Lobster

We eat lobster with unpracticed abandon. During this annual ritual we shed our summer seersucker manners and revel instead in the savagery of mere eating. It’s so easy to do in Maine. A walk to the lobster pound to pick out our dinner; with a long-handled net one of the workers scoops our selection into a brown paper bag and drops that into a plastic one. We hand over our cowry and the trade is completed; out we go and head back home. Into a large pot filled with a few inches of boiling water go the squirming crustaceans, brown, blue, sea-floor camouflage. The lid is closed and in just minutes they boil and steam to perfection. In the time it takes to set the table we stop thinking about them as animals and begin smelling dinner. We lift the lid and retrieve these fiery beacons of summer.
We tear them apart, pulling off legs and pecking at their bellies. Once we’ve sucked the small bits of flesh from the now-hollow legs we move on, hungry for more. The claws are the first fruit that begin to satisfy our craving. These once-wielded weapons are the easiest to break open, and we celebrate these plump nuggets with a mouthful of ale or a gulp of wine. After all the prying and tearing and pulling and biting we eat the tail, breaking it from the top and turning it over to open it. We feast on the tail, savoring and ripping the meat with canines, incisors, and molars. This is how our species evolved, nimble-fingered mammals capable of tearing and chewing other living things. This insect of the sea brings us back to Maine year after year, and whether prices are high or low we feast on them night after night. We eat few other things so completely and in such an unadulterated manner. No separation between us and our prey as we reach for another one-pound soft shell. It’s hard to imagine us ripping apart a chicken or pig and breaking its bones as we tear into its flesh. But on these July nights the smell of pines mingles with the smell of dinner, and we sit with a mound of shells between us – heads, tails, legs – all torn asunder and discarded, and we are satisfied, content animals.

Chicken soup

Rain at the cottage: the kids are in the kitchen playing Monopoly, our youngest nephew is napping, us parents are reading newspapers, magazines, and old books left here from summers past, and the plash of rain through the canopy of towering maples soothes us all as much as the huge pot of chicken soup simmering on the stove. A cut up-chicken, a few extra legs from the icebox, a heap of vegetables - onions, celery, carrots; a few herbs, and salt and pepper.
Here with several of my siblings, all of us remember our mom's cooking and expansive love and generosity. And I think about all the changes in eating habits since we were kids. While processed food was available when we were kids, its widespread presence in today's American diet is something my siblings and I shake our heads at. One of my sisters has food sensitivities and this morning she was saying how hard it is to find half and half that doesn't have preservatives in it. "Why," she asked, "can't I find a product that's just milk and cream? Why does cream need preservatives? People use it quickly, and it doesn't need anything else in it." She spends more time reading labels than she'd like to.
Making food isn't as time consuming as food marketers want us to believe. I can make a tomato sauce in the time it takes the water for pasta to boil, so what time savings is there by opening a can of prepared sauce? The time it takes to make a rich chicken soup is negligible; a few minutes chopping things and then hours of good smells to whet the appetite. A few voices rise to challenge a play on the Monopoly board and threaten the little one's nap, but the slow gurgle of stewing broth percolates through the cottage, filling each room with the fragrant scent of herbs and stock, keeping everything on a pretty even keel.
Taking short cuts seems too prevalent in our society and it's especially apparent in our food choices. The cooking I grew up with wasn't haute cuisine and it didn't require much more than a few minutes thought and a little preparation. Prepared and packaged foods may get us to the dinner table a few minutes quicker, but when we consider the afternoon smells of a long-simmered pot of soup as a mere prelude to the meal itself, I'll take the long road to dinner every time, and spend that time with family and friends.

Birthday beans

I first planted these beans in the summer of 2003. We went to Paris the previous fall and bought these beans, Facila is the variety, on our daughter's first birthday. When they grew that first summer, we reminded her that these were her birthday beans, the ones we bought in Paris. She ate them with relish right off the plant. I saved seed from the best plants and the following spring planted them again. And here we are, harvesting birthday beans for the seventh time. And they're still my daughter's favorite.
This, perhaps, is how things get named. When I list these beans in the Seed Savers Yearbook I'll document that the bean was originally named Facila, and that it's a variety sold by Vilmorin, the old French seed house that's taken over a large share of the world's seed trade, but I may call them Birthday Beans instead. It's as good a name as any I've heard for a bean. I love the story we tell each other every year, and how we say Birthday Bean with more enthusiasm than, say, "zucchini." Our daughter was born on 9.12.01, and the moment she was born I saw proof that life is irrepressible, that life itself will bourgeon and blossom and will not fail, even when people do. And as these beans grow and nourish us each year, we, too, are renewed each time we save seed and plant it; we midwife the seed from one generation to the next.
Last night I picked a bowl-full for dinner. I blanched them very briefly - they were in boiling water for less than 30 seconds - because they're so tender and fresh and I just wanted to brighten them up a bit. I quickly doused them in cold water and turned the burner on high. Into the saucier went a teaspoon of duck fat; as soon as it was hot I added the beans, fresh tarragon, and a sprinkling of fine sea salt. Two minutes from the garden to the table, full of green and family lore.

