sweet nectar :: a picture story of honey harvesting

Jersey Shore 2012

I find myself sitting & staring. At the Atlantic Ocean.
Lake Michigan is serene and superbly magical, as are all of her smaller tributaries.
But the ocean is... the OCEAN
Deep deep full breaths.  I'm saving enough deep breaths to call up in November and March when the grey and cold have numbed my bones and my soul. 

So many questions swirl in the vortex of my sea-water brined mind.
How many people are sitting on the shores of this very ocean right now? thousands? millions? 
What are they processing as they sit and stare? 
Do they share problems with me? 
Why do we all sit expectantly facing the consuming waves?

Sometimes things that are bigger than your little life make you stop and take deep cosmic breaths.
Make you reassess and calculate and evaluate.

My mind is full.

Lifeguards. Jogging. Jogging. Jogging.

Nauseating smell of sunscreen.

Reading Beard on food.

Ravel's Bolero -- why did my ipod select that music for me to ponder today?

A widowed father and a widowed aunt.

Missing peeps back in A2

All of the opportunities to come 

:: sitting expectantly on the metaphorical beach of life with the waves crashing in... 

But You and I do not meet here to philosophize, do we?

I travel to my homeland because of the family that still lives here. To brush up on the roots that I've left here, however thin those are. This has most certainly been a vacation from nutrition- (non-diet) Cokes and Snapples, New Jersey pizza from Mack's and Sam's, Fried seafood from Back Bay Seafood, hot dogs from Maui Dogs, Taylor Ham sandwiches from Uncle Bill's pancakes, and cheesesteaks. We're close to Philly down here on the part of the New Jersey sandbar that is Stone Harbor. In fact many from the City of Brotherly Love summer here the way us Michiganders find solace on the shores of the lakes in the mitten.  So the cheesesteak is king.

Yesterday's lunch was a classic cheesesteak that I've been enjoying for twenty five plus years (ouch, i'm old) at A&LP of Wildwood, NJ. Many meals are never as good when you try to go back and duplicate.  This one never disappoints.

A Traverse City farmers market find

I met the Owner of Ware Farm of Bear Lake Michigan at the Traverse City farmers market last weekend. He had a spectacular demonstration of inoculating trees with shiitake spores into trunks. Fascinating stuff.

At the risk

Of revealing that my sense of humor sometimes rivals that of a 14 year old boy...
I'd like to share the presentation of the mozzarella that I found when I peeled open the package--
Seriously fantastic!

Picking' bluuuuubs

Brilliant Borough Market of London

For pictures of Saturday morning's stroll through London's premiere foodie, farmer, & artisanal gourmet market:

click this link to my smugmug account

password: borough market
 

Enjoy! More to come later after I've slept a little.  ..

Where do I begin?

Met Bar at Metropolitan Hotel : Potted curried shrimp with orange brioche

Modern Pantry : chorizo stuffed squid

Restaurant at St Paul's cathedral : artichoke quail egg tart

Jamie's Italian : baked chestnut musroom

Jamie's Italian : ricotta stuffed courgette blossom

Jamie's Italian : seasonal bruschetta

Spread eagle : endive salad with roquefort dressing

Spread Eagle : aubergine imam biraldi

Lazy cow in Salisbury : classic fish and chips

the Ritz : afternoon tea

Harrods : seriously yellow cream topped milk

Hawksmoor Seven Dials : Pimm's cup make-over

Barbecoa : pickled veg

Barbecoa : pit beef (smoked and then smoked again)

Barbecoa : carpaccio

Met Bar after dark : mint julep

Met Bar after dark : Sam's perfect old fashioned

Cheerio

Updates upon my return!

it seems like a small token: one jar of strawberry jam

 

Making 30 homemade jars of Michigan strawberry jam with handmade labels is a time commitment, above all.  But preserving is something that I love to do.  So it's with this love that I set aside the time to save the season's best for the months to come. 

For a mom with four kids, the time it takes to preserve is a larger sacrifice than any reasonable dollar amount spent on a gift card. But for the amazing men and women who teach, guide, mold, and love my children during the school day, no sacrifice is too big, even of my most valuable commodity. 

