The Pickles at the End of the Garden

Today is one of my favorite kinds of days (the others involving tropical beaches, wineries, rainstorms, fireplaces and movie theatres, though not all at once). It's the last day of a long weekend vacation, the majority of which we spent in Bend, Oregon performing at the inaugural Bend Shakespeare Festival. It was awesome. The audiences were huge and enthusiastic, howling with laughter and thoroughly bent on enjoying themselves--and us--as much as possible. The stage is in the beautiful Drake Park, right in front of the river, which makes the matinees picturesque if brutal (the heat, oh the heat) and the evenings perfect. We spent Thursday through Sunday morning in Bend, swimming and sunning when not onstage, and then joined our friends and cast mates Christy and Jason at the Oregon State Fair in Salem. It had been years since either T or myself had been to the fair, and it did not disappoint. State fairs have to be the tackiest American custom, with the deep-fried candy bars, garish game booths and evangelical stations (our favorites included the "Are You Going to Heaven Booth: Free and Only Two Questions Long" and the anti-abortion booth that was giving away little plastic fetuses, available in Caucasian and ambiguous ethnic). T ate a fried Twinkie and I happily drank frozen lemonade while petting the miniature horses and ogling the piglets. The evening ended with dinner at my in-laws, which is always a pleasure.

But perhaps the greatest pleasure was going to sleep knowing I had today off, too. I love lazy weekday mini-vacations; I always get loads of laundry, cleaning and cooking done, and yet still feel luxuriously unburdened. Today's major project involved converting excessive numbers of zucchini and wilty tomatoes into Zucchini Dill Pickles, Bread and Butter Zucchini Pickles, and Tomato Jam.

Pickles are fun to make because they're both labor-intensive and easy: all you do is prep the veggies and make a brine. The mildly tricky part is sterilizing and processing the jars so that you can safely store the pickles in the cupboard for fall and winter eating. Plus, just as with jam, there's tremendous satisfaction to be had to gazing at all of your gorgeous filled jars in the pantry. I ogle mine several times a day until the new wears off.

I haven't tried the pickles yet (they need to soak up all of the flavors in the brines for 1-2 weeks), so proceed with the above recipe links knowing that they were tested in the Bon Appetit kitchen and so are likely reliable. The August issue recommends serving the bread and butter pickles--a wonderful sweet and sour pickle that I grew up eating, but know is new to many people--with grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. I also love them with cold cheese and charcuterie plates and with tuna sandwiches. The dill pickles, which like the bread and butter pickles are normally made with cucumbers, should go well with any deli-type sandwich, burgers, and again, tuna salad. The tomato jam, which is kind of like a fancy, chunky ketchup with a smoky punch, will taste amazing with chicken and ham, sturdy seafood like swordfish or sturgeon (I can even imagine pan-tossed prawns dipped into the stuff, mixed with a spoonful of horseradish), grilled tempeh, and smeared onto any sandwich with flavorful cheese. And if you don't feel like going to the trouble of canning the jars, just sterilize them and refrigerate the pickles for a month's worth of happy noshing.

One last tip is that while you can experiment with the spices in the brine, don't alter the amounts of sugar, vinegar or salt in pickle recipes. These amounts are carefully measured to kill harmful bacteria; likewise, follow each recipe's instructions for sterilizing and processing the jars. You want a full belly, not an aching one.


I also want to say that it is infinitely lovely to be back to writing on my blog. I've had an amazing summer of rehearsals and performance, but for once I'm eager for the summer to wind down (if not for the sunshine to disappear) because I'm taking this year off from theatre and so will have more time to cook and nest and write. I'll still be working like crazy for the bookstore and the college, but not having evening commitments should mean more grading during the week and more fun projects on the weekends. (Two plans for this fall: apple and pumpkin butters.) Plus, I feel a bit shy but I suppose the time is ripe to mention that T and I are expecting a little buddy in February, which will for sure send our lives into noisy, messy, hopefully adorable arrears, but also slowly afford me more time at home to learn to be a mommy and to teach my little one the pleasures of the kitchen.

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Stem Pickles, of the Swiss Chard Variety (Part 1)

Leafing through one of my cooking magazines the other day, I came across (and have since been unable to find!) a blurb about a bartender or chef who turns swiss chard stems into refrigerator pickles. After last summer's success with pickled sugar snap peas, and in my effort to use every edible part of all of our vegetables, I have decided to give the pickled stems a try. Tonight. Because I have nothing better to do and a huge bowl of fuchsia stems in the kitchen, winking prettily at me, asking to be made into something other than compost.

