Volume

30 pounds of chicken, 75 pounds of plump prime rib, 22 pounds of pencil thin asparagus, 20 pounds of jumbo shrimp, 10 pounds of applewood smoked bacon, and 230 miniature Hot Browns. We had one week to plan, prep, and cook everything before packing it all out to a gorgeous Woodford County horse farm for a spectacular off-sight event.
Volume. Big numbers. Big event.

Peppered with a little organized chaos, everything went off without a hitch. Long after the sun dipped behind the trees and rolling meadows, guests meandered  the grounds, spilled from terraces, dined, drank,and  reveled in the festivities. It was a fantastic night. I had an absolute blast.

When the dust settled, I needed/wanted to dial back the volume  for a quiet weekend away from the madness.

After a lazy morning stroll through the farmers' market, I bagged a few Casey County zucchinis, a handful of green beans, 5 baby celery root bulbs, and a couple of small Jessamine County purple sweet potatoes.

Safety in numbers.  Small numbers. It was enough for a weekend of simple cooking. On the way home from the market, Michael and I turned the volume down further by picking up a supermarket rotisserie chicken.  No apologies.

Celery Root Puree.
Typically, I use celery root to enhance and deepen the flavors of other foods:braises, soups, purees, or potatoes. I wanted  pure celery root flavor.  After plucking the gnarly spindles from the outer skin, I peeled the bulbs and diced them into 1 inch pieces (1 1/2 cups)  before boiling them in 2 cups chicken stock until they were fork tender and the stock reduced by half.  Working in batches, I pureed the soft celery root pieces with  2 tablespoons of unsalted butter, 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid, and a splash of cream. When the puree was the  consistency of firm whipped potatoes, I scooped it out of the blender and spooned it into an oven safe dish.

Skewered Zucchini Ribbons.
I pulled my mandolin from the cabinet gadget garage and thinly sliced the zucchini into pliable soft strips before threading them onto skewers, creating loose pleated green and white zucchini ribbons. Undulating zucchini waves.

The Chicken.
I didn't have to do much at all. I sliced the cooked bird in half and  placed one half flesh side down in a casserole dish. After dabbing the skin with butter, I splashed the chicken with 1/4 cup chicken stock, covered it with aluminum foil, and slid it into a 350 degree oven to bake.

After Michael and I finished off a bottle of crisp chardonnay, I slid the celery root puree into the oven to warm through, cranked a grill pan over a high flame, brushed the zucchini skewers with olive oil,  and grilled them until they were tender with crisp caramelized tips.

I spooned the celery root puree onto the center of two large plates, fanned a few pieces of chicken around the puree, and tumbled the zucchini skewers to the side. Simple. Clean. Lazy.



Green Beans and Potatoes.
Although I adore long simmered green beans with new potatoes (those wonderfully drab army green  potluck beauties), I took a different approach. I cooked the green beans and potatoes separately before combining them at then end for a final roasting period.


I brought 6 cups of water to a rolling boil, heavily salted the water, and blanched the beans for 5 minutes before plunging them into an ice water bath.  After peeling the gorgeous purple sweet potatoes, I sliced them in half before tossing them with 2 sliced green onions bulbs, olive oil, salt, and cracked pepper.


 I tented and sealed the potatoes in aluminum foil (en papillote-ish), placed them on a sheet pan, and slid them into a 350 degree oven to bake/steam for 45 minutes. After 15 minutes, I repeated the drill with the remaining halved rotisserie chicken.  During the last 15 minutes, I cranked the oven to 400, pulled the potatoes from the oven, split open the foil parcel, and added the reserved green beans to roast/char along with the soft purple sweet potatoes.

Sunday Supper: roasted purple sweet potatoes, green beans, and chicken with pan gravy.

Less volume.
White noise.
Simple chicken and market vegetables.


The calm after the storm.

Spitting Seeds

It's hard to let go of summer. In the midst of summer,  we sometimes hope it might last forever. Hope the pools will always be crisp, skies forever blue, and fresh produce abundant.  All the while, relishing the moments and flavors with abandoned thoughts of the waning time.  The now time.