Blueberries

We picked blueberries on Sunday, twenty-three pounds of them. My wife and I said to each other, "Wow, ninety-five dollars is a lot to spend on fruit." I thought about all the pancakes we'll eat, all the pies I'll bake, and thought "Hey, my pies are probably ten-dollar pies, maybe even more when I use a lard/duck fat crust."
We'll get our money's worth. We'll stain our lips and eat pie before bed and then again for breakfast. I'll pour a blueberry compote over roast pork and bake whole berries into muffins; in March we'll still be eating blueberry pancakes on weekend mornings. They're all in the freezer now, two stacks of ziploc bags on the bottom shelf. Cup by overflowing cup and bag by bag, we'll eat July the whole winter long.
We picked on the very first day of the blueberry season because last year our vacation coincided with the season and when we returned it was over. We head to Maine next week and we'll pick wild ones along the mountain trails; the lure of them has turned my youngest into an avid hiker. She'll keep going if there are blueberries ahead, even if the trail is a difficult one.

Anticipating corn

Last year I wrote about corn and wondered why we don't have a deep tradition of corn-based recipes for the month of August. If corn was native to China or France, I feel certain there'd be a whole cuisine that revolved around its seasonal abundance. And while I love corn on the cob, there ought to be richer food traditions that everyone knows and participates in. I know there are people out there who swear by a recipe or dish they know, but my question is, "Why don't all of us know it?" Why haven't we been able to forge a lasting culinary tradition when we're surrounded by mountains of corn for four weeks each year?
Corn season is just around the corner. I'll be making my corn chowder, you can be sure of that. And eating it fresh off the cob. But what else should we be doing with it?

And it's July

And it’s July and I’m thinking about food. I made pumpkin pie for the 4th of July and a cold slice with fresh whipped cream tasted great. And baked beans and watermelon. We got beautiful lettuce from our neighbor’s garden and made a big salad. Grilled vegetables and plump hot dogs, too. Meaghen asked why I don’t make baked beans more often. This batch has pancetta instead of salt pork, and less molasses than usual. I think I’ll make the next pot with lemon grass, coriander, and honey and see if I can convert my wife, who likes her beans with cumin.
Today we sat in the back yard and ate cold, red watermelon when we were hot from lugging and cutting, hauling and tossing. Watermelon might be the most refreshing food ever grown.
This evening Meaghen made an omelette with pieces of pancetta the size of pats of butter, all sautéed and giving up their fat so the omelette could sizzle and float on a clear, fragrant film. I made swiss chard and used our last frozen tomato from last year’s harvest – wow, only a month until we start eating them from the garden again!
I’m sore from working outside much of the weekend. I’m still trying to improve the rabbit cages and chicken housing because I don’t have a good system for managing the urine and poop of the rabbits. I’ve suspended the rabbit cages so the cage floors stay clean, and currently the waste is falling onto a big sheet of 6 mil plastic, which I haul out every few days and dump. It’s a bit messy, and when we go on vacation in a few weeks the set up is pretty awkward for the neighborhood kids who will water and feed the animals.
After much talk we finally got more chickens. We have just four pullets (immature hens) now and we look forward to eating fresh eggs in a few months. But their housing isn’t finalized, either. What we currently use is fine while the weather is nice; I just keep them in a big cage and move it around every day, but we have such cold winters in Minnesota that better housing is needed for half the year. And with only four birds they won’t keep each other very warm. So, with both the rabbits and chickens, it’s winter that makes things more complicated. A urine-and-poop collection system that works in July may be unmanageable when it’s -20°F outside.
Our rabbits are due to kindle (give birth) any day now. I put the nesting boxes back in on Friday and the two does are beginning to pull fur from their chests and make the boxes, which are lined with hay, cozy and comfortable. Meanwhile, the ten bunnies that were born in May still aren’t large enough to butcher; I thought they’d grow a bit quicker.
Finally, I’m frustrated with my favorite fava beans. We inevitably have a spike of very hot weather sometime in late May, just when the favas are flowering. This leads to many dropped flowers and half-filled pods. I’m a little confused. Favas are grown and eaten throughout the Mediterranean basin, much of which is as hot as any weather we have here. Why aren’t they more heat tolerant? Do we only have varieties that were developed for England’s long, cool spring? I’d like a few varieties that tolerate the heat better.

Pancetta, garlic...