Because I can't find the official recipe (did I dream it up? and if so, what does it mean that I'm dreaming about pickles?), I altered a promising recipe for asparagus pickles that I found online and followed the sugar snap pickle protocol:

1. Sterilize a quart jar and lid.

2. Boil equal parts water and vinegar with some salt and sugar--in this case, 2 C each water and cider vinegar, with 1/2 T salt and 1/8 C sugar.

3. Put 2 smashed garlic cloves, 2 red chilies, some dill and some mustard seeds, along with the chard stems, into the sterilized jar.

4. Pour the boiling vinegar brine into the jar, using a funnel if you're spill-prone.

5. Seal and store in the fridge. Can be made up to a month in advance.

In my (trivial) pickling experience, the pickles will start to taste snappy in about 24 hours, but will increase in flavor over the next couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted on the result, but my intended use for the pickled stems is for cheese and pickle sandwiches, or what we around here call "jungle style." I imagine they'll also taste nice in Bloody Marys, for those of you in the cocktail set.

Japanese Turnips

Before you navigate away, because the word "turnip" is not only boring but sounds like something your grandparents were forced to eat as children, know that I am discussing Japanese turnips. And unlike their American relatives, which are rock hard and rooty, these delicate white veggies are crisp, juicy, sweet and fresh. They can be enjoyed raw like jicama, or roasted or sauteed in olive oil and garlic. The first method is refreshing, the second as savory as potato and as juicy as fresh pear.

We've been getting large bunches of them in our CSA tote each week, and at first I sliced them thinly and ate them for breakfast on buttered toast with a sprinkling of smoked salt. Then I shredded them into a lemony salad with young beets and sunflower seeds. The next time I parboiled them and rolled them in a bit of butter and coarse salt. And yesterday I did the best thing yet, which was to slice them thinly, toss them with a bit of olive oil and a lot of minced garlic, and roast the bejeezus out of them. The resultant "chips" were salty and golden, and juicy as hell. I nibbled a few out of the pan and tossed the rest for lunch today with brown rice, black beans, cherry tomatoes and feta.

If you think you dislike turnips, or are finding large quantities of them at the farmer's market or in your own CSA tote, try the below recipe. It would make a nice accompaniment to any type of roast or richer fish; or, eat them on their own, as I did, standing at the pan with a glass of wine.

Simple Roasted Japanese Turnips
Note: All of the literature I've found on Japanese turnips say they're spicy and strongly flavored. Ours have been sweet without even the slightest radishy kick, but it might be best to taste one raw before determining what to do with your bunch.

Japanese turnips
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
coarse salt
pepper

Preheat oven to 425 F.
Trim and thinly slice turnips (1/4"), setting aside the greens for sauteing.
Toss the turnip slices with a healthy lug of olive oil, the minced garlic and a pinch of salt, and spread into one layer.
Bake until the turnips are starting to turn tender and golden, then flip with a spatula.
Continue baking until golden and somewhat shriveled, but not dry or burnt.

This all takes roughly 45 minutes, but as I didn't watch the clock (I was watching Buffy), be sure to check the veggies occasionally to get the texture you like.

Fudgesicles, Jessica-style

It's happening.

The rainy hours are growing fewer and the blue skyed moments are beckoning us outdoors to sit in puddles of sunshine. My brandywine and roma tomatoes are reaching upwards, and the yellow squash adds a new leaf each week. The strawberries are putting forth green fruit, and the sage looks like it will take over the world.

It's springtime in Portland. When summer seems almost possible.

And because we Portlanders go a little crazy when we see the sun, we drag out the summer dresses and the pale ale and tbe BBQ well before the weather warrants. We do crazy things, like shiver sweaterless on the patio and make popsicles that we have to eat indoors.

As if to tease, and in the time-traveling way of all food magazines, my Bon Appetit and Food and Wine are arriving with the brazen heat of midsummer in their recipes, all ice creams and cold seafood salads. And even though no reader above the Mason-Dixon line has access yet to local heirloom tomatoes or watermelon, it's hard to resist the urge to run out and buy all of the shipped-from-overseas produce that you can hold, so that you too can eat fig and feta salad and fried squash blossoms. I practically sit on my hands on our backdoor stoop, whispering to my plants to grow, grow, grow into such marvelous meals.

