remedial eating

summer's last stand

Just between you and me?  I swear I smell fall.  I know, I know, it's weeks away yet.  And yes, that was me rattling on about sweat and swelter barely a fortnight back.  Don't get me wrong: muggy's still the status quo.  The Calamine's still parked on my kitchen window sill, our daily dozen mosquito bites the wages of not staying in.  We spent much of last week in north-of-ninety territory, and I'm confident there's more where that came from.  Not full-on fall, then.  A faint whiff.  A whiff-ette.    

(Hot DIGGITY dog!)

But the light's been doing its sneaky slanty late summer thing, swaggering in at that James Dean angle.  It lights up our kitchen like nobody's business.  And makes it look like I haven't dusted since March.  Which, come to think of it... How about them peaches?  They've been especially fine, this year.  They're coming to a close, though.  Another itty-bitty sign.

Not that I'm counting.  Or taking notes.  About the way twilight's suddenly closer to eight.  Or the green acorns we've been pocketing on walks.  Or the goosebumps I felt this week.  Twice.  I'm fine with getting my fix before seven.  I'll take under-seventy, early or bust.  

Or the shelly beans in our CSA box last week.  Or, yesterday, the giant white squash.  Not the summer kind (well yes, that too, but what's new?).  The winter one!  Inedible shell and all.  Or the fact every item in our dress-up trunk has been worn ten times over, this past week alone.  We've got some decent quick-change artists in our house.  But speed like that takes a whole summer's practice. 

I couldn't help but notice those sacks by the door, thick with Ticonderogas and rulers and Pee Chees.  And that not-so-subtle note on my calendar, "BUY A WATCH!"  That alone is so totally completely un-summer.  But I haven't worn one once since spring.  And I've got a schedule, all of a sudden.  I set the alarm this morning.  For six-thirty A*ouch*M.  I sent two boys off to school, for the first time in months.  Two boys.  Same school.  For the first time, ever.  Maybe it's the tick-tocking of time that I smell.  Maybe the goosebumps go beyond nighttime lows. 

There's an edge to this turn, to be sure.  The anemones are still humming, but dropping petals, drooping.  The Cucumber of All Time began looking like eyelet, devoured by something other than us.  Long gone now, just like that. 

So I'm suddenly looking askance at the rest.  I cross-examine the zucchini about its intentions.  Interrogate our tomatoes over their turning-red timeline.  On the one hand, we hauled in six pounds.  Today!  Seven or more, if you include the cherries.  On the other, I see so many WIPs, hard tiny marbles and Pollyana flowers.  I'm not expecting 100%.  But I'm rooting like crazy. 

And stockpiling like mad. 

The thing about this particular phase is it's all very cusp-ish, one foot here, one foot there.  August is, as far as I can tell, the alpha and omega of yum.  We've been feasting for weeks on, well, everything.   It is all good and local and fresh and right now.  I'm keeping my mind just this side of spinning by socking away a bit of this summer for snow.  It's like Christmas in July.  Only the other way 'round. 

I bought a full flat of blackberries, to this end.  It nearly killed me to pay real money, but the price was as good as it gets in Ohio, and every August of my life has involved purple fingers.  We won't talk about how all twelve pints of ripe, plump-to-bursting berries flipped over on the way home from the market.  No.  No-ho-hooooo.  Nope.  We will only mention that we ate our fill, and froze two sheet-trays full for cooler weather.   

The grooves of my thumbs are deep nicotine-brown, though the only habit I've adopted is serial-basil picking.  We whipped up our fourth batch of pesto last week, and I'm due another triple-header any time now.  We doubled our run of spanikopeta, tucked one in the deep freeze that came with the house.  It's sitting on top of two trays of stuffed zukes, and underneath a pile of roasted, peeled peppers. I bought ten last week.  Two for a dollar.  Squirreling away, I feel pretty certain, is the only socially responsible answer to such steals.

It wasn't just peppers going at fire sale prices; eggplant were an eye-popping two quarters each.  Not that I'd buy them on price alone.  One eggplant's one eggplant too many, if you don't get along.  (Speaking of which, I've been meaning to mention, you can also find me at Edible Columbus.  We talked eggplant in August, turnips in July, and I'll drop a note when September rolls around.)

Anyway.  Eggplant.  Food of the gods.  Or such is my humble opinion, these days.  There are dozens of ways I inhale the stuff, and every last one involves screaming heat.  For a rip-roaring salad, see that Edible post.  For a brand new addiction, stick around a few moments. 

If it's convenient, fire up the grill; if it's not, crank your oven to its limit.  500° is fine (crank the fan, while you're at it).  What we're gunning for is incinerated eggplant.  It sounds a little strange, and looks a little stranger.   Or, as Zoë said, "It looks burned all over!"  There's a long tradition of grilling whole eggplant until it blackens and collapses in a heap.  There is also a very good reason for said tradition, namely the insides transform into plush silky gold.  Edible gold, if you add a few fixings.

There are countless directions the fixings can take, but my longstanding most very favorite is this, a sultry smart spread spiked with citrus and parmesan.  You start with a few of those incinerated eggplant, which have worked serious magic under the hood.  While the skin crumples and chars, the flesh goes all soft and smoky and sweet.  Profoundly so, all of the above. 

You scrape out the insides, into a bowl, where they slump in a plush little heap of potential.  Alone, it's nothing, except ugly (this dip will never win in the looks department).  But add a mountain of fine, freshly grated parmesan, a shot of fresh lemon, a drizzle of oil.  A wink of pepper, for flavor (two winks, if you're angling for heat).  Pita chips, to scoop up great heaving piles.  Because I've only ever eaten this in giant heaps, a dip:chip ratio of 2:1.  I've also mostly called it a meal, because I can never eat just eight.  But it's only eggplant, and it's nearly fall, and it would be a cryin' shame not to inhale summer's last stand.

Eggplant Yum
Adapted from Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything

Quantities are vague here, as eggplants vary so in size.  Start with the lesser amounts, test, and adjust, knowing that the end result is going to be full-throttle flavor.  Pita chips are pretty much essential here.  Trust me. 

As for the cheese, use a microplane if you've got one.  The shred is so fine, the parmesan melts into the eggplant (even cold).  Or substitute the smaller holes on a box grater.  Pre-shredded cheese won't hack it, but you can skip it altogether and substitute greek yogurt, half the lemon juice, and add a heap of cilantro, and still be one happy camper.

I'll usually toss whole eggplant (and peppers) on the grill after the evening's meal is done, to leverage the dying coals and get a head start on tomorrow's meal.  On Barbara Kingsolver's recommendation, and with a huge dose of skepticism, I tried freezing the grilled, skinned eggplant flesh, sans seasoning, last year, 2 per bag.  It worked brilliantly.  Just defrost, drain juices, and proceed. 

2 globe eggplant
2 lemons, juiced
1-2 ounces parmesan, freshly and finely grated (1 1/2 cups of feathery microplaned fluff)
1 tsp. salt
olive oil
pinch aleppo pepper (or whatever heat you keep on hand, cayenne, etc.)

Pita chips, to serve

Toss eggplant on the grill, cover, and cook, flipping once after fifteen minutes or so, until completely black and collapsing, about 30 minutes.  Alternatively, place eggplant on a foil-lined baking sheet and pop into a 500­° oven for 30 minutes, flipping halfway through. 

When eggplant is cool enough to handle, split skin and scoop roasted flesh into a bowl.  Mash roughly with a fork, to break up large strands.  To start, add the juice of 1 lemon, a good heaping cup of fluffy microplaned parm (which, though it sounds extreme, is only about an ounce), a teaspoon of salt, and a few glugs of olive oil, 2 Tablespoons say.  Beat all this into the eggplant with a fork, taste, and add more, to taste.  For this batch, I ended up using the juice of three plump, heavy lemon halves, and closer to two cups (1 1/2 ounces) of parm.  You are angling for balance but not subtlety; this is full-throttle flavor in every bite.  Once you've got serious umami from the parmesan and clear zip from the citrus equal to the eggplant's sweetness and smoke, you are golden.  And set for a feast.  

long gone

I've always had sort of an issue with the time-space continuum. 

Not everywhere.  I'm fairly good with indoor time.  I can usually guess-timate what the morning hour is, give or take a half, by the slant of the sun.  Cookies only sometimes get the timer treatment; a sniff and sixth sense are often all it takes for me to know they're caramelized at the edges, still soft at the center.  And when school's in session (nine more days, eep!), I know I'll re-grow that weird phantom limb that starts pinging, twelve minutes before the day's-end bell rings. 