With about five more pounds of pancetta hanging in the fruit cellar, lots of our recent meals include it. Early summer is filled with after dinner activities, so easily prepared meals are essential if we want to sit down together. Rice and pasta are the staples of these dinners.
Two nights ago it was pancetta, garlic, olive oil, fresh parsely and thyme, with a generous grating of Parmesan cheese over linguine noodles. Last night it was this: butter, pancetta, and shallots. Then generous pours of a mediocre Alsatian riesling, which I bubbled down. A quick paw through the icebox and a nice hunk of fresh ginger emerged. Thin slices of that, along with fresh thyme and parsley. Finally, peas, although they came from a bag, not the garden. Mix in penne noodles, and we’re good to go.
We keep trying new ways to eat pancetta, and they’re usually pretty good. I try to cook it long enough for its fat to flavor whatever else it's cooking with, but not so long that it loses its unique flavor.

Swiss chard

We eat swiss chard almost daily during the summer and fall. We grow the beautiful variety called Five Color Silverbeet, a variety that was maintained by the Digger’s Garden Club in Australia after it was dropped by commercial seed companies. It was first re-introduced to US gardeners through Seed Savers Exchange, and in the past few years it’s been picked up by many seed companies in the US. The multi-colored ribs and big crinkly leaves are as pretty as anything grown in a Minnesota garden.
Beets and swiss chard are different varieties of the same genus and species, Beta vulgaris. Over time, beets have been bred for their tuberous root while swiss chard’s ribs and leaves are prized by cooks. Marcella Hazan, in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, has a delicious swiss chard torte we’ve been making for years, but our daily standard is a bit simpler, and it’s quick and delicious. Here’s what I do:
Add a hefty pour of olive oil to a saucier or other fry pan;
Mince a few cloves of garlic and add them to the hot oil;
After the garlic cooks, add the diced stems of the swiss chard and sauté it like celery;
When the stalks are soft, add a whole tomato, preferably a paste variety with lots of meat and few seeds;
Mash the tomato a bit and turn the heat up pretty high to cook off the excess moisture;
Add a little salt;
Lay all the chard leaves on top of each other and roll them up like a fat cigar, then cut the fat roll of leaves into thin strips – maybe ½” or so;
Add the leaves to the hot pan, and stir it all around;
I usually cover the pan for a minute or two to let the steam wilt the chard leaves quicker. Cook the leaves for three or four minutes total.
When I come home from work and make this for lunch, I usually serve it with rice, and I always have a little bowl of nahm prick, a homemade, fiery Thai condiment, on the side.

Last night it rained

Last night it rained. The 1.15 inch rainfall was welcomed by everyone (except the soccer players: one inch of rain over one square mile equals about 17.4 million gallons of water weighing 143 million pounds, or the weight of a train with 40 boxcars, according to the National Weather Service, so approximately 160 million pounds fell on the brave kids and parents who kept playing!)

I putter around my garden with a hose or watering can, gently soaking the leaves, roots, and soil, and I have thoughts that go in two directions. First, it’s hard not to think about places where large segments of the population don’t have access to water. As I watch a plant perk up with water, I wonder what it’s like to live in a water-deprived community, where the constant struggle to obtain water dominates daily life. Second, I wonder how we’ve allowed the marketing and sale of bottled water to succeed. Water is our most basic human need. If human rights have any meaning, access to safe, affordable water should be a priority for all governments. And in this country, where we use 20 times more water than some 1.8 billion people worldwide who use a mere 20 liters per day, we’re standing idly by while this most precious resource is being commoditized and privatized right before our eyes.

The biggest shock we’ve had in recent years was last year’s gas prices – when a gallon hit $4.00 people began to worry and panic. $4.00 for a gallon of gas was as terrible a scourge as anyone could remember. Yet, we’d still drive to the store and spend a dollar on a bottle of water. A dollar for about a pint of water. It makes gasoline look like a bargain.

http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf

Duck Fat

A jar of duck fat, rendered from two ducks I cut up and cooked this weekend. As plain as this picture is, just a jar of nearly white, perfectly smooth fat, so it is.

The ducks were good. I grilled three of the legs and all of the breasts after marinating them overnight with a rub of fresh thyme, bay leaf, garlic, salt and pepper. We drank a 2003 Estancia Meritage, a birthday present from a cassoulet-laden feast two winters previous, and the sun-drenched grapes from Paso Robles, darkened and stilled in our Minnesota basement for a few years, opened up and with deep berries, licorice and spice, and welcomed my sister to our home.

On a surprisingly cold, rainy, June-grey Saturday we ate steaming hot bowls of duck-rich phố for lunch. Not much phố in Buffalo, but plenty in our kitchen after an all night simmer of bones and such. And again this evening, I seared the last leg and all the remaining meat bits in onions and fat, added flour, then stock, and made a bubbly rich dinner for another cold day. And still a half pot of stock in the icebox sits, brown dark and gelled, a stock for all seasons.

