The Artist Forages: Strawberries
Strawberries are one of my favorite fruits, but the store-bought ones are always so bitter and flavorless that I never really want to eat them. My mom has this awesome strawberry shortcake recipe that's been passed down the line of moms for generations, but it's more sugar than strawberry. It tastes great, but it's kind of a lie because it doesn't matter if the strawberries are fresh, or in season. I think this is really what strawberries have become for most people. We've lost sight of the fact that fresh strawberries function perfectly as a fruit and don't inherently need sugar to be enjoyed.
In our ongoing quest to eat food that actually tastes good, Arianna and I took the morning off yesterday and went strawberry picking. She found this awesome fruit farm online that's near Raleigh called Whitted Bowers Farm. Rob and Cheri Bowers follow organic and biodynamic practices and have created a unique place in the state of North Carolina. I really got a kick out of talking to them about their approach to farming - it's refreshing to find people who have a true philosophy behind their work. Check out their site, and if you can, pay their farm a visit. It is well worth the effort.
I'd never picked strawberries before, only blueberries and apples, but it turned out to be really easy. They had the plants set up in raised rows, and it sort of felt like strawberry picking for dummies. We were picky about getting the perfect berries that were a deep, rich red on all sides. The kind that likes to hide behind big green leaves. In an hour and a half we picked close to 8 pounds of strawberries.
Driving home along the country roads I almost squashed a huge turtle that was slowly crossing the road. It must have been 4 inches from the car as I sped by. I guess sometimes it's good to not be able to dart - if it were a squirrel it would have probably jumped under my wheels at the last minute. I pulled the car into the grass along the side of the road and hopped out to move the turtle out of the way. It definitely hissed at me when I picked it up. I feel like we shared a moment.
I have a bunch of ideas for strawberry recipes, but I haven't gotten around to making them all yet. Arianna and I are making a pinwheel strawberry tart right now and if it works out I'll post pictures and the recipe next week. For now here's a go-to strawberry salad.
Strawberry Walnut Salad with Orange Hazelnut dressing
I've been eating tons of salad lately. I can't seem to get enough greens in me after the long season of hearty winter vegetables. This is a simple salad without a lot of ingredients - that's the point.
The toasted walnuts can be turned into caramelized walnuts without any extra work. The trick to toasting walnuts in a skillet is to not ever leave the stove! Seriously, they're toasting along, you go to open a beer and suddenly you have a skillet full of burnt nuts...
What you'll need:
8 cups field greens
10-15 strawberries, sliced
2 cups walnuts
2 tbsp butter (optional)
2 heaping tbsp brown sugar (optional)
1 cup hazelnut oil
¾ cup orange juice
1 lime
Preheat dry cast iron skillet over medium heat while you slice up the strawberries.
Toss the walnuts into the skillet (with the butter and sugar if you are going that route) and toast for about 5 minutes, stirring regularly. They're done when the smell is so awesome that you can't resist popping one in your mouth and burning your tongue. Remove to a plate and let cool.
Make the dressing by whisking together the hazelnut oil and o.j. with the zest and juice of 1 lime. Taste it and see what you think. O.J. really varies in sweetness and acidity so you might need to futz with proportions a bit.
Mix the greens, berries and nuts, and toss with the dressing until well coated. Serve immediately.
Giant in the Kitchen: Whole Wheat Rosemary Crackers
For some time now I have been struggling with a personal admission of guilt. I go back and forth in my head on how to admit - no, come to terms with - what I have become.
I am a thief.
On dark nights I slink around my neighborhood, sifting through other peoples' property and taking things which do not belong to me. Oh, it was easy to rationalize at first: a bit here, a bit there - "This house is enormous, they're rich and won't miss it" or "It's their own fault for leaving things lying about" or "They're growing it as a shrubbery - they aren't even using it as an herb". Once you get into this frame of mind, there's no turning back. At this point it's been about 8 months, and I can't imagine not going out late at night and snipping sprigs of other people's rosemary.
