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Hydrangea
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| For the Leos |
by Gustav Ericson
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The road leading out to the
beach is lined with miles of magnificent ferns, bronze, deep gold and
somber green. Six months ago, the fiddleheads that became these ferns
sprang up tightly coiled, sap green, promising. Now their more restful
spectrum is hinting of their long sleep ahead. Further out, the ferns
cede to drifts of sheep sorrel, ravishing as the gentle September sun
turns them too soft mauve and spun gold. The sheep sorrel later gives
way to
gnarled scrub oak and pine, and still closer to the beach, those will
be interspersed with roses, heavy now with brilliant orange hips,
startling next to the magenta of a late bloom or two. I ponder
harvesting them or maybe the amber beach plums that grow in the sand on
the outer beaches, maybe making preserves. But how good would that jam
be, and why tamper with this luscious coastal landscape? These fruits
are healthful, assuredly, as those fiddleheads might have been back in
April. Their emerald coils next to your grilled salmon might be an
elegant esthetic, but they will never become a glorious fern if you eat
them, and they sure won’t ever replace asparagus on your tongue. The
vegetation on the way to this beach- every season more beautiful.
That pale gold sun is now a caress, falling on the ubiquitous gray
shingled cottages, the seaweed-strewn beach, and the blowzy pale blue
hydrangeas. Out here, the afternoons are often spent only with the sun
and the waves. And the constant company of the gulls. Their cries, the
gentle waves of early afternoon, and an occasional passage of bossa
nova coming from the cottage are the only sounds. The tides were angry
early this morning, well before dawn, perhaps influenced by the huge
storms raging in seas far south of here. There’s to be a full moon,
too. The gulls love this fecund bay- they forage voraciously for the
treasures brought in on the surging tide of early morning. After the
feast, they retire to the roofs of the cottages apparently drowsy but
ever vigilant. They doze and await the next tide- or perhaps our
picnic. These are not the birds of home- melodious wrens, devoted
cardinals, and softly colored mourning doves. Not like the five
perspicacious and robust crows, either, who strut through my back yard
each morning, seemingly confident in their lustrous blue-black raiment-
imposing but skittish as mice. The gulls will defiantly snatch the
bread and cheese off your blanket in the blink of an eye, and then
fight over it with their pals. You can watch them all afternoon,
listening to their relatives far down the shore as they squabble over a
new find. Here, on beach time, sleep and appetite seem most salubrious.
It might be the wonderful, easy companionship, damp saline breezes,
agenda-less days, or the early morning bike trek to beaches even
further out. Those appetites are fully sated here- the seafood is
perfection: that traditional platter of briny, silken oysters in
Wellfleet, or grilled sardines one night, every bite a deeper taste of
ocean, accompanied with an astringent lemon marmalade. Even victuals
hauled out here from inland seem more savory. To bring the sense of
peace and appetite back home, to the mountains, is the challenge…
There is no shortage of inland delights
this year, though. We sure have every reason to be thankful with this
autumn’s local produce. It was a difficult summer for local farmers
indeed. The torrential and battering rains resulted in five inches of
standing water in Chris and Samantha’s “Otter Hook Farm” main
garden. Choking weeds and an elusive sun brought some serious
disappointments. The crops, however, were more treasured, more
appreciated, and ultimately more delicious, somehow. “Otter Hook’s”
tomato varieties were positively nectarous, the kale profoundly,
salubriously mineral, and the beets were the earthiest, sweetest, most
mysterious ever. Perfect little potatoes, too, in many colors, better
than any potatoes we’ve had in decades. We might suggest halving such
potatoes and then parboiling them in well-salted water until they’re
just shy of tender. Then sauté them in olive oil, or a
combination of oil and good butter (have you tried the new
European-style butter from Vermont Butter and Cheese Company? It
rivals our old favorite Beurre
Baratte au fleur de sel). You could add a few sliced shallots
and a branch or two of intense late summer thyme, or a bountiful amount
of robust, celadon sage leaves. (Ever notice how the overpowering sage
this time of year mellows and crisps delightfully when fried in olive
oil and butter? Add them, with or without the potatoes, to your
linguini, with some pasta cooking water, pecorino Romano, and black
pepper for a frugal and perfect supper on a Sunday night). For a
crunchy treat heavy on the carbs, strew the potatoes with a good
handful of breadcrumbs and roast in a hot oven until all is golden and
crisp. Then hit with big handful of your flat-leafed parsley. One night
I added some blanched and “chiffonaded” kale and a half link of chopped
chorizo. Yes! Good chorizo is
now widely available, and if you like its smoky, decidedly Iberian
flavors, you should add it to your braised cabbage this winter.
