Farmers Market Gazpacho

I'm still patiently waiting for my container vegetable garden to mature and ripen.  In the meantime, our Farmers Market is a beacon of summer's freshness.  I strolled downtown early this morning to pick up fresh produce for a gazpacho supper. I had my proper reusable bags and wore a smart market outfit with the attitude to match.

Even at that early hour, it was bustling. Dizzying, even.  Almost breathtaking.  I usually make a couple of passes through the vendors surveying what is available and what looks best.  Stall after stall of bursting ripe vegetables. Almost everyone had their samples sliced open to tempt with their juicy insides.  Cantelope, honeydew, and watermelon from an Amish community in western Kentucky.  The same Amish community my parents frequented for their produce.   There were rows of heirloom tomatoes from Scott, Madison, Jessamine, and Casey counties.  Dotted in and through the produce stalls were stands selling fresh local cheeses and meats.  The corn is apparently in. Big time!  Ears of corn pulled halfway open to reveal their Silver Queen, Peaches And Cream, or Supersweet identities.

The fresh blackberries were huge. Really huge.  Almost the size of my thumb. I wanted to plop several in my mouth with no one looking, but they were looking, of course, so I bought some.

By my second pass through the stalls, I remembered that I was actually there for gazpacho ingredients.  My third pass meant serious business.  I needed bulky tomatoes for the juicy base of the soup  As I scoured the stands for not-pretty-but-tasty tomato seconds, I managed to find my favorite farm from Jessamine County selling  Big Uglies, as they call them. Big, ugly, and cheap. Score. I picked up  purple and green  bell peppers that were incredibly fresh. Warm and soft.  Flaccid, in a good way..

Assorted cherry tomatoes from Madison County would be the perfect garnish for my market soup.  A tri colored basket of Sungold, Black Cherry, Yellow Pearl, and Orange Grape fit the bill.

Next door, I found fresh picked green-topped purple onions from Scott County along with Candied Onions and garlic.  On the other side of the stall, I found tiny cucumbers.  Cornichon size.  Adorable.  Maybe not for gazpacho, but what the hell?  Two pints.  Just down from the wonderfully smelling omlette station, I found good medium sized cucumbers  that appeared very plump and ideal for soup.

My bags were very full with eveything I needed along with some things I didn't need, but simply had to have.

By the time I finished, the market had gotten very crowded.  Manuevering  through the masses with large heavy bags was a challenge.  Dodging leashed pets and strollers was nearly impossible.

I made it home with my stash and started mincing, chopping, and peeling everything for the gazpacho.

I took the large Uglies and dropped them into simmering water for 5 seconds to release the skin for peeling, pureed them into juice, and set them aside.  I didn't bother straining the seeds.  After finely dicing cucumbers, peppers, onions, and garlic, I pureed half for body and left the remainder for texture. Once I quartered the tri colored tiny tomatoes, I combined everything and seasoned it with kosher salt and cracked black pepper.  Olive oil, sherry vinegar, and fresh parsley finished it off.  Some recipes call for canned juice.  The juice from todays tomatoes was so pure and sweet, I didn't even want to mask it.  I covered the bowl to refrigerate overnight and blend flavors, but not without having a bowl straight away while it was still warm from the summer sun.

Michael walked into the kitchen and said, "It smells good in here."  And it did. Not from cooking, but from  chopping and slicing such fresh market stand produce.  The air was perfumed with  flavor. 

No need for the gazpacho police here.  I realize this is not authentic Andalusion gazpacho.  I adore the  pureed tomato, bread, and garlic version as well as the next person. I wasn't going for an authentic culinary stroll through the streets of Seville.

I wanted a garden party.....in my mouth.

Oeufs en Cocotte

Oeufs en Cocotte or, shirred eggs, have been popping up everywhere lately. Named for the dish in which they are cooked, it is essentially individual  portions of baked eggs with butter or cream.  Almost every cookbook has a version of it.  Michael gave me a copy of I Know How To Cook by Ginette Mathiot for our anniversary, the first English edition and adaptation of the "bible of home cooking" that has been in print since 1932. 

