gratin

We have some beautiful lamb from friends who make beautiful cheese. We have chops and shoulder. The chops are gone, but we roast the shoulder, just a little roast perfect for two or four people, with dried figs and apricots, fresh goat cheese, and a little hot pepper. On a cold winter day during the holidays, the kind where the damp gets deep into your bones, we hole up infront of the woodstove with the lamb slow roasting in the little oven above the fire and we think about what to serve alongside.

Whenever I wonder what to cook, I seem to always gravitate to Julia Child and that old classic volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Our two volume set is old, bought at a used bookstore years ago, one with a dust cover sprinkled with a red and blue fleur-de-lis pattern, the other without, the pages yellowed and well-used with notes in someone else’s hand. It is a potatoes-kind-of-evening, and we have some gruyere in the refrigerator. Gratin Dauphinois, a potato dish from the Rhonish Alps looks just the thing. In the Queen’s English, potatoes au gratin.

Gratin are dishes that are French in origin and usually mean a baked casserole covered in Bechamel, or Mornay sauce with bread crumbs, cheese, butter, and the like. I’ve heard there is an Irish recipe that also exists and is called Lucky Charms Potatoes, and apparently potatoes au gratin are as common in Sweden as they are in France.

Gratin is a cooking technique rather than just something one does to potatoes taken from the French gratter, or “to scrape”, meaning the scrapings of bread and cheese involved. Gratin is also used to mean the “upper crust” of Parisian society. You can make a gratin out of just about anything: leeks, celeriac, eggplant, (but stop thinking about that old shoe….). In the US, we’ve come to call a gratin of potatoes scalloped pototoes because of the scallop pattern in which you arrange them. Note: scallop was used to refer to potatoes long before the bi-valve of the same name.

So, a gratin of potatoes it will be to serve with lamb. We’ll also braise some brussel sprouts with chestnuts and season them with nutmeg. I turn to Julia, as I often do in times of need, and as always, she does not disappoint.

Gratin Dauphinois (Adapted from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking)
For Two

1 medium potato
A small fireproof baking dish
½ clove of unpeeled garlic
2 Tb butter
2 healthy pinch of salt and pepper
1/3 cup of Gruyere (Tarentaise by Thistle Hill Farm is superb made here in Vermont)
¼ cup boiling milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Peel the potato and slice it about an1/8 of inch thick. Place in a bowl of ice cold water, then drain and pat dry when ready to use. (This keeps your potatoes from turning black.) Rub the baking dish with the garlic, then used the garlic for something else (I like to toss it in with the gratin myself). Smear the inside of the dish with a thin film of the butter. Spread half of the drained and dried potatoes in the bottom of the dish, following that scallop pattern. Divide over the potatoes half the salt and pepper, cheese, and dotted butter. Arrange the remaining pieces of potato over the first layer, and season them again with salt and pepper and cover with the rest of the cheese and butter. Pour over the boiling milk. Set the baking dish in the preheated oven. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the potatoes or tender, the milk has been absorbed, and the top is nicely browned. Serve it forth.

holiday

Even though we have passed the winter solstice, it is 5:30 in the evening and still already dark. The snow falls steadily as we make the drive home from the village where we work, making the ride quiet. Lights shine through house windows and I can see people moving around inside setting tables, cooking in kitchens, dressing dining room chandeliers in pine boughs and sparkles. We are not open at the restaurant on Christmas Eve, but we have been in the kitchen all day baking panettone, the yeasty Italian Christmas bread studded with raisins and candied orange peel. Once the bread is out of the oven, we pack up our bounty and deliver to our friends around town the golden loaves, still warm and scented with citrus, while finishing that last bit of our holiday errands.

It reminds us of our Easter in a village outside of Rome this spring. On the day we arrived in Italy, warm with the sun shining, we opened the small cottage we let, then went out provisioning as we had guests arriving the next day for the long holiday weekend. At the bakery in the piazza, we got ourselves in the line winding out the door, knowing that everyone must be waiting for something good. It was the first round of pizza di pasqua, a typical Easter bread similar to panettone but made with anise and pancetta for savory, or bits of chocolate for sweet. We bought ours with chocolate, still warm and fragrant, then went to the macellaio for meat, the alimentari for cheese, and the frutta e verdura for fresh fruit and vegetables. In each store, the perfume rising from our open paper bag caused patrons and owners alike to stop, ask what smelled so delicious, ask where we got it, then dash out the door, shouting over their shoulder, “I’ll be right back!” as they went out to get their own holiday treat.

We hear later that we have somehow channeled the spirit of our Roman Easter’s pizza di pasqua as our own panettone plies the same magic as our friends finish their holiday shopping with their open bags of warm Christmas bread and the air is filled with orange, raisin, and the warmth of good cheer halting everyone for just a moment as they wonder at the change in atmosphere.

satsumas!

