DORIE GREENSPAN

Phelps Fever - Everyone's Got It!

The display case at my favorite fish market, Star Fish in Guilford, CT, is always whimsically decked out, but yesterday it was exceptional -- every plate of fish was Olympics-ized.  Tuna toted a gold medal, squid carried the Olympic torch, soft-shelled crabs were surrounded by flags of many nations and the arctic char was being reeled in by Michael Phelps, who makes a pretty cute merman.  I loved it and so did everyone else who walked in -- customers were walking along the refrigerator case the way kids walk along Macy's windows at Christmas time.

Actually, it seemed like sports day all over the Shoreline yesterday.  On our way back from Star Fish Market, we stopped at Jake's, a roadside farmstand.  Jake sets up in Zhang's parking lot in Madison starting about noon everyday but Monday in the summer and he's got terrific produce.  His corn is spectacular, his green beans the greenest and snappiest around.  In fact, the only thing that's snappier than Jake's beans is Jake's patter -- I love listening to him chat with his customers, almost all of whom are regulars.  And it was a regular who stopped by yesterday to pin a Boston Red Sox's banner on Jake's truck.  Not that Jake needed to be converted to the team, he was already drinking coffee out of a Sox mug.

Come Bake with Me: The En Plein Air Market at The Florence Griswold Museum

If you live anywhere near Lyme, Connecticut, you could be in for a treat:  Saturday is the annual En Plein Air Market at The Florence Griswold Museum. 

As soon as the date for En Plein Air is announced, I mark my calendar and make certain to be in town, because it's one of the best and most beautiful markets imaginable.  Set up on the lawns of the historic Florence Griswold house, the birthplace of American Impressionism, and now part of the world-class museum that bears her name, the market attracts the best and most interesting growers in the state. 

For the first time this year, En Plein Air, the term for outdoor painting, the specialty of both the French impressionists and the artists that boarded at Miss Griswold's home, will include Midsummer Craft at the Museum Shop. 

Come meet the artists behind:

Billie Beads - dazzling, sparkly, exuberant, handmade jewelry and objets d'art (I find them irresistible)

Angie Falstrom - miniature watercolors, giclee prints and notecards

Kate Hines - pearl jewelry that manages to be both classic and hip

Nankeen - accessories made by the ancient "rescued" technique of blue nankeen

And I'll be there, too, baking and signing copies of Baking From My Home to Yours and Paris Sweets. 

Here's my schedule for En Plein Air:

10 am: Baking Demonstration

11 am to 1 pm: Booksigning

2 pm: Baking Demonstration

In between, I'll be doing what everyone else is doing -- shopping for great food and eating great food.  My friends, Jonathan Rapp from River Tavern and Drew McLachlan from Feast in Deep River, the masterminds behind Dinners at the Farm, will be at The Flo Gris with their "chucktruck," dishing out their wonderful right-from-the-market fare.  They'll also be making my Lemon Loaf Cake for you to taste at my demo -- thank you, guys! -- and using the cake to make a dessert of their own that will be available from the truck. 

I can't tell you how happy it would make me to meet you at the market!  PLEASE, PLEASE, if you're in the neighborhood, stop by, say "hi" and have a piece of cake.

 

Summer House Cooking: Putting the season's vegetables to good use

While the tomatoes in my garden are still too green for anything, even green tomato pie, the corn is already sweet, the zucchini already plentiful and the onions ready for their close-ups at my local farmers market in Lyme.

As many of you know, I'm very attached to our little market, which is one reason why it was such a pleasure for me to write about it for the August issue of Bon Appetit magazine.  The story, which is now available online, includes 8 recipes that are favorites of mine for the season:

• SUMMER CORN SOUP (pictured above) -- not only do I love the flavor and texture of this soup, I love that you get to use everything corny to make it, including the cobs!
• TOMATO AND TAPENADE TARTLETS -- so sophisticated looking; so easy
• CAPER-ROSEMARY TUNA WITH HERB SALAD -- worth firing up the grill for, even if the tuna only cooks on it for a very few minutes 
• GRILLED SCALLOPS AND NECTARINES WITH CORN AND TOMATO SALAD -- I love the combination of sweet scallops, nectarines and corn with the bit of acidity you get from tomatoes (I also love the surprise of nectarines in a main course)
• GRILLED EGGPLANT WITH CAPONATA SALSA -- think eggplant as bruschetta
• GRILLED LEMON CHICKEN AND MOROCCAN COUSCOUS SALAD -- one of my summer go-to recipes
• GRILLED FLANK STEAK WITH SPICY PEPPER AND WATERMELON SALAD -- the salad, a mix of bell peppers, fiery sriracha sauce and cool watermelon, is perfect with steak, but just as good with chicken or fish
• ZUCCHINI TAGLIATELLE WITH MINT, CUCUMBER AND LEMON -- no pasta here, just zucchini sliced on a mandoline or v slicer to look like tagliatelle; it's fun and it's good with so many things -- I served it with roasted salmon last night

I hope you'll take a look at the story (I don't know how long it will be up, since links get updated so frequently) and that you''ll enjoy the read.  And I really hope you'll cook from the recipes.