Now, hear me out, the quantities here in Winston-Salem are really quite staggering. In my small neighborhood, I can think of at least 15 rosemary bushes the size of Smart Cars. So who's really going to care if I take a bit of rosemary for a batch of crackers? (There I go, rationalizing again...)
Whole Wheat Rosemary Crackers
The challenge with having so much rosemary at hand is finding ways to use it. I've really focused on baking this past year and have come to enjoy strong flavors like rosemary and chive in my savory baked goods. These whole wheat rosemary crackers are great with runny cheese (St. Andre, anyone?) and the dough is firm enough to cut into shapes with cookie cutters. I picked up some killer animal-shaped ones at Ikea last week, but I'm not a huge fan of sugar cookies, so they're now officially cracker cutters. Who doesn't want to eat cheese off of a rosemary-flavored moose?
What you'll need:
1½ cups whole wheat flour
1½ cups whole white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons minced rosemary
½ cup olive oil
1 cup water at room temperature
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Give a cookie sheet a light coat of spray oil.
In a mixing bowl combine your dry ingredients and the rosemary. Make a well in the center of the mixture and poor in the oil. Using a sturdy spoon, stir the oil into the flour. Slowly stir in the water a little bit at a time until the dry and wet ingredients are incorporated and you have a somewhat floury dough. You'll probably only need ¾ of a cup of water, but measure out a full cup just in case things are especially dry.
Dump your dough onto a counter and knead it for 8-10 minutes. This is a tough dough to knead, so if you aren't breathing hard after about 5 minutes, you're either totally buff or not kneading hard enough. The dough should be firm and not at all sticky.
Take a quarter of the dough and using a rolling pin, roll it into an amoeba-like shape. The dough should be the thickness of two nickels (do you even use nickels anymore? I do...to measure my cracker dough). If the dough is not rolling out well, try flipping it over and rolling the other side.
When the dough is rolled out, you have options. You can either make shapes with cookie cutters or go for the standard one inch square shape using a pizza cutter. If you are going for squares, transfer the dough to the greased cookie sheet and then cut a grid of lines into it with the pizza cutter. The squares will separate easily after they are baked. If you are opting for the awesome animal shapes, cut them on the counter and place them on the pan ½ an inch apart.
Bake the crackers for around 12 minutes, rotating the cookie sheet 180° after 6 minutes. The crackers should be just slightly browned on their outside edges.
Remove the crackers to a wire rack and enjoy when they're cool enough to eat. The crackers should keep for a few weeks in an airtight container.
The Artist Arts: The Blacksmith
I've been playing around with Irish music lately. This is my simple interpretation of The Blacksmith. It was made popular by Planxty in the early 70's and their version is definitely worth checking out. My vocals are a little flat at the top and I'm thinking that I should redo it in a different key to see if it sits easier. But whatever it's a demo, done is beautiful. Punto e basta.
The Artist Arts:Walk On Boy
Ok, so I've been playing around with some home recording. I'm still fiddling a bit, but here's a cut of the Walk On Boy. I learned this one from an old Doc Watson instructional video. This is really his version of the song, except that it's very slow - 'cause, you know, I don't have Doc's chops. Something to aspire towards, eh? Maybe I'll try to record it faster and post it later this week.
The Artist Drinks: Raw Milk
Do you ever feel like a Superhero? I do...when I drink raw milk. It makes me feel like a great beast of a man; like the world is spinning by my grace alone. Raw milk (I probably should explain this) is milk which has not been pasteurized or homogenized. It is unprocessed and is basically going from the cow's udder to your mouth. Thankfully for the cow, there is a farmer and some refrigeration involved, but you get the idea. I have come to believe in the the deliciously restorative powers of raw milk. It may be just a placebo effect, but when I drink raw milk I feel like Wolverine - rippling muscles and a devil-may-care attitude.
