Musings

It’s been a while since I went to summer camp, but last week I was lucky enough to attend Zingerman’s Camp Bacon. Yup, you read that right, Camp BACON! Now before you start imagining bacon-singalongs, bacon-wrapped marshmallows cooked over the campfire or arts-and-crafts classes where we wove bacon bracelets, this was a different sort of “camp”. On a Saturday in mid-June, over 50 bacon enthusiasts attended presentations by some of the country’s best bacon-makers, a discussion on bacon history by Jan Longone from the Longone Culinary Archive at the UM Library, several bacon-inspired poetry readings, a hands-on pancetta workshop, and, of course, a bacon cooking demo (that’s where I came in).  By all accounts, the daylong camp was a huge success (and a whole lot of fun for campers and counselors both!). Word is the fine folks at Zingerman’s are already talking about holding Camp Bacon again next year. Here’s where you can find out more. http://www.zingermanscampbacon.com/

Getting serious about bacon (photo by Angela J. Cesere for The Washington Post)

In the meantime, in preparing for my role as a Camp Bacon counselor, I wrote a couple paragraphs on “How Bacon Changed My Life”. Here they are:

I grew up in a meat-and-potatoes household. Our Sunday night suppers of grilled cheese and tomato soup (yes, it was Campbell’s Cream of…) were the only meatless dinners of the week (unless, of course, you count the frozen fish sticks we ate on Friday nights). Being a rebellious teenager by nature, it only made sense that I would declare myself a vegetarian the minute I left for college in the late 70’s. By sophomore year, my friends and I moved out of the dorms, and filled our kitchen with every sort of bulk grain, legume and pulse we could find at the local food co-op. We taught ourselves to transform these into meals by studying the pages of The Vegetarian Epicure, Laurel’s Kitchen and Moosewood. Our dinners often left a lot to be desired in terms of flavor and finesse, but we felt righteous and proud and stuck with it.

By the time I graduated, I determined that vegetarianism had become a part of who I was. Unfortunately, beyond this conviction to a meatless future, I had very little notion of what else I might do with my life, and so I did the only thing I could think of—I moved back into my parents’ house. Not long after, I woke one Sunday morning (after being out way too late the night before no doubt) to the unmistakable smell of frying bacon. My instincts took over and, before I could remind myself that bacon was meat and that I didn’t eat meat, I was down the stairs, slouched on a kitchen stool and ready to tuck into a heap of scrambled eggs flanked by a stack of perfectly crisped bacon strips (Mom had burnt the ends of a few strips just the way I used to like them; now I prefer my bacon less crisp, but that’s a subject for another post). And just like that, my conviction to vegetarianism vanished. No one said a word (I’m guessing my parents hadn’t taken the whole thing seriously in the first place), and I barely blinked. Looking back, I am grateful to my mother and that plate of bacon for re-opening my culinary horizons. It wasn’t long after that morning that I took a kitchen job at a steakhouse and was on my way to a career in the kitchen and at the table cooking and eating all manner of meat, fowl, fish, and even a few legumes and pulses along the way.

This year, my husband, Mark, and I had to unexpectedly spend New Year’s apart. While I was at my sister’s house in Buffalo cooking collards and beans with ham for her brood (more on that later), Mark was in New Hampshire with two of his sisters doing me proud. He even went so far as to write about the meal he served. What follows is his “guest blog”:

Roasting a Goose for New Year’s Day

I confess, from the start, my sisters were really in charge. But let’s not jump ahead…

It all began in early November during the planning of our family Thanksgiving. We are quite fortunate (and thankful) that 18 of us (parents, siblings, spouses and grandkids) happily overlook any potential for family friction (we are not abnormally immune to such drama), and faithfully show up on my Mom’s doorstep, in the cold wilds of the Poconos, every year for Thanksgiving. The logistics of feeding this crowd for the long holiday weekend—including the big dinner—requires a bit of forethought and more than a few emails. At one point, I innocently sent out an email suggesting that, in addition to the requisite turkey, we roast a goose for Thanksgiving. Immediately my boisterous nephews, as well a chorus of others family members, summarily and loudly dismissed the idea. Their protest had nothing to do with the goose per se, they were simply saying “We love and need thanksgiving at Grandma’s, so don’t go messin’ with it!”