But outside?  I'm toast.  At sea.  Out of sync, completely.  In my third decade, I've finally come around to the whole season system.  There are four.  Every year!  With start and end dates, even.  Which is very convenient for folks like me.  Soon, I hope to have them memorized.  In the meantime, I'm playing catch-up.

Ohio has been a huge help to me in this regard.  It's not that Seattle doesn't have seasons; it does.  We keep a postcard on our fridge door, in fact, picturing them all.  It's quartered, like a window, each pane showing the Emerald City at its seasonal prime.  The Winter quadrant is gray, of course, with rain streaming down.  Spring is, well, identical.  Summer, too.  Ditto fall.  Hardy har.  Sort of.  Everyday rain is a myth, not a constant.  But the temperature sort of is.  Seattle's seasons are subtle, whispery things, one blending more or less seamlessly into the next, summerfallwinterspringsum...  I'm not pointing fingers.  Just saying it doesn't help those who are innately obtuse.

Not so, Ohio.  Here we have SUMMER!, which is a world away from Wwwwwinterrrrr, except that it all unfolds in our backyard.  It's a wild ride, a tad psychedelic, like that trippy elephant parade part-way through Dumbo.  Minus the LSD.  Plus a whole lot more lovely.

And layered, like so many chapters in a book, each with its own bloom to tell the tale.  See, for the longest time, I noticed Summer had Flower, much the way I knew the Northwest had Tree.  I never really noticed what bloomed where.  Or when.  Or whether.  There's a reason I admire Mary Oliver.  My powers of observation are M.I.A. 

This, incidentally, is why I've always stuck to a strict watering schedule.  Memorial and Labor Day, whether the garden needs it or not.  I've had countless exasperated conversations with my plants, lambasting them for withering when I've watered them, already.  May, September, why so needy?  (See 'time-space continuum' and 'trouble', above).   But that's another story.  This one's simply about dialing down the oblivious.

Or, perhaps, tuning in to the obvious.  Everything’s amplified, exaggerated here.  Oliver's from Ohio, which I consider no small coincidence, as I can't imagine a better boot camp for the senses.  I get the impression it might actually be impossible to miss the ebb and flow of flowers in these parts.  They stun you silly, smack you upside the head.  Which is apparently what it takes for me to grasp this outdoor calendar business. 

I get it, now, how bulbs lead the parade.  How the tulips’ last gasp means the real party’s begun.  How the next chapter’s all small, eager buds, bashful anemone and Pasque bobble-heads.  I'm learning to expect that first installment of lush, the extravagant Iris and peonies, all gussied up in beards and petticoats.  I know these arrived kindly for Mother's Day, and that Father's Day means the hydrangea’s turn is come.

And I now know July's the height of it all, a crazy quilt of color and pattern and pizzaz.  Daisies and lavender and coreopsis and clematis and poppies and astilbe and Echinacea and and and...  They're long gone now, of course, and we're a little complicit, having blown, tossed and trampled our fair share of blooms. 

But I understand now that the cherry blossoms wouldn't have lasted, that August always elbows in with flaming petals and vegetables galore.  And I'm reminding myself, as we approach the onslaught portion of the produce program, that this, too, is temporary.  And that panic never helps.   

 

I'm not saying I don't love it.  Or that hyperventilation was involved.  Only that there was, what shall we say, a moment last week.  A moment when the world's most prolific cucumber bush kept producing, and our second bush began showing signs of coming on.  When I'd made and eaten soup, several more times, and then found 30 (!) cucumbers in our CSA box.  When I considered, ever so briefly, moving to Novia Scotia. 

And then I remembered.  The abundance chapter's begun, and this is a very, very good sort of problem to have.  And although two wrongs might not make a right, two gluts might just yield the best thing you've eaten all month.

On a lark, I whipped up a Greek Salad the other night, and to be painfully honest, didn't expect much.  Indeed, all my hopes were pinned on a sleek potato number, dressed in pesto and polka-dotted with peas.  It was nice.  I ate my share.  Then went back to my afterthought salad for seconds.  And thirds.  And so many stealth snitches I'd have to call fourths.

It knocked my socks off.  Or would have, had I been wearing any.  Revelation sort of hints at it.  Gobsmacked gets a little closer.  Ridiculously delicious came to mind between lip-smacks.  On the one hand, it's a simple toss-up of crunchy cuke and sweet tomato, plus a smattering of sweet onion and green pepper, slivered fine.  Add to this the briny smack of kalamatas, plus the creamy twang of a nice sheep's milk feta.  You might be imagining how these play well together, salty-sweet, sharp-and-mild, crisp-and-tender.  You'd be right. 

But what seals the deal, what surprised me utterly, was the wicked-wonderful alchemy of dried oregano.  Rubbed and crumbled to bring back its spark, tossed over all in giant, generous pinches, it brought the entire hodge-podge to life.  My fresh-herb bias took a serious dressing down.  I drowned out its whimper with another crunchy bite.    

And I realized, somewhere between bite 37 and 49, that my every other Greek Salad encounter went down in a restaurant.  And that the difference between an order-up! made with tired cucumbers and storage tomatoes, and a late-August, mind-the-glut D.I.Y is vast.  Just, ginormous.  Big as the gap between a deli-counter BLT and the real summer deal.  Big as the gap between now and then.  So big and so grand I made it twice in two days.  And plan to repeat, as often as needed.  Or as often as possible, until the bounty's long gone. 

Greek Salad
Inspired by Saveur
Serves 4

I nearly skipped the green pepper, as I mostly think they taste like the unripe vegetable they are, the sort of thing foisted off on you in salad bars and bad combo pizzas.  But it was magic here, like some unfamiliar herb, crisp and bright and exactly right.  If you have one on hand, or can get one, do try it.  Ditto the raw onion: normally I loathe it, but it's pitch-perfect here.  Needless to say, this is late summer fare, good eating when everything is days out of the ground.   

Leftovers (or originals) are lovely tucked into a hummus-lined pita.

2 full size or 6 small cucumbers
2 medium tomatoes (or 30 cherry tomatoes)
1/2 green pepper
1 small, sweet onion (or 1/4 standard, sweet onion)
4 ounces feta
20 kalamata olives (smashed with knife to remove pits)
1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. dried oregano
salt and pepper

Prepare cucumbers by topping and tailing, peeling, seeding with a spoon (if large; don't bother if small), and slicing in 1/2" wide half-moons.  Core tomatoes, and slice in wedges.  Slice pepper in narrow slivers, then stack the slivers and slice in thirds for bite-size ribbons.  Ditto the onions.

Pile vegetables on platter, shred olives into large bits and scatter, and crumble feta over all.  Sprinkle with vinegar and drizzle with oil, scatter a good pinch of salt and several grinds of pepper, and finish off with 2-3 generous pinches of oregano, pinching and smooshing between your thumb and forefinger as you sprinkle, to wake up all those lovely essential oils.  Dig in.   

keeping cool

Anxiety isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Have you noticed that, ever? 

It is August, and by rights, I should be a wreck.  Last summer, the shock of it all had me at my wit's end.  I was entirely unprepared for Ohio's August heat, the past-midnight lows higher than my home town's highs.  And the humidity, hoo boy.  Moist-steaming-sticky I'd only experienced my senior year in high school, when I visited a friend for a week in Virginia.  I wrote it off, along with SAT's and college essays, as a rite of passage, over and done with.  Our reunion, last year, was not what you might call graceful.

But here it is, one week in, and I'm doing alright.  Fine, even.  I am more than a little astonished over this.  I've been wringing my hands for, oh, eight months now, and added lip-biting after our stint in Seattle.  I worried the contrast might just undo me, after two-plus weeks in pants and polar fleece (in July).  And yet, here I am, alive and smiling. 

I owe this, in part, to last year's lessons, which we've committed to memory like inhale, exhale.  The outside is bearable, lovely even, so long as we hit it right off the bat.  I've taken to padding outside in my p.j.'s, inhaling my coffee and the early morning cool.  Besides, the anemones and riot of zinnias seem especially fetching in Nick and Nora, somehow.  We were in the Creek by ten a.m. last week, no small task when I'd just as soon start our day at noon.  But even with hours of splashing and crawdad catching behind us, we were out by late lunch, before the red line crept into the nineties.

You read that right: Nineties.  Or higher, per the heat index.  This nifty number is new to me this year, but as far as I can tell, it's wind chill's summer sister.  I don't understand the algorithm, exactly, but I believe it figures in both temperature and humidity.  The end result reads something like this:  actual temperature: 93°, heat index: 167°.  I try to ignore it.  Staying inside all afternoon helps.