When milk is pasteurized, the active enzymes and bacteria are killed, effectively "sanitizing" the milk. This is all well and good for standardization, but it fails to account for the fact that our bodies have a symbiotic relationship with the naturally occurring organisms living in the milk. For example, the enzyme lactase, which is killed during pasteurization, is instrumental in digesting the sugar lactose (Milk being chalk full of lactose). Lactase is naturally occuring in children, but as we grow up and are weaned from our mothers, we stop producing the enzyme. It is at this point which people develop lactose intolerance. I thought that I was lactose intolerant for years until I started drinking raw milk. Now I eat lactose like a bear eats honey.
Raw milk is amazingly delicious. You can almost taste the grass that the cow is pastured on, and the flavor definitely fluctuates as the seasons change. It is certainly not the static taste of store bought milk. Unfortunately all of the unique flavor is destroyed when the milk is pasteurized.
I guess that I should mention that raw milk is illegal in a bunch of states (check out the debate as to why here), but if you can find it, I really recommend that you give it a shot. I don't believe that the health concerns are warranted if you take the time to know the farmer who is milking the cows. Oh, yeah - if it gives you dysentery, I'm going to pretend like I don't know you.
The Artist Arts: A Poem For Your Thoughts
Giant in the Kitchen: The Briny Word
Have you brined? Brining is fun. Brining is easy. Everybody's doing it...Seriously though, brined food is moister, juicier, cooks easier and tastes better. So, why not try it? To start, what is brining? Good question! Rather than respond with simple prose, I have chosen to use the form of a sonnet:
Brine
How lovely are the messengers who tell
Of all the scrumptious attributes of brine
And keep their friends and family fed well
Spreading the briny word to human kind
Brining, gustatorially speaking
Guarantees you tasty pork and poultry
Also good to prevent people choking
Whilst feasting on your prized Christmas turkey
Every briner has their own concoction
With a secret blend of potent spices
Mine has pepper, bay and rind of lemon
Make yours with a flavor that entices
So spread the word of brine to heart's content
And salivate to meaty merriment
Brining is a simple marinade of salt water, and just about anything else you want. My brine is never quite the same because I use whatever is around: peppercorns, whole sprigs of rosemary, bay leaves, sage, maple syrup or brown sugar, cayenne, lemons, orange juice concentrate. I've got some pictures below of a brined Pilgrim's Acres free range chicken that I put together at Fair Shares. I'll use the chicken as an example, but apply the technique to whatever you're cooking. It is more about the approach than the specific recipe.
For the chicken brine, I used two sprigs of rosemary, three fresh bay leaves, the zest and juice of one lemon, a bit of sugar and a bunch of sea salt and peppercorns. With the salt, don't worry about measuring it. Take a container which is large enough to submerge the chicken in water, fill a third or half full with cold water (allowing for the water displacement of the bird) and stir in sea salt until it tastes like the Mediterranean (In a salty, not polluted sense). Be aggressive as you add flavors. Your brine should taste intense. This isn't the time for delicate seasonings - be bold! As you stir together the ingredients taste your concoction periodically to ensure you have some robust flavors happening. (This may be obvious to some, but make sure you don't taste the brine after you've put the Chicken into it. No one wants a case of salmonella!)
At this point, toss in your bird, top off with cold water so that it is completely submerged, and you're good to go. I stuck mine in the fridge for around 24 hours, but if you don't have that much time, don't worry about it. The timing for brining isn't an exact math. I would suggest soaking your bird in the brine for at least two hours. That's a minimum though - you want to allow the chicken the time to get fully saturated with flavors. I soaked the Thanksgiving turkey for two days last year, and it tasted brilliant. (Side Note: Pork can get so dry that brining is almost a necessity. With pork chops or steaks, two days is an excessive amount of time to brine. Two hours is a good time to shoot for, but a forty-five minute soak will do the trick.)