 It is loaded with everything I love to cook and eat with 27 pages devoted to egg cookery.  Oeufs Farci Aux Anchois, Oeufs Bruxellois, Oeufs Chimay, and Oeufs Oches Aux Asperges are a few examples of the  27 pages with 58 recipes devoted  to eggs. That quailfies as an  egg extravaganza in my book. The recipe for Eggs in Cocotte falls midway through the cookbook egg celebration.  Aside from quiche or omelettes, most of the egg preparations  are for soft cooked or poached eggs; and  that totally rings my bell. Any opportunity to enjoy  bright soft  runny egg yolks in any form has me from hello.

They were a snap to prepare. I  lightly buttered two ramekins, tumbled in a few slices of chopped Black Forest Ham, carefully cracked two eggs side be side into each ramekin, spooned a tablespoon of heavy cream around the yolks, sprinkled each with fleur de sel, and snipped fresh chives over the top.

I placed the jeweled egg vessels into a two inch high baking pan, carefully poured hot boiling water halfway up the sides of the ramekins to create a bain-marie for gentle cooking, and slid the pan into a pre-heated 350 oven for 12 minutes.  The goal?  Soft cooked egg whites with warm oozing yolks.

While the cocottes steam braised, I prepped the little toasted soldiers for dipping into the yolks. I sliced thick grainy dense good whole wheat oat topped bread into shards and toasted them until firm, stiff, and crunchy.

When the cocottes were plated, I stabbed each gelatinous chive-studded egg pool with the toast soldiers.  Yolks split , oozed, and coated the crunchy bread.  Ripe for eating. 

A side of butter soaked buttermilk biscuits slathered with Georgia peach perserves  sweetened the deal  while sharp cheddar bacon-studded hashed potatoes provided intense zeal to an otherwise soft and unctous mouthfeel.

A quiet, luxurious, and explosive egg bath for all the senses.

Yep, it was indeed.

Pesto Pasta

After a  long holiday weekend of cooking for a birthday potluck, street festivals, and restaurant doggy bag leftovers, our refrigerator was ripe for a clean out.  It was packed.  I had some pesto and cherry tomatoes wedged into a lonely corner of the vegetable bin leftover from Rachel's birthday potluck party and decided to make a pesto pasta dinner with peas.  I tossed  split cherry tomatoes along with  pesto, grated parmesan reggiano, peas, salt, pepper, and olive oil into a bowl. I boiled angel hair pasta in heavily salted water until al dente and tossed it with the pesto sauce.  The heat from the pasta melted the parmesan in the pesto and wilted the cherry tomatoes.  When it was thoroughly combined, I swirl-stacked it onto dinner plates, showered it with additional parmesan, fleur de sel, and a fresh basil chiffanade.
I wanted something a bit more substantial to beef up the delicate pesto pasta, so I took inventory of the freezer. One filet mignon, a bag of  shrimp shells, a bag of chicken backs, one duck breast, a quart of chicken stock, and a lone chicken breast. Hmmmm.

Chicken sausage!

I sliced the chicken into strips while it was still frozen along with two slabs of thick cut apple-smoked bacon for fat and flavor. I picked and set aside a few leaves of fresh oregano, fresh thyme, parsley and dill. After tumbling whole red peppercorns, fennel seed, paprika, sea salt, celery seed, red pepper flakes, and dried savory onto the plate with the herbs, I turned the meat grinder onto a low speed, and fed all the ingredients into the feeder tube of the grinder to blend and mix. I finished the grind with an ice cube to clean the grinding shoot and moisten the sausage.

At that stage, sausage patties or meatballs could have been formed and cooked.  I wanted links, so I carefully put the sausage meat on plastic wrap and rolled it tightly into a log.  After twisting and securing the ends, I gave one final twist in the center to form two good sized sausage links. 

I gently lowered the links into simmering water to cook through and hold their form.  Once they were cooked, unwrapped and cooled, I sauteed them them in olive oil and butter with thinly sliced yellow bell pepper, onion, garlic, and cherry tomatoes.  After the sausages and vegetables had browned and softened, I poured a generous splash of balsamic vinegar into the skillet to deglaze the pan.  As the  vinegar sizzled from the heat, it reduced to create a sweet carmelized glaze on  both the vegetables and the sausages.

I placed them along side the pesto pasta, dusted them with ground parmesan, and a shower of fleur de sel.

The salty sweet carmelized glaze had just enough acidity to cut through the richness of the pasta and the herbaceous pesto. Nice match. I loved the tomato duet: the slightly wilted ones from the hot pasta kept thier form and freshness while the candied glazed tomatoes had broken down with lush sweetness.