Luckily, one doesn't need to wait for hot weather to make popsicles. And when I saw Deb's recipe for fudgesicles on Smitten Kitchen, all of my memories of the 3pm summer camp ice cream ritual arose and I knew I had to make them, rain or shine.

First I went out and bought the cheapest, most colorful popsicle set I could find (Jelly Belly brand, in case you're interested). And then I bought organic dark chocolate and hemp milk, because my sister Jessica can't eat dairy. And then I got to work.

This recipe takes ten minutes. Substitute whole milk or any other alternative "milk" for the hemp; I like to use hemp milk in vegan baking because it's tremendously rich and creamy, and full of omega-3 fatty acids. It doesn't taste great straight out of the box, though. A little...plant-y. You can also use semi-sweet chocolate for a milder flavor; again, I had to avoid dairy and dark chocolate is a lot more appealing than carob.



Fudgesicles (makes 4)

2 T chopped semi-sweet or dark chocolate

1/3 C sugar

1 T cornstarch

1.5 T cocoa

1.25 C whole or vegan milk

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 T butter


Melt the chocolate in a heavy pan over low heat. Whisk in the milk, cocoa, cornstarch and salt and cook (5-10 minutes) until thickened. Remove from the heat and whisk in the vanilla and butter. Cool slightly and pour into the popsicle molds. Freeze.

the girl next door

We have a new neighbor.

She's like chartreuse molasses, or something else similarly vibrant and spaced out; maybe she's a neon flower through the haze in an opium den.

She came to the door in black clothes and a beige beret and stayed for an hour. I know about her previous relationship in Georgia; her injuries as a dancer and photographer in New York City; her need to repaint her bedroom turquoise because the sage color is too deadening. Her love of curtains, and how she doesn't really drink much, but a beer on a hot day in the backyard is really nice. And she'll be drying her unmentionables on a laundry line out back.

I was in the middle of playing hooky to grade papers all day when she rang the bell, and the whole time she stood here, petting the cat, drawling sweetly about this and that, I couldn't decide if I'd met my new best friend or someone I will spend the next several months studiously avoiding by allowing the dinosaur ferns out front to finally obscure the front door.

I'm charmed by her friendliness and her weirdness (she kept referring with nostalgia to her "old neighborhood," which it turns out is a few blocks north of here, about five minutes away), but a little worried that the (miniscule) backyard is about to be invaded by 8,000 carefree artist types plunking away on guitars to all hours, amid the fuschia underpants swinging drowsily from the clothes line.

And then, what's so terrible about that? I'm always bemoaning the lack of community in our short row of apartments, and a super friendly neighbor who loves our cats and vintage furniture and fabrics and, okay, adds a little quirk to our backyard sounds fun. I think I've become so used to people being inaccessible--maybe to being a little bit that way myself--that someone so un-anxiously outgoing is a bit of a shock.

It's almost like Pippi Longstocking went to Sarah Lawrence, mated with Phoebe from Friends, and then the issue of that union moved in next door.

Readers, I sense a story.

Humble Pie

My husband doesn't really like dessert. The first time I made dinner for him, aside from extracting a promise from my roommate Justin to retire to his room very early in the evening, I baked almond biscotti and hand-dipped each cookie in bittersweet chocolate. While I was cooking the seafood rigatoni and making the salad, I gazed approvingly at those golden crescents, imagining T dunking a cookie into a cup of coffee at the end of our (amazing) meal, and envisioning me in bridal white. (I can't help it; like all 18th century authoresses before me, the best romances end in matrimony.)

Well, Justin and I enjoyed the cookies, albeit with neither of us desiring subsequent nuptials. T ate two generous helpings of the pasta and praised the salad and ignored the biscotti. Sweets just aren't his thing. I was baffled, and a little impressed. I like my dessert.

Over the years I've learned the few desserts that do appeal to T. Anything with fresh berries. Dark chocolate brownies with walnuts. Salted chocolate chip cookies. And we fight over coffee ice cream. So this morning when I offered to make dessert for Sunday dinner with his parents, I already had in mind a lazy crisp filled with strawberries and rhubarb.

Crisp (or crumble, I've yet to determine a real difference between the two) is a wonderful alternative to pie, because it's both less time-consuming and fruitier. Pie is lovely (okay, beyond lovely and bordering on heavenly), but the pastry crust does become a dominant flavor; in a crisp/crumble, a sweet, nutty and buttery crust gives way to a spoonful of rich stewed fruit. What lands on your tongue is fruit, and the topping simply provides a spicy complexity and wonderful texture.

