Furious Cooking!

Last night I made myself Roast Chicken with 4 Alliums. Nothing fancy: just half a good chicken roasted over split leeks, surrounded with ramps and garlic cloves and a few scallions just because I had them.

A friend brought me something I had never had before up from North Carolina - branch lettuce. She says it's the centerpiece of her family's annual spring supper: "branch lettuce (a wild green served with spring onions and wilted with hot bacon drippings and vinegar), cornbread, pinto beans and crispy smoked pork." Wow! I, rather boringly, just mixed mine with arugula, sliced Jerusalem artichokes and ramp greens for a spring salad. I loved it: tart and slightly fuzzy - it reminded me a little of the clover-shaped sweetgrass we used to pick and eat when I was little.

Anyway, had that salad tonight with my friend Ruby. We also had that simple pasta of shells, bacon, peas, ricotta and Parmesan. Dessert was a strawberry-rhubarb crumble and some of the delicious buttermilk ice cream I got at Marlowe and Daughters yesterday. I pushed some blueberry muffins on her as she was leaving, since I made a batch of Cook's Illustrated's (I shouldn't say so, when I didn't follow all their instructions and added the berries whole instead of cooking half of them into a jam!) and can't possibly eat them all while Matt's out of town...

Oh! Sunday, some friends and I tried the new pie shop, Four and Twenty Blackbirds. The space was adorable and one of the pies - Lemon Chess - outstanding, sort of like a wedge of lemon square. The pear-ginger was just not my kind of palate and as to the Shoo-Fly, why, she who orders shoo-fly pie should know what she's getting, especially if she's just had some in Philadelphia two days prior!

On Coffee

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that I don't like good coffee.

Let me revise that: I don't like the new wave of good coffee. I am particular about the coffee I brew every day (I should be, I drink enough of it); we get our beans delivered every ten days from d'Amico in Carroll Gardens and I "decant them into glass" as Laurie Colwin would say and grind them as needed. But as to all the boutique coffees springing up all over town, I just don't...get it.

In principle, I was gung-ho! I am all for fair trade/small batch/artisanal stuff and most yuppie food movements have pretty delicious results. But from the first time I tasted the coffee at my local spot in Greenpoint, regarded as a vanguard of the boutique coffee movement - so serious are they that they host regular "coffee-tastings" to educate the palate - I knew doubt. I didn't like the bright, acid flavor or the amber color or, frankly, what it did to my admittedly weak stomach. And this conviction has only strengthened as I've gamely worked my way through roasting plants and caffeine meccas around the city. Whereas I used to see "Stumptown" or "Counter-Culture" or and have a moment of happiness, now my heart sinks. I alternate between calling myself a Philistine and bitterly muttering about naked emperors. I guess it's really, at the end of the day, just a question of taste: I like old-school, oily, dark-roasted beans. I like d'Amico and Porto Rico Importing Co's "Danish Blend" and am eager to try the venerable "Texis Coffee" in Queens. Heck, I'd as soon have a good Bustela with hot milk, frankly. There, I said it.

On Baked Beans, Simplicity, Eccentric Entertaining

As far as entertaining goes, sometimes I think people have lost the courage of their convictions. Take this passage from the Tasha Tudor Cookbook, introducing the (rather iconoclastic) recipe for Baked Beans:

These I learned to make from Nell Dorr, the well-known children's photographer. No one, to my mind, has exceeded the art of Nell and her Rolleiflex camera. No posing, no flashes, just pure magic. Nell Dorr gave memorable supper parties in her home, the West Branch, in Westport, Connecticut. I recall the many artists who attended these agreeable gatherings; Robert Lawson was one. It was all delightfully informal, with small tables set about the four small rooms. Nell looked lovely, as she always did, in her long frocks, with Queen Anne's lace in her dark hair. Her famous baked beans and homemade bread were always served, and no other baked beans can compare.

(If you're thinking that you need to buy this cookbook RIGHT NOW you're not wrong.) Dorothy Draper's estimable Entertaining is Fun (which you also need if you don't have it) often advocates a similar approach, suggesting menus of lots of one thing, and no apologies. I remember reading somewhere about some famous hosts who were known for serving only sugared bacon at their cocktail parties and someone else who always offered whiskey and peanuts. As soon as I develop my gimmick, I intend to do likewise. (Although it must be said that the party at which I only served different kinds of deviled eggs was regarded as peculiar.)

I was inspired by this to make baked beans today; I didn't follow Tudor's instructions to "parboil the beans until their skin pops when you blow on them" then simmer until squashable (I soaked and pre-cooked them instead, although I'll admit to a little futile huffing-and-puffing at a bean's skin, just by way of experiment.) They are baking away now, and very savory they smell too on this rather chilly, San Francisco-ish day. No homemade bread, alas, but I do have a key lime pie and (to use up the resulting whites) some chocolate-chip meringues.

Spring Fling

Making a real spring meal for a change: salmon, roasted asparagus, new potato salad! (I like the potato salad from Simon Hopkinson, just potatoes and scallion in a thick, mustardy vinaigrette. For "picnic" potato salad, I like the one Elaine and I had on Tangier Island - as detailed in the Hilda Crockett Inn Cookbook, which I own - which involves mayo, grated onion, chopped egg and, most important, chopped sweet pickles and their juice.) I also made some rhubarb compote, which I sweetened with maple because, ever since a maple farmer told me that as a kid his favorite snack was new rhubarb stalks dipped in maple sugar, I've fancied the flavor combination. Happy Spring!

New Bun on the Block!

Have found another good Hot Cross Bun! Surprisingly enough, at the ancient Lafayette Pastry, notable chiefly for its charming, elderly proprietess and the fact that they carry "charlotte russe," a cardboard cup of sponge and whipped cream with a movable bottom that, apparently, used to be the delight of every mid-century Brooklyn child but is now almost extinct! [Oh, I forgot they were the ones who made the "drunken negro cookie" a few months back. Just did an image search and, yes. Hm. Problematic. This effects the rest of the entry but will run it anyway.] Anyway, I bought the HCB more because I wanted to buy something and it goes against the grain to pass one up (except at Amy's Bread, where they're like iced ciabatta.) But it was good! In the Galloway's style, which is to say more of a Parker House roll dough, studded with currants and a little citron. Would buy this bun again. Indeed, I will: this Friday I intend a very wide-scale tasting. And I need to buy some cheese for a dinner that evening, so I believe I must needs be in the area. (I like Lucy's Whey in the Chelsea Market. Smallish, but impeccable, selection, and terrific staff. Or there's always Murray's.)

The Brink Of Despair!

Hunger sent me into despair and indecision at the Chelsea Market today...













But a sandwich cured all that!

Most Revolting Thing I've Ever Seen:

A scone studded with Oreos! Quel horreur!