Take the ferry across the Mississippi out of New Orleans. Land in Algiers, (have a bowl of gumbo at the little corner bar across from the ferry terminal and admire the spruced up shotgun houses that line the streets close to the levy before leaving), and drive out into the sugar cane countryside where the land is wide and flat and the sky is violet at dawn and dusk. Out where the cane grows, you'll also find satsuma groves, the local citrus which is small and sweet and usually seedless.

Satsumas grow exceedingly well in southern Louisiana. They like the soil, the light, the air, the humidity, the climate. They say, they being those who write research notes in agricultural journals, that satsumas, also called mikan in Japan, naartjie in South Africa, and mandarin or tangerine in Canada originate from Wenzhou, a city in the Zheijang province in China, a city known for its citrus production. The fruit was listed as a royal offering for Imperial consumption as far back as the Tang Dynasty, and evidence of its cultivation is recorded back some 2400 years. In China, the satsuma is known as Wenshou migan which translated means Wenzhou honey citrus. One of the distinguishing features of the satsuma is the distinctive thin, leathery skin dotted with large and prominent oil glands, which is lightly attached around the fruit, enabling it to be peeled very easily in comparison to other citrus fruits. The satsuma also has particularly delicate flesh. The mikan was introduced to Japan by a Buddhist monk who passed through Wenzhou on his way back to Japan. Mikan is the general word for citrus in Japanese, and satsuma have been grown in Japan since ancient times.

In 1876 during the Meiji Period, mikan were brought to the United States from the Satsuma province in Japan by a U.S. ambassador's wife. I wish I knew her name, and from where she hailed. The records say very little. Did our ambassasdor's wife take her mikan seeds down south with her to where they now thrive, where there are now the towns of Satsuma, Alabama, Satsuma, Florida and Satsuma, Louisiana? Did she plant them in California, or did she cultivate them in a green house in Minnesota or New Hampshire, or even here in Vermont?

Far away from Vermont, back in November, we drove out into the sugar cane fields and passed countless roadside stands selling satsumas and Creole tomatoes. About half-way to New Iberia, we stopped at a small grove a couple of miles down a country road. A small table was set up in front of the garage with bags of satsumas and a price list. A pretty blonde woman came out of the house, the daugher of the grove owner, dressed in jeans and gloves with the fingers cut out, and offered us a bucket and clippers if we'd like to pick fresh. She spoke with a cajun accent which is thick, and flecked with French and is not unlike the Quebecois English outside Montreal. In her jeans pocket was a small silver ladies' pistol. We took our bag all the way to Houston where we shared them with friends after a dinner of sausages and fried vegetables.

Faraway from south Louisiana, on this cold, and snowy night we indulge in the winter season luxury of fresh citrus. We set out two small tangerine in a bowl for after dinner. They look pretty on the table in the candlelight, and taste very fine with eggnog laced with Irish whiskey, a souvenir from other travels. The fruit is sweet at first with a bitter finish and reminds us of a hot wind through the sugar cane, the taste of a seafood boil, and the unblinking alligator seen at dusk in the bayou.

what to do with sardines

My friends, I sympathize. It is a tough situation to be in when one encounters a fish counter with fish that not only catches your eye, but actually makes you wishyou knew just what to do with some of those beautiful specimens. And sardines can be particularly eye-catching, their silvery skins shining out from their icy bed like fabric on a haute couture evening gown.

And I want to assure you that sardines are as delicious as they look, and very easy to prepare. Here is how to handle them, from start to finish.

If the sardines are 5-6 inches long, choose 2-3 sardines per person, being sure that the fish have good, clear eyes. If they have not been descaled, all the better, as the scales have been protecting the very delicate flesh in the fish’s transit to market, as they will on your way home.

Once home, arrange the fish and a knife next to the sink (which you have washed well). A small, serrated paring knife is perfect for this job. Hold a fish in your palm with the head pointing toward your wrist. Use very light scraping strokes from tail to head to remove the scales from the flesh, then rinse the fish under gently running water and set aside on a plate as you clean the rest.

Now you have to clean out the insides of the sardines, and it could not be easier. Hold a fish in one hand, tail pointing toward your wrist, and simply poke your finger through the belly skin just behind the head and run your finger toward the tail. It’s a little gushy, but all the insides should slide out quite easily. Rinse out the interior gently. Note that the fish still have their heads on. I like to serve them as whole as possible, but if you prefer, go ahead and remove the head now by simply pulling it off. Then open the fish flat in your two hands work your thumbnails under the spine. Once you can grasp the spine between two fingers, carefully pull it out of the body, using your other thumb and forefinger to squeeze the flesh apart from the bones as the come out.