While plump heirloom tomatoes, corn, and squash still dot the farm tables of local vendors, our farmers' market has started its unheralded segue into late season produce. The vibrant colors of spring and summer have been  replaced by the quieter muted tones of autumn.

The waning time.

Yesterday morning, I stopped by the market before work to pick up a few things. It was sparse. Empty parking lot. Grey skies. Few vendors.

Before collapsing  into a sea of maudlin melancholy, giant watermelons smacked me back to reality. Really? Piled alongside gourds and butternut squash, they seemed strangely out of place.  Where were the parades?  The festivals? The picnics?  Did I miss something?  I suppose I thought watermelons had surrendered and disappeared with the forgotten days of summer.

Nope.  Watermelons were everywhere. There were a few of the smaller cute varieties, but the majority of them were big.  Really big.  Stacked on top of each other like huge green canons, they appeared locked,  loaded, and primed  for rapid fire seed spitting.

Who the hell buys a watermelon after Labor Day?
Me.
I succumbed to the lusty crimson flesh of an enormous Summer Flavor watermelon.

Shrimp and Watermelon Salad.
Chop.
Dice.
Toss.
I quartered and cut the monster of a melon into manageable pieces. Because I wanted firm meaty pieces of watermelon,  I sliced the flimsy center seedy section from the outer edges and happily munched on the juicy sweet flesh while spitting transparent  seeds into the trash. Yep.

After  washing my face, hands, counter top, and cutting board, I diced the remaining watermelon into small cubes (brunois, 2 cups) and tossed them into a mixing bowl.  After slicing 1/4 pound steamed shrimp into tiny discs,  I diced 1 cup green bell pepper, minced 1 clove garlic, and 1 small shallot before adding them to the watermelon.

I seasoned the salad with salt and pepper, showered it with fresh cilantro, and doused it with a bright lime vinaigrette (1/2 cup fresh lime juice, 2 tablespoons honey, 1/3 cup olive oil, salt, and pepper) before sliding it into the refrigerator to chill and marinate.

Margaritas.
Bourbon.
Wine.

After filling apertif flutes with the watermelon-shrimp salad, I topped them with steamed shrimp, fresh chives, flaked salt, and coarsely cracked Tellicherry black peppercorns.

The watermelon jewels almost pickled in the marinade, creating ripe bites that were crisp, sweet, and tart.  While the buttery tender shrimp mellowed the zing of the lime and cilantro, the aromatic peppercorns added stinging crunchy heat.

So, what was it? Watermelon-shrimp salad, shrimp seviche, gazpacho, or shrimp-studded watermelon pico de gallo?

Perhaps all of the above.

Crazy.

Appalachian Cazuelas

I ended up with the Bybee Pottery.

When I was a kid, my dad and I would pile into his orange GMC pickup truck, well before sunrise, and drive for hours from western  Kentucky to Bybee, Kentucky with hopes of filling the truck bed with Bybee Pottery to sell at his Trading Post on the edge of Barren River Reservoir.  On certain days of the week, people lined up in front of the wooden pottery shed before 8:00 am to buy pieces from the oldest family-owned pottery shop east of the Appalachian Mountains.  Founded in 1809 by Webster Cornelison, members of the Cornelison family made and sold their imperfect pottery until 2011 when they suspended operations.  Hand thrown from clay that had been open-mined in Madison County, the pottery was dried, glazed, and kiln fired to create unique (usable) pottery pieces.

My dad bought Bybee Pottery by the truckloads. The varieties were staggering: dinner plates, salad plates, pie plates, serving dishes, casserole dishes, bowls, pitchers, soup bowls, serving bowls, punch bowls, coffee cups, and canister sets were available in a multitude of colors and patterns. Whether they were Bybee blue, navy, denim, burgundy, white, sand, teal, yellow, brown, pink, rose, pink, speckled, or reversed speckled, we had them all. Every color, pattern, shape and form. They were a part of our everyday lives. When my dad passed away, I ended up with all of the pottery.

Although we've  lost a few pieces over the years  from overzealous movers, careless handling, and downright stupidity, Michael and I have managed to salvage the bulk of my father's pottery. Because they're microwave, oven, and dishwasher safe, I use them all the time.  That being said, I have a two round  Bybee casserole  dishes  that have always befuddled me. With conical-shaped handles, they're  too small for Thanksgiving casseroles and too big for individual soup crocks. Size matters.

