she craves

Corn on the Cob

We talk passionately about vine-ripened tomatoes and the tender peaches whose juices run down our chins and arms. But what of corn? Especially when it's whole, intact on what we call the cob. Corn for the most part has come up in news and current events in the form of high fructose corn syrup, genetically modified crops for animal feed. Gourmet.com even weighed in, with transcripts from editors on whether or not corn is a bad thing.

For me, it's a no brainer. Corn on the cob is just as valuable to me as the heavy Brandywine, deep purple raspberries or juicy Suncrest peaches. I can't imagine a warm season without it. Along with my love of automotive self-autonomy, my love of corn is rather patriotic. Most of the world sees it as a grain to grind and transformed into delicious flatbreads or simply as fodder for swine and other animals. Speaking purely from a glutton's point of view, they're missing out. If anyone insists on debating corn's ethical place in the food chain, let's talk it over a grilled cob or two.

If there is such a thing as "too much of a good thing," it probably refers to monotony that corn can easily avoid. The trick: change up the slatherings. I love my butter. But there are other things that make the sweet kernels pop, too.

The Fleeting Good Times of Favas and Such

"How thin do you want this pasta?" My friends stood next to the flour-dusted pasta crank, holding up fresh sheets of precariously long pasta. It looked as if they were going to hang up a "Happy Birthday" or "Welcome Home" banner.

"Not too thin," I dictated quickly. The pasta was in capable hands and by now, there were sheets and sheets of stretched out dough, generously dusted with flour and ready to be cut. All the messy effort was for what I was attending to in the pan -- deeply fragrant gems of crisping guanciale -- cured pig jowl -- favas, peas, shallots and ... who knows what else we decided to throw into the pot.

Emboldened by a few glasses of wine and the coaxing of good friends, anything is possible. Take recipes. Most people are slaves to them. They plan. They organize. They worry and fret. But inebriation and hunger are prime motivators to toss the whole regimented lot in favor of some past knowledge, intuition and most importantly, bacon.

Minty Chicken "Slaw"

"Cooking" requires a degree of heat that isn't appealing at the height of summer. Without air-conditioning. Little wonder then that Mother Nature made it so that the food emerging from the soil and pops up in markets Farmer and Super particularly good. The point being, you don't really need to do anything to it.

My sort of summer cooking is more assembly than anything. Despite the allure of pies, I try to keep baking to a minimum. The less time with heat the better for me — and the food.

In that list of assembly-friendly food, of course, is the salad. Its attained an iconic status, synonymous (with bottled water) with the ascetically healthy, the Sizzlers of the world and their buffets. The salad is almost regarded as a punishment for past gluttony which is a shame considering how it's best suited to the bountiful part of the year.

So why the hell am I using cabbage? Simple. Ever heard of coleslaw?

Thinking Ahead: Freezing Corn

 
Ambition for me doesn't come in waves. It comes by the caseful. Sometimes by the dozen. The goal is simple: Buy fresh and local now, eat and enjoy and manage to save some for later. Like the worker ant in Aesop's fable or the financial manager my mother would like me to be, I try to plan ahead.

The problem is, it doesn't always work. It starts with the market lust/anxiety then peaks and dips like a Pixi Stix binge. By Monday, I look over the lists, the dreams of Saturday, and begin the realistic reconciliation between ambitious dreams and the client deadlines and the neverending to-do list.

As much as I love food and cooking, my relationship with the kitchen is a tenuous one if only because I've managed to give myself hell for spending time away from my desk and rather in the kitchen. But like that workout you bitch and moan about, once you get started, you ask yourself why you didn't bloody just do it in the first place.

Cooking, Andy-style

PART I: Arugula with sherry vinegar, Viola extra-virgin olive oil, a drop of truffle oil, shavings of Fiord Sardo cheese (pecorino), all wrapped in a thin slice of smoky, silky speck.

Cooking, Andy-style part II

He rolls the arugula and cheese mixture in his signature methodical, deft way...

Spring Green Pasta

The solution for professed vegetable-haters is to make something vegetal appear distinctly not. Case in point, a sauce of broccoli and spinach for a jumble of linguine. Not that I have issues eating any matter of vitamin-suffused roughage, but there's only so much steaming and sauteeing a girl can take on the plate. And given the blossoms on the branches, the warmer temperatures and sporadic rain, it's a nice dish to make on a quiet night-in, to thank the stars it's finally spring.