When the chicken is properly brined, remove the bird and rinse thoroughly with cold water. This is a key step. If you don't give the chicken a good rinse, it will be overly salted. Pat the chicken dry with a paper towel. At this point you have some more options. You can stuff the cavity with a sprig or two of fresh herbs. I used rosemary and oregano, but sage is also a good choice. Another option is sticking garlic or a halved lemon into the cavity. You can also stuff butter and herbs under the skin of the breast, but I think this is overkill with limited results. This stage of the process is another chance to be adventurous. Do something exciting. I stuck with bright, fresh, herbs in the hole and some garlic powder sprinkled over the top.
Now it's time to cook your chicken. Put it in a roasting pan breast side up and toss in a 400 degree oven. (Chickens can be confusing. Picture this - breast side up is when the chicken is running out of the pan, not into it.) After an hour, take the chicken out and flip it on to it's chest, pour some beer or stock over the bird and ring it with washed roasting potatoes and as many garlic cloves as you are willing to peel. I used a variety of Yellow Wood Farm's potatoes (a mix of red, black and golden roasters) that were fresh at Fair Shares. Top the spuds with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. For the fluid, I used a pint and a half (about 24oz) of Schlafly Oktoberfest. Any good lager will do the trick, but make sure to use something you would drink. If you would never drink Miller light, why would you cook with it?
Stick the bird back in oven and cook, basting occasionally until a thermometer stuck into the thigh (not touching bone) reads 170 degrees. Ok, you're done! One last note. The drippings from the chicken are amazingly delicious. Try and serve it in the pan you cooked the chicken in so that you can really sop up the juice with the extra bits of meat. Cheers!
EDIT: The beer quantity is all relative. Go for about a quarter inch of liquid in the bottom of your pan. In other words, if you have a smaller bird and less potatoes, bonus!, you get to drink most of that beer you opened!
The Artist Volunteers: Fair Shares
My travels continue - another week on the road, another week avoiding jobs and bills. I'm in St. Louis visiting family, and for the next week I'll be volunteering at Fair Shares - a combined CSA. Fair Shares is a food nonprofit owned and operated by my mother, Jamie, and my Aunt Sara. It's really an amazing concept, something completely unique. The basic idea is to create a community of people with a common interest in local food, sustainability, and social justice. The community is made up of both growers/producers (i.e. Farmers) and members of the CCSA. Each week members receive $50 worth of goods. They get a ton of locally grown produce and sustainably raised protein (grass fed/free range beef, pork, lamb, bison, chicken, and trout. Actually, I doubt that the trout is grass fed). They also get a weekly allotment of locally made commodities such as tortillas, honey, bread, maple syrup and freshly roasted coffee beans. The Fair Shares members get a great deal on locally grown consumables and the producers have a consistent buyer to supplement their sales at farmer's markets.
The social justice aspect comes in after the members have received their share of food. All the excess food, of which there is always some, goes to local food pantries. If you think of what usually goes to food pantries, pickled beets, creamed corn and the like, a box a fresh peaches is veritable a godsend.
Below, for your viewing pleasure, I have some pictures from the work site. I filled 90 bags with 44 pounds of locally grown Ozark Forest shitake mushrooms. It took a couple of hours because I had to weigh out 7.7oz of mushrooms into each bag. Tedious but fun.
Also, a perfect peach.
I get it. Relax
Okay. OK! I've gotten your emails. I've gotten your calls. I have received your post cards. The carrier pigeons are still coming in. I know. I get it. I haven't been posting with the weekday regularity that you've come to expect. I've been touring the New York metropolitan area and have found little success in finding suitable topics to put my artistic stink on. I've had a good latte or two, but that is hardly postworthy. We all know New York City has baristas. Believe me, they'll tell you - if they get past the condescension. (To be fair, the folks at Jack's on 10th st are really friendly and don't reek of hipster.)
Anyway, I'll leave you with this warning - Always check for Godzilla in your watermelon before picnicking.
