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This week's Baking with Dorie recipe on Serious Eats is for Peach Melba. Take a look at the variation that's in the section called Playing Around - it's for corn ice cream! I think it's great and I hope you do too - let me know.
When a day starts out like this, you've got to believe it can only get better:
What you're looking at is the team from Sunday night's Dinners at the Farm pushing the "chucktruck," better known as the thing without which there'd be no dinner. At the lead is Jonathan Rapp, chef-owner of River Tavern, and behind the wheel is Drew McLachlan who, with his wife, Claudine, owns Feast Gourmet Market in Deep River, Connecticut. Just a minute or two beofre I snapped this picture, this is what you would have seen:
That's me behind the wheel! I was having such a good time until my husband told Jonathan that I was better at truffles than trucks and that I probably shouldn't be the one steering when they finally got the monster moving. I love my husband, but sometimes he can be a spoil-sport.
Dinners at the Farm is the brainchild of Jonathan, the McLachlans and Chip and Carol Dahlke of Ashlawn Farm. Carol, who is the roastmaster at Farm Coffee, stayed home, wisely - she'll be having a baby any day now! But here's Chip, who, in addition to being the host of the dinners, started the wonderful Lyme Farmer's Market:
The dinners, which kicked off in June (click to read about the first one, complete with thunder and lightning), are usually held on a local farm (Sunday night's was the exception; it was held on the grounds of the Wadsworth Mansion, just after the annual open-air market pulled up stakes), always use ingredients straight from the area's farms and always benefit a not-for-profit organization. Sunday night, the proceeds from the dinner went to the local chapter of American Farmland Trust.
This time, I was at the dinner as a volunteer kitchen hand. It was an outdoor dinner for 150 people and nothing was prepped ahead - it all happened on a bunch of plank tables under a tent and on the truck and it was a testament to what precision organization and a lot of talent can do.
Of course, it didn't hurt that everyone was anxious to get their hands on the food - everything from the fruits, vegetables and fish, to the pork from Four Mile River Farm, was local and most of us knew all of the farmers personally.
When I climbed up onto the truck and gasped at how beautiful the food was, Jonathan said, "It's impossible not to make beautiful food out of stuff this wonderful." Take a look at just a smidgen of what we had to work with:
There was a great sense of camaraderie among the team, which was made up of pros and volunteers, including my mates on melon brigade. This is Steve Lapenta, who owns The Bridge, a tofu company in Middletown, and who just walked over and asked if he could lend a hand:
And here's Christy Wilson, who in real life is from Santa Monica, but who came East for a spell to be an art director on Righteous Kill, the upcoming DeNiro/Pacino/50 Cent/Scorcese film that's being shot in Bridgeport:
I couldn't stay through dinner - we had to drive back to New York - but I was there to help get the pizzas ready for the grill:
and to plate the Charentais melons with smoked scallops, heirloom tomatoes, cilantro and a dressing of toasted cumin, lime, chiles and extra-virgin olive oil:
I wish I had a picture of the soup that went out before the melons - roasted corn with littleneck clams - but I was too busy picking parsley for the next course to grab my camera.
Here, though, is the whole menu, large enough, I hope, for you to read it and smile in delight:
It was terrific to be part of a community helping a community and I can't wait to do it again. And I will. The Dinners at the Farm team will be in New York City at Farm Aid on September 9 and I'll be there too. If you're around, come by, I'd love to see you!
Ooops. I forgot to tell you: the new Baking with Dorie recipe is up on Serious Eats and it's French Chocolate Brownies (from Baking From My Home to Yours). The full recipe is there, including the instructions for flaming the raisins in dark rum - my favorite part.
Today, my husband heard me say something that would only have been more startling had I chanted it in Swahili. The words I uttered were: “I can’t wait to get home and clean!”
Even I (who, sadly, was born without the neatness gene) was surprised by my reaction, but as soon as I smelled the soap that Amelia Hunt of Falls Brook Organic Farm had created, I wanted to just bathe in it. And I can. Amelia’s soap is totally organic, non-toxic, fabulous-smelling, good-cleaning and really, as she says, all-purpose.
Just so you know, the cute farmer on the bottle is Michael Newburg, Amelia’s husband. You’ve heard me talk about him lots because he’s the man who grows the best greens on earth and also the person responsible for teaching me how to keep his great greens fresh.
