On the Road (at home): Cooking Ana Sortun’s “Buried in Vermicelli (Shaariya Medfouna)”

I recently had the opportunity to visit Marrakech for an exciting new venture – I am a content writer and editor for a new business that focuses upon telling the stories of a particular city’s culture and offering a collection …

Pickled Strawberries, Round 2

Of all the wisdom I have imparted in the past couple of years, my pickled strawberry recipe has been one of the most consistently popular posts. I recall being inspired to make these after visiting Garden at the Cellar, a particularly tasty farm-to-table restaurant helmed by Chef Will Gilson, where pickled strawberries were featured with one of the daily specials. The next day I basically swapped strawberries for cucumbers in a pickle recipe to see what might happen. And well, they were a tad strange. Certainly interesting and unique, but it was as if they too perfectly straddled the line of sweet and savory. I brought them to a few dinner parties and friends were excited to taste them, but would chew them thoughtfully, perhaps taking just one more to ensure that their flavors were a bit too odd to go back for a third. I still assert that they can make a nice accompaniment for a charcuterie platter or cheese plate, but only for the more adventuresome palate.

So with this year’s batch of fresh-picked strawberries I decided to tweak my own recipe, this time using my grandmother’s bread and butter pickles as a basis. I made two version, one more local than the other. Both turned out well – although the version with honey is a bit sweeter and more complex. These are certainly on the sweet side – the amount of added sweetener ensured that, although in the future if I started with sweeter strawberries I would cut it down even further. As it was, this season’s berries didn’t quite hold up to last season’s. Like I say in my instructional video, every batch is different. So for all those looking for a pickled strawberry recipe, I ask you to give some feedback on this one. I think that if I were to make this again, I’d stick with honey as a sweetener and add maybe black peppercorns for bite or substitute balsamic vinegar in place of some of the white vinegar. Oh well… maybe next year.

Sweet Pickled Strawberries

*fills about a pint jar of strawberries

In a sauce pan, over medium heat: heat 1 cup vinegar, 3/4 – 1 cup sweetener (depending on sweetness of berries, sweetener used and personal taste) and 2 tablespoons of salt. Perhaps a teaspoon or two of vanilla extract. Heat until the sweetener and salt are dissolved and the liquid reaches a simmer.

Meanwhile, clean and de-stem enough small, ripe, blemish-free berries to fill a clean pint jar. Layer in a few clean and unbruised mint or basil leaves.

Pour the boiling liquid over the strawberries. Once at room temperature, store in the fridge. Let them sit 12 – 24 hours or more before serving.

Watch me pickling!

On the Road: Moroccan Bastilla

Bastilla – also spelled pastilla, bastila, bisteeya or bastela – is known as a very typical Moroccan dish – and a very impressive one. Made from warqa dough, which is similar to Greek phyllo dough and Hungarian strudel leaves, the …

Advice for the Busy Urban Locavore, or What I Ate While Writing My Dissertation

Yesterday I handed in the super-revised, almost finished, if my committee-approves-we-can-schedule-a-defense draft of my dissertation. Since the first of the year I have been living and breathing that document (and was almost as consumed by it for months before that …

The Prize

At the end of last November this box of locally grown produce was the grand prize of a raffle at a fund raiser for Waltham Community Farms. All of the vegetables had been harvested from the farm, most in the …

Suzanne Cope is the Locavore in the City

Suzanne is a writer, teacher, and urban locavore. Here she shares stories, recipes, successes and challenges of a environmentally sustainable and community-focused life in the city. Her memoir Locavore in the City will be published in 2013 detailing a year foraging, gardening, cheese-making and fermenting. Stay tuned!

Compost for Brooklyn

I didn’t think I would find my community amid a once abandoned lot filled with rotting food scraps. I merely had gotten used to composting in my apartment in Somerville, composting my produce scraps in the city-sized anaerobic composter in my ample back stairwell in the winter months or walking a bucket full of scraps to the large compost pile at the community garden a few blocks away from spring to fall. It was an step or two than just tossing the extra cucumber peels or carrot tops into the trash, but it had become a part of my routine. One more thing to do, like bringing reusable bags to the supermarket or picking up my monthly meat CSA. In fact I had my locavore diet so perfectly calibrated that I had at least met the farmer who was directly responsible for about 90% of the food in my home. It was easy, I’d say to friends. I wrote a book about how, with a little planning, anyone could do it.