Recently, I noticed that my awkward Bybee  dishes looked somewhat like cazuelas, traditional Spanish  round earthenware cooking vessels with shallow rims used for baking,  braising, roasting, soup making, and serving.

With fresh eyes, I re-purposed them into Appalachian cazuelas for a riff on shirred eggs with deconstructed   hash.

Game on.

Mise en place.

I sauteed fresh shitake mushrooms (purposely leaving the tough stems attached) with garlic and slivered candy onions.  When the onions caramelized and the mushrooms browned, I seasoned them with salt, pepper, and fresh parsley before removing them from the skillet.  After adding an additional drizzle of olive oil over a medium flame, I sauteed blanched quarerted new potatoes until they were golden brown. After scooping out the potatoes, I tumbled 1 cup of thinly sliced candy onions into the skillet, sauteed them until they were translucent, and added 2 minced garlic cloves. When the garlic was fragrant, I deglazed the pan with 1/4 white wine combined with 1/4 cup chicken stock and let the liquid reduce to 2 tablespoons before tossing thick hardy leaves of organic spinach into the concentrated onion stock to steam for 3 minutes.

I scooped the bright spinach  onion jam  out of the skillet to cool, poured myself a goblet of wine, and gave it a break.

Deconstructed hash.

After a few glasses of wine, the prep was a thing of the past, the living was easy, and supper simply cooked itself.

I swirled the cooked spinach and onions into the buttered makeshift Appalachian cazuelas with a scattering of the sauteed potatoes before feathering gorgeous prosciutto slices around the edges.  After tumbling the shitake mushrooms over the potatoes, I haphazardly sliced/squished neglected overripe windowsill heirloom tomatoes and nestled them (juice, pulp, skin, and flesh) into the mix.

After preheating the oven to 375 degrees, I cracked two large organic eggs into each cazuela, grated  parmagiano reggiano over the eggs, and slid them into oven to bake until the whites set, leaving the yolks loose and runny, about 12 to 15 minutes.

I pulled the steaming shirred eggs from the oven,  showered them with snipped chives, and buttered buttermilk biscuits to sop up the mess.

Oh, my.

The eggs seemed to float in the hash, slightly suspended throughout the salty prosciutto, sweet garlicky spinach, silken mushrooms, crispy potatoes, and juicy tomatoes.  When pierced, the jiggly yolks spilled into the hash.  As the  yolks oozed, they  pulled the nutty cheese  into streams that swirled through the sweet tomato pan juices, creating sexy fondue puddles for the flaky buttered biscuits. Soppers.

Empapar. To soak up.

Yep.

Grape Expectations

It makes me happy when fresh table grapes start popping up at the farmers' market. They have no pretense or high-falootin' calling.  They are what they are...delicious table grapes.  Right now,  fantastic varieties of grapes spill out of  baskets and crates from a few market vendors. Recently, Boyds Orchards offered pint baskets of adorable champagne grapes. Delicate. Perfect. Sweet. Bound in little clusters, the little grapes exploded like tiny juice bombs.

While the  early season pink Reliance grapes have come and gone, this past week Elmwood Stock Farm had gorgeous seedless blue-purple Mars grapes and seedless green Marquis grapes.

"Try one", she said. Like warm sun-kissed tomatoes, they were fabulous.  Delicate and soft skinned, they didn't snap and squirt like thick-skinned refrigerated supermarket grapes. They  quietly popped and gently melted in my mouth, subtly tasting  like the vines that nurtured them.

Like summer corn, fresh lima beans, heirloom tomatoes, summer squash, okra, or Casey county cantalopes, I wait for the arrival of fresh Kentucky  grapes. When they finally appear at the market, I scoop them up like mad. After snacking on them for a while, tossing them into salads, or freezing  them to chill glasses of crisp white wine,  
I roast them.

Roasted Champagne Grapes...with stuff.

I methodically made a very basic pot of polenta. (4 cups vegetable stock, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 cup polenta)  After stirring the polenta for about 25 minutes to cook out the moisture, it naturally started  to spit and plop like a gurgling cornmeal volcano.  I pulled it from the heat before adding 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, 1 cup grated parmigiano reggiano, and 1/2 cup minced fresh paresly. While the polenta was still pliable, I poured it onto a plastic-lined sheet pan, smoothed it out, covered it tightly, and tossed it into the refrigerator to set up.