And when the stock is gone - tomorrow - a jar of duck fat will still sit in the fridge. And every time I reach for the jar and cook with it I'll be thankful I named my blog for it.

Succession planting

Last week I visited the Chicago Botanic Garden for the first time and their vegetable and herb gardens were beautiful. I was struck by the perfect spacing of broccoli, chard, lettuce and other greens, and noticed that everything had been transplanted from cold frames. The lack of bare spots got me thinking about starting more things - even warm weather vegetables - in flats so that each spot in my garden might be filled with a healthy plant. I think it would be nice if I could plant a row of beans from a flat and have no bare spaces. I always direct-sow my beans in the row where they're going to grow, and I don't always re-seed bare spots because by the time a row is growing I don't think a two-week laggard will contribute much.
I do a good job starting tomatoes in my basement when the ground is cold and shovels are still by the door. But once the growing season starts, I tend to wait until a space is vacated before I sow anything new. My wife doesn't like seeing bare dirt in the garden; she thinks something should be growing there. So, with about two weeks before my arugula bolts, I decided to start a few things in flats and be ready when my lush rows of arugula turn to bitter, woody stems. Perhaps I can shorten the time before the next thing is ready to eat. So this evening, after I put the kids to bed, and just before this now-falling rain began, I filled two flats with beets, kale, cucumbers and beans.
I've never started beans in a flat and have heard they don't do well as transplants. Well, we'll see. Just as I don't mind losing a row or two of a too-early planted spinach or lettuce, it'll be good to learn if I can transplant beans. More than anything, I think the flats can be a good idea because it's easy to control the moisture for the germinating seeds. Until then, it's still arugula for lunch!

Frost free

Just days or weeks after frost and threats of frost, I take for granted this regal green canopy under a blue blue sky. To remember time before this is difficult. Warm earth pushes seeds into air and light and green leaves unfurl their smallness, ready to burst and bloom and grow. How tender is that earliest push, a fuzzed wisp of life. Everything now is green and fresh and alive, and I'm going to eat it and smell it and absorb it with my eyes and feet and hands, forgetting frost and cold and the grey we know for months each year.

Rabbits

 

Finally, baby rabbits. Our two does kindled about two weeks ago and ten of the thirteen kits survived and are doing fine. For their first eight weeks or so their diet is exclusively breast milk; the does usually nurse their young twice a day and otherwise leave them alone in their nesting box - a cozy box filled with hay and fur. The kits are born hairless and the does provide insulating warmth by plucking fur from their own chests in the days before they give birth. For the first few week or so the bunnies are nearly impossible to see unless you part the mound of fur that covers them and keeps them warm. Now that they're growing their own fur and are a bit bigger, the mother's fur has matted in with the rest of the bedding, and isn't needed for survival any longer.
We're going to breed the does several times during the summer, and we hope to have a full freezer by the time winter rolls around again.

Arugula

 

Green again. The year's first arugula frittata on Sunday night, baked in the enameled, cast iron fry pan. And on the side, a heap of arugula, a mess of arugula, wilted in hot olive oil and touched with a pinch of salt. And May with its lilacs...

Vicia faba – Fava Bean

The fava bean hypnotizes me with its early spring green growth. Its thick, almost waxy leaves push through the soil when I'm still only dreaming about my warm weather green beans. Very cold hardy, fava beans originated in the Mediterranean basin and, before the introduction of our common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) by post-Columban explorers, they were the main bean eaten in Europe, the Mediterranean basin, and central Asia. Varieties range from the small, almost pea-like favas known as 'tick beans" to the large-seeded varieties known well in England and Italy as broad beans or horse beans. In Italy and the southern Mediterranean a disease known as favism affects a small percentage of the population: eating even a small amount causes serious illness.

So here we are in late April (it's turned to May since I wrote this!) and my fava beans were planted a few weeks ago on a nice warm Saturday. A few rains in the meanwhile have warmed up the soil and given the seeds the moisture they need to germinate. As usual, I wish I had more in the ground, but living in town and having only a small garden, my spring favorites – fava beans, arugula, and spinach – have to share the space with soon-to-be planted summer things. Some years ago I obtained a small sample of a southern Italian fava bean, and I neglected to plant them. Last month when I looked at my seeds I knew I had to get this variety in the ground or I'd lose it Seeds tend to be viable for a few years longer than seed packets let on (I've successfully planted 5-6 year old seed) and these seeds were about five years old. From my sample of 20-25 seeds six plants are up and growing. If they do well, there will be enough to save seed from, and I'll have another small supply for planting next year. If next year's planting goes well, I'll have enough seed the following year to eat a few of them. But for now, I have to help these six plants along because I don't know if anyone else in the United States has this particular variety.

The challenge with fava beans in Minnesota is that our spring is so short. Favas prefer cool weather and their flowers abort in warm weather. The trick is to get the seeds in the ground as early as you can so that they flower before our summer heat scorches them. Additionally, aphids like fava beans a lot and the seeds need to be developing before aphids come along, or the plants can succumb to their attacks.

