Clare's Cooking Blog

When I was growing up, the main meal was in the middle of the day.  After that came ‘tea’ at about four or five, or whenever you got home from school.  Tea featured hot black tea with milk and sugar; sandwiches, English style, meaning plenty of bread and butter, but not much in the way of filling (it could be jam, or Marmite, or perhaps a single layer of cheese or ham), and then something sweet - a piece of cake or a ‘biscuit’ (cookie) or two.  ’Supper’ came later, and was something perhaps cooked, but anyway quite light.  It might be soup, with more bread, or scrambled eggs, baked beans or mushrooms on toast - you get the idea.  If you’re thinking we ate a lot of bread, you’re right - but it was good bread, brown or white, from the local baker’s, with a crunchy crust and a chewy middle - as far from flaccid packaged Wonderbread as bread can get.

All of that is actually just a prelude to saying that one of my very favorite main meals was my mother’s cheese and tomato pie.  The tomatoes came out of a tin, the cheese was a good sharp English cheddar, and above and below that mixture was my mother’s delectable shortcrust pastry (I owe it to her that I have no fear of pastry making).  We’d have the pie with new potatoes and at least one other vegetable, usually green.  I loved the smell, and the contrasts - between the crunch of the top crust and the melting interior; between the sharpness of the cheese and the sweetness of the tomato.

So … fast forward to the present.  I was thinking about making something special for a breakfast with Dan and Cynthia Lief this Sunday morning. They stayed with us last night after we all helped Frank Reece (along with friends and family) celebrate his 65th at the Cambridge Boathouse to a fabulous soundtrack of music from the sixties and seventies. Leafing through the new Bon Appetit magazines I’ve already mentioned I found a recipe for a tomato and cheddar pie - and needless to say I felt I’d found my inspiration!  

If I needed any further incentive, I found it in the fact that the crust featured buttermilk - and I just happened to have half a carton of buttermilk in the fridge left over from the jalapeno cornbread muffins I’d made for Superbowl Sunday.  I hate buying a special ingredient for a recipe and then wasting the rest of it … so here was the opportunity to put the buttermilk to good use, and take it off my conscience.

I’d meant to have the pie made before we went to the party, but for one reason and another that didn’t happen.  So the dough, which was meant to chill in the fridge for an hour spent the night there instead, as did the tomato slices tucked up between sheets of paper towel to mop up their extra moisture.  It’s a credit to the recipe that despite all that abuse of the ingredients, it came out really well.  Modesty aside, it’s a credit to me that despite a late night and lots of dancing I was up by seven thirty to put the pie together and bake it so that it could still rest for its mandatory hour before we tucked into it a little after nine!

Unlike the cheese and tomato pie of my childhood this one is an open tart.  But there’s plenty of browned buttermilk crust at the edges to replicate the crunch I remember, and the textures and tastes of the interior conjure up my family’s kitchen table, and the family gathered to share that favorite meal.

The recipe comes next!

It’s my turn, once again, to host the Literary Guild for dinner.

For quite some time, I’ve known exactly what the star turn in this dinner would be - a matcha and pistachio-crusted halibut (or other firm-fleshed white fish).  

There’s a story behind this choice.  Used to be I subscribed to Bon Appetit, faithfully. It was less intimidating than Gourmet, or Saveur, and served me well. Then there was just too large a pile of issues I’d never even looked at, along with a more battered-looking pile, each of which sported just one post-it marking just one favorite recipe. So I gave up my subscription, and even thinned out the piles (saving every Thanksgiving and winter holiday issue, naturally, along with the ones featuring best of each year).  But last month I was walking down the five flights of stairs from our Boston studio to the street, instead of taking the elevator, for once, and on the building’s ‘free shelf’ found three contemporary issues, including the home entertaining issue for October of 2011, which promised ‘ultimate dinner parties.’  So I scooped them up, and took them home for bedtime reading.  

I’ve been fascinated by matcha for a while, and I love pistachios, so this recipe demanded to be tried - and completely lived up to its reputation.  The only drawback is the price of the fish; halibut, and Chilean sea bass, which would be another really good choice, are both pricy, and not even always available.  I’m thinking that flounder would hold up well enough, probably, and offer a suitable alternative.  Tilapia, perhaps. I’m not taking any chances with the Guild, but there’s room for some experimenting on other occasions!