So your sardines are now ready to be seasoned and cooked. There are many ways to prepare sardines, but here’s an easy one I did recently. I made a mixture of parsley, garlic, breadcrumbs and salt and pepper, and smeared some of this inside each fish, and folded them “closed” again. I rolled them then in a mixture of flour and breadcrumbs and fried them in olive oil for about 8 minutes, turning them once and splashing in a little white wine for the last couple of minutes.

It was that simple.

--Caleb

first snow

We play hooky. Responsible hooky. We are in the process of getting the restaurant ready to reopen which requires several days of cleaning, prepping, inventory. We prepare a day in advance of our usual schedule; we go in on Sunday to wax the restaurant floors, the job we had assigned to Monday. Sunday night, at home, we fill water bottles and buckets and set aside candles in case the electricity goes out. On Monday, we are snowed in for the first snow day of the season. We are without guilt.

The snow starts late at night, or early in the morning depending on how you look at it. It falls steadily and heavily so that when we wake up there are already six inches of snow on the ground, the outside world white. It is one of those idyllic snow days in front of the fire reading, or watching movies, or playing cards. Six inches becomes eight becomes ten. We take a walk bundled up in snow boots and hats and go against the wind, the air and flakes sharp on our faces, then with the wind which buffets us back home. The air is full of sparkle and woodsmoke.

At dusk, we go to check on the neighbors' chickens. They are away for the week and we reap the benefits of fresh eggs. The hens and two roosters are huddled together in the coop under their warming light, leaving the eggs for the taking. We feed and water them, and one of the roosters pecks at Caleb's boot incessantly, following him around the cozy coop. I think this would be a good place to bed down for the night if I was a traveler on snowy night in another century. When we leave, the roosters crow good-bye.

For dinner, we make a potato pancake with red onion and Greek-style yogurt served alongside fried pancetta and an omelet made with our fresh harvest.

Fresh Omelet For One
2 eggs
2 pinches salt and pepper
butter
fresh goat cheese

Use your best skillet with a good fitting lid. Beat the eggs with salt and pepper. Pre-heat the skillet over medium heat. Melt enough butter to season the whole pan well. Pour in the egg mixture. Start teasing up the edges of the egg with a rubber spatula as it cooks, so that the raw egg can run underneath. Make sure the skillet does not keep getting hotter and hotter, but stays at an even medium temperature. As soon as there is not enough raw egg to run under the omelet, sprinkle crushed fresh goat cheese under half of the omelet and gently fold over the half with cheese. Lower the heat and cover the pan. Cook until the omelet is done to your liking. (Caleb likes his a little runny.) Slide out onto a warm plate.

ain't that just like livin'

(originally published on www.thelipstickchronicles.typepad.com/11.26.07

We’re on the road. We do this every November and April, close up our small restaurant in the small village of Woodstock, Vermont and point ourselves North, South, East, or West. In April, we are always East. We land in Italy for a time to eat, to drink, to be inspired. In November, we could be anywhere. We have found ourselves in LA, Buenos Aires, Montreal, New York, Oregon, Paris. This time we are in New Orleans.

We have long wanted to come here. My family lived here years ago, and Caleb’s aunt and uncle still do. We are sad to have missed the New Orleans before The Storm, but we are happy to finally arrive, to see the proud and elegant city as she gets herself back on her pins. The sections of town nearer the river are looking quite fine, houses freshly painted, gardens tended, the remaining live oak looking broad and powerful, thriving. Other sections of town, those farther from the river, especially those in the infamous 9^th ward, are still vacant and ghostly. Windows are boarded up or are filled with jagged broken glass, the water lines still exist on the sides of house, the yards are wild with pink oleander, grasses, and the climbing blue plumbago. The stench of rot and mold lingers. Walls still are marked with signs left from the National Guard. 1 Dead in Attic.

We’ve come to New Orleans on a pilgrimmage: to eat, to taste Cajun, Creole, and Soul food renditions. We compile a list, not of all the usual favorites and “must-eats”, but of smaller places, those who opened as little as ten days after Katrina because they couldn’t stand by and stop cooking for their city. They knew they needed to feed their people and all those who came to volunteer their help in those first harrowing months after the hurricane. We’ve heard stories of Paul Prudhomme setting up in a parking lot with propane burners and cooking kettles of gumbo, or Donald Link opening Herbsaint with only 6 people when usually there is a team of 45. We heard that old favorites opened for business even when it was nearly impossible: Upperline, Dooky Chase, then Brigsten’s. These are the places at which we choose to dine on our first visit.

Dining at Dooky Chase is tops on our list. Open since 1941 in Tréme, the first historical section of town to be inhabited by freed slaves, we are eager to eat their classic dishes: fried chicken, red beans and rice, stewed ocra, green beans with dirty onions. Leah Chase, the daughter of the original Dooky, has been cooking at this restaurant since the Fifties. We have always been awed and inspired by those stalwart cooks who keep at it day after day.