Cốm

 

The color of cốm catches the eye first. Green, almost translucent, almost bright when light shines on it, cốm is a Vietnamese variety of sticky (or glutinous) rice harvested before it’s mature. According to Vietnamese tradition and my mother-in-law, who told me about cốm and directed us to the preeminent seller of bánh cốm (green rice cake) on Hanoi’s famed Hàng Than street, flooding forced villagers near Hanoi to harvest their rice crop before it was ripe. Faced with ruin or a partial crop, they opted to harvest the immature grains, and discovered cốm, which is pronounced by this English speaker with a long O, like "comb."
Today cốm is regarded as both a regional and seasonal Vietnamese culinary treasure. Each fall, villages in northern Vietnam, especially Vòng, regarded as the birthplace of cốm, harvest their rice when it’s around 100 days old, nearly two months before it would be harvested as “regular rice.” Cốm is pounded and cooked and roasted over fire to bring out its brilliant green color; any missteps and the green will be replaced by a dull brown, which fetches a much lower price.
After being soaked, the rice is mixed with sugar and coconut milk. It’s also flavored with pandan, which in Vietnamese is called lá dứa. When it’s fresh, it is wrapped in banana leaves and sold by street vendors. It’s also made into several well known sweets, especially one eaten during Tết, the Vietnamese New Year.

Thursday dinner

 

While scooping second helpings for my kids, I was surprised to hear my oldest daughter call, "Dad, get the camera." She wanted to photograph her dinner plate, and when I asked her why she said, "It's delicious and you can blog about it."

The kids were all busy with after-school activities on this beautiful spring day and we didn't get home until six-fifteen. My wife was gone for the evening so I knew I had to make something quick. With leftover ham in the icebox I put a pot of water on the stove and got ready to make an easy pasta dish. I saw fresh green beans in the fridge and got to work. I minced four or five large garlic cloves while blanching the beans. A big pour of olive oil and the garlic was soon sizzling; I then added a few slices of ham that I cut into smaller pieces. The vibrant green beans were added next, along with a few fingers of tarragon and a pinch of salt. When it was all nice I mixed in the thin linguine and a topped it with a grating of parmesan cheese.

Twenty-five minutes from walking into the house to serving dinner. The kids had time to wash up and set the table, and we sat around talking for a good while after we finished eating. Even on a busy night (soccer, softball, and play practices) we lit candles, sat down to a good dinner, and talked with each other. Mealtimes aren't practice; they're the real thing every day. And some of them are blog-able, according to my daughter.

Challah

Egg-rich and light, this loaf billows and swells, pushes into the oven's heat and rises pillow-soft. Saffron stains the dough deeper than eggs alone, yellow stretching into hues of gold. I love this bread, kneading it long and firm in the kitchen, certain there's a holiday at hand. It's ironic, though, that I make challah at Easter, since it coincides with Passover, the one time of year in Jewish tradition that challah is not eaten – challah is traditionally eaten on Shabbat and holy days. But Easter is the beginning of the liturgical year, the new year for Christians, so it's similar to the special challah baked for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.
Room-temperature eggs are cracked one-by-one into the mixing bowl, and raw ingredients are transformed by the resistance of kneading from a primordial brew of goop to a near-living thing. Kneading bread silences time around me, creating a rhythmic space of push, fold, breathe, caress, and the counter I'm standing at is the solid surface of earth and home, the stability against which the dough is worked. In the push slap and thud of kneading, all that's needed is a pair of hands willing to work. My kids sit at the counter and when they want to knead they take the flexing ball of dough and work it awhile. They like the smell of fresh dough as it's beginning to soften under the force of strong hands, and they marvel at the dough's softness when we're ready to let it rise, quiet and undisturbed. Elastic in its slow-building warmth, a loaf of challah rises like it's the first loaf ever to rise. I braid my challah, hefting the snakes of dough over each other, entwining one strand within another. Glazed with egg yolk and topped with poppy or sesame seeds, a loaf of challah is a beautiful beginning to any meal.