Then the question was what to serve along with the fish.  The vegetable was relatively easy to decide on: green beans, blanched until just crisp tender, dumped in ice water immediately to keep their color, and then reheated in a little olive oil, lemon zest, garlic and chopped parsley.  The starch has had me stymied for a while - but now I know its going to be Chinese forbidden (black) rice.  The color is a lot of what feels right: the assembled plate will be green, white and black.  Nice! The only remaining question is whether to jazz the rice up in any way, or whether to just let it be its own sweet nutty self, so that it doesn’t distract from the other flavors.  I’m going to do a trial today with just some chopped cilantro and lime, and possibly a touch of toasted sesame oil … and then make the decision.

Dessert is going to be the New Year’s panna cotta recipe.  And I’m still working on a salad - wanting to stay with an Asian theme, and also to use my new Japanese spiralizer!  

The usual gang gathered at Dan and Cynthia’s on New Year’s eve this year. Dan had organized us around an ambitious menu of little plates, with the idea that we would nibble our way through the five hours between seven and midnight, rather than sit down to an overwhelming meal. As a strategy, it worked! There was still too much food, of course, but more opportunity to pick and choose, and checking in with people on New Year’s day, no one had been kept up with indigestion or just that too-heavy-for-comfort feeling. If we were doing it over, would we tweak it some? Yes, I think so. But most everything was delicious, and the groupings really successful. 

HERE’S THE MENU: 

FIRST COURSE: - Smoked fish platter, Barbara Fernald - Pesto torta, Kate Chaplin - Eggplant tapenade, Kate Chaplin - Potato latkes, with sour cream and caviar, Dan Lief

SECOND COURSE - Chili garlic shrimp, Cynthia Lief - Popovers, Josephine Schmidt - Stuffed mushrooms, Donna Isaacs - Dates stuffed with gorgonzola and wrapped in turkey bacon, Henry Isaacs - Onion focaccia, Cindy Thomas

THIRD COURSE - Crispy duck, wrapped in lettuce with scallions, cucumber and hoisin sauce, Miklos Pogany - Spicy green beans, Cynthia Lief - Marinated cauliflower, Cynthia Lief

FOURTH COURSE - Asian pulled pork sliders, with red cabbage kimchee, Bruce Fernald - Green salad, with fresh strawberries and a lemon vinaigrette, Barbara Fernald

DESSERT - Mint panna cotta, Clare Dalton - Home made Heath Bar squares, Cindy Thomas

Labor Day weekend was the first time that BOTH Miklos’s sons, Andrei and Alex, with BOTH their women, Deborah and Emily, along with cousin Noah, Deborah’s sister Candice, and assorted other family, were able to come together on Islesford. Put together a whole lot of people who love to eat, and to cook, one group who are coming from New York with access to all kinds of specialty items, a son who works as an organic farmer, and shares his bounty, and an ocean rich with lobsters, crabs, clams and mussels … and mealtimes become - well, something else.

So for last night’s dinner we started with crostini heaped with crab salad and topped with red pepper jelly.  The crabs had come ashore with the remnants of Hurricane Irene.  For an earlier dinner we’d steamed the claws and knuckles, eaten the claws (there’s a whole art to using the hammer on them that I’m not competent to share), and painstakingly removed the meat from the knuckles to make the salad with.  Add a little mayonnaise, some lemon and lime juice and zest, a few drops of hot sauce, chopped chive, salt and pepper (Deborah coached me through this) … and the result is light, clean and tastes of the sea.  The red pepper jelly was courtesy of Stonewall Kitchen.

Moving on, the centerpiece was lobster tails grilled over applewood by Andrei and Alex.  Not that we wasted the claws - those were steamed, and arranged around the edges of the platter.  We made different salads, and then the Fried Red Thai Rice mixture I’ve already posted.

