Eggplant: Convincing the unconvincable

I subscribed to a CSA this year. First time, long time coming.  While it means deliciously fresh, local (ie. guilt free) produce, organic (in this case), well loved, lip-smacking good, it also means.....a little bit of strife. Box number one glared up at me with it's purple sheen, hiding beneath butter lettuce, pressed between English cucumbers and heirloom tomatoes.  Eggplant.  Can you see it?

Eggplant

What to do with this gummy, oddly seeded, tough, flavorless aubergine? Wikipedia tells me that this lovely little veggie (sometimes a fruit) only arrived in the west circa 1500, hardly a time when my people were developing their palates.  Clearly mine still has not developed a taste for this. As a matter of fact, neither has the Cap'n nor Trodimon's.  We have three non-believers that need to be converted.  Nothing from box #1 will go to waste.

I stumble upon this little recipe and the wheels start to turn.  I wasn't craving an Asian taste.  Last night's soup satisfied that taste bookmark for the week.  But I like the idea.  Cut a slit in 3/4" eggplant rounds and stuff it full of...something.  This I can work with.

Stuffed, eggplant, Italian-- and fennel pops in my head.  One of my coworkers has recently fell head over heels for Mario Batalli, or more particularly the man's use of fennel.  Like any good Italian knows, fennel is not just for our Italian sausage but can be blended into almost anything for that little non so cosa (Italian for je ne sais quoi).  .

So what if we combine ricotta cheese, hot Italian sausage and fennel and stuff eggplants with that.  Then grill it.  Throw it on a bed of marinara pasta...

And top with garden-grown Italian parsley and vodka marinara.  Presto!  We were converted.  This tastes nothing like that gummy, gross, overly breaded flavorless, gelatinous mass that I hate.  This eggplant is fresh and firm and earthy. And, much to Mario's delight, full of fennel.  Delicious.  I think for round two lunch leftovers I may even spoon the extra filling on top of the eggplant.

And here you have it.  Our inaugural meal on my newly built picnic table.  May the delicious combination of CSA challenges and convertible palates begin on my soon-to-be-blue picnic table!

Italian Stuffed Eggplant
1 eggplant, sliced into 3/4" rounds, and slit 2" wide
1 cup ricotta
3 links of hot Italian sausage, de-cased, browned and broken into small bits
2 t freshly ground fennel
1 medium zucchini, sliced into 1/8 inch strips
8 oz whole wheat thin spaghetti
1 jar vodka marinara
2 T chopped Italian parsley
Salt & pepper
Olive oil

Prepare spaghetti according to package instructions.  Toss with 1/3 c marinara sauce to keep the pasta from sticking.  Fire up your grill.  Combine ricotta, sausage, fennel, and salt and pepper to taste.  Stuff eggplant rounds with ricotta mix.  Brush eggplant and zucchini with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Grill zucchini and eggplant for 5 minutes each side, or until nice char marks develop.  Plate pasta, cross 2 zucchini strips and place eggplant atop pasta pile.  Spoon extra marinara atop eggplant and sprinkle with parsley.

*line your grill with aluminum foil to keep your eggplant from sticking to the grill.
** to be enjoyed on a hot summer night after biking a gallon of blue wood stain 4 miles home.  This is going to be a picnic table deserving of such hard-fought-for-meals.

An academic approach to cooking: Philosophy & Food

Well folks the cat is out of the bag. I'm currently attending Kendall College to obtain my Certificate of Professional Cookery. No, I don't really think that I want to work the line in a restaurant. No, I don't think this will change my day job. But damn do I hope it makes me one hell of a dinner party host.

My plan had been to wait until near retirement for this bucket-list-pursuit. But as I've been reminded lately, life is too short for waiting later in life to pursue what you love and, as un-American as it sounds, maybe it's ok to throw money and time and energy at something just because you love it and not because it's going to take you to the right career path. I am interested in developing myself as a passionate, interesting person, which sometimes can include, but does not always include the diligent, focused worker. So there.