Back and forth the emails flew, fine-tuning our menu with no more mention of the goose and ramping up our anticipation, until one email reminded us that one niece would not be there this year due to new job responsibilities, and that she was not happy about it. “Please remove me from this email chain before I start crying,” she pleaded.  A perfect salve of sorts became evident—the promise of a New Year’s goose dinner at her parent’s place (my sister and her husband) in New Hampshire. This would fulfill my hope of bowling everyone over with something exotic and grand, and my niece could look forward to a needed dose of family fun, including the usual overindulgence, reminiscences, some off the wall proclamations and witty quips—sometimes misfired with unintentionally sharp barbs (or “zingers” in our parlance), yet knowing that nothing said or done can scratch a thick skin of unfailing love and mutual admiration.

Now keep in mind that this would never have happened if I didn’t know my talented wife was going to be watching over me, or if I hadn’t had a chance to taste what I knew was a foolproof feast which she recently authored and carefully tested for one of her regular magazine articles in Fine Cooking: Roasted Goose with Brandied Prune Stuffing and Plum Gravy. http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/goose-brandied-prune-stuffing-red-wine-gravy.aspx

The sides just followed naturally – roasted butternut squash and garlic, wild rice, roasted Brussels sprouts, and simple steamed green beans, along with a nice strong Malbec. I bought the goose from my favorite local grocer’s freezer – about 12 pounds – and started defrosting it in the fridge 4 days ahead of time. Then misfortune struck: Molly needed to be in Buffalo for an emergency on her side of the family. Helping me was the least of her worries, but I had backup. My brilliant sister Marnie, who like Molly possesses that rare gift of calmly knowing what to do in the kitchen and when, MC’d the whole affair, and, along with sister Geor’s energy, we kept on task.

The defrosting was timed perfectly as there was only a touch of ice crystals left in the body when I finally rubbed it down generously with sea salt and coarse ground pepper on the morning of the big feast. I have to admit the bird look a bit scrawny compared to a turkey, but it did look healthy, and we had generous sides to make up for it. It just so happened many of us are trying to eat less meat anyway, and this was looking like a good example of how less can be more.

The first cooking phase involves steaming the bird to render much of the fat off. I had completely forgotten the perfect pan and rack (the one Molly uses) in my rush to leave Vermont, but a little improvising and lots of aluminum foil worked fine—40 minutes as prescribed. Then came the stuffing—the prunes steeped in brandy added some moisture and bulk which nicely helped prevent the bird from drying out during the 2-plus hour slow roast.

We didn’t have a meat thermometer (which Molly would never do without), but the cooking time called for was perfect. We opted on the low side for the cooking time since the bird was also on the smaller end of the scale and used the “doneness tests” as described in the recipe. We did have a little scare while carving – the inside of the bones were red,

"Do you think it's done?"

but on closer inspection the meat was well done, moist and crazy delicious. The gravy, made with plum jelly, was just how I like it—rich, but thin, and packed with flavor from sautéing and simmering the neck and gizzards. All in all, a tremendously successful meal. The perfect amount of food (there were no leftovers of any kind), great company, a warm fire in the hearth, and another great family memory.

Written by Mark (Thank you!)

Last spring  I set out to write a recipe for a basic roast chicken. Sounds simple enough, right? Guess again. This rather unremarkable exercise of explaining how to roast a chicken sent me into a confusing 5-month tailspin that I am only just emerging from.

At the start, I blithely set off using the system I always use for developing recipes: I cook the dish in question by instinct a few times over the course of a few days and make notes from my kitchen experiences. Then I head to my office to cross-reference a handful of reliable texts for context before typing up my final draft. Unfortunately, my system failed (or rather I failed) when it came to roast chicken. The kitchen part went well enough. I’ve roasted a lot of chickens over the years, and felt confident with my technique. It was when I turned to my library to consult what others had written that I fell headlong into the void. It’s not just that there are more pages devoted to roast chicken than to any other dish (there are), but I discovered an attitude around this simple dish that led me to question everything I thought I knew to the point where I became ultimately unsure of my own answers.

In hindsight, I realize that I had underestimated the reality that roast chicken has become an iconic dish fraught with more symbolism and cultural significance than any ordinary meal can bear. As I consulted various cookbooks, back issues of my favorite magazines, and yes, even a few web sources, I discovered countless recipes for the perfect roast chicken that made me doubt whether my simple approach was good enough. Up until this current morass, I had followed a pretty basic technique—I seasoned the chicken (ideally a day ahead) and put it into a moderately hot oven to roast—and I’d been quite happy with the results: juicy flavorful meat, glistening golden skin. But maybe I was missing something. Maybe my standards were slipping. Was it possible to improve on this reliable and satisfying dinner? Surely if my recipe was to stand up to all the other recipes out there, I have to provide more instruction than “take a chicken and put it in the oven”, so I embarked on an extensive experiment to attempt every chicken roasting technique I’d ever read or heard about.

