to create for future accumulators of the past.

Sautéed Radish, Turnip and Beets – yeilds 4 servings

2-shallots – thinly sliced

2-tablespoons olive oil

6 baby Japanese turnips - halved

4 radishes - halved

3 baby beets (preferably golden or candy stripped) - halved

2-garlic cloves – thinly sliced

¼-cup basil leaves

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Heat an eight-inch cast iron skillet over a high heat, then add the shallots and olive oil. Cook the shallots until golden brown, then mix in the turnips, radishes, beets and garlic.

Sauté the vegeables for about 5 minutes, until just tender then lower the heat, and mix in the basil, salt and pepper.

Serve warm.