But Dooky Chase is currently closed. The message on their answering machine says they hope to re-open at the beginning of November, and in the meantime they are serving take-out Tuesday-Sundays from 11:30-7:00. We grab at the chance after an “early” lunch of fresh oysters and fried softshell crab at Casamentos (some days we have to eat throughout the day in order to hit every one of our destinations), and pick up a “late” lunch from Dooky Chase.

It is a charmed visit, one full of stories and good cheer, though as with many things in New Orleans these days, there is a melancholy note. We walk in the side door and it’s clear they have been under significant construction. No one is about and we yell, “Hello! Anyone here?” Someone shouts back from the kitchen. We are greeted warmly and given a take-out menu. We order. We are offered a seat in the newly painted bar while we wait. A handsome young man brings us water and iced-t served in glasses and with lemon. We tell him this didn’t seem much like take-out service. He smiles genuinely and says, “Well, I’m hoping you will come back again.”

Like so many others, Dooky Chase has fallen on some hard luck since Katrina. Two feet of water flooded the building, and they have been renovating and restoring ever since. The restaurant is home to an extensive African-American art collection, and fortunately they were able to get the work out and into storage up in Baton Rouge before it was lost to the elements or looting. Mr. Chase, Miss Leah Chase’s husband, takes us on a tour of the refurbished dining rooms. Miss Chase is conducting an interview in a pretty, yellow room with French chairs and pale yellow brocade. She holds our hands in her own upon introduction and is enthusiastic about re-opening, but you can also tell she is flat-out. Finding employees seems to be the biggest problem facing the restaurant these days. There are not enough people left in the city. Too many have moved away because they lost everything, and needed to start somewhere fresh instead of waiting, and waiting, and waiting to pick up somewhere far behind where they left off.

Mr. Chase takes us into the red room, and the private green room, again elegant and old world as if it’s still 1955 and New Orleans might still part of New France. The Empire style would have made Napoleon proud. When our fried chicken, and red beans and rice, and stewed vegetables, and fried shrimp sandwich are all ready, Mr. Chase brings us back to the bar with its bright green walls with black and white trim and a terrific painting of Louis Armstrong. He notices that Caleb is wearing a t-shirt from Brazil and begins to scat a little bossanova number. His voice is pure and tremulous and his smile is true. He encourages Caleb to join in, and he does so, tentatively at first, but then gaining momentum. I keep silent and listen as I can’t sing. When they are done, we all clap and Caleb asks, “Now, what would we have sung if I had been wearing my Italy t-shirt?” And they are off again, an old black man, and a younger white one, dipping and reaching for notes from that old classic “Volare”. To fly, says that song in translation, I fear this dream will never return, my hands and my face are colored in blue, suddenly I was pulled away by the wind and soared into the endless sky…”

We take our carefully packed picnic to Audobon Park and sit under a pergola at a table and lay out our treasure. The dishes are beautiful in their simplicity and spicy, savory aromas; they need no translation as they are perfectly understood. The fried chicken melts on the tongue, and the candied yams have sweet and texture. We look out over the green park in evening, at the people jogging, mothers and fathers teaching children to ride their bikes, two friends walking a dog, the man who comes to feed the ducks. Here’s to the New Orleans of old, and all that will be new. Here’s to the return of the people, and their unfailing spirit because all that wind, and rain, and devastation can’t take that away.

Winter Greens -- So Far, So Good

My parents have these neighbors of long standing who have always grown lots of vegetables. When I was a teenager, I mowed their lawn, and noted the plots the husband, a doctor, had dug into what struck me as a fairly rocky location. Ledge reared up at various points around their property, and I had to be alert while mowing to avoid damaging the mower blade. But the doctor was not only determined to make that rugged property produce, he had a very good hand, good southern exposure, and was diligent and enthusiastic. What made the greatest impression was his late lettuce harvest: he would make the rounds of the neighbors, with bright eyes and a big grin, on Thanksgiving morning, delivering enormous heads of leafy greens.

We are looking ahead to next year’s gardening season, and fantasizing about starting a hoop house -- a greenhouse of plastic stretched over half-circle pipes, or ‘hoops’), so that we could, in theory, harvest hardy greens, spinach, beets, all year.

So this year, I did a test run. I boxed the radicchio bed with 2X8’s and stretched heavy clear plastic over the box and weighted the edges of the plastic down with some old bricks. So here we are at November 29, and I’m still cutting greens for salads: 3 kinds of radicchio, and a mix of escaroles and chicories. I have also used a bale of hay to pack around the outside of the box, and to cover the top at night. But now the weather is really becoming much colder -- 10˚ tonight! – so this will be a real test. If we continue to be blessed with some sun every day, maybe I can squeeze out some fresh greens until Christmas.

-- Caleb