Here are the uses for the soap listed on the side of the bottle: Hands, body, oily hair and pets; dishes, appliances, counter tops, cabinets, porcelain and tile surfaces; floors, woodwork, walls; produce (Amelia and Michael say you can add a drop or two to a salad spinner, rinse and spin); laundry; carpets and fabrics with spots and stains; cars and, my favorite, tractors. I love this idea of one-stop soaping.
Here’s what I think is so delicious about the soap: its smell. The soap, which is a concentrate (you pour a little into a dispenser, then add water), is based on organic coconut, olive and jojoba oils and aloe vera and gets its scent from essential lavender, rosemary, oregano, marjoram and nutmeg oils with some grapefruit and rosemary extract mixed in. You can see why any foodlover would fall for the fragrance.
When I got to the Farm, Amelia had only four bottles of the soap left
But there’ll be a batch arriving Monday (August 27) and, by Monday, she’ll have everything about the soap and how to buy it on the Farm's site (where you can also sign up to buy the Farm’s handmade paprika).
Each bottle holds 32 ounces, comes with a foaming dispenser, costs $18 and, because you dilute it, is probably enough to keep even Mr. Clean happy for a very long time. I know it kept me happy through the lunch dishes.
My husband, Michael, couldn’t resist this Siamese-twin tomato at the Lyme Farmers Market this week (it would have been a perfect match for the boomerang eggplant I bought the week before, but that had already become caponata)
Then, having bought it, he went back to New York, leaving me to tackle the double-headed monster on my own, which I did with one of my favorite knives
The knife (so elegant), made in Japan by Kyocera, has a ceramic blade with microscopic serrations that slice through tomato skin and soft tomato pulp effortlessly and neatly – the skin never tears and the fruit never goes ragged.
Once I had separated the twins, I tasted the tomato to see if it was worth continuing. The answer: yes! In fact, the tomato was so good that I dashed out into the pouring rain to get some basil from the garden.
With a tomato this good, less is just enough, so all I did was cut it into chunks, sprinkle it with fleur de sel and splash it with great olive oil. Then I added some sliced plums, an idea lifted from a salad Dan Barber, the remarkable chef, had made at the remarkable Blue Hill at Stone Barns.
With a hunk of bread and good butter, it was the perfect lunch, made perfecter by the fact that I was alone so, when I finished the salad, I could drink the luscious tomato “soup” that had accumulated in the bottom of the bowl. It certainly brightened a gray, rainy day.
Yesterday, I flew to Florida to visit my mom and the travel was a hassle from start to finish: the traffic going out to La Guardia included the usual tie-ups; security was a zoo – travelers convinced they were going to miss their flights and TSA (Transportation Security Administration) inspectors convinced we were all criminals; and, the worst, on the plane, three little kids, who screamed and yelled and cried and jumped up and down and spilled sticky apple juice on no less than 4 passengers while Mom did a word-find puzzle.
And today I had to do it all over again - in reverse. So I woke up early, breathed deeply a dozen times and got to the Fort Lauderdale airport early enough to face the security lines without panic, only to discover that I was the only person going through security and that everyone on the TSA team seemed to have gotten up on the right side of the bed, had a good breakfast and graduated from charm school.
Here’s proof: A TSA woman met me at the start of the x-ray’s conveyor belt and helped me get my stuff arranged in the bins!
Then I walked through the metal detector and the inspector on the other side commented on the pretty pink ink my Mom had used to print out my boarding pass!
All this put the New Yorker in me on high alert. This had to be some kind of set-up. Maybe we were being filmed for an airport courtesy propaganda clip. Maybe I was on Candid Camera. Everyone was so cheery I half expected to find milk and cookies in the pat-down area.
Floating along on this surreal cloud of bonhomie, I was almost relieved when, instead of just whizzing through the scan, my suitcase had to be looked at a second time. I was at the end of the belt, gathering the rest of my stuff and re-shoeing, when the guy inspecting the computer image of my carry-on called me back.
“Do you collect Hummels?” he asked.
Who woudda thought?
What he was looking at were a couple of porcelain figurines made by the Hummel factory in Germany that my mother had wrapped up in old towels and given to me. “No,” I said, “I don’t collect them and I don’t know anything about them. These were my mom’s. She’s had them forever and just decided to pass them along to me.”
“Madam,” he said, “From what I can see, it looks like you’ve got good pieces here. They could be (...pause ... nod) worth something.” Then he gave me this little lesson: “When you get home, look at the numbers on the bottom - the lower the number, the more valuable the figure.”
“It’s true,” said the man who’d checked my pink boarding pass. “You’ve got to look at the numbers.”