But then my husband and I began spending more time at a sublet in Brooklyn. Our vegetable scraps filled numerous plastic containers that we stacked waist-high; the farmer’s markets were a three hour endeavor, requiring two trains and six flights of stairs. The local meat CSA dropped off on a day we were often in Somerville for work. The sun coverage on my new front porch (which I had realized that I was lucky enough to have in the first place) was not quite enough to encourage a harvest of a late planting of lettuce and broccoli rabe. In the first few weeks in Brooklyn, I followed all of my best advice. It was true, I knew I would eventually find the same balance that we had in Somerville. Finding our go-to local farmers could happen slowly, I realized – we weren’t going to starve. But the compost situation began to get dire. I just could not imagine throwing out those apple cores and wilted lettuce leaves that I had been committed about returning to the earth for years, now. I could not even fathom the days of a stinky, liquid garbage, of two full baskets a week, of sending so many nutrients to the landfill instead of the soil.

My efforts at finding a community garden were coming up short, especially so late into the growing season, but finally I put the two simple words “compost” and “brooklyn” into my search engine. Lo and behold I saw that the spirit of composting was alive and well in Brooklyn; I found a once-neglected lot not more than a fifteen minute walk from our apartment that had been turned into one of the most dedicated compost gardens in the city. I visited during their next drop off hours the following say and offered to volunteer on the spot.

Now, five months later, I can easily say that I have found my community of people passionate about composting and dedicated to consuming a more local-centric and sustainable diet. We have shared food and wine, have gossiped and brainstormed. I have helped write a successful grant for the garden and met people from the neighborhood whom I never would have known if not for the act of compost. And, once a month, rain or shine or freezing cold, I now volunteer to help collect and chop the scraps we collect during open hours, which helps to divert hundreds of pounds of food waste from the garbage and back into the ground. It’s the least I could do to repay this dedicated group for the work they have done bringing a little more green space to my new crowded city.

I have since joined the local food coop and found a sunnier spot for my lettuce sprouts, come spring. And my new friends at Compost for Brooklyn have begun talks to make the garden a drop off point for a CSA in the coming season. I was one of the first on the list. The best thing is that I realized that it wasn’t hard to find a way to live a the sustainable life that I want to – even in a new city. I just had to find my community in Brooklyn. And to do that I had to follow my passion – even if that passion is decaying food.

Spices

A week before Christmas I was looking in my spice cupboard for some specific ingredients that I might need to make my annual homemade Christmas gifts. I hated to give the same thing year after year – after all, how much homemade jam can people use? – and I had decided that this would be the year of the spiced nuts. The annual activity, now nearly a decade long, was perhaps inspired by the delicious box of baked goods my pastry-chef step-sister would send along every year. I’m not much of a baker, but I started to can my meager harvest of strawberries and tomatoes and was proud enough to give a jar to each of my parents and my grandmother. I expanded to pickles the next year and then experimented with jelly: the least successful was wine-flavored (or perhaps I should say, the least versatile), the most sought after was my strawberry balsamic black pepper. This year, inspired by a recent trip to Morocco where a shop’s excellence might be measured in the depth of their ras al hanout and the entire country seemed to smell like the inside of an herboriste, I wanted to use spices, and lots of them.

I decided upon three versions of nuts – New England, Italian and Spicy – and started searching for the appropriate spices in my cupboard. The cupboard is in the corner, near the sink, which means that it goes back at least two feet – farther than I can reach without perching on the counter. I thought I had a pretty good mental inventory of what was in the cupboard, but was taken aback by some of what I found. Memories from past dishes and travels were defined through my spices, much as I had recently seen the history of the country of Morocco defined their food.