Easter Sunday

Easter dinner on the good china. My wife's parents both here, spring finally peeping. We walked to Mass and I threw a baseball with my son for a bit in the afternoon. My daughter and I went on a short bike ride and she led me to monkey bars at her old preschool. During the course of the day our kids entertained us with songs, "shows," and history projects. And just out the door in a small patch of garden, our arugula has germinated and a few other things are fluttering beneath the floating row cover, used not so much for temperature support but to keep ravenous squirrels from seeds.
Minnesota is waking up again.
But back to Easter for a moment. I think we mark time with holidays, mark time against its broader movement - the time that swoops us along - by remembering the rhythms and rituals we've inherited, invented, believed in. Time is too big, too fast, and in the eddies of Christmas, Easter, anniversaries, we recount our stories, tell our histories, remember the dead. And today feels like it's for the living, for walking in sunshine and tending to plants and children. This morning, on my knees, my eyes closed and my thoughts racing still, I wondered how I can find a way to say and be all the things inside me. How do I connect the life in me to the lives around me? I want to pass on these rituals of sitting and eating and talking and praying and hand washing-and-drying the dishes on Sunday because I, too, participate in this continuum of time.
Isn't each seed we plant connected to the beginning of time? When I hold a seed in my hand, it's the present of an unbroken succession of generations of seeds and plants going back in time, through time, before this specific variety or species even existed, (and still it travels backwards,) remembering in itself the time before it was what it is, because while there may be a beginning to the differentiation that marks the origin of this species there is no beginning of the life that spawned it, until we return to the beginning, and when I plant the seed I participate in the continuing story of life itself. Because the seed in my hand, the one I just planted, is here after all. It's managed after all its generations of mutations and droughts and competition among other species to be here. This life, this seed, this love, wants only to burst out and grow.

Spring planting

Sure it snowed a little today, but spring is here. Yesterday I spent the whole afternoon in the garden and planted a lot of my spring favorites. First, I planted a variety of fava bean that I've never grown before - fave siciliane - sent to me by a fellow seed saver in southern Italy. The seeds are the largest fava seeds I've seen, and in a note he said they're delicious raw with parmesan cheese. I think our local cheese, Friesago Grano, from Shepherd's Way Farms, will be a beautiful accompaniment. Next, I sowed arugula and bok choy, followed by a row of swiss chard.

If you're a northern gardener who focuses on our summer delights like beans and tomatoes, I'd urge you to try a spring planting. The cool season things I just planted, along with peas and spinach, lettuce, beets, kale and others, all thrive in the early days of spring. Fava beans, for instance, should be planted early because they have to flower when the weather is still mild - if it's too hot the flowers will drop.

Occasionally a variety or two doesn't sprout. Perhaps it's because the ground was too cold or the seed was wet for too long. No matter, I can put in another row next week when it's a bit warmer and drier. But early planting leads to early harvests, and I can usually eat fresh leafy greens a month before my neighbors. Some northerners don't like to plant anything before Memorial Day, but if you wait that long you'll miss out on spring!

Vang Dalat

I didn't expect my first blog entry (very late in coming) on Vietnam to be about wine. My wife and I returned from a ten day trip to Vietnam with suitcases full of foodstuffs, and one of the surprise finds in a Hanoi supermarket was a small selection of Vietnamese wine. The sight of local wine on a supermarket shelf was a real eye-opener. Yes, the world is flat, and it also has highlands in Dalat! Vang Dalat, the only brand of Vietnamese wine we saw, is produced by Lam Dong Foodstuffs Joint-Stock Company, privatized in 2003, according to their website. The grapes are grown around Dalat, a city that's known as the entry point to the central highlands of Vietnam. Dalat is about 1500m above sea level. The climate of Dalat is temperate, with average temperatures of 64°F, and lows around 40°.

The wine itself was nothing to write home about. The bottle we drank was red, a "Superior" bottling, and they sold a white as well. Only the nose, a delicate bouquet of strawberry, was memorable. Otherwise, the wine was thin and uninteresting, like a German spatburgunder in a vintage marked by heavy rainfalls. But to dismiss the wine itself is missing the point – what's interesting is that the Vietnamese are growing grapes and making wine! Wow, the grape has no barriers, and there's no reason why time, experience and severe pruning won't lead to a legitimate Vietnamese wine industry.

Bamboo and sardine curry

Naw Mai Dong is typically (and accurately) translated from the Thai as "pickled bamboo," but I think "soured bamboo" is more accurate in terms of its taste; the sour of naw mai dong is more akin to sourdough bread than a dill pickle or another Thai favorite, gratiem dong -- pickled garlic.

Soured bamboo is a pretty intense taste, and I'm somehow reminded of dried porcini mushrooms, even though they taste nothing alike. I'm thinking instead of the powerful fragrance the mushrooms develop when they're softened up in warm water. And, when they're soaking in a covered bowl, the first smell of the porcinis can be quite heady; I feel the same way about naw mai dong. Soured bamboo can be bought in most Asian markets. If you can buy it fresh, do so; it's much better than the canned stuff.

It's been a long time since I lived in Thailand and my curry paste reflects a dozen plus years living in Minnesota; it's milder than it was when I first returned to the states, and I've gotten used to the ingredients available in local Asian markets. Bamboo and sardine curry is a delicious evolution of the first curry I ever made at my home in Trang Province in southern Thailand. Neighborhood kids showed me how to make it and I've got a soft spot for it.