This is Part Two of our first-year take-away, shutting up like hermits between noon and six.  We draw stuff, play stuff, build stuff, take apart stuff.  Save the world from certain disaster.  Go a little ape.  Hold tea parties for one-eyed pirates, who, by all appearances, have lost their mind.  

Which is sort of how I feel, holing up on all day.  And I'm fairly sure I would count myself crazy, save a (life-saving) conversation late last Spring.  I was chatting up a born-and-bred Ohio girl, grousing on and on a bit about a withering 3 p.m. park outing.  She looked at me funny, then remembered I wasn't from around here, then mentioned they never go out after noon.  That stretch between lunch and dinner, she told me, is strictly reserved for indoor activities, errands and movies and libraries and such.  I've been meaning to submit her name to the Vatican.

Which is not to say we don't go outside, ever, once the sun hits its peak and before it goes down.  It's just that we've ditched our old casual summer innocence, and replaced it with whip-smart surgical strikes. 

We slip onto the grass for a quick outside play, whole adventures transpiring between half-past and quarter-'til.  We gather iced drinks and stories and courage, and attempt to reach happily ever after before we melt.  We dart with bravado out into the shock of it, and stay ten or twelve minutes, as long as we can stand.  Much like I used to do as I child, only then it was the Pacific instead of the backyard. 

And I'm finally getting hip to the whole summer thing.  I've been parsing summer lists like some study the Psalms, cross-examining them all to tease out what's to love.  To admit sprinkler-running is a revelation, I realize, makes me sound rather empty between the ears.  But a cold hose is more duty than joy in Seattle, where I slid through several summers never once wearing shorts.  Here, I haven't much been out of them, since May. 

And here, summer's icons suddenly make sense, in a way they never did when I was a kid.  Shorts and t-shirts?  Vital.  Popsicles?  Essential.  Cold water?  Pure stinkin' genius, squared.  Soaking wet, we've decided, equals guaranteed bliss, a state I thought was off-limits until October.  Gone, even, is my ten-year ban on all firearms, abandoned in favor of four buck-a-pop "squirters".  My only regret?  Not caving any sooner. 

(Speaking of popsicles?  These are all that, and then some.  But, you know, don't take my word for it.) 

I feel the same way about cold soup, which I've always considered unnecessary and weird.  Ordinarily, my eyes skip right over such soups, the way I don't even see pants with 'toothpick' in the title.  But somehow, this soup here caught my eye.  Maybe it was the source; Shauna's been nailing delicious for years.  Maybe it was the color; I'm hopeless for pale celadon.  Maybe it was the fact we've been pulling giant, fresh cucumbers (plural) from our bush (singular) daily.  Anyway, I caved, and I'm beyond thrilled, because this particular cold soup is completely fantastic. 

The basic idea is chunk, chuck and blend, five minutes' work, with no stove involved.  That right there almost sold me, as is.  But it's what goes into the blender that's magic.  The ingredients don't look like much, to the eye, a few cukes, plain yogurt, fresh dill and mint.  But they blitz up into something else entirely, a riveting, cool, creamy bowl of fresh.  Can you imagine that, fresh, by the slurp and the spoonful?  Or, maybe, better, F-R-E-S-H?  And gentle, and bright, and deeply invigorating? Did I mention delicious?  Because that's there, too.

I've tweaked it a bit, to suit my tastes (and temperatures).  I upped the mint, because I could and did and loved it.  And I embellished a little, to make it a meal, adding eggs and tomatoes to the flotilla of cukes.  Sweet 100's or Sungolds are so very good here, bringing sweetness and spunk to all that pale cool.  The eggs are a little unexpected, and excellent, toothsome and tender and cheery, to boot.  All told, you end up with a bright, brilliant party, calming and soothing and deeply refreshing.  

I've called it lunch three times already this week, pouring from a pitcher that neighbors the iced tea.  I'm not saying I'm done with iced drinks, or the sprinkler.  But when it comes to keeping cool, I need all the help I can get.  And this is some of loveliest help I've come across yet.

Minted Cucumber Soup + Confetti
Adapted from Shauna, at www.glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com
Yield: 4-6 servings

This soup keeps beautifully, refrigerated, for five days.  Just whisk briefly to re-incorporate.

Please note chilling time: 1 hour - overnight.

Soup:

2 large cucumbers, peeled and roughly chopped
1 large fistful fresh mint, chopped (around 1/2 cup, after chopping)
1 Tbl. fresh dill, chopped
2 tsp. gentle vinegar (sherry, champagne, white whine)
24 oz. plain, whole milk yogurt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup water
1 tsp. kosher salt, + more to taste

To Serve (Confetti):
1/2 dozen small, sweet cucumbers, or 1 large one (seeded), peeled and finely diced
fresh, local cherry tomatoes, quartered (sweet 100's and sungolds, if you can find them)
hard boiled eggs, peeled and diced
more fresh mint, chopped dill, kosher salt & freshly ground pepper to serve

Place all soup ingredients into blender, and blitz until smooth.  Check for salt, and adjust seasoning to taste. 

Refrigerate soup at least 1 hour, preferably overnight.  Soup will separate in the refrigerator; just whisk briefly to re-incorporate, before eating.

To serve:  Fill a bowl three-quarters full with soup.  Top with generous handfuls of diced cucumber, quartered cherry tomatoes, and diced egg, plus a smattering of finely chopped fresh herbs and s + p, if you wish.  Enjoy.  Repeat.   

in lieu of

Well, then.  I was going to natter on about leaving the wrong impression, with all that talk of hammocks and laundry.  About how we did make it out of the house in Seattle, into the mountains and ocean, the blue and the green.  But I'm just going to pass that job on to the pictures.  My heart's not in it. 

Thing is, a dear friend suffered a bad blow last week, one of those where the universe whips the rug right out from under you when you're not even looking.  Then refuses to give it back. 

But I'm not much one for maudlin, or cards, so in lieu of flowers I was thinking we could just talk trees.  Big, green trees.  The Northwest is completely littered with them.  This is not news.  Weyerhaeuser knows it.  The state quarter knows it.  I know it, though it took me a while to appreciate it.  For the longest time, all those trees made me groan.

Once, in elementary school, a nurseryman came to teach us about our native arboreal splendor.  He brought real pine cones and sample branches and beautiful pen-and-ink illustrations to help us see, smell, feel the way Firs were not Pines were not Spruces.  I groaned.  Probably out loud.  Very unlike me. 

But I could not for the life of me understand what all the fuss was about.  They were all prickly.  They were all gawky.  They were all green.  All. The. Time.  We didn't have trees in Washington; we had Tree.  One pine-cone studded monobrow, arcing from the Olympics to the Cascades.  One non-stop, run-on, scritchy-scratchy, exactly-matches-its-neighbor, ever-stinkin'-green Tree.   

Moving works wonders on complacency.

In Ohio, I've finally found all those trees from my storybooks, the ones I could never find out my window, growing up.  Oaks and birches, sycamores and beeches, plus catalpas and sweet gums and endless others whose names (and shapes and bark and leaves) I'm only barely beginning to recognize.  I love this about Ohio, the particularity of its trees.  I also love those Northwest conifers, now more than ever.  Yeah, okay, for the first time, ever.

When I head West, now, I pack upgraded peepers.  (With all due respect to Proust, sometimes a person needs new landscapes to get a fresh, spiffy set of new eyes.)  Where once I saw blur, I now see details: huckleberry and sword ferns, thimble berry and Oregon grape, elegant undergrowth everywhere.  Which is sort of spectacular, all by its lonesome.  But it's the whole forest effect that struck me so, this visit.

It's a little like wandering through a set of Bose speakers, the way the woods broadcast in five-senses 3-D.  (Avatar was amazing, but nothing like this.)  There's that exquisite cool dank, which infiltrates everything, settling onto your skin and into your nose in dusky lockstep.  There's that whole dappled sunlight thing, like inside-out freckles, or stars somehow a-twinkling at noon. 

And of course, the teeming masses, those infinite trees, which I still can't ID but am beginning to see.   They're not all the same, I can see that now.  They're not even a mess, my fallback position.  They're layer upon layer of ages and stages, staggered by some clever choreography.  Whippet-thin saplings, battalions of second-growth, crumbling stumps and jagged struck spurs.   