Everyone had brought wild Maine blueberries, so one of our desserts was a blueberry crisp.  I definitely have the template of an ideal crisp in my memory, and my own efforts haven’t lived up to that ideal - until now.  I’ve followed faithfully recipes that call for thickening the fruit - and then I don’t like the stickiness of the syrup that results.  And I’ve tried a few crumble mixtures - with just a few basic ingredients you wouldn’t think you could go wrong - but I’ve never been completely happy with the results.  Until now.  Details to follow.

The second dessert was an open apple pie, with apples that had fallen in the same storm that brought the crabs ashore.  They were a little less than ripe, tart, crunchy and delicious.  This was Deborah’s pie, so I don’t have the whole recipe - but one thing I did take away was adding chilled vodka to the dough, instead of iced water. Somehow it gave an extra crispness to the crust - Deborah’s theory is that the vodka evaporates more quickly.

Tomorrow will be Labor Day. We’re taking a morning boat, evening will see us in Boston, and even though we’re coming back for Robin Fernald’s wedding to Stephanie next weekend, this feels like the end of summer, with that slight heart ache that marks the transition back to an urban life.

Islesford doesn’t have a grocery store.  In the summer the post office offers some emergency rations: eggs, milk and beer being chief among them.  So when you come, you come laden with food, giving thanks for the new reusable bags, sturdy enough to be filled to the brim, tied closed, hurled on to the top of the mail boat/ferry, and tossed down to the dock when you arrive.  Note of warning - take the eggs on board with you, along with your laptop and anything else that might not withstand the hurling and tossing.

It’s tricky to gauge just how much food you will need.  On the one hand, you know you’ll share your table and provisions with friends, because that’s the joy of easy summertime socializing.  On the other, there will be nights when you’re sharing someone else’s table and provisions, or when the Islesford Dock Restaurant (the only one on the island) beckons.  House guests will come, bringing their own offerings. Potlucks will get put together, depending on who’s got what left in the refrigerator. You may have brought enough flour to make a summer’s worth of bread, but gradually you find yourself calling around to see if someone can spare a sprig or a tablespoon or even a cup of that missing final ingredient. 

And then, eventually, you’ll wake up one morning and realize that a trip to the mainland can no longer be postponed.  If you take the eight o’clock boat to Northeast Harbor you might be able to make it to the Hannaford’s in Ellsworth and back in time to catch the return boat at noon - if your list is well organized, and if there aren’t other pressing errands to fit into the morning.  So you gather up the reusable bags, remind yourself of what you’ve ‘borrowed’ and need to replace, call around to see if anyone else needs just one or two things you could pick up for them, and head off, hoping that the mist that has been cooling the island won’t give way to sweltering heat on the mainland.  Hoping too that the crowded parking lot that houses the abandoned vehicles of the island summer dwellers will still have a more-or-less legal spot left when you come back to it.

All of which is a prelude to saying two things about island cooking: first, that it is a very good idea to have recipes based on the kind of staples that will happily live in an inert state for a whole summer: lentils, beans, grains, etc., and second that it is essential to rise to the challenge of adapting your recipes according to what’s available. For some people I know this just comes naturally, for me, it’s been a good learning experience!

May was my month to host the Ladies’ Literary Guild.  Our book was ‘As Always, Julia’ - the letters that passed between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto, and the history of their friendship.  

I briefly considered pulling out ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ and preparing a classic Julia feast, before recognizing that although I love what that masterpiece represents, I don’t actually cook or eat quite that way.  But having rejected that idea, I found myself oddly without inspiration … until my British sister unwittingly came to the rescue.

She has been planning an al fresco summer lunch party, to allow my mother to return the hospitality of all her neighbors in Cambridge, England.  I am tasked with approving the menu, and arriving a couple of days before the event to assist with the shopping and preparation.  We’d been talking through different alternatives, and had shaped a fine repast.  What I realized, just two days before the Guild arrived at my door, was that I could borrow almost exactly that menu, and give it a test run.

So the recipes that follow (see the next few posts) were served to the Guild on May 25, and most will be served in the garden at 18 Bowers Croft in Cambridge, England, on June 11.  Weather permitting.