Sauté an onion along with the sliced cabbage, and season well
with either toasted cumin or coriander. (Get in the habit of toasting
your hard spices in a dry frying pan- it enhances their flavor and such
endeavors cost nothing but a minute of your time). Once the cabbage is
tender, add your chorizo and let it all bubble together. You only need
a splash of sherry (or balsamic vinegar) and some decent bread, and you
have dinner. And it might cost seven dollars.
You could also tweak your sautéed potatoes even further and make
our new favorite: Patatas Bravas.
There are myriad recipes for this satisfying side dish, or tapas (when
served cold)-almost as many as there are for that other Spanish potato
delight, the Tortilla Española.
Patatas Bravas,
“fierce” or “brave” as they might be, are another silk purse dish that
it might behoove us to learn to make in times to come. I will play with
my version from now on, like I tweak Salade Niçoise or
Puttanesca Sauce, aspiring to some sort of perfection- but not really. I add a few cloves
of sliced garlic to the quartered, parboiled and drained potatoes as
they sizzle in their bath of olive oil. Meanwhile, I soak a couple of
dried chilies in warm water, then I open them up and eviscerate them,
taking out the seeds unless I am feeling particularly bravo. I crush
the peppers with copious toasted cumin seed and a heaping spoonful of
the smoky and now imperative pimentón
de La Vera. (Why is the smokiness of pimentón so welcome and
right, like a cup of Lapsong souchong on a biting February morning? So
many other “smoked” victuals fail miserably). I feel resourceful but
not terribly bravo if I do
the crushing in my heavy old mortar and pestle. I add a splash of
sherry vinegar and pound the contents of the mortar into a brilliant
red paste, perhaps adding a dribble or two of olive oil to achieve the
right smoothness and texture-it should remind you of harissa. I often feel compelled to
add a couple of roasted red peppers, or the sublime piquillos to the potatoes at this
point, heating them through, and then I add the pimentón mixture, mixing it
all together into a lavish rubicund mass. You might plate the potatoes
and then slather the condimento on
top, but I prefer to mix it into the potatoes and let them marry. Try
any version now that an outstanding variety of potatoes is available.
The past summer brought us some spectacular fruits, as well. We have
never tasted such apricots. They were great just eaten out of hand, but
even better poached only in their own juices with a couple of
tablespoons of honey or vanilla sugar. (It’s always a treat to run
across a big forgotten jar of vanilla sugar left over from the annual
Christmas bake-off, as the sugar has been quietly imbibing the
redolence of the vanilla bean all along). Just scatter the sugar into a
heavy enameled frying pan, lay in the halved and pitted apricots,
severed-side down, turn the heat to medium, and watch as the fruit
exudes its juices, the sugar melts, and the whole comes together
perfectly, poaching and tenderizing the apricots and forming a perfect
sauce. Poach only until the apricots soften slightly, not allowing them
to get mushy (never let your drupes
droop. Ahem). Lavish them over your Greek yogurt, perhaps a bowl
of vanilla gelato, or eat them cold out of the refrigerator the next
morning. Nothing is more thirst quenching, except perhaps a cold,
canned lichee. Such a simple poaching method works well with other
stone fruits, particularly those white peaches we all gorged on this
past summer. I listened with love one evening as some co-workers
debated languorously as to why a white peach tastes, indeed, “white.”