The sausages had just enough fat to remain moist with an outer snap from the browned glaze.

All in all, it was a tasty way to clean out the refrigerator.

Time to stock back up.

Watch Out For Falling Torches

In 1985, I lived by myself in a gorgeous apartment overlooking the Hudson River in NYC.  With Zabars located a few blocks north and Central Park a mere three blocks east, 72nd Steet was a fantastic place to live.. Being alone in New York was not so fantastic.  A sea of people.  A city of strangers.

I planned a trip to Kentucky in the summer of  '85 to visit an old college roommate and  leave the City for green grass and fresh air.  On July 4th of  that summer, I called Homer to finalize the  trip.  Michael answered the phone.  Peppered with mindless chatter, we talked for a while about our individual plans for the 4th of July. We knew we'd probably meet and see each other on my vacation to Kentucky. As he passed the phone off to Homer, Michael said, "Watch out for falling torches."  And that was it.  The day we met. Watch out for falling torches. Mystical.

A few weeks later we met in person when Marge handed me off to Homer at the Sonora Truck Stop to  wind up my short  vacation in Richmond before heading back to New York on Amtrak.  The Sonora Truck Stop.   Michael walked into the truck stop wearing purple gym trunks and a white tank top.  He was tall, tan, and very cute. Extremely cute.  Not the kind of guy I'd encountered  at  swanky Upper West  Side bars in the mid 80's.  I was intrigued.

A week of fun and mayhem insued.  There were many many trips to Johnny Angel's, a few cook-outs, dancing, swimming, and a lot of preening.  The entire Lexington gay scene fascinated me.  It was outrageous, fun, explosive, and more interesting than an insane night at the Manhole in New York  watching beautiful Thai women open beer bottles with thier vaginas while dancing on tabletops. Lexington was totally different. It felt real. People in Lexington and Richmond seemed to care about each other.  Even through the bitchiness and cattiness, there was community. I wanted it.  To belong to a community.  To know that people cared if I woke up in the morning.

Michael and I found each other that week. Big time found each other.  The soundtrack to Streets Of Fire was our soundtrack.  Every beat and every lyric belonged to us. Ours.

I reluctantly left that paradise,  boarded my train, and quietly returned to New York. That night, I spent 16 hours in a train seat staring through the darkness and  dreaming.  The world had changed.  New York had changed.  I had changed. My heart was mush.

We didn't know what to do about us.  The miles.  Individual lives.  Lost chances.  Long before Twitter, Facebook, texting,  or e-mail, we constantly  wrote to each other.  Letters.  Poems.  Promises.  As if we were both at war longing to be home.

Later that summer, Michael flew to New York to visit.  My apartment was our home. New York was our playground.

We sealed the deal.

I left New York and moved to Kentucky.  I arrived with very little. A suitcase....hope....love.

Michael was waiting for me.

I was home.

26 years later, I am still home. Happy. Content. Full. Whole.
Happy Anniversary, Pava.

Having A Ball..or two..or three.

We had dinner at Columbia Steakhouse last night.  We have been going down for dinner more frequently ever since we adopted one of the rooftop-born kittens.  We sat in our regular booth with our usual cocktails and traded photos of cats and kittens with Flo.  Flo took in Midnight, the mother cat, after she gave birth to a litter of kittens on the roof of Columbia's.  I guess that makes our kitten, Celie, Flo's granddaughter.  Photo swapping and tale telling is an essential family thing.

I really wanted to be adventurous with dinner last night because I can be predictable at times.  Michael ordered his usual Nighthawk Special with assorted sides.  I bit the bullet  and ordered their famous Lamb Fries.  Confession:  I have never had Lamb Fries, Mountain Oysters, or fried balls of any kind.  I can eat anything.  There is nothing I won't try.  But, I always thought  it took balls to eat lamb balls.  Period.  I have heard that people love them and know that anything deep fried is good. Sold!

 As I finished  my garden salad, drenched in thier fantastic blue cheese dressing with bacon, tomatoes, and deep fried crunchy croutons, my plate of lamb fries arrived steaming and piping hot with a small dish of cream gravy to the side for dipping.  A heaping plate of fried lamb testicles.  All for me.  Hmmmm.