A Definite Splurge: Endives au Gratin

It's one of my favorite dishes. Braised endives wrapped in ham and lined up in a dish. Bechamel sauce smothers the whole lot, as does a healthy dose of grated cheese. Add some oven time and the result is serious comfort. Unfortunately, it comes at a serious price. Belgian endives are worth their weight in crack and never seem to go on sale; if you can find them at all. But this isn't a dish where you take short cuts. So every so often -- like say, for a dear friend's birthday -- you allow yourself a splurge.

Tell yourself it's for the greater good -- the dish doesn't just serve you. It serves a whole party. And if you're lucky there are leftovers to look forward to. Leftovers are always a value, right?

FLASHBACK: Caramelized Onion & Mushroom Tart

[This post may not fit in with your so-called dietary resolutions. If you've already given them up, welcome aboard. The way I see it, this is exactly the time of year where you don't deprive yourself of good things to eat, things that go deep into your belly and suffuse a warmth that's lacking in the cold season. This creation is a twist on the provençal pissaladère. Purists will note the omission of anchovies, but it wasn't on purpose. This tart is invariably flexible and forgiving. Cheese. Anchovies. More herbs. Roasted veg. Go for it. Just be sure to serve it with a winter green salad (bitter, invigorating greens) in a dijon vinaigrette and a crisp ale or white wine. You want something to clean the palate so you can feasibly eat more of the stuff.]

Thanksgiving comes and goes. And I eat well. Too well. With each passing of this third Thursday of November, I always manage to forget an oath of moderation. I've developed a two-parter to the celebration. Lunch with the family followed by a walk in the park with a loveable, albeit retarded (pure-bred, that's why) golden retriever. Then off to dinner/cocktails with friends who've managed to wriggle out of more family commitments.

FLASHBACK: Kabocha Squash Risotto

I hadn't quite realized how long I've been writing the blog -- since 2005, or the commencement of what's become known as the quarter-life crisis. No one wonder I sound so dour. So, now you know. I bitch. I cook. I eat.

But this recipe is a staple in my kitchen, especially now when hard squash our coming out of our ears and things like risotto are precisely what we need. Below is the recipe. For a complete flashback you can read the original post here. Otherwise, enjoy my version of a time machine.

It's a New Dawn, It's a New Day

Last winter, not too far from the month of November, my friend Amber planted a few ordinary onions that had started to sprout. We didn't think anything of it other than how sad it would be to toss these green things into the garbage, dank with decay and biting winter cold. She put them into a large container, empty save some brown dirt, and left them for the winter.

The following summer, a few green stalks snaked out of the pot. Each week, they reached higher and higher toward the warmth of the sun. As my half-assed garden was tended and herbs planted around it, it grew independent of my worry, my attempted care, strong and beautiful.

The blossoms were bunched into a pom-pom, of sorts. Sometimes, they reminded me of summer fireworks. The tiny white things smelled and tasted of onion in a soft, echoey way. They were the most beautiful things that came out of the dirt. The stalks eventually waned, as all living things must do, but before it disappeared from this earth, it passed on quiet, lovely memories, a few endearing photographs and above all, four small, perfect yellow onions.

It's winter again. The sun hasn't shown its face in a good three days. Snow already blanketed us once. I'm not good in winter with the cold and the grey. I try to keep spirits up with plenty of liquid spirits, a grotesque number of candles and every sort of twinkly light imaginable. I crave the light much the way the onion stalk did when it was planted in winter soil.

So I keep the ideas of possibilities in my head. That winter is a time to plan and plant in the rhetorical sense and that whatever I decide or achieve now, it has to blossom later. I can't promise onions, but I at least do promise more writing.

I know, I know. I sound like the ass-hole neglectful boyfriend. But as the day job gets busier and more practical pursuits ensure the bill-paying abilities, I crave ... writing. The freelance life can get wily and out of control. A big chunk of my time is spent eating out, knowing about restaurants and chefs at home and beyond. When I put away the computer or send out the last draft, the thing I miss most in my sullen fatigue is cooking.

Looking at my prospective winter budget, I can afford meds, but not therapy. So I'll pursue my own psychological prescription: more time in the kitchen, in front of the stove.

Will you take this medicine with me?

To Mushroom Lovers Everywhere

Domestic and wild. Two adjectives every mushroom lover should know. Domestic, the familiar white buttons, tawny crimini and the gargantuan portobello are often the first fungi flavors on our tongue. But those lucky enough to have tried the irreplaceable wild mushrooms know, that sometimes the farm cannot match with the mysterious of sun, moisture, earth and forest. Chamomile-hinted chanterelles, coral-veined morels, briny-scented lobsters as bright as the crustacean shell, storybook black trumpets and of course, porcini. AKA cepes. AKA boletus. The king of mushrooms that endow those who find and eat them with the truest sense of accomplishment. Aimless wandering in beautiful tree groves for the possibility of finding something. Anything. That's a risk many find worth taking. 