The poached salmon I strongly recommend - the poaching liquid is more flavorful than any I’ve ever used before.  The Camargue rice salad is basically delicious because of the rice, and you can tweak it any number of ways.  In England we’re serving two salads - one with basic greens, and one with watercress, rocket (yes, that’s arugula) and mango.  I went for the green beans as our Guild vegetable (I happen to love the combination of orange and pistachio with beans), and the watercress etc. salad as well.  And for the Guild I added, as extra protein for anyone who wasn’t going to eat fish (although I think we all ended up eating everything), a lentil, roasted pepper, mint and feta salad that I’ve already posted, some months if not years back.

For dessert we had a Pavlova (vanilla meringue), heaped with berries in a light syrup, with whipped cream for those who dared.

We drank good wine, enjoyed one another’s company, and toasted Julia, Avis, and friendship among women.

When I grew up in England, one of my father’s Christmas gifts to my mother was that he “took charge” of the Christmas meal.  Needless to say, it was still she who had prepared the Christmas pudding (although we made one every Christmas, the one we ate, as I remember it, was the one that had been made the year before - and matured for a year in a cool place until its time had come).  She was also the one who made the Christmas cake, and the mince pies.  And probably she had helped my father peel the potatoes and parsnips (for roasting) and the carrots and brussel sprouts (for steaming) that were the traditional accompaniment to the roast capon, served with herb stuffing, gravy and bread sauce, and little rolls of sausage meat wrapped in bacon.   

My father’s role on the big day was to retreat into the kitchen after we had opened the presents under the tree, and emerge at half hour intervals, increasingly flushed and perspiring, to report on the progress of the capon, and then, as the hour approached, to enlist help as needed with the final preparations and setting of the table.  It was a midday or early afternoon meal for us, and at about eleven my father’s efforts were fortified by a holiday glass of sherry, or possibly two.  

He was not really a drinker, but in our household he was the alcohol authority, and so it was he who oversaw the making of the hard sauce (we called it brandy butter) served with the Christmas pudding, and who “flamed” the pudding, topped with its sprig of holly, as it came to the table in its glory.  It was my mother, though, who had inserted into the pudding the tiny silver threepenny piece that gave the finder a Christmas wish. I don’t know how many wishes the threepenny pieces were responsible for fulfilling, but they served the purpose of slowing down the eating of the pudding - a good thing, given how rich it was, and how much brandy butter it seemed to require to tame it enough for consumption and digestion.

I’m not a religious person, but our family Christmases were occasions of enough peace and good cheer that I’ve always loved this holiday.  I’ve been grateful to be able to replicate some of my childhood rituals with my own children, and had fun being particularly “English” in the kitchen at Christmas.  For years I’ve cooked exactly my family’s Christmas dinner, sharing it with family and friends.  And now that my children are grown and it’s clear that I will only occasionally be with one of them on Christmas Day, I continue to love cooking the cake, and pudding, and mince pies, and sometimes a thoroughly alcoholic English trifle called, appropriately, Dean’s Cream, and spreading them through whatever communities are currently part of my life.

So right now I’m due at a holiday party, to which I’m bringing mince pies with lemon cream.  But I’ll return to share recipes in the next few days.

And we cooked!

So I’m inspired to come back to the blog, after lo these many months, and add some of our weekend recipes.  The most decadent by far was a french toast casserole, which got more complicated than usual because we had to make our own challah before even getting started.  But bread baking was already on the agenda - both ciabatta and no-knead breads of a hearty variety.  Read on…

Why the sudden activity, after such a long silence?  Yes, Sam asked for summer recipes. So I’m back to hunting down old favorites, and passing them along.

What have I been doing in the meantime?  Many things, including finally acquiring my acupuncture license, and teaching my last law school course, perhaps, ever.  But on the food front too, heading in some new directions.  First there was the baking of bread. Ultimately a promising venture - the ongoing challenge being to produce loaves with as much hearty grain in them as possible without making the end result too dense to enjoy. A delicate balance. 

I called a halt when we went to Europe at the end of March, shut down my little incubator, and haven’t gone into production since, but will definitely start again this summer, and share more.  

Our last few days in Europe were in Romania, where 35% of agricultural land is lying fallow for want of resources to cultivate it, greens are an endangered species, and salad consists of a pickle.  So on our return we were looking for an emergency cleansing and fortifying diet, and used Rebecca Wood as our guide.  I downloaded, for a modest $10.00, her revised “Detox and Cleanse” e-book; gave it a spiral binding, put it between splash-proof plastic covers, and cooked for two solid weeks according to her recommendations.   It did the trick, and gave us some new favorites to add to our repertoire.