After tossing  beautiful clusters of Black Corinth champagne grapes with olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh thyme, I roasted them in a 400 degree oven until they started to burst, collapse, and caramelize, about 35 minutes.

While the grapes bubbled away in the oven, I sliced the chilled polenta into triangles and sauteed them in olive oil  until they were golden brown.   I topped the warm triangles with thinly sliced aged gorgonzola piccante and let their slight heat gently wilt the cheese.

I tumbled the roasted grapes onto a large platter, finished them with fresh thyme, and nudged the cheesy polenta toasts to the side before finishing with minced fresh parsley and aged balsamico di modena.






While the sauteed polenta triangles provided crisp neutral bases for the  the wilted gorgonzola,  the aged  balsamico di Modena  cut through its pungent creaminess with specks of tart sweet acidity.

The  roasted grapes were key. While some of the grapes caramelized and broke down, others remained whole and plump, creating contrasting textures and layers of natural sweetness from their cooked concentrated sugars.  Paired with the gorgonzola and polenta, the popping grapes added a mellow wet balance to the whacky flavor combinations.

Simple table grapes and cheese.
With a little sass.

Food With A View

Lost
On a painted sky
Where the clouds are hung
For the Poet's eye
You may find Him
If you may find Him.

There
On a distant shore
By the wings of dreams
through an open door
You may know him
If you  may
Be.
  -Jonathan Livingston Seagull


Drenched in quiet revelry, Michael and I lost ourselves on the beach, in the water, in the sand,  in our books, in the wind, and in the silence. While secret tides swept our thoughts far out to sea, we melted into the wet sand like sunken castles, losing  ourselves in each other.

On a distant shore.
On a painted sky.
Lost at sea.

Beach life.
Seven days.
Small kitchen.
No shoes.
No car.

Deck.
Stairs.
Beach.
Emerald water.

Heaven.

Before holing up in our beach shack, we hit the liquor store, a roadside farm stand, and the best local boat-to-market fresh seafood place in town.

During the day, we jammed on sweaty sunblock-seasoned chips, cookies, pretzels, and sandwiches.  At night, after sunset, we cooked and ate ridiculously  fresh seafood.

Red Royal Shrimp.

With a very short season, Red Royals are harvested in the deepest waters of the Gulf of Mexico. When I saw them at the fish market, I thought they were already cooked.  They looked like enormous bright red steamed shrimp. Gorgeous. We picked up a pound...with heads attached.  I had plans.

I didn't have a bamboo steamer basket or a colander, so I lined a skillet with lettuce leaves, sliced onions, sliced lemons, parsley, black peppercorns, and minced garlic.  I placed the gigantic Red Royals on the lettuce leaves, dusted them Old Bay seasoning, and drizzled 1/2 cup white wine under the lettuce leaves.  After cranking the electric burner on high heat until it glowed like lava, I clamped a lid on the skillet and slid it over the molten heat. After 10 minutes, I pulled the big Reds from the heat, showered them with fresh parsley, poured goblets of wine, and brought the steaming shrimp-filled skillet to the table.

The heads. When we snapped off the heads, head-juice squirted and splattered everywhere. Michael's pristine white t-shirt was covered with specks of grainy gray head-juice. Hysterical. After the initial beheading carnage,  I carefully snapped off the remaining beady-eyed heads, sucked them dry, and swallowed the stuff.  Fabulous.  The soft brackish brainy bits  tasted like shrimpy tomalley, the livery green goo found in the body cavities of lobsters. G-spot. Dripping with edible gunk,  Michael graciously and generously offered me his shrimp heads. I sucked them all, mopping up any puddles with plain white bread.  Cook's treat.

With the  heads snapped, dispatched, and sucked, we dove into the meat. Incredible. Unlike any shrimp we've ever eaten, they had the texture and sweetness of very rich lobster meat.  We had little cups of horseradish-spiked cocktail sauce that we left untouched. It would have been sacrilege to muck up such delicate sweet meat.