And, here and there, the quiet giants, those spectacular ancients, around for donkeys' years.  Primeval bolt-ends, they always seem to me, though old-growth is the more traditional term.  Those that still stand, they anchor those woods. 

They punctuate the masses of middle-rung trees, ALL CAPS in a sea of lower-case.  They make shade for the upstarts, hold hillsides in place, bear scars and lost limbs from storms before memory.  They make the whole place feel a little like Chartres, hallowed and wise and ripe with perspective.  But with snaggletooth branches in place of flying buttresses.

Mostly, they've fallen, this storied old guard, though they have this whole second act after that.  Nurse logs lie in state everywhere, like so many benches nudging along new life.  They sport miniature ferns and twee elfin mushrooms and snails and bugs whose names I don't know.  They support tiny new seedlings, two-needles strong, and uphold entire next generation root systems.  My favorites look straight out of 1973, wall-to-wall shag in plush mossy green.  They're so closely bound up in the forest to come, they blur the lines between beginning and end.  Still, when they fall, it is all just pure grief.

We baked gingerbread this week.  I've been loyal to the same lovely version for a while now, ten years,  maybe twenty.  No more.  That was very good; this is sublime.  The texture is spot-on, an admirably soft crumb tucked under a crackling crust, with that deeply not-dry manner the English call damp.  Spicy, complex, dark, soulful, bold, tender, intense, sweet, profoundly good, at times bitter.  A little like life.

 

Sublime Ginger Cake
adapted from Ready for Dessert, by David Lebovitz

I substituted stem ginger, those tender amber cubes of ginger preserved in syrup, as I had no fresh ginger on hand, and subbed in some of the ginger syrup for molasses, while I was at it.  Divine.  Trader Joe's and Cost Plus typically stock stem ginger.  That said, I have no doubt this cake would still rock your world with the originally-called-for fresh ginger (both variations included, below).  I also subbed in whole wheat flour for the white, seeing as that's all I had.  'Twas lovely.

This cake keeps beautifully, 5 days well wrapped.

1/3 cup diced stem ginger (8-10 "cubes", cut down to 1/8" dice) or 4 oz. piece of fresh ginger, peeled, thinly sliced, and finely diced
1 cup mild-flavored molasses (substitute up to 3 Tbs. stem ginger syrup for molasses, if using)
1 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (wheat, white, or a mix)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten to combine

Preheat oven to 350° and place rack in middle position.  Butter bottom and sides of a 9" cake pan, then line bottom with parchment, cut to fit.

In a large bowl, mix molasses, ginger syrup (if using), sugar and oil.  Separately, in a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, cloves, pepper and salt. 

In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil, then stir in baking soda (it will fizzle!).  Whisk hot water into molasses mixture, then add chopped ginger. 

Slowly add flour mixture to the molasses, whisking to combine.  Add eggs, and whisk until well incorporated.  Scrape batter into prepared pan, and bake until top of cake springs back when lightly pressed, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50-60 minutes.  Let cool completely in pan.

Run a knife around the edges to help loosen from pan.  Place a large plate on top, invert cake pan onto plate and peel off parchment, then invert cake onto serving platter.  Serve with sweetened whipped cream. 

all the familiar

I think I could make a habit of this.

Not Seattle (I made a habit of that, long ago, and could again, any old time).  Of this home away from home business.  It's pretty much the cat's pajamas.

For much of my life, travel lodging has meant tent stakes and Coleman stoves, which is right in line with the way I roll.  Hotels have had their place, particularly as we've found ourselves in places known less for their quiet wide open and more for their sheer spectacle.  (It's not that people don't camp out on the Mall.  I'm just not so sure s'mores are allowed.)

But as we're learning to navigate this new cross-country existence, I'm coming to treasure the gift of lent homes.  There is something exquisitely ordinary about the whole thing. 

Take, for example, the laundry factor.  If you've traveled with kids, you'll understand me when I say, Four Seasons has nothing on a washer and dryer, en suite.  Mints on the pillow?  Momofuku by phone?  Nice, but no thanks.  Give me a Kenmore side-by-side, any day.  

As it happens, there is normally a sweet babe in residence, which has meant the luxury of a full-size crib for my youngest.  There are brand-new-to-us toys and books to adore, and a walk down memory lane in a little high chair revival. 

There's a neighborhood to walk, when the mood strikes, plus a P-patch in full bloom, just down the road.  There's a yard out back, with grass and a hammock and one very-well-pruned rhubarb patch.  This means right-there space to run and jump and play, plus a door to fling open for late evening breezes.  Seriously better than a car park and dumpsters.

There's the freedom to nap at ten, two, or never, as no one's coming knocking to tidy up the room.  There are no neighbors sharing walls to worry over.  There are keys instead of key cards, stunning photos instead of schlock art, flowers to bring in instead of fluorescent lights to keep out.  Personality.  Privacy.  All the familiar comforts of home. 

One of which, of course, is a full-blown kitchen, though we haven't been doing a whole lot of cooking.  Between picnics in parks and dinners with friends and quick-and-dirty breakfasts that get us out the door early eventually, there's been little need, and less desire.  

Besides, we landed smack-dab in high berry season, which, in Seattle, is downright spectacular.  We've downed four half-flats of raspberries and strawberries in two weeks.  Four of each, and we don't fly out until Wednesday.  (We did chocolate-coat several of the latter for dessert.  And breakfast.  And the occasional Elevenses.)  That doesn't leave a lot of room for much else. 

But it's nice to wile away a wicked case of insomnia by rolling out a double crust at half past two.  It can't be any less effective than counting sheep.  And the surprise of it buys time enough to inhale your second cup. 

Our only real effort has been aimed squarely at seafood, which we've been feasting on as often as time and pant-size allow.  We pulled every last shred from a Dungeness crab, then did it again just a few short days later.  We poached shrimp for tacos, and steamed four pounds of fresh local clams.  (I'm fairly certain Motel 6 doesn't encourage this.)  And two sides of wild sockeye fed us for days.  The first night, I seared two salt-and-peppered slices.  The next night, I slow-roasted all the rest, a gloss of oil and a wide skillet and a half hour at 275°.  I ate all I could, then tucked the rest away for these.   

These being the salmon cakes I've been ad hoc'ing for a while, a fact you'll see in the 'this or that' ingredients.  As long as you've got a good knob of ginger and a surfeit of salmon, you've got what you need for tender fragrant crisp cakes.  Barely sweet with melted leeks, sparkling with ginger, the salmon's bound with just enough egg and crumb to hold together.  Both make an encore once the cakes are shaped, that standby one-two dunk that guarantees a grand crunch.  Do try this at home, wherever yours may be.

Gingered Salmon Cakes
Yield: 12-16 small (2") salmon cakes

Were it just me, I would add a good handful of chopped cilantro, one finely minced stalk of lemongrass, and a half dozen slivered kaffir lime leaves to this.  However, my one junior seafood fan loathes green bits for now, and I'm loathe to put him off a good thing.

Panko is that wonderfully light, crisp bread crumb that hails from Japan.  Most major groceries stock it in the Asian food section.  Most Asian groceries stock bags twice the size for half the price.  Worth it, either way.

For Salmon Mixture:
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 leek, white and light green thinly sliced (or 1 small onion or 2 shallots, minced)
1 1/2 Tablespoons grated or finely chopped ginger
4 scallions, whites and light greens sliced
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup panko, bread crumbs, or crushed saltines
2 tsp. salt
4 loose cups leftover cooked salmon (lightly flaked, major bones and skin removed)

For breading:
3 eggs, beaten with a fork, in a wide, shallow soup plate or bowl
2 cups panko seasoned with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, in a wide, shallow soup plate or bowl
olive oil, for pan-frying

In a medium skillet over medium heat, warm 1 Tbs. olive oil until shimmery.  Add leeks (or onions), and soften, stirring occasionally, ten minutes.  Add ginger, stir, and continue to cook until fragrant, another 2-3 minutes.  Scrape from pan into a large, wide bowl, and allow to cool slightly.

Line 2 large plates or baking sheets with waxed paper or foil.  Have your bowl of beaten egg and bowl of panko ready. 

Add remaining ingredients (scallions, panko, beaten eggs, salt, and salmon) to leek-ginger mixture.  With two clean hands, moosh all together until well combined.  Rinse hands, but don't dry.  With damp hands, pick up around 2 Tablespoons of salmon mixture, and roll/pat it into a hockey puck sized disc.  I keep these smallish, around 1 1/2 - 2" across and 1/2" thick, as this size holds together well and cooks evenly.  (The high crust:salmon ratio doesn't hurt, either).  Place finished pucks on lined sheet, and continue, until you've used up your salmon.

