Wednesday, August 8, 2012

syllabub/sillabub

Syllabub.  The dictionary says, "See sillabub".  A classic English dessert of a certain era that graces the country dance tables in the novels of Jane Austen.

Earlier this summer, I re-read the last Jane Austen novel partially written by Ms. Austen and finished by a contemporary author.  Sanditon is a play on all the same social issues that grace the pages of any Austen comedy/tragedy of manners. The heroine is smart, modest and sharp-tongued; the hero dashing, witty, and enigmatic.  The location is the seaside with bracing salt breezes and healing sunshine; the pastime is collecting seaweed or admiring rather hideous boxes made of seashells.  The dessert is sillabub, and there is a large amount of text given over to the picking of the berries, the thorn-pricked and stained hands of the inimitable Charlotte, and the preparation of and delivery of the dessert to the country dance which serves as the game changer in the narrative.  In essence, Sillibub becomes a character.

At the same time I am reading Sanditon, I am reading the beautiful cookbook Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard by Nigel Slater.  While it is a lousy apple season in our orchard, all the berries are over the top.  The blueberries come in blue-black and almost bursting on the branches of the four bushes next to our greenhouse.  While mining recipes for this blueberry bounty, like the medieval Trout in Cerulean Blue Sauce (with blueberries and rosemary) that we are serving at the restaurant, I come across a blueberry fool in Slater's book.  It's English and I wonder if it's related to sillabub which sends me to the old dictionary on our library table that is always open to some word we don't know.  These days I have to use the extra large magnifying glass to even read an entry.  A sillibub is very much like a fool, and perhaps that is it's intended role in Austen's final saga as well, a dessert of whipped milk or cream flavored with wine or cider.  A little adaptation goes a long way.

A cup of blueberries in a sauce pot.  A tablespoon and a half of sugar.  A little water.  Simmered for five minutes so the fruit may give itself up to additional deliciousness.  1/3 of a cup of Greek-style yogurt, 1/4 and a little of a cup of thick, heavy cream, whipped with a little confectioners sugar and two splashes of a Corsican red wine, or any other light red wine sufficiently fresh and fruity to accompany the other flavors.  Mix the cooled berry sauce and the yogurt.  Fold in the winey whipped cream.  Chill for an hour.  Top with a few fresh blueberries and fresh mint.  It is both witty and enigmatic.  Blackberries or raspberries would suit well.  Serves two or four depending on how hungry you are--

--Deirdre

Thursday, June 28, 2012

desk, mid-summer

I cleaned out my office on the Summer Solstice.  It is a primarily a summer office, so somehow that seems appropriate.  Truly comfortable for three seasons, this little structure flanks the rose garden, a little structure that I've written about many times before because it was acquired with our house many years ago and has gone through many phases and many aspects. 

A prefabricated potting shed that was painted barn red with white trim, it started its life here on the edge of a meadow as an outbuilding to house baby lambs, to keep them from the midnight-roaming coyote up here on the edge of the Chateauguay.  And because of its original use it has retained its original name of "the lamb house", the "the" getting dropped somewhere along the way as it shifted from garden shed with one meager window and a plank door painted slate gray, to a studio with old paned windows and French doors to a studio/guest house with a new stronger-than-Zeus roof and sweet-colored shingles and a pale celadon trim.  It is now just known as Lamb House and ought to really have some kind of marker like an historical plaque to give it pride of place.

The Summer Solstice was late to clean off my desk, to hang some pictures, to sweep the floor.  I should have tidied up at the Vernal Equinox, a day and week this very year that sported eighty degree and sunny days.  But a gale had blown out the glass of one of the windows during the winter, splintering window onto the floor, and leaving the little building open to the elements until we realized what had happened and sealed up the opening with heavy clear tarp.  The replacement of the window would herald the cleaning out of the studio, but typical to procrastinating natures, somehow the window replacement kept getting pushed behind the schedule of pruning of the vines and fruit trees, the planting of the new vines, the weeding of the rose garden, the seeding of the starts, the steeping of plant teas, the wards against Japanese beetles.

Until last week when there was a brief lull in the constance of activity that marks our summer season, it was realized that the plastic tarp and new glass did not matter.  Procrastination was set aside and the need to tidy over-ruled.