Italy. France. And yes, the United States. We hear stories of beefy specimens from Oregon. But recently, some friends discovered them within a short drive on a beautiful day. About 20 pounds worth of natural wonder, to slice and roast or dry and share with friends. The stalwart fungi-hanters remain unconvinced, even as you feast on something so simple, sizzling from the oven with a good drizzle of extra-virgin olive, sprgs of fresh thyme and plenty of salt.

To the mushroom-lovers -- the intrepid, the curious, the nerdy and most of all -- the hungry.

Farro & Roasted Veg Salad

Deliciously captured by AJF Photography

Granted, I was a willing participant in the jaunt to a vegan restaurant. Despite the good company and a few delicious items, God help me, I still don't understand vegan cuisine. The idea of processing soy into something that could be fashioned into "chicken" and then labeled on a menu as "Tender Tiger" is beyond me. I admire the politics and ideology behind it. Far from me to politicize what's on my plate (soapbox at the ready). But I suppose what's always kept from joining the vegan tempeh-loving bandwagon is the reliance, in many restaurant and freezer cases anyway, on the faux. Oh, and bacon. I could never give up bacon.

Eating a meal of faux/imitation protein from a karmically-safe vegetable product is akin to having sex with a blow up doll. Why bother? Especially when there's a universe of dishes out that rely on food for what it is. A rose is a rose. A carrot is a carrot. A grain of farro is a grain of farro. And how delicious the farro is when it's combined with some diced roasted vegetables. A recipe to so rustic and intuitive to generations of grandmothers, cooks, and hungry folk, it's scarely a recipe. 

And so much more satisfying than a tempeh quesadilla.

Farro & Roasted Veg Salad  

Nowadays you can find farro just about anywhere. Specialty shops and even the bulk bin. What we had in the fridge during a photo shoot was what became our lunch. But any vegetable (summer corn!) roasted is welcome here. It's wonderful warm but also a saving grace to have around in the fridge, there's little time and you're absolutely starving.

1 fennel bulb, diced * 1 red bell pepper, diced * 1 orange bell pepper, diced * 1 zucchini, diced * 5 stalks of asapragus, chopped into similar-sized pieces * extra-virgin olive oil * 1 crushed garlic clove * salt and pepper * 1 1/2 cups farro * 1/2 cup lemon juice or sherry vinegar * Fresh herbs like mint, basil, or parsley

Combine your diced veg on a baking sheet and drizzle generously with olive oil. Add the garlic, salt and pepper and bake in a 425-degree oven until nicely roasted with bits of caramelization going on around the edges (about 20 minutes). Let cool slightly.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add enough salt to the water to make it taste like the sea. Add your washed farro and cook until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and place in a large mixing bowl. Add the roast vegetables (with all the oil from the pan), the lemon juice or sherry vinegar, and fresh herbs you have on hand. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm, at room temperature, or cool.

Asparagus Tart Just Because

NOTE: The following is not a confession of a fragile being. Under normal circumstances, life's crises are handled with goal-oriented rationale that would make any Asian parent proud. But I must confess to net friends and anonymous readers that May was not a good month. Topsy turvy is one way to put it. Though, it makes the last four weeks sound like a cutesy-kitsch carnival ride at the state fair when, really, it was akin to a gut-shifting roller coaster at Six Flags. Due to painful timing, there wasn't the obligatory mourning-unwinding-meditative-introspective-cathartic period to digest the experiences and as Bono and the boys so poetically put it, "walk on." So, I ran away for a weekend because I needed to "think things over." I worked crazy-hard in the office to focus on "what needed to get done," because there was so much to be done. I had mini anxiety attacks because I couldn't help it. None of these coping mechanisms really worked. But I went through them all the same. Out of those, only one seemed appropriate to go into detail in the blog:

I hung out in my kitchen and made an asparagus tart because I was hungry.

When You Don't Want to Even Look At Another Piece of Turkey

Thanksgiving comes and goes. And I eat well. Too well. With each passing of this third Thursday of November, I always manage to forget an oath of moderation. I've developed a two-parter to the celebration. Lunch with the family followed by a walk in the park with a loveable, albeit retarded (pure-bred, that's why) golden retriever. Then off to dinner/cocktails with friends who've managed to wriggle out of more family commitments.