To bread your pucks: take one patty in your left hand, and set it in the egg bowl, making sure both sides are glossed with egg (I use fingers to help a little egg along the top; these don't flip successfully).  Take egg-coated patty in your other hand, set it in the panko bowl, and coat well with the crumbs, using fingers to apply generously and press lightly.  Set on second lined sheet, and repeat, until finished.  It goes quickly, once you get the hang of it.

Slick a large skillet with olive oil, aiming for a quarter-inch across the entire pan bottom.  Heat over medium, until oil shimmers.  Using a spatula, lay 4 - 5 patties in the hot oil, taking care as the oil may splatter.  Don't crowd the pan; you want 1 - 2" between each patty, minimum, so as to keep the heat up.  Cook 3-5 minutes on one side, pressing down gently with your spatula, until bottom is golden brown and crisp.  Flip gently with a spatula, and continue to cook on reverse, 3-5 minutes, until bottom is golden.  Hold finished patties in a low oven (200°), or serve immediately, in stages.  Top off oil between batches, and allow 1-2 minutes to heat before laying in another round.  Allow also one premium specimen to land in your hand for munching as you flip.  Cook's prerogative.  

what to call it

I used to side with Pasteur on the whole chance thing, arriving reliably on the laps of the prepared.  And while I'm not ready to argue against hard work, blood, sweat, tears, yada yada, I'm beginning to wonder.  Maybe even doubt.  Because sometimes, a big pile of wonderful just falls from the sky, with no warning, whatsoever.

I'm not talking about what passes for luck, like the fact the kids made it halfway through the parade, before we bailed and made scrambled eggs.  Time was, I would have called this a failure, thinking they ought to enjoy the whole thing.  Time was, I was young and silly and naive.  These days, I measure success on an altogether different scale, wherein showing up is victory; anything after, extra credit.  So we knew not to push it, and left while ahead, which would've looked like luck to my unseasoned self.  It was really just life, inflected by experience.  (Age, if you must.  I prefer wisdom.) 

I don't mean happy accidents, either, like catching red currants their last week at market, having missed them, apparently, the three weeks' prior.  We scooped up two pints of the tiny red jewels, ate them out of hand and turned them into curd.  It was good, but not great; their color faded, their pucker dimmed.  But their syrup made for a smashing drink, stirred into seltzer with a squeeze of lime.  Perfect for slurping out on the grass.

I don't even mean Mother Nature's startling abundance, that cucumber that tripled in size just in time to inhale before we left, or this "Charlotte" who took up residence over the kitchen sink.  Under ordinary circumstances, I'm not jonesing for spider litters.  Wilbur's buddy, if memory serves, delivered something like 532.  But sometimes, these things pass for science, or a miracle.  And so you wait and watch patiently, three sets of eyes over your shoulder, mindful of the two chrysalises that never came to anything.  Maybe you cross your fingers.  And toes.  And then, just like that, congratulations are in order.  Many, many, many, many of them.  It felt like good fortune, these sudden yields, but cause and effect is probably more like it. 

Even the sun in the sky isn't quite it, though I've been known to act as though it shines (or dims) just for me.  Like when Ohio's weather turned wonderful, just before the Fourth.  Sunny, mid-seventies, no humidity to speak of, we'd seen enough high summer to hop to it and enjoy.  We knew to spread quilts and move stories outside. 

Or the way Washington's weather went all brilliant, once we landed, even though summer was last seen last September, by all accounts.  How we stumbled into Seattle the day summer began is a grand fluke.  How we stumbled into Seattle at all, pure magic.  

That's what I'm going with anyway, for the moment.  It's inadequate, but I'm not just sure what to call it, that moment I opened my Inbox and saw this: "House available in Seattle in July".  Did I mention it's the Inbox I never ever check, the one with four (!) thousand (!!) unopened messages?  (And then some.)  And this note was just sitting there, smack dab on top, waiting for all the world like it knew I was coming?  Magic doesn't really cut it, of course, and I haven't clocked the karma, I'm pretty darn sure.  My Sunday attendance doesn't justify the language, but big ol' blessing comes to mind, or grace running rampant.  I certainly didn't earn or prepare for such luck.  Maybe we can settle on the exquisite kindness of strangers, for now.

I'm not sure what to call this, either, but it's been on my mind a lot, of late.  We made it just before leaving Ohio, knowing our rhubarb might be on its last legs.  And as if a roof alone weren't enough, our home-away-from-home came with its own lush patch; I've got another pan roasting right now, as I type.  It's vacation-easy, and dreamy good. 

What is it?  You could call it a mini-pavlova, I guess, or, my preference, a nice tidy mess.  It's a bit of both, which is to say, a crisp disk of meringue heaped with fruit and chantilly.  (Am I alone in thinking vanilla-whipped cream sound endlessly more elegant under the alias 'chantilly'?)  It's also not exactly either.  Pavlova's are typically big, like a frisbee, with squidgy centers and a yield that serves eight.  The meringue in a mess is crisp as the dickens, but it's crumbled and jumbled, boarding-school style.  We are now counting angels that don't matter one wit. 

What matters is that we made this as an afterthought, one morning between eating breakfast and cleaning up.  We didn't make it for company, or even for an evening treat, but just for our own lunch, because it was as easy as all that.  (Am I alone in thinking dessert sounds endlessly more respectable under the alias 'lunch'?) 

This came together quickly, as we had meringues on hand, which might sound like a feat if you're not in the habit.  It took me years to come around to meringues; they sounded so tricky and tasted so gacky.  ("Tooth-achingly sweet", my mother would say.)  But they're ridiculously easy to put together, two ingredients plus a stand or hand-held mixer.  Just beat egg whites and sugar five minutes or so, until they go glossy and hold stiff peaks.  Like Mount Rainier in the distance, or an upside-down dog ear. 

Then you just spoon and plop, spoon and plop and repeat, and shove in the lowest of ovens for a long while, plus an afternoon or overnight to dry out.  (If you still hold meringue anxiety, consider this: how many cookie instructions include "give or take twenty minutes"?  Terribly forgiving, these little munchkins.)  What you have, in the end, is a crisp snowy disc that holds perfectly for weeks (months, if you can manage).  They're sweet, it's true, and I can't much stand them solo, though my kids think they're perfect, all by their lonesome. (Then again, they'll mainline sugar, if I let them.)

If you ask me, meringue's glory lies elsewhere, as the ideal foil for all manner of fruits.  Their shattery crunch plays off tender nectarines perfectly, and their unabashed sweet makes tart berries sing.  Rhubarb sits squarely between the two, roasted into a slump, teetering toward sour.  I might love it best because it shows up first thing, when all else is fast asleep, in earliest Spring.  I might also ditch it first when other lovelies come to call.  I was determined to get in one more encore this year.  You will not be disappointed if you do the same. 

But as we teeter toward the crush of peak season, feel free to substitute or swap out with abandon.  Meringue plus fresh fruit is the sweater set of summer's table.  Don a cloud of chantilly and you've just added pearls, the perfect yum from the Fourth through Labor Day.  And if you're connecting the dots here — That shelf life!  That versatility! — you'll see you've tucked a dessert ace up your sleeve.  Keep a tin of meringues, and you've a pie crust in your back pocket.  Except, you know, without all the crumbs.  Call it easy, or organized, or devilishly clever; your pick.  You'll call it delicious, any which way.

A FINE MESS  (Meringue, Rhubarb, Whipped Cream)

If you've no rhubarb, don't hesitate to try this with other fruits: strawberries or nectarines, sprinkled with sugar and set to sit (macerate) 15 minutes.  As to the meringues, I've been known to crunkle a few store-bought poofs over the fruit and cream, but I always regret it.  Pale shadows, they are. 

Meringues
Adapted from Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything
Yields 8-10 2" meringue discs

There are few kitchen ratios I remember, but this is among them — meringues are nothing more than 1 egg white : 1/4 cup sugar.  I often ad hoc meringues, whenever I have extra whites on hand, scaling the recipe up or down based on whatever I've got.  I should mention, you could go and get fancy with this, piping it with a star tip or stirring in shaved bits of bittersweet.  But that's December busywork; fuss has no place in lazy summer days.

Meringues store in an airtight tin forever.  Humidity's their only enemy; beware. 

3 egg whites
3/4 cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 150° degrees, or the lowest setting your oven allows.  200° or 225° is fine; just begin checking sooner, around 1 - 1 1/2 hours. 