They looked like chicken livers, my favorite fried internal organs. Good start, I thought,  until the right side of my brain kicked in. "Oh, wait!", these aren't internal organs. Back to business.  I ate the first one dry without any dipping sauce.

I ate with my hands.  Who needs utensils when eating balls, for heavens sake.  They are not haute cuisine.

My first deep fried ball.

The stiff hard crust snapped between my teeth and gave way to a creamy salty mouthfeel with a silky mineral taste. Familiar. Tasty, even.
I took a second ball and swiped it through the creamy side sauce. Perhaps too much sauce, it seemed, as it dripped  and oozed  down my chin. I grabbed  another fried morsel to wipe the dripping face cream and stuck it in my mouth.  Oh so good.  
The pile of lamb fries had the appearance of something to be eaten quickly, like drive-thru fried meat popcorn bits, but these fried balls had a hard smooth texture that invited a slow chew. A salty melt-in-your-mouth swallow.  Something to be savored and not rushed. That's how I ate them, with each bite and gulp warming my lips and throat.

Funny, they weren't round, as expected.  They were triangular orbs. Tiny fried fat boomerangs.  I asked Flo why they were shaped like that.  She replied, "You should see what they look like before they are prepped."
All righty, then. That visual closed the small window of my fried testicle fantasy.  I ate plenty of them because they were really really good and I will have them again without the drama!. I'm not sure that I could have eaten an entire plate of fried lamb balls.  A few in any given night would be eventful and I surely didn't want to be tagged a testicle glutton. Anyway, after the clean up, I was sated and spent.

Our server stopped by to ask if we wanted them boxed up to take home.  That's when Michael put his foot down. "There will not be cold balls in our refigerator.", to which a smiling  Flo replied, "They are better hot than cold, anyway."

Shower, please.

Clam Sauce: Red Or White?

I typically make Linguini Alle Vongole, pasta with  white clam sauce. The white wine, garlic, and red pepper flake infused sauce accentuates the clams and linguini without masking their beautiful flavors. My pantry is usually always  stocked with ingredients for white clam sauce.  Last night, I had imported San Marzano tomatoes in the cupboard and thought I'd take the white sauce version one step further with Linguinu Alle Vongole con Pomadora, pasta with red clam sauce.  The method for the red sauce is actually an extension of the white sauce method and is very simple.

I purchased fresh Littleneck clams from a local seafood source and let them rest on a bed of ice until bath time.  I sliced green peppers, Vidalia onions, and garlic to reserve while I prepped the lemons, fresh basil, fresh oregano, and fresh parsley.  Mise en place.

After heating a large saute pan until screaming hot, I added a few butter pats with a few tablespoons of olive oil (butter for the flavor, olive oil for the smoking point).  When the end of a wooden spoon sizzled when touched into the combined fats, I tossed in the peppers and onions to soften and caramelize.  Once they had wilted, I  added 5 cloves of thinly slliced garlc to toast without burning. The nose knows.  Once the aromatics were soft and tender, I deglazed the pan with a cup of white wine  and fish stock. When the stock had reduced by half, I added  sweet San Marzano tomatoes,  fresh basil leaves, fresh oregano, salt, and pepper. Partially covered, I let the sauce simmer for an hour while I enjoed a few glasses of wine.

After an hour, the sauce had thickened and reduced to almost a pulp consistency.  Not wanting to waste any of the tomato left in the can, I swirled a bit more stock in the can, releasing the stuck-to-side-of-the-can tomatoes, and added it to the sauce to loosen .  I let it come back to a simmer, tossed in two dozen clams, covered the pan, and let the clams steam open.

I boiled linguini in heavily salted water until al dente and mounded the wide strands in large pasta bowls.  Using tongs, I plucked the clams out of the sauce and placed them around the pasta.  I  poured the steaming sauce over the clams, squeezed fresh lemon over the sauce, and sprinkled unsliced  individual parsley, basil, and oregano leaves over everything.  A dusting of fleur de sel for crunch and flavor finished it off.  With no artisinal bread in stock, simple toasted and buttered Baby Bunny sliced white bread had to do for a sopper.

The  sauce had an enormous layered  depth of flavor!  The usual white wine and garlic white  sauce was transforrmed by the sweet acidity of the tomatoes.  The fresh basil and oregano infused the sauce with  subtle anise notes while the juice released from an army of clams gave it briny mineral undertones. Drinkable.