Also, I'm lazy. Why fret over a pie crust that falls apart or is too tough or doesn't have enough flakiness when you can scrunch some butter, oats and sugar in a bowl, pour it over fruit and call it good?

I added oats, ginger and cinnamon to the usual flour/butter/sugar topping to add texture, nuttiness and a subtle kick to the streusel. You could add finely chopped nuts, too (almonds or walnuts would be nice), or grind the oats a bit for a finer crumb. It's pretty impossible to go wrong with a crisp, so experiment with your favorite fruits and flavors. In the summer cherry-almond is a nice combination, as is peach-pecan. One last note, crisps aren't always beautiful in the pan, but pair your spoonful of vibrant fruit and golden crumb with a scoop of softly yellow vanilla bean ice cream, and you have a sweetheart of a dessert.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp (adapted from Gourmet)

• In a bowl, combine: 2 lbs strawberries, halved; 1 1/2 lbs of rhubarb stalk, in 1/2 in slices; 1 C sugar; 3 T cornstarch; and 1 T lemon juice. Toss and pour into a 3 quart baking dish.
• Wipe out the bowl and combine: 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened and cut into small pieces; 3/4 C brown sugar; 3/4 C flour; 1/4 tsp salt; 1 1/2 C rolled oats; and a pinch each of cinnamon and ginger. Mix together with your hands until the butter is integrated and the topping comes together in little clumps.
• Spread the topping over the fruit, pressing down a little with your hands if you like a firmer crust.
• Bake in a 425 degree oven for 45-50 minutes, until the fruit is bubbling and the topping is golden brown. Serve warm, with ice cream or whipped cream as desired.

Charlotte, NC

We just returned home from a whirlwind trip to Charlotte, North Carolina for my little cousin's bat mitzvah. It was Tom's first bat mitzvah, and elaborate Jewish event, and I was as excited to show him the cultural markers of American Jewish adolescence as to see my extended family. We sat through the marathon Saturday morning service, line danced to Shania Twain at the after-party, and ate lots of bagels with my many cousins. The little kids zoomed around in a pack, the ladies (of a certain age) ate and complained about their weight, my grandma looked downright foxy, and in a moment of either pride or utter humiliation (jury's out) I exchanged party dresses with my eight-year old cousin, Olivia, who in my defense is tall for her age. It was really nice.

We rarely get out to the east coast where most of my family and three of my best friends live (though I didn't get to see them), and we miss so much: little kids grow up, we've become adults...it's hard not to feel like an interloper, albeit one with the same genetics, when you pop in and out of people's lives at lengthy intervals. As a little kid on Long Island, I took it for granted that everyone sees their grandparents every week, and that older cousins (now moms of bat mitzvah girls) always babysit for them. That's one of the reasons Tom and I are so invested in staying in Portland--to afford our future kids the same proximity to all of that grandparental, et al love and companionship. I just wish we could have our lives here, in a place so much healthier for and in tune with my nuclear family than Long Island ever was, and still be close to all those aunts and uncles and cousins and grandmas back east. Family will drive you crazy, it's true (I mean, I do tire of my grandmother's comparisons: "You look just like my mother! She wasn't a great beauty, but..."), but families are also tremendously comforting in their, well, familiarity. There's something lovely about walking into a room and knowing all of the old ladies are going to gush about your figure, and there will be little children to tease and tickle, and the male relatives who still pinch your cheek, and the cousins to gossip with. The outlandish symphony of kvetches and kisses and shrieks and coffee spoons stirring into endless teacups is paradoxically a melody of intimacy. Maybe you have to be born in it to find it soothing, or maybe you have to move 3000 miles away to enjoy brief returns to it; whatever the reason, for all its hectic travel, this weekend was relaxing.

Charlotte itself is a pretty and clean, if somewhat anonymous city. Most of the historic buildings have been razed and replaced by skyscrapers, but there are tons of fountains and open plaza spaces with modern art and restaurants. The cleanliness reminded us of Portland circa 1992--wide pristine sidewalks surrounded by trees and happy-looking pedestrians. Tom and I took a long walk Saturday afternoon with my parents and Lukas, and stumbled upon a little graveyard with fallen soldiers from the Revolutionary and Civil wars. We also walked to the "historic South End," which FYI is a ghetto and should be avoided. But what's travel without (minor) misadventure?