This weeks assignment in Stocks, Soups & Sauces was "write about your Philosophy of Food." Period. Chef Pollin gave us little direction when he simply added, "you know, I jus laiike to 'ear about what it eez zat makes you want to cuuk." So here goes.

I am passionate about food because I am passionate about taste.  Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin says in The Physiology of Taste, “taste invites us, by arousing our pleasure, to repair the constant losses which we suffer through our physical existence.  [And] it helps us to choose from the variety of substances which Nature presents to us those which are best adapted to nourish us.”  For me, the taste of food, the experience that happens when we taste food drives me too cook, to seek out new adventures in taste, to store memories in a way that flavor is what marks time and keeps me in place and drives me to new places. 

Food in our culture is often abused as it is such a comfort for when we feel pain.  Brillat-Savarin is right when he says that taste repairs losses.  The concept of comfort food itself validates this.  For me there is a place in my brain where I store memories of taste and most frequently those flavors are tied to an emotion.  The taste of asparagus brings me to the early green shoots of daffodils poking their way up on a dreary April morning.  The taste of a hearty stew reminds me of coming home from college to a supportive, encouraging mom.  The taste of peppery goat cheese sends me straight to a garden in the Loire Valley where I ate the best cheese I ever had on a drizzly afternoon sitting under a pine tree.  It is through taste that I can recall my life and mark time through the flavors of seasons. 

Taste has an incredible forward-moving component to it as well.  As a thrill seeker and adventurer, I likewise am always on the hunt for a new taste.  Being passionate about food means you are always after something just a little bit different, just a little bit better than the last dish you created.  As I find new flavors, I think about layering and combining flavors and textures in a new way, playing with those combinations in my head.  The crave of taste has lately brought me to farmers markets and to raising chickens in my back yard.  It has begun playing a formative role for my hobbies and interests, much to my surprise and delight. 

Food is my medium for showing people that I care about them as I provide a space and a carrier for them to hold good memories.  Through sharing food and the experience of taste, I think we share one of the most fundamental acts of being human: feeding ourselves.  Through this nourishment, we do repair the ‘losses of physical existence’ and in so doing, create a lasting bond between ourselves and those we eat with.   

Best of the Spring: Swing Away

I've been on a good run lately.  Hittin' it outta the ball park, taking it all the way, killing it, taking names, destroying it, hitting it spot on, nailing it.  No matter what double entendre you use, I've been freaking good at picking out recipes lately.  Of course, it's always a community effort so thank you Jessi, Trodimon, MelCC and others who have contributed: this good run is for you.

Bo Ssam

First up, way back in March when the days were drizzly and 40 degrees seemed like a heat wave, there was a tweet that started it all.  "Just saw this on @hungrynation (via @food52). Needs to be a pork shoulder dinner experiment. http://bit.ly/9Ts8x2" from @tokissthecook.  Our experiment worked so well, I made it again for my mom's 60th birthday.  Talk about momentous.  Talk about delicious.  Talk about hitting one way out of the park. 

Ginger scallion sauce, jalapeno garlic puree, soy sauce. 

 

Salty, sweet shredded pork shoulder, sugar-vinegared sushi rice

 

 Fingerling, Asparagus, Goat Cheese Pizza
Right around this time, farmers markets are getting a little bare bones, until aspargus appears.  Bright green shoots just after our last snow bring smiles to the faces of drearied, wearied farmers market shoppers.  We were long overdue for a meeting of the minds:  Trodimon vs some dear friends from college days: MelCC and her indy filmmaker. They met the chickens and the man and gorged on some outstanding, local, fresh pizza.  I appreciate the foods and friends that take you from one season to another.  Talk about easing transition.

 Supplemented by, not-so-local but oh-so-savory Spicy Sausage & Gorgonzola Pizza.

  
Red Snapper
Up next, something that's been staring me straight in the eye lately.