The clams were sweet, tender and plump. Perfect vehicles for such an assertive sauce as thier juicy mouth pops sweetened the tomato brine. The cheap white bread side sopper turned into savoury summer bread pudding when swiped into the swimming sauce and the linguini was cheek smacking slurpable.  Wonderful drippy and  messy  finger food with face painting!  What could be better?

Steamed hot napkins for clean up, maybe.

So, red or white clam sauce?  Both are good,

but red has both.

A Humble Gardener

I am a very humble gardener. My successes are always balanced out with great failures...but I persevere. I've always loved flowers, hanging ferns, and window boxes bursting with color.We purchased this house several years ago and before we even moved in, I was out digging and tilling the sparse back garden.  I had two tons of dry stacking stone shipped from North Carolina to build raised beds and filled the beds with ninety-five 40 pound bags of Barky Beaver top soil.  Underneath the soil I buried 80 feet of soaker hose.  Against the advice of every gardening book, I then filled the garden to the brim with perennials, spring bulbs, evergreen shrubs, flowering bushes, summer bulbs, and statuary. On the back deck I would have an occasional tomato plant and a huge pot of herbs.  I was totally impressed with myself.

The garden is now too full.  Plants actually do fill in over time, it turns out. The experts were right.  It is  overflowing,  beautiful, and full.  Fine with me. 

My garden philosophy has shifted and changed over the years.  I still love growing flowers and watching them change and evolve during the growing season.  Growing things to harvest and  eat has  consumed me. We have limited space and odd light patterns, but that hasn't stopped me. I want to grow food on our land.  Our urban downtown land. Within reason, of course.  No corn fields, pumpkin patches, or winding melon vines. I do what I can;  and without room in the perennial garden, I have resorted to container gardening.  I am  not an  urban gardener, by any means.  I could not park my PT Cruiser by the side of the road with the latch up and sell produce.  Hardly.  For a long time I couldn't even grow a proper tomato. 

Last spring I was inspired by an article written by  Chef Dave in AceWeekly about starting vegetables and herbs from seed.  Seemed like the perfect way to quell the late winter wishful garden dolldrums. It was a total miracle.  I was stunned and amazed. We had cucumbers, jalapenos, green bell peppers, and tomatoes. I put up 75 quart and pint jars of pickles, relishes, chutneys, salsas, and juices. I was a canning madman!  All from the containers on our deck!  It was garden hysteria.  Obsessed and crazed.

Funny, the more you grow and eat what you grow, the more you want to grow to eat.. Ha! There is something to be said for container vegetable gardening.  The soil  can be manipulated and the water can be easily controlled.  When the light source changes throughout the course of the season, pots can be moved around to adjust to it.  In my case, it made perfect sense.

This year was and is no different.  Peet pots were everywhere in late March, domed with their plastic imitation glasshouses until sprouting.  They seemd so delicate and frail as they poked up through the airy peet. The tomato seedlings didn't quite survive my haphazard watering spells as well as the herbs and pepper plants. Michael ordered a slew of heirloom tomato plants to compensate.  A big slew. Principe Burghese, Pink Oxheart, Abraham Lincoln, and Sunset Red Horizon stand in tow with the standard  Big Boy plants.  We usually have three tomato plants with cages.  This year, we have nineteen! 

The peppers and herbs were hardened outside for a while before planting. When it was safely past the last frost date, I sewed cucumber seeds directly into containers and nestled them alongside the flowers with supports to vine up and through.  One is tucked into a bed of daylilies and is winding its way around an ornamental garden cage. The corner of the garage has a pot filled with cucumber vines climbing up through a cage onto a double hung cheap trellis I nailed to the side of the garage. As they blossom, form, and grow, the supports make for easy harvesting.  They will dangle and beg to be picked.

The peppers and tomatoes are producing and the herbs flourishing.  All in containers lined up side by side or tucked into available space.

We used to sit on the deck and look lovingly out onto our flowering back forty.  The tomato plants have totally obscured any view as they grow taller up into the sky and wrap around each other for support.

A samll sacrifice for the bounty to come.

Urban gardeners? Nope.

Just trying to grow a few things and live off the fat of our little piece of land.

With joy.