In a stand mixer with whisk attachment, beat egg whites and sugar until roughly tripled in volume, shiny, opaque, and able to hold soft peaks, 5-8 minutes. 

Line baking sheet with parchment paper.  Using two soup spoons, spoon large dollops (2" or so across) onto lined baking tray, an inch or so apart.  (Meringues don't spread much, so you need only leave a small margin.)  Flatten slightly with spoon, but leave spikes and peaks; they're half the fun.  You're simply aiming for roughly the same thickness, for even cooking. 

Bake 2 hours at 150° (sooner if hotter, per above), or until meringues are dull white, firm to the touch, and crisp throughout.  (Break one in half to check, then call "freebies!")  Turn off oven, and leave them there to crisp, all afternoon or overnight, if you like a palest caramel color and flavor (I do).  Or, if you prefer the traditional pure white, remove after an hour.  Either way, store airtight, once cool, for months, if you can manage. 

Roast Rhubarb + Syrup
Adapted from Seven Spoons, Nigella, and my Pantry
Yields 3 cups rhubarb + 1 cup syrup

I'd originally intended to point you to Tara's recipe directly; her words, images and directions are always pitch-perfect.  Do check it out, if only to swoon.  As it happened, I had no vanilla beans on hand, and so improvised with the orange, which ended up lovely.  Also, I forgot to cover the rhubarb, which yielded firmer fruit and a more intense (reduced) syrup.  So I'm putting it forth as I made it, below.

Note: The rhubarb and syrup can be prepared up to 5 days ahead.  Cover and chill until needed, then bring to room temperature before serving. 

2 pounds rhubarb, washed
3/4 - 1 cup granulated sugar
One orange (organic, if possible)

Preheat an oven to 375°

Cut rhubarb into chunks, 2" in length if finger-thin, 1" if chunky-thick.  If you have a mix, aim for even mass, overall; the aim is even cooking time.  (And if you run into serious stringiness, peel off with your fingers the outer layer that pulls away easily.)  Place cut rhubarb into an ovenproof casserole or skillet.

Scrub the orange, then using a vegetable peeler, remove just the orange outer layer of the peel and place in the pan.  Slice orange in half, and squeeze juice over rhubarb.  Scatter 3/4 cup sugar overall, then toss with fingers to coat.  Place in oven, and roast for 35-45 minutes, or until rhubarb is soft when pierced with the tip of a knife, but still holds its shape.

Set a fine-mesh sieve over a medium bowl, then using a slotted spoon, remove rhubarb to sieve (there will still be syrup in the bottom of the pan.  Save this; you'll come back to it.)  Allow to sit, 10-15 minutes, until syrup has drained into the bowl.  (Don't press on solids; they'll cloud the syrup.)  Remove rhubarb chunks to a clean bowl, and cover.  Pour remaining syrup into sieve, scraping with a rubber spatula to get every last drop, then allow to drain into the bowl.

While the syrup is warm, taste for sweetness, bearing in mind you will want it quite tart to balance the meringues.  Add a bit more sugar, if needed, and stir to dissolve.  Cover, and chill, until needed. 

(Save a little, if you can, to quaff as a drink:  Mix a few Tablespoons' rhubarb syrup with a squeeze of lime, then fill a glass with seltzer water and ice cubes to chill.  Summer made sippable, and pink, to boot.)   

To Assemble:

One pint heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks with vanilla and a few Tablespoons' sugar

Place one meringue disc on a plate, heap with rhubarb (generous 1/4 cup), top with whipped cream (ditto), and drizzle generously with rhubarb syrup.  Eat, sigh, repeat.  

flew the coop

Oh, hey there.  Kind of disappeared there, didn't I.  I was going to bring you the best of messes (crunch, whipped cream, rhubarb).  And I may still, later this week.  But we flew the coop on the Fourth of July, and landed quite late, Ohio-time.  We're all a little tired, still. 

We'll be back, when we've a moment.  But right now, there's Seattle sun streaming down on my face, local raspberries to eat, and an Ocean with our names written all over it. 

super

I'm just going to go out on a limb here and call this one: This is the Year of the Superhero. 

Henry's not halfway to six yet, of course, and any prudent parent will tell you fickle's the only constant, among kids.  Maybe, next week, he'll fix his affections on marine life, whales and jellyfish and sea stars and such.  Maybe pigs will fly.  I'm not holding my breath.

I use the term superhero rather loosely, here.  Sort of the way Reagan claimed ketchup for the vegetable kingdom.  We've dabbled in the Marvel family, Spiderman and Co.  But in his heart of hearts Henry's allegiance lies elsewhere, with LEGO's Bionicles and "Ro-bots in Dis-GUISE!!"  (Transformers, to you amateurs.)

I'm not surprised; I expected a bit of Manichaean action about now.  I could see it coming around Halloween, and all kids of an age love a little good-versus-evil.  I just thought, I don't know, it would involve knights and dragons, or ogres, or pirates, or Tyrannosaurus Rexes.  Instead we have Autobots and Decepticons, and a perpetual loop between guy-mode and car-mode.   It's all very Joseph Campbell, Hasbro-style.  (You can find me in the dictionary, right there under naive). 

Part of me is a little ambivalent about these toys.  They're plastic, for one thing.  This means we didn't whittle them from wood sourced from the forests behind our home, which in my heart of hearts, I somehow imagine we'll do.  Even though we're surrounded by miles of cement, not old growth.  And I'm fantastically terrified of knives.

Also, I have a tiny issue with the commercial angle.  Namely the shameless marketing engine that preys on young minds by continually spitting out minor variations and appealing to the basest of itty-bitty warlord instincts in order to twist tender hearts and brainwash small boys into little mouthpieces for Big Play and the industrial-entertainment complex.  Not to put too fine a point on it.

But another part of me is coming around.  For one thing, it's where we're at.  Our life is a deeply urban one.  And even if commercial TV has virtually no play in our home and I unsubscribed us from LEGO's propaganda-cum-magazine long ago, these dudes are everywhere.  And last time I checked, forbidden fruit had a lousy track record. 

Then, there's the way they have got this boy motivated.  Henry's always had a willingness to work, but he's been operating on warp speed these past several months.  He bought his first Bionicle with precious birthday money (thank you, Uncle James and Aunt Sara!).  His second came compliments of Mamo, back in May.  The next four?  All bought with his very own money, earned the old-fashioned way, through elbow grease and gumption.  The kid's been doing chores like nobody's business, sweeping driveways, shredding papers, filling spice jars for a dime.  He even does windows.  Hard to argue with that. 

Plus there's the fact this is Henry we're talking about.  Toys, any toys, will forever be but props, springboards to his endless imagination.  He might fall in love with the latest and greatest, but he'd never dream of playing by the rules, thank goodness.  I go to make dinner and nearly trample my middle child, folded flat on the floor, Ironhide in the flesh.  I come down to coffee and end up excavating the step stool, covered in "transformers" engineered out of LEGOs.  Henry couldn't mind Hollywood's strict script if he tried. 

And then, the Bionicles are really just cool.  They've got these beautiful, articulate ball-and-socket joints that bend into the most awesome positions.  They hang and dangle like a dream, from nets or branches turned enemy lines.  And they're small and light enough to bring just about anywhere.  Like a Polly Pocket, only with spikes and claws and flaming spears. 

Tahu and Henry helped me spruce up the barbecue recently, not for pay, just the promise of chicken.  Boneless skinless chicken breast, of all the unlikely things.  Super's hardly the first word I think of when this cut comes up; dull, boring, bland, yawn ... tend to head up the list.  Served whole, baked or roasted, there are few things I'd less like to call dinner.  There's just not enough there there, you know?  I mostly avoid it, preferring whole thighs, except for a stir-fry, now and again.  And, BIG and, except for these kebabs, which overwrote everything I knew boneless chicken breast to be.

Heady, rich, insanely flavorful, these are smoky, spiced morsels of sweet juicy meat.  They come from the inimitable Madhur Jaffrey, which should be your first clue that they are fantastic.  Like so many Indian recipes, this one looks long.  And like so many Indian recipes, it comes together quick, most of the length simply spooning up spices.  You cube your chicken, season it with lemon and salt, then toss with said spices and a half cup of cream.  (Your second clue, that.)  Then you marinate all for six to eight hours, or, if you're me, for an overnight slumber.  There are few things that make me feel more devilishly clever than setting myself up for tomorrow's supper, tonight.    