I've never filleted a fish.  Until 3 weeks ago.  Picking up cooking school certainly does keep you on your toes. I've made a promise, or at least a sincere effort to use one skill per week in my everyday cooking that I have learned and now that we're past julienne carrots, I've had to get my game face on.  One sunny, warm, fatigued Friday night I found myself leaning over the counter at Whole Foods asking the fish monger if I could touch and smell the fish he presented.  The folks next to me who were buying pre-seasoned and breaded cutlets of cod, thought I had gone a bit over the deep end.  Nick the monger was obliging saying, "Yeah this snapper is from the Gulf-- err, not near the oil though?!"  Slick to the touch, firm flesh and glossy eye told me this little guy was a keeper.  

Dragged home, butterflied leaving one side of the flesh still attached to the bones, and nestled on a bed of Spanish White Beans & Spinach. It stared me in the eye, and I stared right back.

Chicken al Mattone
This one hasn't been staring me in the face, but lingering in my mind for almost a year now.  It happens frequently that my memory stores flavors and images, a little more realistic than I believe is normal.  This cover of Bon Appetit from September 2009 has been taunting me since then.  

I'm on the hunt for whole chicken recipes since making friends with a chicken farmer at GCM last summer, and finding that oven roasted whole chicken could get me through a whole week of salads, wraps, sandwiches and more.  Pre-cooked chicken is the perfect summer fare. For this one, you remove the backbone, butterfly the whole chicken and stick it under a brick.  Forget the "marinate for 24 hours"-- none of us have the forethought for such things in summer.  Rub on the oil, herbs and garlic and let it go.  It's hands down the best roasted chicken I've ever had.  So good, I didn't get to snap a picture of it plated before it was inhaled.  I killed this one real good.

I'm just saying, when it comes right down to it, sometimes on momentous occasions, you've got to just hit it out of the park.  Mama Green Sug says, "go big or go home!!"

Our hens are growing up

Please tell me if you are a pet owner, that it is perfectly normal and healthy to track life on the stages of your pet's growth.  Just as I type that phrase, it feels that this whole 'chickens in the city' is me feathering my nest much more than I had intended.  I swear I'm not nesting.  I'm still running about, taking weekend trips to microbreweries just to get out of the city and see the horizon for a bit.  I have only gone to one Cubs game this year and plan to multiply that number shortly. However.  Sigh.  I'm starting to mark time by this kind of growth:

They started hand-held:

They were little and cute and chirping away in our back porch.

Fluff started disappearing, feet and feathers grew

they learned to how to make friends.

and how to perch.

 

And then, my dear girls got a real home, not just a cardboard box, brought to you buy mypetchicken.com.

 

We're calling a chicken condo, rather than coop.  And since they're Old Town hens, they'll probably be getting little Tiffany's bracelets for their second birthday.  Classy ladies.

The hens are happily nested, though still won't be laying until September.  In the meantime I tossed in a few strawberry tops and asparagus ends and the girls went wild.

So I have housed-soon-to-be-nested, happy chickens.  And somehow, as they're now the size that's a bit too large to be held, but not quite yet laying, I think I had better think about where I will grow my beans this year, and when to move the herbs outside.  We're mid-spring-sized chicken.

Crop Mobbing

Friday afternoon as the markets slowed down and the grain brokers came back to the office after spending the day on the floor of the CBOT, I was cornered by one of our grain brokers.  Rumors have been running through my firm that 'Joanna was raising chickens'--and this guy hunted me down.  "Really?!" he said, "I thought that all was a big joke!  But I've been thinking about raising them myself?!"  I'm shocked and delighted all at once and the conversation begins:  "I mean, how shocking is it that this is the first generation in the history of humanity that doesn't know how to grow it's own food?!"  "Yes and since that bothers me and I want to do something about it, I've been named the crazy one on the desk?!"

I've been running into a lot of kindred spirits lately.  Turns out, raising chickens in Chicago has two reactions:  there are those who are shocked, appauled, disgusted, incensed that you would DARE to do something that dirty in their backyard. "What are you going to do with all that poop!!" is the most common question.  My answer: I'm not intending to pick every last piece of it up with a ziplock baggie. (no offense to the dog lovers out there but honestly, it seems like a funny logical block)  The other response is one of comraderie.  I'm finding more and more folks who have been thinking about composting/buying local/cooking more/raising chickens even.  And my chickens, have become the avenue for having these kinds of conversations. 