Digging around in the cupboard, while sitting next to the rack of drying dishes and row of olive oils and vinegars, I started pulling out jars. First there was the homemade pate spice, thoughtfully labeled as such, just one souvenir from my year-long charcuterie adventure. Next I pulled out a large jar, half-filled with dark orange spices, and smelling of heat and flavor. It had to be chili spice or something with cayenne and cumin and ground hot peppers, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. It had to be recent, judging by the shiny lid and location at the front of the shelf, and I swore to be better in the new year about labeling my concoctions. Behind the chili spice were a few jars of homemade spices purchased on a trip to Florida for a friend’s wedding: Florida fish rub, Thai seasoning and lemon pepper, all made from mostly locally grown (to the purveyor in Florida) ingredients. These brought back memories of how happy my friend was, nearly bounding down the aisle to meet her husband to be at the altar; of the afternoon on the beach when my husband first saw dolphins in the wild; of the morning before the wedding when we sought out our favorite tourist destination – a farmer’s market – to buy distinctly local delicacies that we could not find back in the northeast.

I set aside some rosemary and thyme, both picked from the raised bed in my tiny urban back yard, and dried in the dehydrator for my own use. Behind that I found the jar of ground hot peppers – truly the spiciest and most flavorful blend I have ever used – given to us by an old friend of my husband’s.

On the next shelf up I found a container with pink salt – clearly labeled as curing salt, not for normal consumption – an ingredient I had only recently discovered and learned to use. This reminded me of what I had learned in the past year as a cook and of the family and friends, virtual and in-person, who helped me with encouragement, stories of success, taste-testing and sous chef-ing. I found a jar of za’atar spice, a few years old now, that a friend gave us when she and her husband moved overseas. I thought of her and her little daughter, whom I had only met once, and thought to make a point to send her an email. I also found a jar of whole nutmeg, a gift from a high school friend’s mother for my wedding, now nearly four years old. She had sent us a box of spices after the wedding, and this was all that remained. I doubt she knew I was much of a cook – I wasn’t much use in the kitchen back when her daughter and I snuck rum from the liquor cabinet and blasted Pearl Jam in her bedroom – but her small gift was one of my favorites.

I gathered the spices I would be needing to make my homemade Christmas gifts, and put the rest back into the cupboard, trying to bring a few forward to encourage their use. I knew that spices lost their pungency, especially after a year or two, but I couldn’t bring myself to toss the za’atar – especially because I only recently was inspired to use spices from this part of the world – or a few others that reminded me of dishes I had attempted or friends with whom I had shared a kitchen or a meal.

I wondered what other shelf in my life contained such memories, such a ledger of times shared with others or skills learned. I vowed in the coming year to revisit this shelf more often, to try new dishes, label old spice mixes and toss those that lost their flavor. If I could do this on one little shelf in my life, I could only image the possibilities elsewhere.

Italian Spiced Nuts

Combine:

1 tablespoon thyme

1 tablespoon oregano

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

In a separate bowl, whisk 1 egg white until frothy

Toss a pound of nuts (your choice – maybe mixed or all cashews or almonds) in the egg white until coated. Toss the nuts with the spice mixture and roast in a single layer in 325 degree oven (on a silpat, greased cookie sheet or parchment paper) until lightly brown, ten minutes or less.

Take out of oven and immediately toss with a half cup (or more!) or grated parmesan (or grated pecorino would also be delicious). Package up for gifts or just serve at room temp.

CSA Resources

With the first snowfall already behind us (or at least slowly melting on the sidewalk out front here in the northeast), it is hard to believe that it might be time to think about your deep winter or next summer CSA (or Community Supported Agriculture, which basically means buying an advance “subscription” to a meat or produce farm for a season). But, having been relegated to the wait list more than once, I believe that it is best to be on top of reserving your space for the next season as soon as the farm allows. In the upcoming book Locavore in the City (more details to come by the end of the year!) I will include tips on choosing the best CSA for you. But, with online resources emerging and changing all the time, I want to help create a living resource list here on the web site. In the comment section, please leave the location and website for your favorite CSA sites – whether for individual farms or regional or national lists of participating farms – and I will periodically organize and update this master list to ensure that the sites are active and appropriate, although I can’t guarantee the business activities of the posted links. (Alternately, email me with links or corrections at locavoreinthecity (at) gmail (dot) com.) Here are a few links to get us started. I look forward to hearing about all of your favorite farms!