Granola Grab Bag

When Kerrin and Olivier Rousset (they of the wonderful wedding) came to spend this past weekend with us in Connecticut, they arrived bearing gifts: Granola, homemade and in three flavors!

It was a great gift, but it also turned out to be a funny one, since when Kerrin was roasting granola on Friday, I was doing exactly the same thing!  I hadn't made granola in years, but it seemed like just the right thing to have on hand when there'd be people in the house for a couple of days.  Obviously, that's what Kerrin was thinking too.

While I'd made a very basic oatmeal-honey-nut granola (more about it and the recipe in a minute), Kerrin played around with hers.  She started with thick-cut oats, assorted nuts (she used whole almonds, pecans and sesame seeds) and carob honey she and Olivier brought back from Morocco, and then, when the granola was cool, she added bits of dried papaya, plump golden raisins and pieces of Moroccan dates, another bring-back from their honeymoon.  The sack Kerrin labeled "au naturel" was this blend, and the little tag she'd tied to it said, "Best with thick Greek yogurt or cold milk"

Batch two was labeled "Melissa Granola" because it contained chunks of Pralus's Melissa chocolate, a spicy milk chocolate, that was a terrific addition to the mix.  Melissa's tag said, "Best out of hand (which is the way I've been eating it), in milk or with ice cream (vanilla or coffee)

The final batch, which was labeled "especially for Dorie," was the most unusual and, just as Kerrin had expected, my favorite:  "Reglisse Granola," aka Licorice Granola.  Mixed in with the oats and nuts and fruits were bits of black licorice cut from licorice wheels.  The tag read, "Best simply eaten out of hand," although it might just as rightly have said, "Best eaten before Olivier sees it," since when the new groom reached into the sack, it clicked that the little black snippets had been snatched from his private stash. 

It was surprising how good the licorice was in the mix and how well the licorice and honey, which are often used together in candies, worked with one another.

Kerrin and Olivier's grab bag was a great success and it made me think about packing up my own granola for the holidays.  As I said, my granola is a basic mix, but it's one that lends itself to lots of additions.  I usuallly add only dried fruits - raisins, for sure, but sometimes I toss in dried cherries or snipped apricots.  It could be spiked with some spices or it could take some Kerrinesque additions, like chocolate or licorice.

If you don't already have a favorite granola recipe, here's mine.  I hope it will get you started on your own house blend.

OATMEAL, HONEY AND NUT GRANOLA

Makes about 4 pounds

1 pound oats, I use thick-cut oats from the health food store bin

3/4 pound honey, preferrably one with some character

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 cup coconut, preferably unsweetened (available in health food stores)

5 to 6 cups mixed nuts, I usually make one-quarter of the mix raw sunflower seeds and one-quarter almonds, then I make up the rest with pecans, pistachios,  pumpkin seeds and whatever else looks good

while I usually coarsely chop the nuts, you can leave them whole, especially if you're going to be using the granola as a snack rather than a cereal

Dried fruits (or chocolate, or licorice, or ...), as much and whichever you like, cut into bite-size bits

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and have ready two large rimmed baking sheets lined with silicone baking mats (my first choice) or nonstick aluminum foil. 

Mix all the ingredients together in a big, big bowl.  Keep turning the ingredients around so that the honey coats everything.  Divide the mix between the two baking sheets and spread it out so that you've got even layers.

Bake the granola for 40 to 50 minutes, turning it with a wooden spoon every 10 minutes or so.  The turning is extremely important because you want to evenly toast and dry out the granola.  If you find that the granola is browning unevenly, rotate your baking sheets front to back and top to bottom (if you're working on two shelves). 

I can't give you an exact baking time, you have to keep looking at it.  You want the color to be dark -the cereal won't have much taste or crunch if it's not - and you might have to sacrifice a few burnt nuts to get it.  Just keep watching, particularly once the color starts to deepen.

Cool the granola on the baking sheets, turning it often as it comes to room temperature.  Stir in the dried fruits and store the granola in a covered container away from moisture.

Of French Gnomes and Elfen Friends

At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, I'll admit at the top that I don't go in much for garden gnomes.  True, a gnome played a major role in one of my favorite French films, Amelie, which, incidentally, has a soundtrack that's so wonderful it coaxed a smile out of me even after I discovered that the 2 cups of sugar sitting on the kitchen counter belonged to the cake that was already in the oven!  (Note to self: Don't talk on the phone and bake at the same time.)

That's Audrey "Amelie" Tatou up there with her gnome (thank you Miramax).  Cute, I know, but not cute enough to make a gnome-lover out of me.  Even after the celebrated designer, Philippe Starck, whose work I love, created a family of garden gnomes (here's one)

I still wasn't about to make a place for a gnome in my garden, my home or my heart.