Oysters.
Fed by the silt-laden water of the Apalachicola River, slate-gray Apalachicola Bay Oysters are considered to be plump mellow delicacies  Yep.

I ate my fill of them on the half shell doused with horseradish, cracked pepper, Tobasco, and sherry vinegar before poaching the remaining oysters in chicken stock. After infusing 3 cups of chicken stock with garlic, ginger, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, and ground white pepper, I steeped the oysters in the simmering stock until the edges started to curl (about 3 minutes), and ladled them into bowls  garnished with juliienned carrots, red bell pepper, scallions, sliced lemons, drops of toasted sesame oil, and frozen Sriracha drops. A beachy oyster riff on hot and sour soup. Crazy.

Grouper.
I kept it simple. After preheating the oven to 350 degrees, I prepped new potatoes for roasted  Hasselback (accordion) potatoes by slicing the potatoes at very thin intervals (1/4 cm) along the length of the potatoes while leaving the bottoms intact. After brushing them with melted unsalted butter, I slid the slivered potatoes into the oven to  roast for 30 minutes.

While the potatoes baked, I layered foil packets with julienned carrots, onions, gorgeous grouper fillets, sliced lemons, fresh dill, salt, and pepper. After drizzling olive oil and white wine over the fillets, I sealed the packets, placed them on a sheet pan, and slid them into the oven alongside the potatoes to bake/poach/steam for 15 minutes. During the last 8 minutes, I tossed seasoned pencil thin asparagus onto the sheet pan and let everything rip while we toasted the bright constellations with another glass of wine.

After removing the steamed grouper from the packets, I poured the "pan sauce" over the fillets, drizzled parsley butter over the Hasselback potatoes, and tumbled the asparagus to the side.

With hints of lemon and dill, the grouper was moist, buttery, and incredibly fresh. It tasted like the sea.   Clean. Bright. Simple.
No mess. No fuss.

Perfect.

Beach life.
Beach food with a view.

Barefoot
and happy.

Shenanigans

Casey County Black Brandywine tomato water 
for aspic.                                                                                                                                                  

                               











Boyds Orchards Champagne
Grapes, skillet-roasted with
caramelized pearl onions,
roasted pearled couscous.




                                                   

Elmwood Stock Broccoli
Tempura with lemon orange
butter.

















                                                                                     

Nubs

They took me by surprise. Lined up side by side on an unadorned McMaine Farm table, baskets of gorgeous marble-sized sun gold tomatoes and baby okra nubs basked in the morning sun. They were perfectly paired.  I could taste them. I could taste stewed okra and tomatoes. Crazy. Kismet.

I took a fresh twist on an old southern classic.

Okra and Tomatoes.

I sauteed 1/2 cup of thinly sliced onions until they started to caramelize before adding 2 minced garlic cloves.  Before the garlic browned, I deglazed the pan with 1 cup chicken stock and let it reduce by half before adding a pint of whole sun gold tomatoes, salt, pepper, and fresh thyme. To add a hint of heat without killing it with fire, I tossed a large whole serrano pepper into the skillet.  When the stock came to a boil, I reduced it to a simmer, covered the cast iron skillet, and let the tomatoes rip until they collapsed from the heat, about 15 minutes.

After removing the red pepper, I added an additional 1/2 cup chicken stock, tumbled the okra  into the orange tomato stock, tossed in a few thinly sliced lemons, covered the skillet, and braised the okra and tomatoes for 15 minutes before sliding them from the heat to rest.

For contrasting texture, I split a few of the larger okra pods, cranked a smaller cast iron skillet over high heat, and blistered them until they were crisp and charred.

After spooning the lightly stewed tomatoes and okra over scallion-studded long grained rice, I finished them  with the  blistered  okra , fresh  sun gold tomatoes, and fresh thyme.

Because I left the tiny okra nubs whole, goo wasn't a factor. While the charred okra added crunch,  the braised tender nubs snapped and oozed delicate seedy flesh that swirled through the tangy sweet tomatoes, grounding them with familiar okra earthiness. The sliced lemons were key. With bright undertones, their subtle acidity balanced the extreme sweetness of the tomatoes. Fantastic.

Simple.
Rustic.
Fresh.