So here I am a week and a day later, sitting at my currently overly-organized desk (how long will this last?) looking out over garden beds a bit wild with an abundance of June roses, the almost blooming mullein, the too-early blooming tiger lillies, white daisies swaying in what has turned out to be a rather breezy day.  Stacks of wine books edge the end of my desk, this desk really not "mine", something borrowed and something blue from a friend.  Next to the books is a vase of still-blooming bed-straw from the vineyard, bishops weed and wild rose from a forgotten garden.  The rose petals have already started to fall, leaving behind their perfumed confetti.

There are new stories to tell: the planting of rare white beans from the mountains of Liguria smuggled home under the pretense of dried goods, the arrival of a docile hive of bees that now reign at the top of the vineyard, the harvest of the first roses to make the versatile and fragrant rose syrup.  Now there is a desk wide and open, like what used to be the beckoning of a blank, white page.  But blank, white pages can also paralyze all thought and all language.  Instead, rough board surface tinted with the remnants of old paint from another place far away, somewhere in the hot climes of a village in Mexico, the desk welcomes.

-Deirdre 

Sunday, January 22, 2012

by popular demand: trota alla Piemontese


If you've been following us on our FaceBook page, you'll know we've started something of a winter ritual: Champagne Sunday Lunch.  Though I'm not sure it needs to be confined to only the winter.  What about spring?  Summer?  Autumn?  Not only does it have a lovely ring to it, it does definitely help get us through the remainder of the winter doldrums, that post holiday lassitude that is tied to the still short days that quickly grow so dark in the afternoon.  I imagine it will help get us through our fifth season: Mud, and once we hit April and and the farm is back in full swing, we'll need something to  buoy our weary bones. Funny how Champagne does that. 

It is one of the many reasons we love Champagne, and I should specify here  "grower Champagne" or "farmer fizz", the stuff grown and cared for by the producer him or herself, the grower ushering three hundred and sixty-five days of a landscape into a bottle.  No Big House sparkle all about consistency from vintage to vintage here.  We're looking for the differences in vintage, the idiosyncracies, the story.


We also love Sunday Lunch.  It is our Friday (since our "weekend" occurs on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday), the end of our restaurant work week and we generally don't need to be in to the restaurant quite so early in the afternoon, so it allows us to linger at home for a little bit longer.   Sunday Lunch conjurs long mid-day meals with family and friends, homely, tasty food, balast for body and soul for the ensuing fretwork of days to come.  


For our first Champagne Sunday Lunch of 2012, we prepared a dish from the Piemonte, pan-roasted trout with raisins, rosemary, sage, and Balsamic.  We were experimenting with dishes to serve at our upcoming wine tasting dinner with Gian Carlo Nada in February.  The Ada Nada vineyard specializes in Barabaresco and we were trying this trout with their 2006 single vineyard Valeirano.  The dish itself proved to be a worthy companion to the '06, layers of flavor, direct yet searching to meet each other and the palate.  Soul food.  

We've adapted a recipe we found in our library from Italian Regional Cooking by Lotte Mendelsohn with origanal recipes from Bea Lazarro.

For two.  Soak a quarter cup of raisins in warm water.  Chop one stalk of celery, an onion, and a couple of cloves of garlic.  Pour a few glugs of good olive oil to well coat a cast iron skillet and add the vegetables.  Season well with salt and pepper.  (When Italians cook they use a lot of olive oil, so don't be shy.  It is often the secret to the silkiness of their dishes.)  Braise. 

Season well a whole fresh trout, then add the fish to the skillet setting it on top of the soft vegetables. (We filleted the fish first and rested it on top of the braise as if it were still whole).

Sprinkle about a tablespoon of good Balsamic vinegar over the fish, add the drained, plumped raisins, about 2 teaspoons of grated lemon rind, and a couple sprigs each of bruised sage and rosemary. Cook for about 5 minutes on side, then turn the fish and cook for about another 4, or until just done.   

Remove the fish to a platter and cover to keep warm.  Add a little butter and/or olive oil  to the braised vegetables (enough to make the vegetables "saucy" along with the pan juices) and cook down until a nice consistency (this will be a light sauce).  Pour over the warm fish and sit down with a glass of L. Aubrey et Fils Premier Cru Brut NV, or AdaNada Barbaresco Valeirano '06. 

That's what we did. 


-Deirdre

Thursday, January 5, 2012

holiday dish redux

We thought to post photos of our favorite meals of 2011, but realized there were enough pix to make a book!  So instead, we'll post some of our favorite dishes of the holiday season.  Everything from classic French souffles to zucchini and lemon pasta to good ole soup and sandwiches....

  Buon anno e buon appetito!
--Deirdre & Caleb