This recipe for fresh strawberry jam will help you get started.

quinoa patties

tunes by:

Carla Bruni

You Belong to ME 

Nobody knows you when you're down and out
L'amour

Think Italian arancini, but made with quinoa ::  cooked quinoa mixed with eggs, whole-wheat bread crumbs, grated parmagiano, onion, garlic, salt, pepper.   Credit to Heidi Swanson of Super Natural Every Day Cooking, a fantastic book.

Served with a feta cucumber tzatziki. (one cup greek yogurt, 1/2 of an english cucumber rough chopped, 1/4 cup finely diced onion, 2 tablespoons champagne vinegar, 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt and a few dashes of hot sauce)
&
roasted garbanzo beans.  tossed with olive oil, cumin, chili, urfa pepper and salt.  roasted at 450 deg convection for 25 minutes until crispy.
&
a chopped salad of spring asparagus, cherry tomatoes (carpenter produce), avocado, capers, cucumber (english canadian number).  Topped with Kenzoil, sherry vinegar, salt and pepper.

Why I love summers in PURE Michigan

Let me count the ways. One strawberry, two strawberries, three strawberries, gulp!

 

a tale of pre-salting

slices of veal porterhouse, pre-salted (dry brined for 6 hours), 

ala Molly Stevens in ROASTING. absolute perfection. 

with
gorgonzola topped polenta

saute of spring vegetables: 

(patty-pan squash, baby kale, onion, frozen cornman 2011 red peppers,   

 frozen 2011 Tantre Farm tomatoes)

In all honesty, the concept of veal wigs me out a little bit.  Baby cows?  Yeah, I guess.  But a perfect veal chop- Wow, nothing beats it.  Seriously, nothing.  It's got the buttery mouth-feel of... almost of bacon, and the flavor of the softest tender-est smooth-est not-harsh beef flavor.  It's not something I buy a lot, mostly because of the cost. Typically one single dinner at home is not worth that price.  However, a couple of days ago, standing at the Plum Market butcher counter, this veal was calling to me.  It was gorgeous.  Marbled, medium pink, a wonderful thing of beauty.  So I fell for the veal, like Ulysses to the sirens, and thank the Lord for that. 

But I could have spent all that money, and then botched them.  Thankfully, I've been doing a little research lately, on proper treatment of animals, alive, and animals, prepared as food.  I've read and re-read some of Molly Stevens book on roasting.  Chef Alex directed me toward the section on pre-salting.  Her narrative about this technique, also referred to as a dry brine, is fantastic, scientifically descriptive and interesting. Easy to understand and applicable to the home cook. 

Here's how it boils down: 

Salt is hydroscopic, a word used to describe the property of salt that causes it to attract molecules of water.  Knowing this is important because it equips you with the tools to properly season and prepare a piece of meat, that you have spent much money on. Even more valuable is the life of an animal, a much costlier payment than any dollar amount.  Cooking it properly is the best way to show respect for the life sacrificed, as far as I can see it. 

When you salt a porterhouse, for example, and let it sit on the counter, 20 minutes later you will typically find that beads of moisture will form on the surface of the meat.  This is juice from the meat that has been extracted by the salt via the magical power of osmosis.  You could cook it right away, and essentially you would quickly evaporate the liquid that has been pulled from the center of the meat. OR, and a very important OR, you could let it sit, salted, for a much longer time in a fridge, several hours or depending on the thickness of the meat up to 2 days.  And the chemical power of diffusion will take over.  The inside of the meat is less concentrated with salinity than the outside, so those levels try to equalize.  Essentially what happens is that the juices which once rested on top of the meat will get drawn back into the center of the meat. But now they will have the dissolved salts too, adding to the overall flavor and moisture.  

I wish I could explain to you how wonderful this technique worked for the veal porterhouse steaks.  The veal flavor was concentrated and perfectly salted, but not in a superficial kind of a way that is abrasive, and that can be scraped off with your teeth.  The flesh of the steak was seasoned more successfully than it would have been with only the topical application of the salt.  

Camp bacon: the power of the porcine

Keeping it real. Yes there really is a CAMP BACON!

Attended Friday night's Alabama Bacon BBQ dinner at the Roadhouse.