By that point, I was giggling and shaking my head in disbelief.
“You guys are amazing!” I chirped.
“Yeah, we’re not so bad after all, are we?” asked the Antiques Roadshow expert.
I knew the question was rhetorical, but I called out “not so bad” anyway.
This week's Baking with Dorie recipe on Serious Eats is Blueberry-Peach Cobbler. It's simple, delicious and messy - just as it should be. Enjoy!
When I first learned to fold a parchment paper circle into a half-moon turnover in which I could cook just about anything en papillote, I cooked just about everything en papillote and thought that if I kept it up, I’d not only be among the healthiest-eating citizens in the land, I’d also earn the right to call myself an origami master.
Then, just as quickly as I became infatuated with this way of cooking, that’s how fast I put it on the back burner and moved on to the next thing. I don’t know why I was so fickle and I certainly don’t know why I gave up on something so terrific. But my papilloteless days are behind me. The little packets have made a comeback chez moi and now it’s all anyone can do to stop me from whipping up a pouch and tucking something in it.
Almost anything - meat, fish, fowl, fruits and vegetables - can be neatly arranged in a tightly sealed cocoon of parchment or foil (so much easier) and gently cooked - kind of by roasting, more kind of by steaming - with little or no fat and almost no effort.
The principle here is to combine the "main ingredients" or a mix of mains (for instance, a chicken cutlet and some vegetables) with some herbs, spices or aromatics, so that as the ingredients cook, they are infused with flavor and fragrance.
The method works like a charm for individual servings - there's little better than being presented with a papillote and having the pleasure of opening it at the table, so you get that first perfumed puff of steam - but you can cook a whole fish in a packet or even all the fixings for a shellfish stew. (And, of course, any recipe for one serving, like the one below, can be multiplied endlessly.)
These days, I often make it really easy on myself by crafting the cocoons from non-stick aluminum foil. They don't look as elegant as parchment, but they seal super-tight with just a a quick pinch. And there's a lot to be said for quick on a school night.
Here's a recipe for salmon and tomatoes en papillote. You could do this same recipe with cod, monkfish or bass, or you could opt for a chicken cutlet. And you could swap the tomatoes for zucchini or flat beans or cobless corn or any combination that appeals to you. Naturally, the choice of herbs is up for grabs, too. The only thing to keep in mind is that all of the ingredients should cook in the same amount of time.
Before tucking them into the packet, I rolled the grape tomatoes around in a skillet with a little hot olive oil to concentrate their flavor, but it's completely unnecessary. It was a day when I had plenty of playing-around time, which is also why I put the fish on a small parchment circle and then wrapped it in a foil pouch - again, a completely unnecessary step, but I thought it looked prettier and I had time for pretty.
SALMON AND TOMATOES EN PAPILLOTE
Makes 1 serving
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil (more to taste)
4 grape tomatoes
About 6 basil leaves
One 5-ounce filet of salmon (skinless or not)
1/4 lemon
1/2 spring onion or 1 scallion (optional), finely sliced
1 sprig thyme
Salt and freshly ground white pepper
Center a rack in the oven, preheat the oven to 475 degrees F and have a baking sheet at hand. Cut a piece of foil that is large enough for you to lay out the ingredients, lift up the edges of the foil and seal the packet with an inch or two of air space above the fish.
If you want to "sear" the tomatoes, warm 1 teaspoon of the olive oil in a small skillet, then saute the tomatoes just until their skins are wrinkled and bubbly, about 3 minutes.
Working in the center of the piece of foil, make a bed of basil leaves, keeping 1 leaf aside. Sprinkle the leaves with a little salt and pepper, put the salmon over the leaves and season it with salt and pepper too. (If the salmon has skin, lay it skin-side against the basil.) Put the tomatoes on one side of the salmon and grate the lemon's zest over everything. If you're using the spring onion or scallion, scatter the pieces over the fish and tomatoes. Give the salmon a squirt of lemon juice, then cut two thin slices from the lemon and put them on top of the fish. Top with the last basil leaf and the sprig of thyme; moisten with olive oil.
Seal the packet, making sure it's airtight and that there's puff space between the fish and the top of its cocoon. Put the packet on the baking sheet, slide the set-up into the oven and bake for 10 minutes, if you like your fish pink and slightly jiggly in the center (great for salmon); bake 2 minutes longer if you want your fish better done.
You can either put the packet on a dinner plate and open it at the table, or open the packet in the kitchen and arrange the ingredients on a plate. If you plate the fish, you might want to finish the dish with a little minced basil or some snipped chives.