If you haven't eaten canned sardines, give them a try. When I was an avid hiker, I always had them in my pack. They're good for you and because of their small size and feeding habits, they're considered sustainable, too. For curry, I use sardines packed in tomato sauce.

Making curry paste is one of the times a heavy mortar and pestle is essential. A food processor will chop things up but the fibers found in some of the ingredients really need to be pulverized into a paste, and a Thai cloak is unsurpassed for its ability to render a mash of ingredients into a smooth, particle-less paste.

Curry paste
10 dried Thai chili peppers
1 tbsp dried peppercorns
3 tbsp fresh lemongrass - the white ends from two stalks, cut finely
2 tbsp fresh galangal root, cut finely

4 cloves garlic
1-2 shallots
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp tumeric, or about an inch if fresh
2-3 tbsp gapi - shrimp paste

Put first four ingredients into mortar and go to work for a few minutes. After they're pretty smushed up, I add the next four ingredients, adding the gapi only after the paste is the correct texture. The reason I don't add the garlic and shallots at first is that they have a lot of liquid in them and it's harder to really pulverize the other ingredients if they're sloshing around. I like to cook my curry paste a little; I think it intensifies the flavors and I love the smell.

Bamboo and Sardine Curry
Peel and dice two potatoes or a few cups of firm, unripe papaya. In large saucepan or wok, add a few tbsp oil. Heat and add curry paste. NOTE: This curry stinks up your house, so use appropriate ventilation! Fry paste in oil but don't let it burn. Add a little water and mush it around until it's thick like re-fried beans. Cook it a minute or so, adding a little more water if you think it might burn. Add about a half can of coconut milk and about a half cup of water. Stir to mix. Add potatoes and turn heat down. Cover and cook for a few minutes.

If using whole pieces of bamboo, rinse under water and cut into lengths about 3" and then slice lengthwise into thin strips. I like about 3-4 cups worth. When the potatoes are still firm, add the bamboo slices. Stir together. Again, in another nod to an American palate, I now add the remaining lemongrass stems, cut into 3"-4" lengths. If a little more water is needed, add some. The consistency you end up with is one of personal preference. I usually like mine a little on the soupy side because we all like curry sauces on our rice, but some people prefer a much thicker curry. Likewise with the coconut cream -- it's very thick and rich and in a typical curry I'll use between a half and a whole can, depending on my mood.
When the potatoes are just about cooked through, I add a big tin of sardines. The oval cans weigh almost a pound. Add about seven or eight kaffir lime leaves and stir gently; the sardines are fragile and break up quite easily. Heat through. I put the curry into a big bowl and bring it to the table. We scoop spoonfuls of it onto our rice and always serve something cool with it, like leafy green vegetables or an omelette.

Lent and Local or Catholics and Co-ops

As we approach the season of want, the season of hunger, we're reminded of our common agricultural roots, and the closeness of Christianity to the rhythms of time and the seasons. Embedded in the spiritual exercise of fasting is an even older condition: hunger. Whether physical or spiritual, hunger reshapes our sense of normalcy; it sometimes sharpens our awareness and heightens our senses, but left unchecked, it corrodes and can kill. Some religious traditions have made a spiritual discipline out of what used to be a common, shared reality. And while the Church has wandered and strayed as much as any one person, its roots are deep, profoundly deep, and we can still be nourished by its beliefs and traditions that reflect an older understanding of the world.

One thousand years ago, one hundred years ago, all food was local food. And March was difficult. Depleted winter stores collided with cold earth, food not yet grown. For Christians, Lent was the fast before the feast of Easter, with the physical and spiritual reflecting each other, synchronized. A spiritual voyage launched by a seasonal necessity. Today, in our non-seasonal, global appetite for whatever-we-want-we-want-it-now, Cub and the Co-op re-stock their shelves daily, and we expect our desires to be satisfied immediately. Instead of seeing our excess for what it is, we turn our obesity epidemic and fast-food or fancy-food fixation on its head, calling this overgrown appetite our right, our destiny, our blessing.

Are we entitled to eat whatever it is we crave? I don't have an answer for that question, but Lent and Eating Local are both compelling reasons to think deliberately about food and its place in the seasons of growing and eating. If we think about eating local we have to think about what it is we want to eat. Especially at this time of year, eating local is an exercise in long range planning about what we plant, grow, and harvest in the warmer months of the year. What remains of September's abundance that we can now draw upon? The doom of March leads me to think I should be growing and preserving much more food of my own. And that leads to a conversation about gardening and how we use our landscape – particularly us non-rural, grass-growing homeowners.

Even as I begin to think about eating local, I'm not sure I like all the implications. Take oranges, for instance. I can't imagine winter without oranges. The spray of a just-peeled orange in the cold air of winter is an unmatched fragrance. When I eat oranges in the winter I feel as alive and healthy and the first non-scurvied sailing crews! And what would happen to the Florida citrus industry if everyone in the north stopped eating oranges because they weren't local? On the other hand, what if Minnesota farmers were met by crowds of people wanting fresh, locally grown spinach in May? And what if consumers wanted four bushels of apples in September instead of three pecks?