 

Honestly, I don't mean this to be as kiss-ass as it sounds, but people of the world-wide-web, look at this meal! The genius of Alex Young on one plate!  Granted, it's one large plate.  It's filled with small portions of 15 different dishes all including bacon in some form or another. 

All wonderful enough that they could have been a meal by themselves.

 

the photo of the menu is not too clear, so here's the lowdown:

starters:

• pink-eyed pea salad
• crab, bacon, and rice salad
• peaches with country ham
• burrata with pancetta and basil
• wisconsin cheese board
• baby greens with fig and hazelnut viniagrette

bread: 

buttermilk bacon biscuits

entrees: 

• frogmore stew
• roast ham with onion and bacon gratin
• pork brochettes with makers mark BBQ
• roasted corn with crawfish and slab bacon
• charleston gold kale perloo
• baked grits with country ham and local morel and mitake mushrooms

dessert:

In all honesty the dessert course was the weakest bit here.  But I think that's a bakehouse issue.  And there's the fact that I was no longer hungry.  :)

• sweet potato pie flavor was right on. Texture was a little stringy, just not as good as the one I make from the Lee Bros cookbook
• lemon chess pie was good, but nothing to write home about.
• fried peach hand pies were not good.  First of all they were cold. And I eat cold pie all the time, so that wasn't really the only issue.  The peaches were not cooked thoroughly; the dough of the pie was just not flavorful or flaky.  At this point I was glad for something that wasn't good enough to eat.  I was stuffed, like a pig, which I suppose was exactly the point.

 

Farmer Lee (my given middle name)

Sometimes I just like to milk a goat.... Or twelve.

Early summer gardening

I know, I know. It's not officially summer, but here in southeast Michigan we've been living like it is.

Have unfortunately managed to misplaced the charger for my real camera, so I've taken a few quick shots with the handy iPhone to share the progress of the garden at 7300.

indulgence

tunes: you do something to me

heard here by ella fitzgerald

but i've been playing it on my ukelele all night

check out these chords!

Dinner tonight was for adults only, in the twilight, on the porch, after little ones had bedded down. It was a labor of love (small, as it was).  And it was delightfully lovely.  I enjoyed it as much as my husband, who I had in mind during it's inception because he had been out of town for 5 days.

It's nothing uniquely creative, just well executed parts that made a fantastic whole.

Spring asparagus & soft scrambled eggs:

Beat 6 eggs with one teaspoon salt and freshly ground pepper. Add 1/4 cup sour cream. Mix until combined.  Set aside.
Sear lightly oiled and salted asparagus in a cast iron pan.  After 1-2 minutes (depending on the thickness of the spears) add 1/2 cup water to finish cooking the asparagus by steaming. Keep an eye on these; don't overcook.
In a second nonstick pan (my best birthday gift!) melt one tablespoon of butter.  Slowly scramble eggs over med-low heat.  This should take 4-5 minutes.  Your patience will be rewarded.  If you've done it right, they will be like savory egg pudding.

Assembling:
Plate asparagus. Top seared spears with one thick slice of your favorite triple cream cheese. I used Délice de Bourgogne.  If you can find it, great. If not substitute Brie or some lovely cheese that will melt into the asparagus.  Sprinkle cheese with chopped tarragon.  Top the bottom half of the cheese and asparagus with the soft scrambled eggs.  Season with freshly ground pepper if desired.
Serve with toast.

Grill it baby!

Perhaps this is a lame reason for a post. Consider it a brief, yet strong suggestion. Grilling season is not yet at its peak for this year, but tonight I grilled a flank steak for burritos. Generously seasoned with kosher salt, pepper, ground cumin and chili powder. Drizzled with olive oil and seared until medium rare.

The winning star of this combo was not the meat itself, but two limes, halved and grilled with the steak. After the meat was grilled, rested and sliced, I squeezed the grilled lime juice over the top. Suddenly the various toppings I had prepared to go in the burritos were rendered unnecessary. The heat from the grill sweetens, intensifies and brings out sultry notes you didn't know your lime was capable of.

For the record, this can be done with all citrus. Adds a flavorful and moist dimension to any grilled meat or seafood.

Food Revolution Day :: Jamie Oliver