I pre-salted and I brined, I stuffed seasonings under the skin and filled cavities with lemons and herbs, I propped the birds up on all kinds of roasting racks, I trussed and I rubbed them with butter, I blasted chickens at super-high heat, I roasted gently at moderate heat, I used convection and non-convection, I turned them side to side and up and down as they roasted, I basted and I glazed, and in the end, I can honestly say that with very few exceptions, each method turned out a tasty roast chicken.

Some were downright excellent and some were less so, but the truth is that there is no one proper way to roast a chicken. I don’t subscribe to any gospel of the ultimate or best-ever roast chicken. There are merely different ways, each with advantages and drawbacks, and this versatility only increases my appreciation for this marvelous dish.

It reminds me of one chef-friend I know who offered this on the subject “I don’t think I’ve ever roasted a chicken the same way twice”. I can’t say that I’m quite as inventive as my chef-friend, and I still prefer my reliable method simply because, to me, a simple dish needs to be just that. All the machinations of so many of the so-called “perfect” formulas were more trouble than they were worth. To me, a good roast chicken remains one of the finest meals I know how to prepare, but perfect, I don’t know. I reserve that adjective for the company, the mood and the experience as a whole.

Here’s my recipe:

http://www.mollystevenscooks.com/recipe.php?recipeID=21

True porchetta may just be the holy grail of all pork-loving foodies (a term which is probably redundant), and for years, I’ve dreamed of making it at home. Traditionally, porchetta refers to a gutted and boned whole pig that’s boldly seasoned with wild fennel, herbs and garlic, tied up, and spit-roasted over an open fire. In Italy, porchetta is festival food, but you can also find porchetta sandwiches (slices of this insanely delicious pork tucked into crusty rolls) sold by street vendors and market stalls.

Here, the best porchetta I’ve ever tasted comes from Sara Jenkins’s amazing New York City restaurant/lunch counter called, quite appropriately, Porchettta. Up until my pilgrimage to Porchetta last fall, I had always imagined the homemade porchetta of my dreams would involve a whole pig and an outdoor fire, but that’s not the way Jenkins does it. Waiting in line for my sandwich at this always-busy little place, I watched the woman behind the counter slice meat from a single roast, not a whole pig. But it was a pork roast like none I’d ever seen. There was a large eye of juicy meat in the center, surrounded by layers of melting fat, and all encased in a crackling skin. Brilliant!

Back at home, I researched and found a New York magazine article explaining the method. “She [Jenkins] uses boned-out pork loins from contented, free-rooting Hampshire hogs, wraps them in pork bellies, and seasons them with a heady paste of wild-fennel pollen, thyme, sage, rosemary, garlic, and an aggressive dose of salt and pepper. These substantial specimens are tied up with string and oven-roasted until the meat is remarkably tender and the skin has turned to something like the color and consistency of a delicate peanut brittle.” I also found a similar recipe in Bruce Aidells’s wonderful Complete Book of Pork (he calls his David’s Porchetta: Belly-Wrapped Pork Loin).

For my porchetta, I decided I didn’t want to buy a separate belly and pork loin, but I wanted to use a loin that was butchered in such a way that the belly flap remained in tact. Without going into a full exposition on pork butchery here, picture that the loin comes from the back of the piggy – it’s that big thick muscle running along either side of the spine – and the belly comes from the other side. So if the butcher bones out the loin without separating the belly flap from the back top loin, you’ll have a pork loin with a long flap of streaky belly (fresh bacon) that you can warp around. (I’ve heard that the British refer to this cut as a “long middle”, which makes certain sense as it comes from the middle of the pig, and, well, it’s long.)

Chances are you won’t find this cut of pork at a standard supermarket. I’m lucky enough to know Cole Ward, the butcher at Sweet Clover Market in Essex, Vermont. I explained to Cole what I was looking for, and just like that, he cut it for me (from a pig raised on North Hollow Farm in Rochester, Vermont). Two days before roasting, I unrolled the roast, rubbed it with ground fennel seed, garlic, rosemary, sage, and plenty of salt and pepper, and rolled it back up. To roast, I cranked the oven up to 475 for the first 25 minutes to get the skin crackling, and then turned it down to 325 so the meat would gently cook, bathed in all that luscious fat, for a full 3 hours. Then, as the meat rested (that’s what it’s doing in the photo), I tossed some potatoes in the all the glorious drippings and returned them to the oven to roast up.