I ran across this NYT article in mid-February and immediately thought-- is there anyone in Chicago doing this?  As a periphery member of the AUA I am slowly finding more and more ways to meet like-minded folks who are passionate about knowing where food comes from and who are interested in helping the traveling between there and here.  So... a few weeks ago this thread was posted:

    *Kismet Fruit Farm*, a 6 year old fruit farm, needs to salvage raspberry
    shoots and canes and strawberry crowns from their previous farm site.
    Their commitment to support community food production anywhere,
    aligns them with Cob Connection for this great opportunity for our
    supporters  - to go home with the fruits of their labors.

    Most of the digging work will be done by tractor, so mostly we will bend,
    collect, and organize while we talk, laugh, sing and get to know each other.

    In exchange for your hard work and eagerness to get out of the city and onto
    a farm this spring, you will be fed dinner, breathe fresh air, and share in
    the bounty!

And so I did.

7 am on Saturday morning Trodimon and I went cruising up to Western Michigan to help.  As it turns out, Kismet has been sharing land with a pair of established farmers and needed to move crops from the land-share to their own land.  Land owners Joan and John were there to help, much to Kismet's surprise.  There seems to be more going on in this relationship but since we're there to pick canes and crowns, we save our questions for later.

Joan and John are the kinds of farmers that look like a postcard: she's out there in a skirt, a SKIRT in the fields! in a dress that looks delightfully homemade.  His grey beard grazes his chest as he bends slowly to pick up the canes left by those without such a careful eye.

We talk about my chickens and how to preserve eggs in a crock for your pantry in the 19th century manner with a kind of limewater something.  We talk about my one failed attempt at making mozzarella from scratch and her goat cheese made from her three momma goats.  "Oh we have 9 babies that are just one month old, would you all like to come and see them?  Sure, you can come see the whole place-- our solar panels and wind turbines and everything."  Joan & John's bread and butter is their organic blueberry farm but they also have a team of oxen for maple syruping, three momma goats for milk and 15-ish chickens (it's hard to keep track when they keep having chicks and turning up on the dinner table).

They have lived off the grid since they moved onto the farm 30 years ago.  Wind and solar power the electricity for the house.  Heat comes from wood that John mills from the trees on the land.  They are building a beautiful new farmhouse and John is milling all of the wood for flooring, wainscotting, porches, the list goes on.  They're incredible people.  Like-minded, doesn't even begin to describe it.  Through the tour of their farm, I'm realizing: you are precisely the people that I'm changing my life to be like.  I'm not able to live off the grid or make all of my own goat cheese, but I'm learning lessons in home preserving and raising chickens and talking to the farmers that I'm buying from because of people like you.

It's a funny thing when you imagine a life that you're trying to shadow and then find yourself meeting those very folks.








All this to say, I just wanted to show you all what their life looked like.  No, I don't think I'm ready to move to a nineteenth century farm house.  But I do want to live a life as responsibly as Joan and John.  I want to be proud of the life that I'm living and take ownership of what I'm using.  I want to live in a way that creates conversation and inspires other people to do the things that they've been thinking in the back of their minds.

We returned home to grid-powered apartments and a fridge full of store bought food.  I think we even ordered out pizza because we were both too tired to cook.  Baby steps.  We brought back strawberry crowns of our own for planting.  This summer, as my strawberries fruit, I will make jam and when the blueberries are in season, I plan to make a run up to Joan & John's to pick my own and chat with Joan about the very best kinds of blueberry preserves. 

Any and all are welcome.

Eggs to Chickens

Now isn't that the natural progression?  The cyclical question for me is quite easy.  The egg ALWAYS came before the chicken.  It all started here:

Eggs on toast is my absolute favorite homemade breakfast.  If I could have two eggs, sunny side up and a piece of whole wheat toast for breakfast every morning I swear I would be the most productive, alert broker there ever was.  Punching the clock at 6:30 am leaves little room in my morning schedule for breakfast, let alone one that's pan-fried, so I have resigned myself to every Saturday and Sunday morning making a pretty looking breakfast for myself.  Either like this one above or this one here or the ones here, it's a must to keep my early morning habits consistent and healthy.