Imposing disciplines on ourselves reminds us that although we are surrounded by an abundance of riches, our needs are few. The rest is manufactured. Eating local and fasting shouldn't be looked at as opportunities to assign blame or assume guilt. Eating local helps us think about our individual habits in relation to larger issues of food production, while fasting is a way to clarify our own needs by experiencing what some people feel each day – hunger.

Shortbread

Shortbread is made with butter, flour, sugar and salt. It's as plain as plain can be. I like to shape the dough between my palms into a small ball and flatten it with the bottom of a glass, one-quarter to three-eighths of an inch thick. When the ball is flattened the edges break open asterisks-like, with stubby rays. These edges bake nicely in the oven, leaving the center a pale, off-white luminescent disk.

My wife and daughter like their shortbread with cornstarch, a new-fangled ingredient that adds lightness to the dough. My feeling is that corn starch flattens the flavor considerably, making an inferior baked good. We decided to have a Valentine's Day bake-off and decide as a family which shortbread we liked best. Luckily, we're an odd-numbered family.

After extensive negotiations to determine fair rules for a blind tasting, my daughter and I set to work. With softened butter at the ready, the dough takes only minutes to make. We both use our hands a lot, and once all the ingredients are in the mixing bowl we use our fingertips and hands to achieve the proper dough consistency, pressing and squeezing it into a manageable form.

We fortunately allowed decimal points into our voting, because fragments of numbers were all that separated our two entries. Had we used whole numbers only in our judging, a tie would have ensued. We learned that we like our preferred styles – we partisans all picked along party lines, even with our eyes closed! The outcome? When I'm baking, no cornstarch will be used, but when my daughter runs the kitchen, she'll do it her way.

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups flour
½ cup confectioner's sugar
¼ tsp salt
(Optional – ¼ - ½ tsp vanilla. I like vanilla, but even a small amount darkens the color of the dough and moves the flavor from a traditional shortbread into a different baked good.)

Cream butter and slowly add sugar. Add remaining ingredients and mix. Shape into 1" balls and place on cookie sheet. Flatten with bottom of glass. Bake at 350° F for 20 minutes or so. The edges should just be brown – don't overcook. Cool on a rack.

Rosenblum 2005 Monte Rosso Vineyard zinfandel

This is a beautiful bottle of wine, a conversation starter that puts zinfandel in the age-worthy camp, a big wine with fruit, acid and tannins enough to lay down for a decade, and a perfumed nose so fragrant you don't have to drink it to be satisfied.

We opened this and put a short pour into our glasses and swirled it, dark red and thick, slow legs dripping down the sides like those new Ipod ads. We swirled and smelled and talked. The cleanest, sweetest nose imaginable, not a big, jammy nose so typical of these 15.2% alcohol wines – wow, and breath after breath the nose blew sea-fresh and calm. We circled back to it time and time again, each description closer and further off, no different than the feel of sunshine on our faces on the first sunny day after a snowstorm. We absorb equally the quality of light and the plum blossom perfection of the nose.

A strong trace of tobacco, oily rich and earth, deep berries and a disputation on indulgences, organized religion and the will of God. Such presence for a young bottle of wine! – a clean line of fresh pepper, still clustered and growing on the vine.

A digression: chili peppers, Capsicum frutescens, those hot little red "Thai chili peppers" aren't indigenous to Thailand; their center of diversity is somewhere near present-day Bolivia. They were one of the first fruits brought back to Europe by C. Columbus. In Thai, they are called prik or "pepper," while pepper, Piper nigrum, the tropical climbing vine, is called prik Thai, or "Thai pepper." Thais and the Thai language recognize the primacy of pepper, and they call it their own pepper, whereas the later introduction of chili peppers, a mere three or four hundred years ago, is given the simple moniker "pepper." I wonder if Thai pepper – our black pepper – had a different name before chili peppers were introduced, and Thais had to differentiate between this new pepper, and their own indigenous "Thai pepper." And, while we typically eat dried, crushed peppercorns, our "black pepper," Thais put whole clusters of fresh peppers in a few different dishes, and the flavor bursts out. – This is the clean, pungent pepper profile that washed over our taste buds halfway through the bottle.

Whenever I drink a good zinfandel I feel a billowy lightness underneath the intense, full expression of deep-colored berry fruit; I think it is the harmonious balance of the grape and a winemaker's skill. All that fruit needs something to keep it afloat, and this bottle has clean lines of tannin that keep the fruit from overflowing. And so we talked and drank into the night, a perfect expression of zinfandel. Go, find this bottle, and drink it! Feeling carnivorous? A thick steak with cracked pepper, dripping red from the inside out.