A dream realized

My porchetta

In the end, my porchetta was everything I’d ever dreamed it would be – and best of all, it won’t be a once in a lifetime experience. I will be making this again – and when I do, I’ll write up a recipe for it. I promise.

I travel a fair amount and, no matter where I’m headed, I try to always arrive with a list of recommended places to eat. While other more sensible travelers may consult weather reports in order to determine the right jacket and shoes to pack, I spend my time emailing friends and reading blogs to find out where I should eat.  The longer and more varied my list, the more eagerly I anticipate the trip.  For instance, on my recent visit to San Francisco, I had close to 20 spots on my radar that could satisfy every thing from a craving for a really good cup of coffee to a South Indian Sunday brunch.

Now the challenge with this type of planning is that there are only so many hours in a day and only so many meals one can (or should) try to squeeze into those hours. I also try to keep in mind the appetites and interests of my traveling companions. I’ve learned the hard way that not everyone wants to spend the weekend being dragged from bakery to coffee shop to deli to restaurant and market and so on. When I’m traveling with others, I try to be sensitive and temper my appetite for everything.  On this last trip to San Francisco, however, it seemed we had serendipity on our side. Aside from the big meal I had to cook on Saturday (see below), our plans for the long weekend were loose. We wanted to walk, visit a few art galleries, and explore as many neighborhoods as we could. Our little group (there were 3 of us) had decided that we wanted to eat, but we weren’t going to make it the centerpiece of our weekend. What my fellow travelers didn’t know was that along with my map of the city, I also had a number of spots scoped out where we MIGHT just stop at if we got hungry along the way, which of course we did.

We made our first food stop on our way from Pacific Heights to Russian Hill where lo-and-behold we found ourselves standing at the corner of Polk and Broadway in front of Nick’s Crispy Tacos. Now, Nick’s is not a place you’re likely to stop in unless someone tipped you off. It looks more like a nightclub/dive bar (it was daylight, so I wasn’t quite sure which) than a lunch spot, but inside, beyond the disco balls and cushy booths, you’ll find a superb taco bar. We ordered pescado, carne asado and carnitas tacos. All were excellent, fresh, and inexpensive. Not only were we fortified, but I think I earned a little trust from my companions. Maybe my “food as destination” planning thing might work out.

From there we continued toward the Marina and turned up Chestnut Street and just about the moment when we were needing a little something sweet to get us through the afternoon, we found ourselves admiring the windows at the new location of Miette, a magical little pastry shop whose original location remains in the Ferry Building.

Perfect little cakes and pastries..

Besides all the irresistible retro-candies (Violet Squares or Slo-Pokes Suckers, anyone?), Miette offers a exceptionally charming, picture-perfect and delicious line up of pastries, cakes and, our favorite, cupcakes. We sample several treats, but my favorite had to be the gingerbread cupcakes – just the right 2-to 3-bite size with just enough frosting to get a little on the tip of your nose but not enough to overwhelm the delicate cake.

The final entry on our serendipitous weekend tour came Sunday morning when, after an 8-mile walk from Pacific Heights, through parts of the Presidio, out to Land’s End, and back through outer Richmond, I realized we were right around the corner from Pizzetta 211. So I steered the group onto 23rd Street, led them the few blocks to number 211 (between Clement and California) to find a vest-pocket size storefront of a pizza place that I had heard only wonderful things about. What makes Pizzetta 211 exceptional – besides the amazing thin-crust medium-size pizzas – is the size and simplicity of it. There are only 4 tables and pizzas are made to order, so the wait can be quite l-o-n-g. But luck seemed to be on our side – within the time it took us to decide which pizzas to order (in addition to the short menu, the are daily specials), we were seated snugly in the window table, happily quaffing cold beer, and only just then realizing how incredibly hungry we were. We started by sharing an order of the daily appetizer that we had just seen the cook pull out of the oven – a deep, dense chard torta accompanied by a couple slices of ricotta salata.