They’re just as elegant in their aesthetic- vanilla and rose- as they
are in taste- honey and flowers. I wonder, now that they’re gone for
another year, how they would be in a cobbler. Perhaps the more
traditional peach cobbler, the thickened yellow juices bubbling up
through the burnished gold biscuit, is the right, true, Aretha way to go. There’s always
next year…
In the meantime, there is no shortage of figs this year, which you can
poach in much the same manner as your drupes. The exquisite Kadota and
Calmyrna, with their pale green skin and pink-brown flesh (glowing a
little, much like the sheep sorrel at dawn) will soon be out of season,
but the ultra-sweet Black Missions will fortunately be around for a
spell. I recently learned to pull a fig apart gently rather than cut
it, for a nicer presentation, and also that the leaves of the ficus are very flavorful, making a
nice bed on which to roast an array of whole figs, with shallot slices
and thyme branches. (Get an Italian friend to part with a few fig
leaves- the Italians have a way with fig-growing). You would drizzle
such a dish with olive oil before roasting at 400º F ‘til the figs
soften. A fig sauté is even easier, and should be brief, just to
soften them slightly and release a bit of their juices. (Don’t let your
syconiums droop, either). You could add the scrapings of half a vanilla
pod and a tablespoon or so of mild honey in lieu of the sugar. This is
our long-preferred Irish oatmeal topping, discovered a while back in
“Cook’s Illustrated” magazine. Feel free to add a tablespoon of good
butter, a drizzle of sherry or Cognac, a scraping of nutmeg, a nuance
of cardamom. Then your quick fig sauté becomes a perfect
accompaniment for roasted duck breast, any panino, a shard of Pecorino
Toscano or even mellow cheese like the milky Panarello that has gotten
so popular.
If you haven’t tried the Piquillo peppers
mentioned above, you really ought to. As deeply flavored and tender as
they are scarlet, they can take your Romesco sauce to new heights. (Ask
us for a new, heavily tweaked Romesco recipe if you’d like one). A
baguette or focaccia split and spread with one of Nettle Meadow Farm’s
chèvres (particularly the olive oil and garlic version), layered
with some drained, patted-dry piquillos, then strewn with basil leaves
and coarsely ground pepper, will make you and your companion happy, I
venture. A few artichokes, perhaps some paper-thin red onion slices, or
some pitted chopped Kalamatas would be appropriate, certainly.
Out on the Cape, as tradition mandates, I served a tapas-y supper on
the “lanai”, offering goaty, peppery Queso Ibores, rosemary-encrusted
Manchego, a platter of garlicky sautéed shrimp, a bowl of piquillos strewn with chopped
Italian parsley, some chorizo (defying the gulls), and a big jar of
Spanish olives that I had roasted the week before. You assuredly don’t
need to be at the beach for such a repast. In an attempt (yet another)
to emulate the Spanish, I had roasted a generous pound of Manzanilla and Arbequina olives with a couple of
thinly sliced, unpeeled lemons, several peeled and thickly sliced
shallots, even more whole peeled garlic cloves, and two or three
branches of rosemary. A suggestion: bring all of the above to the
simmer on the top of the stove in an ovenproof vessel into which you’ve
poured a copious amount of good Spanish olive oil. Once they start to
simmer, put them into a 375ºF. oven and let them roast for an
hour, or until the olives wrinkle a little and the house smells like
heaven. Unless, of course, you want heaven to smell like peach cobbler.
Let them cool and pack them into an impressive jar. Cover with the oil
in which you’ve roasted them, adding more oil if necessary. Don’t fret
if you seem to be using an inordinate amount of oil, as your cohorts will very much
appreciate it to dip their baguette into, and you want happy cohorts.
You may use any variety of brine-cured olive, of course- just rinse off
some of the salt first.
This transitional season is abundant with some of the best local
produce of the year. Chris and Sam promise a glorious selection of
hardy root vegetables and squash, and our Produce Department is
positively rife with hearty colors, textures, and possibilities. We
applaud the resolute farmers, moving on from the trials of an
inclement summer. The winter ahead may well be one of cabbage and
potatoes- fortunately there are infinite uses for such basic fare.
Perhaps, over a wintry stew, you might smile at the thought of the
cries of gulls from down the shore or the sun on blue hydrangeas. And
remember that the bright fiddleheads will spring up again soon.
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