But it turns out that my little corner of Connecticut must be a hotbed of anonymous gnomial activity because, unseen, unheard and uninvited, the gnomes turned up.

I mean, take a look at this - it's what I found in my garden earlier this summer, just after returning from Paris

Pretty fabulous, isn't it?  And obviously the work of gnomes, right?  Who else would do such a thing?

Then yesterday, Michael and I pulled up to the house and, as I always do, I jumped out of the car and went directly to the garden.  Here's what I found

To you, this might look like an ordinary scarecrow.  But to me, it looks precisely like a mini female edition of Abner, the scarecrow who lives up the block.  Could Abner have wandered down and bequeathed me his firstborn?  I don't think so.  It's got to be the gnomes at work again.

Next thing I know, the ghost of Christmas past will be hovering over the garden.

If this keeps up, I might just start believing in the tooth fairy.  In the meantime, I'll keep believing in the adorableness of my friends.

Read to Grow - Rabbit's Bedtime and Cookbooks, Too

This week marked the tenth anniversary of Read to Grow, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving literacy in Connecticut by starting early - as soon as a baby is born! 

Every mom who gives birth to a child in a participating hospital gets a visit from a Read to Grow volunteer and a goody bag containing a pamphlet detailing the importance of reading to children and a brand-new book, so moms can start reading to their little ones immediately.

It's a terrific organization doing very important work and, to get the word out and to celebrate their anniversary, Read to Grow held ten house parties over the weekend, each attended by an author.  I was not just flattered to be invited to speak at a party, I was delighted, honored and, frankly, very surprised.

As I told the group, when I decided to give up on my doctoral dissertation and go bake cookies in a Greenwich Village restaurant, only my husband was in favor of my move.  My friends thought I was nuts and my mother was pretty sure I was ruining my life.  I understood how she felt:  she was looking forward to saying, "my daughter, the doctor," and, instead, she was stuck with, "my daughter, the underpaid cookie baker who works in a cellar."

Being a chef and writing about chefs and food wasn't sexy or glamorous then - it wasn't even considered interesting.

Happily, a lot has changed, thanks, I think, to the James Beard Foundation, which honors chefs and cookbook authors, and, most definitely, to The Food Network, which makes chefs stars and food compelling.

I took being invited to speak about what Julia Child called "cookbookery" to a literacy group as another way to measure just how far we in the food world have come.

Of course, the best criterion of change is my mom.  She's very proud of me now - so proud that she doesn't even remember not being delighted when I gave up that dissertation!

If you want to learn more about Read to Grow, click here.

Of Macaroons, Memories and Missed Opportunity

I know I must have had my camera with me this morning.  Obviously, what I didn’t have was my with-it-ness because I missed a great photo op.  I was, as I usually am on summer Saturday mornings, at the Lyme Farmers Market.  I had just bought swordfish, Littleneck clams and a lobster (what a treat!) and was surveying the lines at the other stands, deciding on my next move, when Carol Dahlke came walking across the fields, headed in my direction.  Carol is due to give birth to Baby James any day now, so she usually leads with her belly, but today she led with an object I recognized immediately: a red and white box from Pierre Herme!

Carol’s parents had just returned from Paris bringing with them macaroons – lots of them.  And there was Carol, the box in one hand, the PH cheatsheet in the other, trying to decide between Ispahan and Satine and giving up (or giving in) and having them both!

I chose a classic coffee macaroon and ate it standing in the middle of the field looking out at the white market tents, the Saturday shoppers in shorts and flip-flops, the kids racing around and the horses grazing beyond the stone wall, and I just couldn’t get my bearings.  My feet were planted in the solid soil of New England, but with each bite my mind traveled further and further away until I could see myself leaving Pierre’s shop on the rue Bonaparte and walking toward my apartment.  I could see Place Saint-Germain-des-Pres stretching in front of me and I might even have heard the church bells chime if Michael hadn’t tugged on my sleeve to ask if I needed garlic. 

We all talk about that passage in In Search of Lost Time, the one in which Marcel Proust writes about how a bite of a madeleine transported him to another time and another place, but today I lived it. 

It was a wonderful moment, but a strange one, too.  I had trouble reconciling the meticulous construction, the flavor, the fragrance, even the spirit of Pierre’s macaroon with the setting.  The macaroon was so Parisian, what was it doing in Connecticut?  On the farm?  Would there have been this disparity for me if I’d never before tasted a PH macaroon?  Would I have enjoyed it less because I was missing a context?  Would I have relished it more because it would have been an initiation?  And why should food have a place?  Wouldn’t I be just as happy having caviar by a campfire as I would be eating it from a mother-of-pearl spoon in a grand chateau? 

Who would have thought one little bonbon could cause such confusion?  I know, I know - Proust!

Dinners at the Farm: Great People, Great Food and a Great Cause

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!

Bubble, Bubble, Toil, No Trouble: A New Soap

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.

Rainy Day Salad

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.