Swiss chard torta with ricotta salata

From there we shared 2 pizzas. The first a light, springtime combination of asparagus, meyer lemon and fresh cheese. The second, and decidedly our favorite, Rosies’ Farm Egg, Fingerling Potatoes, Argula, Redwood Hill Goat Cheese and Prosciutto. Imagine the a classic fried egg breakfast deconstructed and served over a thin, lightly chewy, crisped edged pizza. The eggs (there are 2, sunny-side up) are perfectly cooked so the white is set but the yellow runs perfectly over the crust and you get bites of farm-fresh egg with each bite of potatoes, prosciutto and arugula. Mmmmm. I really DO love to travel…and eat.

On the first day of spring, I headed to the Bay Area to cook dinner for 9 people. Now, why in the world would this consummate Yankee be invited to fly all the way across the continent to prepare dinner in a town where there are more great cooks per capita than perhaps anywhere on earth? Well, long story short, it had to do with an auction for charity run by my sister and her bright idea that it would be fun to plan a party 2000 miles away. In the end, it was a blast – and dinner turned out beautifully! (I did, however, make my sister come along, to help schlep and prep, which only added to the fun.)

For starters, I travel to San Francisco fairly often and whenever I do, I head to the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market  to ooooh and ahhh over all the amazing produce, meats, cheeses, dried beans, flowers, breads, and so on.

Spring at the Ferry Plaza Market

It’s a cook’s paradise, but normally, I behave like a tourist and have to refrain from buying anything beyond a cup of Blue Bottle coffee and an Acme Bakery pastry because I’m staying in a hotel with nowhere to cook. But this time, I arrived with my market bags and loaded up on pea shoots, fat asparagus, the tiniest French breakfast radishes, bundles of tender spring carrots, feathery curly cress, spicy arugula flowers, plump little all-white salad turnips, green garlic, spring onions, two amazing baskets of the earliest – and sweetest – strawberries ever, herbs galore, three kinds of mushrooms, salad greens, eggs, and, oh yeah, a cup of that Blue Bottle coffee.

At the market, I met up with my friend Daphne Zepos of Essex Street Cheese who had selected three perfect cheeses for the after-dinner cheese course. Then, we headed down to Avedano’s Meats in Holly Park Market for a few pounds of heritage pork that they had just got in. The butcher pounded slices of fresh ham into cutlets that I was planned to bread and panfry to make a sort of pork schnitzel.

By the time we arrived at the host house it was early afternoon. Over sandwiches, we planned our attack, and then set to work transforming the ingredients into a lavish dinner.

Making mushroom-onion tarts

The menu went like this:
Hors d’oeuvres
Deviled eggs with chives and lime
Vietnamese spring rolls with shrimp and mint
Roasted asparagus wrapped in prosciutto

Mushroom and spring onion tart with herb and arugula flower salad

Heritage pork schnitzel with turnips, carrots, pea shoots and Parmesan pudding

An assortment of artisan cheeses

Chocolate stout cake with chocolate glaze and a perfect bowl of strawberries

Now that’s the way to celebrate the arrival of spring!

As we rounded the corner into March last weekend, I realized that time was running out on my New Year’s resolution to add a blog to my website. I’ve dragged my feet on getting started for all the obvious reasons – time, commitment and, most of all, my belief that the world really doesn’t need yet another blogger.  But, in spite of these valid reasons, on this blustery, cold March afternoon, I’ve decided to make good on my resolution and get started.

My intention is simple. From time to time, I intend to update this site with ideas, inspiration and musings. I can’t promise how often I’ll post; that all depends on what’s happening in my kitchen and in my world. For instance, in January, I took an amazing 4 day trip to Tunisia to visit Moulin Majhoub, a family-run company growing, producing and packaging a superb range of agricultural products from extra-virgin olive oil to harissa, olive paste, artichoke spread and sun-dried tomatoes. In addition to watching the olive harvest and pressing, I spent 2 days in a home kitchen learning over 20 traditional Tunisian recipes. The Majhoub family has been making olive oil for generations, and their commitment to the traditional methods is impressive. In the coming weeks, I hope to share with you some of the recipes I learned in Tunisia – once I have a chance to test them here at home and make sure they’ll turn out for you in your kitchens.

In addition to my recent travels, I am mostly at home working on a cookbook on roasting. It’s an exciting project, and I look forward to sharing my recipes and techniques as I get closer to completing the manuscript – sometime this summer.

My other resolution is that I’ll keep these posts reasonably short – or at least I’ll try.