One of the most interesting aspects of her program is that it takes you away from all the grains you have eaten most of during your life, on the theory that you may have developed sensitivities to them without even knowing it.  Her suggestion is then that you reintroduce them carefully, one by one, and see what happens - if you go from having no digestive issues to suddenly re-experiencing phlegm, or bloating, or any other kind of pain or upset, you may have identified the culprit!

But in the meantime you are eating aramanth, and millet, and buckwheat, and quinoa - and learning how to cook and enjoy them, if you didn’t know before.  BUT, you can’t eat the same amount of them as you would of rice or pasta.  You don’t need to - they are filling, if you give them the chance.  But the reason they are filling is that they are higher in protein, and MUCH more calorific, than their more starchy counterparts.  

Rebecca Wood also has a website where you can see other of her writings and recommendations for free: http://www.rwood.com.  And she’s the author of both THE SPLENDID GRAIN, and THE NEW WHOLE FOODS ENCYCLOPEDIA (literally an A to Z compendium of foods, telling you how to choose, prepare and store over a thousand foods - and which ones to avoid as well).

Since Rebecca, we’ve gone back to our more eclectic diet, but we’re still eating less bread, dairy and pasta.  And then - I’ve been exploring Chinese dietary therapy, with a view to being able to advise my acupuncture clients from the perspective of Chinese dietary theory as well as Western theories of nutrition, the glycemic index and so forth. Diet and lifestyle are such integral components of Chinese medicine that this is a rather hefty assignment - I’ve a pile of books by my bed, and am making slow headway.  There’ll be more to share as I make more progress.

This week and next I’m supposed to be, no, I AM, studying full time for the last exam that stands between me and a license - to practice acupuncture in Massachusetts.  It means being tied to my desk and my computer some eight to ten hours a day.  But you can’t absorb material for that long without taking a few breaks.  At least, I can’t.

So I’ve scheduled in these little rewards and distractions, as well as one sortie into the open air each day.  Two days ago the sortie was to the grocery store, for lots of fruit and veg.  Time to reassure our digestive systems that the excesses of the holidays were over, and that we were ready to feed them the food they love best.

While there I bought the latest edition of Body + Soul.  I don’t usually buy magazines, but the theory behind this purchase was that it’s less dangerous to give yourself the treat of reading one article between study sessions than to offer yourself a chapter of your current bedside book - because you might not stop at one chapter.

Plus, what attracted me to this particular magazine was that it was featuring detox smoothies, which you can also find at www.wholeliving.com/action-plan.  Just be careful that you don’t accidentally sign up to be plagued by endless email and direct mail solicitations while you’re on the site.

It’s a little hard to confess this (because of the extravagance of it), but I’ve recently become the proud owner of a Vitamix super-blender, almost solely because of its power to deliver breakfast smoothies even before you’re awake enough to manage the expresso pot.  And if you’re the proud owner of something equivalent, or heroic enough to cope with a juicer, which for me could only happen AFTER the expresso, you might like to check out these smoothies as well.  Just for one example: apple, fennel and lemon juice - mmmm.  Then there’s a mango smoothie, and a green juice, both of which actually feature greens along with the fruit.  And a carrot, beet (only a little, and I bet you could leave it out altogether if you live with someone, as I do, who can’t stand the earthiness of beets), cabbage and watercress smoothie - how’s that for colorful?

I don’t mean for this particular post to become a diatribe, but while we’re talking smoothies I might as well say that the advantage of crushing your fruit and veg and drinking them ‘whole’, as opposed to juicing them, is that you’re getting the fibre as well as the juice - which is good for your digestive tract, as we know, and ALSO helpful in regulating how your body handles the sugar in the fruit.  That’s why, from a glycemic index as well as a calorie perspective, it’s better to eat an orange than drink a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice.  Sometimes what you want is the juice, and nothing else, and I’m not an advocate of deprivation under those circumstances - but that’s not always the case.