And then, before dinner, just threading and grilling, a twenty minute task even if you're mid-battle.  In winter, these can be broiled indoors, and I never hesitate to do just that.  But they're unquestionably best done up summer-style, seared fast and finished slow over smoldering coals.  Pretty darn super, on planet Earth or Cybertron. 

Silken Chicken Kebabs
adapted from Madhur Jaffrey, From Curries to Kebabs

I've increased the yield over the original, as I hardly see the point of firing up the grill for something so delicious, and only having enough for one meal.  Leftovers are brilliant tossed in a salad, folded into cousous and green veg, or eaten greedily, with the fingers, by the light of the fridge. 

If you don't have garam masala, a blend of several spices, don't let that stop you.  Add a little cardamom if you have it, or just plow ahead.  It will still be magnificent.  This marinade is generous, and could likely accommodate upwards of three pounds of protein. 

Please note, this recipe requires 6-8 hours (or overnight) to marinate. 

2-2 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch chunks
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
4 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled and minced
1 Tablespoon garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons sweet paprika
3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon garam masala (optional)
4 Tablespoons corn or peanut oil

Place cubed chicken in a non-reactive bowl, and prick all over, lightly, with the tip of a sharp knife.  Add salt and lemon juice, then using your fingers, rub seasonings thoroughly into the chicken.  Set aside for 20 minutes.

Add cream and all spices (ginger, garlic, cumin, paprika, cayenne, garam masala) to seasoned chicken, mix well, cover and refrigerate for 6-8 hours, or overnight.  (I usually prepare this the night before, after dinner, and pull it out the following evening.)

Prepare the barbecue, with coals banked on one side for high and low temp grilling, until coals are grey and smoldering.  Thread meat on 6-8 metal skewers (or soaked wood skewers), brush with oil, and lay on the hot side of the grill.  Sear kebabs, 2-3 minutes, until golden, then rotate to sear reverse side, another 2-3 minutes.  Move skewers to cool side of grill, cover, and cook another 3-10 minutes, until just cooked through.  Check often, piercing thickest center pieces with a knife, until chicken is opaque and juices run clear. 

(Alternatively, preheat your broiler, and place the oven rack 5" from the heat.  Balance skewers on rim of a shallow baking tray, and broil 6 minutes on each side, or until browned and cooked through.)

no. 37

 

Anyhoo.  About that list.  It's really summer now, absolutely and for true, per the calendar and my kids and two dozen darting nightlights all a-twinkle out my window.  We're hitting our stride and finding our rhythm, and doing what we do when we're all together. 

What that is, exactly, changes by the day, and mostly our days sort themselves out just fine.  There are library trips and lots of book reading, barefoot toes and gardens to inspect, fights to pick and ways to make up, board games to play and watercolors to deploy, Slip 'n Slides to try out and peas to un-pod.  And always, always, a way to justify cookies.  (What, it's nearly ninety?  Just add ice cream!)

But several years ago, I began hedging my bets, by means of a summer list scrawled before break.  I suppose, to a stranger, it might look downright ghastly, like some power-parent's to-do list, or some poor child's worst nightmare.  And although it runs on, thick and dense with ideas, it's not goals I'm itemizing, or ambitions for anyone. 

It's more like a mama security blanket, a fall-back position for inspiration and spice.  Jumper cables, if you will, for four wildly different folks, who sometimes need just a wee little boost.  When the hum of our days takes on a little too much ho-, when the awkward pauses pile up and the engines stall, I whip out The List and start cherry-picking. 

There are things just plain fun (no. 72. play frisbee; no. 81. build a gnome house) and plain old necessities (no. 2. clean office; no. 68. fix kitchen table).  There are trusty old favorites (no. 32. get out the typewriter; no. 57. work a puzzle) and brand new skills (no. 80. learn to tie knots; no. 87. learn to play Go). 

There are ideas that take us away from home (no. 56. visit Darby Creek; no. 26. see a Woolly Mammoth), and others that keep us close (no. 1. build something with screws and scraps; no. 98. camp in our backyard).  Some are sure winners (no. 51. race remote control cars; no. 78. learn 3 great knock-knocks); others, well.... (no. 90. clean out garage).   Some, I've been meaning to get to all year (no. 93. positive ID poison ivy).  Others, I've been meaning to get to all my life (no. 121. learn metrics; no. 46. memorize the state capitals).  This is not their first appearance on The List.  Nor, likely, is it their last. 

Some make a series (no. 48. go geo-caching; no. 49. again; no. 50. actually find something), some are strange bedfellows (no. 82. see Dayton; no. 83. write more letters).  Some are wonderfully sure to happen (no. 12. celebrate 15th wedding anniversary!); others, ahem, not so very much (no. 58. run a mile).

There are great online projects I'm eager to try (no. 52. Carmen's salt and ice experiment; no. 104. Maya's wood boats) and old-fangled tricks I've yet to master (no. 107. learn to skip a rock).  Something for sunny days (no. 40. run through the sprinkler) and also for rainy (no. 6. use every last lego in 24 hours).  There's art (no. 73. paint) and there's science (no. 17. make a sun print).  Ideas quiet (no. 44. read boys The Great Brain) and active (no. 8. jump rope).  High tech (no. 24. place better than 12th in Mario Kart) and low (no. 10. make pasta, from scratch). 

Some are stupid-simple, easy and obvious, barely worth noting except I forget (no. 4. blow bubbles; no. 41. play hide-n-seek).  Others, just hard enough to keep it interesting (no. 31. make a movie; no. 19. find a katydid).  And then there are the wildly, enormously ambitious, there not because I think they'll happen but because hope springs eternal (no. 11. learn 3 chords on the guitar; no. 37. paint the living room). 

But heavens to Betsy, that last one is history!  Happened almost as soon as I wrote it, even.  It's been over a week, and still I'm pinching myself, so long have I wanted to cover up the pink.  For, dear reader, our living room was pink.  Or, rather, old dusty rose, which was right for the last residents but so not for us.  Painting's not difficult, per se.  But it's time-consuming and space-consuming and, well, so very wet.  Pesky, that last one, with small kids in the house.  Especially when it's the main room in your home, the one you walk into from the outside, and through all the time to get from here to there.  Most especially when it includes the adjacent (*pink*) stairwell, the one that leads up to every last bedroom. 

It takes a village to paint such a room, and my village turned out in spades, while I worked.  I cleaned and prepped and spackled and sanded, draped and edged and rolled and repeated, two coats in twenty four hours, give or take.  It's all dry now, and so so much better, the same barely blue as Zoë's room.  I may not set out to cross anything off, but I still sort of feel madly accomplished over this one.

There is one other that we've made a good stab at: No. 3. Eat our annual fill of strawberries.  You know we've been gobbling them since Memorial Day, staining our fingers and waffles and shirts.  I went to buy more at the market this morning, but the crop is waning, the few pints sold out.  If you live where strawberries are still going strong, you might try this salad, if you can bear it.

I don't want to put you off it, not at all.  It's just that I've never liked 'strawberry' and 'salad' to share the same sentence, much less plate.  I've sampled several over the years, and to the last, they were all pretty dreadful, put together more for color than for taste, with crunchy winter berries to top it all off.

This one, however, this one I adore.  If that was a vivid, spare salad for Spring, this is a lush, baroque Summer sister.  Into a mess of mixed greens (butter lettuce or mesculun), you mix in heap of sliced, plump ripe red berries.  Add to this a thick fistful of fresh slivered basil, a heaping half cup of salted macadamias, and a goodly smattering of blue cheese or feta, and you've a salad that smiles with every bite.  There's texture to spare, buttery crunch meets tender berry, and a smashing point-counterpoint between sweet-tart fruit and sharp basil. 

It's all very more-ish, and I've made it lunch more than once, and if I can swing it, I'll do so once more.  No. 37 had a clear finish line; done!  No. 3, not so much; always room for more...  Soon leaves will give way to high summer's bounty, to salads made wholly of corn and tomatoes.  Until then, if you can, you might add this one to your list.   

An Early Summer Salad
Inspired by Dewey's

I cannot decide whether I like this better with or without the poppy seeds; they add a lovely crunch, and make the strawberries look like ladybugs.  That said, it's just lovely without them. 

I'm fond of Maytag blue cheese, for its mild, sweet character.  I can't figure out how strawberries and blue cheese could work together, but they do, here.  That said, a good sheep's milk feta is dreamy.