The breakfast above is a particularly memorable one.  This winter, I finally visited an old friend from college whose side hobby had been an intriguing point for quite some time:  he owns two little Rhode Island Reds that live in a coop, outside his apartment in Lincoln Square. After greeting the ladies, watching them poke around in the dirt and brick patio for the better part of an hour on a chilly grey January Saturday morning, we ventured back to the kitchen where he retrieved from his freezer three lovely brown eggs.  "Here" he said, "I've got much more than I know what to do with."

Sometimes when you see someone else doing something that looks crazy and impossible, something clicks in your mind and makes it seem like you yourself could actually do it too.  Didn't you ever get into something you never dreamed of because someone that you knew was already doing it and that somehow took some pressure off?  I will not be so naive or foolish to pretend that I'm the first one ever doing this (puh-lease people have been raising chickens for centuries!) nor even the first in Chicago (check out this lovely google group for more info), though I may be the first in Old Town... 

4 little peeping chicks, nay, squawking chicks were delivered to my doorstep on Tuesday morning.  They had been injected with a LOT of electrolytes and packaged up with some heat packs and straw in a box and shipped overnight from a hatchery in Naperville. I believe they were born on Sunday, which would make them exactly one week old today.  Here is Paprikash on her first week birthday with daffodils that just bloomed today:

So here's hoping that you're along for this adventure too, and prepared for many an egg recipe come October.  In the girls honor, I threw a petit "wine and chicks" evening for some girlfriends.  What's better on a dreary Friday night in March than a little red wine and chirping hens (human and gallus families).  And what better dessert should one have with Easter heavy upon us, than coconut cupcakes.

Thanks to Ina Garden for always knowing precisely what I should cook for parties and having the best cupcake recipes there ever were.

Chickadee Coconut Cupcakes
3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temp
2 cups sugar
5 large eggs, at room temp
1 1/2 t pure Mexican vanilla
1 1/2 t pure almond extract
3 c flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 c buttermilk
14 oz sweetened, shredded coconut

For the frosting:
8 oz cream cheese at room temperature
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1 t Mexican vanilla
1/4 t almond extract
2-3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 350.
Cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer on high until light and fluffy as a little 1 week old chick.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating slowly between each add.  Add vanilla and almond extracts and mix well.

In a separate bowl, whisk together, flour, powder, soda, salt.  In threes, add the flour mix and buttermilk to the sugar & butter mix, in shifts.  Mix just until combined.  Fold in 7 ounces of coconut.

Line a muffin tin with paper liners, fill liner to the top with batter and bake for 25-30 minutes.  Allow the cakes to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.

While cakes are baking, cream together cheese, butter, vanilla and almond with an electric mixer on low.  Add confectioners' sugar and mix until smooth.

Frost the cupcakes and sprinkle with remaining coconut.

Espressos In Brazil

Last week, I was in Brazil for work and in true "when in Rome" fashion I found myself consuming up to 6-10 espressos a day.  Two for breakfast, 2 during morning meetings, 1 with lunch, 2 during my afternoon meetings, and one after dinner.  Hang on, that's decidedly 10.  Shameful.  While I cut my caffeine consumption back to normal levels, I thought I'd share with you all just how representative my consumption levels were displayed throughout my photos of the trip. Here are a few smatterings for your viewing pleasure:

Breakfast at Praia Ipanema Hotel (much recommended for any stay in Rio, stay away from Cococabana)

Breakfast meeting & mid-meeting cafes

Alright alright, so I wasn't drinking coffee the WHOLE time: Chopp: cheap delicious cold Brasilian lager & Ipanema Beach

How does the phrase go?  An espresso a day keeps the sleepiness away?

And just for kicks:  water & a biscotio de polvilho watching futevolle

Guarana, amazonian fruit soda & pao de queijo.   The view from the top of Pao de Acucar

I'm missing the flavors of Brasil already.