Even people who have lives they love – that would be moi – dream about adding just a little something else to what they know is already more – way more – than enough. In my case, the petite addition would be more time in Beaune, one of the most beautiful towns in Burgundy, one of the most glorious regions in France.
Actually, it was my husband, Michael, who first dared to dream this out loud, saying, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could live full-time in Paris and have a country house in Beaune?” Of course I dreamed along. Wouldn’t you?
So, while we’re waiting for our dream to come true (translation: while we’re waiting to hit the lottery), we visit Beaune when we can. And, when we visit, we stay at La Terre d’Or, where Jean-Louis Martin and his wife Christine make us feel like their guest house is our house by giving us free rein of the kitchen, so we can prepare our own lunches from things we get at the terrific Saturday market, or by setting out Kirs (a white wine and cassis liqueur aperitif) for us before we head out for dinner. That Jean-Louis once played the theme from Amelie on the piano downstairs to awaken us, instead of knocking on the door, didn’t make us feel like we were at home – it made us think we were living in that film.
Michael and I get to Beaune once or twice a year, but just a few weeks ago I snuck in an extra trip with a group of journalists, which gave me the chance to visit the Hospice de Beaune for the umpteenth time. Just so you know: You can never see the Hospice (or hospital) too many times.
The Hospice, the Hotel de Dieu, just celebrated the 564 th anniversary of its founding and it is in great health – it is supported by the proceeds from the famous Hospices de Beaune auction and dinner held each November. It was the extraordinary idea of Nicolas Rolin and his wife, Guigone de Salins, to build this hospital as a refuge and sanctuary for the poverty-stricken people who had suffered so severely during the Hundred Years War. Their mission was to give patients something beautiful before death, something they had never had.
Five centuries later, the Hospice, which was an active hospital until 1971, is still gaspingly beautiful. Look at the painted ceiling in the patients’ hall; the chapel; the apothecary, where the remedies were made from herbs grown in the hospital’s gardens; and the kitchen, which is fascinating for people like us who love food.
While you’re admiring it – and the way the museum people have set the scene – just try to imagine what the nuns had to do to turn out 120 meals a day when their water supply was in the courtyard, that large, gracious courtyard that’s not exactly steps away from the kitchen or the patients’ quarters.
Whatever you do, don’t miss the Rogier van der Weyden triptych of the Last Judgment. It’s haunting.
Happily for us visitors, the Hospice is in the center of town, just across the Place Carnot from a great specialty shop, Fromagerie Alain Hess.
I always stop here, always talk to this server to find out what’s new, and always buy a local cheese. Among my hometown favorites are: Citeaux, made by the monks in the nearby Citeaux Abbey, which you can visit; Soumatrain; and Epoisses, the soft, runny, you-can-serve-it-with-a-spoon cheese that has a forbidding smell and a rich flavor.
It’s also close to two of my favorite restaurants:
On this last trip, we were spoiled and taken to dinner at le Jardin des Remparts, a Michelin-starred restaurant on the edge of the town’s fortified walls. The young chef, Roland Chanliaud, is wildly imaginative and, while many of the products are local, the inspiration for his dishes comes from everywhere and the execution sometimes has a high-tech edge. One of my favorite dishes was a beef tartar surrounded by oysters and topped with what the chef called sea foam, essentially an oyster juice gelee.
My favorite little touch was this herb garden, planted in a window on the side of a staircase.
And then there are the wines and the vineyards – you can have a swell time in Burgundy if you don’t care about wine, but you’ll have a much sweller time if you do. And you’ll have the best time if you drive the wine route and stop here and there. Actually, you don’t have to stop, you just need to slow down – the vineyards themselves are things of beauty.
For those who care about wine, a must is a visit to the legendary Clos de Vougeot, the abbey where the famous wine was first made almost 1,000 years ago. The Abbey, which dominates the treasured vineyard, a small plot shared by 80 owners, and its architecture (Cistercian), are, without being dramatic, awe-inspiring.
Just writing this makes me long to go back – and I’ve only just been there! While Michael keeps dreaming, I’m going out to buy another Lottery ticket. Wish me luck.
Starting today, and for every Thursday forever after (or at least for a long while), I’ll be posting a recipe with tips and a story on serious eats.
To kick off the series, there's a recipe for one of my favorite strawberry tarts. It’s so simple that even first-time bakers can make it - yes, even if you’re a crust-coward, you can do this one.
I hope you’ll make it and let me know!
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