Salad:
8 cups fresh young thing greens (mesculun, spinach, a little arugula would be fine)
1 loose cup fresh basil, slivered
1 heaping cup ripe-to-bursting strawberries, sliced
1/2 cup roasted, salted macadamias, roughly chopped
1/4 cup crumbled feta or blue cheese (Maytag blue has my heart)

Dressing:
1 Tablespoon mellow vinegar (sherry, balsamic, raspberry)
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. honey
3 Tablespoons olive oil
freshly ground pepper
1 Tablespoon poppy seeds (optional)

Prepare dressing: pour vinegar into an old jam jar with a lid, and add salt and honey.  Swoosh several times to help dissolve, then add olive oil, pepper, and poppy seeds, if using.  Seal tightly with lid, and shake madly 30 seconds or so to emulsify.

Prepare salad: Place all ingredients in a large bowl.  Drizzle with some of dressing (start with half), and gently toss with clean hands, several times, to dress.  Taste a few leaves for flavor and seasoning, and add a bit more dressing and/or salt, if needed, and toss again to combine.

Best enjoyed out of doors, if it's pleasant, indoors if it's unbearable. 

the very best sort

Apparently, I'm hard at work on a bad habit.  I think of myself as a girl of resolve, able to make  decisions and carry them through.  But I'm becoming iffy and fickle (I think), if this here year's any indication.  See, I was all set to tell you about summer plans, and strawberry salads and insignificant triumphs.  But that was yesterday. 

Today, well, today I've changed my mind completely, and I'm chucking it all, in the name of dessert.  I've done it before, and I'm doing it again, and if history's still the scratchy LP I know it to be, I'm bound to be back, covered in crumbs and excuses.  It could be worse.

I've got a good explanation, for what it's worth.  A superb one, really, at least this time.  Our week was wrapping up all orderly and ordinary, in that long-awaited, everyone's-finally-out-now way, when Friday pitched us a curve-ball of the very best sort.  

The phone rang, right in the middle of some vital-nothing, and I can't imagine why I answered, as I often don't in these moments.  But I did, oh I did!, and I'm still thanking my luckies.  Because what to my wondering ears should appear, but my dear old friend Dania, just passing through.

Allow me to clarify.  By 'dear old friend', I mean we've known each other for ages, since before we had kids or husbands or licenses.  Permits, even, were several years out.  If I were to be yawningly accurate, a quick calculation tells me we've made it past the quarter-century mark.  But let's just call it quite some time and leave it at that.  
 
By 'just passing through', I mean she was on a road-trip.  With her family of six, driving cross-country, moving house from Seattle to D.C.  Since June 3.  Friday was June 11.  They could have made it to their destination Friday night.  They stopped, detoured actually, to see us instead.  Did I mention that four of those six are ten and under?  (And to think I had qualms driving three kids six hours.)  I could share all manner of wonderful about Dania, how she's the kindest, most gentle, most genuine person I know.  But I think the stats are more articulate by far.   

Obviously, plans were made on the spot, to hang and play and chat and eat.  Their E.T.A was dinner, and dinner begs dessert, and dessert in June is obviously strawberries.  Or that's my new tune, anyway. 

What I was going to say yesterday, which I'm taking back today (but intend to get back to next week, really), was that I'm not a big fan of strawberry desserts.  I mean, I am, in theory, a huge wild raving one.  I adore a good shortcake, crumbly and cream-filled, and I love the idea of pavlovas and brown betties.  In April, anyway, when strawberry season's still months away.  But when push comes to shove, and June's heat rumbles in, I can never muster much dessert enthusiasm.  I tend to prefer my strawberries straight-up, or if disguised as dessert, dipped in cream, whipped or soured. 

Or at least I did, back when I was decisive.  My new wishy-washy self has found pie.  A deeply, profoundly strawberry pie.  It is not a piece of art, or even high eating, but it's what I've always wished for in a fancied-up strawberry: a way of making strawberries taste more like themselves.  Richer, rounder, sweeter, tarter, plumper, juicier, redder by far.  But still and only strawberry, start to finish.  Strawberries amplified, if you will.

It is a brilliant sort of a pie, involving very little cooking and very much mincing.  The crust is crumb-based, which means two winning things: eighteen minutes in the oven, and pressing, no rolling.  Already, we're talking high points for hot days.  And the filling, it isn't baked at all, though it's as slow as it is simple to pull together. 

The only odd bit is the chopping, which is really the alpha and omega of it all.  You take two pounds of berries, reserve the best and brightest, and chop the rest into 1/4" dice.  Weird, no?  I did a double-take, too.  And seriously considered rounding up.  By a lot.  There are quite a few quarter-inches in two pounds.  But I knew not to doubt, considering the source, and set about mincing my berries to bits. 

And as my bowl filled with strawberry schrapnel, I suddenly understood the technique, which is nothing more complicated than surface area, and nothing less sublime than transubstantiation.  Aided by sugar and abetted by lemon, all those surfaces leak juice, ruby-red and abundant.  It's a little messy.  You might kick up some juice along the way.  The whole scene is rather Jamberry meets Halloween IV.  Oh, but it's worth it.   

This juice is siphoned off and barely set with gelatin, which struck fear in my heart but turned out plump and luscious.  (Oops, there I go again, skipping to the ending.)  You stir this elixir back into the berries, which settle into a soft glossy jewel.  The whole mess gets tumbled into the crust, and studded with whole berries along the way.  And then you just wait, a good four hours, while the whole thing sets and settles and chills.  That was really the only hard part.  Though it wasn't half as hard as waiting for Dania.

In the end, we had not only dinner and dessert, but breakfast besides, just the two of us.  No small feat, with seven small children between us.  (I'm beaming up gratitude to certain family members as I type.)   This, as it turned out, was the very best sort of dessert, plain time together, a sweet lazy luxury.  But barring that, this pie makes a nice substitute. 

 

Fresh Strawberry Pie
adapted from Gourmet.com and Baking Illustrated

Strictly summer fare, this.  If berries aren't local, fresh and bursting with flavor, bookmark this one for the next time they are.  The original called for crushed cookies, but I adore a good graham cracker crust for it's caramel-tinged crunch.  This is my go-to graham crust, seen before under chocolate.  I'm re-printing it here so that nothing stands between you and delicious. 

Please note this pie requires 5 hours' lead time, to set and chill.

Graham Cracker Crust:

9 graham crackers (1 sleeve, 5 ounces)
2 Tbl. sugar
5 Tbl. salted butter, melted and warm

Strawberry Filling:

2# fresh, local strawberries
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 envelope unflavored gelatin (2 1/4 tsp.)

Prepare Graham Cracker Crust:

Place oven rack in middle position, and preheat oven to 325°.

Roughly break graham crackers, then pulverize to a fine powder in a food processor, about 30 seconds.  Add sugar, and pulse briefly to combine.  Add melted butter through feed tube in a slow, steady stream, pulsing as you go to combine, until mixture resembles sand. 

Transfer the crumbs to a 9" glass pie plate.  Spread lightly to distribute, then gently, firmly, press crumbs into bottom and up sides of pie plate, using the bottom of a measuring cup or small ramekin.  It will remain very loose; aim for general coverage.  The crust will firm up considerably as it bakes.  Bake 15-18 minutes, until your kitchen is filled with good smells, and the crust is lightly browned.  Cool completely while making the filling. 

To Prepare Filling:

Select 20 large or 26 medium strawberries, remove stems, and set aside.  Red and plump are nice, but they need not be perfect.  Cut remaining berries into 1/4" dice, and gently toss with lemon juice and sugar.  Let stand, stirring now and again, about 30 minutes, for juices to form.  Pour berries into a sieve, set over a large bowl.  Let berries drain 5-10 minutes, then pour accumulated juices into a 2 cup (or larger) measure.  Add water to bring liquid up to 2 cups, then pour into a medium saucepan. 

Sprinkle gelatin over the juices, and let sit for one minute to soften.  Bring just to a simmer, stirring to dissolve gelatin, then remove from heat and pour over diced berries.  Pour berries and juices into a metal bowl, fill another large bowl with ice cubes, and nestle berry bowl down into ice bath, to chill.  Stir berries frequently, 30-45 minutes, until berries begin to mound slightly.  You'll think it won't happen, that something's gone wrong.  It will.  Really. 

Spread 1/2 - 1 cup of berries onto bottom of crust.  Place whole, reserved berries on top of this layer, stem side down.  Spoon remaining minced berries around and over whole berries, until you reach the rim of the crust.  Whole berries will likely be submerged; this is fine.  Leftover filling can be poured into a small bowl, and set separately.

Place pie in refrigerator, and chill for 4 hours, or until pie is set.

Best served in the company of freshly whipped cream and dear old friends.