National and General CSA Resources

www.Localharvest.org

www.Rodaleinstitute.org

www.Biodynamics.com/csa

www.Eatwellguide.org

www.locavorenetwork.com

New England CSAs

Boston-area, Produce

Granby, MA http://www.redfirefarm.com/

Waltham, MA http://communityfarms.org/

Boston-area, Meat

Hardwick, MA http://www.chestnutfarms.org/

Duck Confit

 

For, perhaps, the first time in this year of charcuterie, I did not know what to expect. I was sure I had confit at one point or another in my culinary life. I spent seven years (albeit all during my naive twenties) with an expense account, after all, have traveled internationally, have written about food. But for the first time I approached a recipe truly not being able to picture the end result. I had pork confit once – the chef claimed to have spent all afternoon making it and was very proud. But I found it unremarkable; just room temperature fatty shredded meat to spread, awkwardly, on toast.

But still, I read and re-read the recipes. I plotted my path to obtain the ingredients (this being my first charcuterie effort as a part-time resident of the city of New York). I did a little research.

Hmmm…. did you know that confit is simply a term that means immersing meat or produce in a substance for preservation or flavor. Fruit can be confit-ed by cooking in sugar or honey, vinegar and water, similar to a jam. I have unknowingly confit-ed roasted peppers and tomatoes in olive oil to preserve them for a bit longer than their brief shelf life in raw form. And now, I can say, I have confit-ed duck.

It was so easy. And tasty.

 

I figured that the most time intensive part of this effort – which simply involved mostly passive cooking – would be finding the ingredients. I hoped to source my protein from the Union Square Farmer’s Market but figured that I might have to venture further afield for the fat. In the spirit of confit, I planned to buy whatever meat looked good – and was not extravagantly expensive. However, that I would be making duck confit was decided as soon as I walked into the square and met Matthew from Hudson Valley Duck Farm. I told him of my confit aspirations and asked his advice. It was easy he said, just cook the legs low and slow in the smallest pot in which they would fit in a single layer.

“I don’t need extra fat?” I asked.

“You’ll end up with more than enough when you are done cooking these legs,” he assured. He also added that I could salt and season them at least overnight – but if I wanted to let them sit in the fridge for up to a week, tightly wrapped in plastic, the flavor would only improve.

In the end I seasoned the two legs I purchased from Matthew with about a tablespoon each of salt and herbes de provence and wrapped them in plastic for three days.

On day three I washed and patted the legs dry, and then arranged them skin side down in a smallish oven-proof sauce pan. I baked them for about three hours at 200 degrees, and then took the top off and finished it off for another twenty minutes or so. The fat was beautiful, golden-tinged and clear while the meat was beginning to roast, but was still tender. The fat was not completely covering the meat, as I imagined it might by the recipe instructions. Was this still confit, I wondered?

I poured the fat into a half quart canning jar, and then, when the legs were cool enough to handle, I separated them and added them to the fat. They meat fell apart in my hands and I couldn’t resist taking a taste. It was fatty and unctuous, perfectly roasted and tender. The two legs, including the rendered fat, but after discarding the rest of the skin, perfectly filled one canning jar. I made sure the meat was covered in fat and then let it sit on the counter for the next two hours before dinner.

 

For dinner, I picked up a strong semi-soft cheese that I thought would go well with the confit, and a loaf of fig bread from a local artisanal bakery. At home, I had perfectly ripe tomatoes from a previous farmer’s market excursion that needed to be eaten, and made a salad of them with basil from my front patio. My husband, Steve, opened a bottle of a bordeaux-style red wine. And we ate.

It was just meat in a mug of fat, as Steve pointed out, but it was delicate and flavorful. The confit held up well to strong cheese and wine, but on its own with just the fig bread, the meat’s sweetness shone. We ate not quite half of the jar, and I capped it and placed the rest in the refrigerator, despite my (relative) comfort that it was shelf-stable. I marveled at the simplicity of preserved meat in a jar, whose roots can be traced to the time of the Renaissance in rustic southern France. I may not have been able to picture confit before that afternoon, but I know to which standard I will hold all others.