Living on the Water July 22, 2009

(photo from Trustees of the Reservation)

Community supported fisheries have been getting a lot of attention in the national news. It’s a revolution, first Boston, then the world (now where have I heard that before?).

But the thing is, you don’t live in New England because you like eating farm-raised shrimp from China stuffed with antibiotics.

 

In Boston, it can be easy to forget that you live on the water. Sure, you can see seagulls harassing each other for leftovers in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot, but how often do you see water other than the Frog Pond and dodgy puddles—the Jamaica Pond, if you are lucky?  

 

Here on the North Shore, the water is harder to ignore. We have to stop in our cars and wait for boats to go through the drawbridge, our roads go by the water, there are beaches we can go to whenever we want, we pass the tourists waiting outside Woodman’s. They came here to see something. But even on the North Shore, you cannot find local strawberries at the grocery store. In season.

 

One of the very basic things we can do to live less-ridiculous lives is to remember where we live.  This is very basic terroir. Up here, there is no reason to eat strawberries from Chile in February (or California strawberries in June), when you can freeze your overabundance of berries in June. Why would you eat Washington State apples in October, when, in Massachusetts at least, you are never more than an hour’s drive from an orchard? And the seafood.

 

 Eat like you live on the water. Support the local fishing boats that you see coming in when you are at the beach. The folks on board are your neighbors, not part of some foreign-owned corporation that has no interest in what makes New England different than Timbuktu, except for how they can make money from it.

 

Anyway, I hear Timbuktu is pretty hot this time of year.

-goldlentil

Salem Farmers Market July 13, 2009

Hey People,

What are you doing on Thursday between 4 and 7? Going to the Salem Farmers Market in Derby Square, of course! It’s finally open. Go show them some love. Buy some lobsters, and greens to eat them with.

 

-goldlentil

Cold Peanut Noodles July 8, 2009

True confession: Barbeque chicken bores me to tears. Maybe, as someone who doesn’t eat beef (except for the beef sushi incident), I’ve had too many mediocre chicken sandwiches in bars and restaurants across the greater Boston area. So when no egrets suggested that we have BBQ chicken for the Fourth, I was underwhelmed. After some soul-searching, we came up with spicy peanut chicken.

Strawberries make life worth living July 3, 2009

Up here on the North Shore, we haven’t seen the sun in….a long time. It’s achieved record-setting proportions.

 

Strawberries are the last sweet shred of life I am clinging to. We picked up some Marini’s strawberries from the Marblehead Farmer’s Market on Saturday. On Sunday, no egrets made strawberry shortcake.

 

Strawberries
Slice up the strawberries, add a tiny bit of sugar (maybe a teaspoon) if the strawberries are not very sweet. You can add lemon juice if they are excessively sweet (if you believe in excess in that department).

Pound Cake (from Joy of Cooking, ca. 1964)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix 4 c flour
1 ts salt
4 ts baking powder
Set aside.

Mix 1 cup milk
2 ts vanilla
2 Tb yer favorite likker (that would taste good in a pound cake. No sour pucker. Ew.)
Set aside.
Cream 1 1/2 cups of butter, and then add
3 cups of sugar (gradually).

Add 8 eggs, one at a time; beat thoroughly after each one.

Keep mixing and alternate adding flour mixture and wet mixture. Stir until thoroughly blended.

Baked in a greased loaf pan for 15 or 20 min, or until a toothpick comes out reasonably clean.
Whipped Cream

Take a pint of heavy cream. Whip it up in your mixer, and add (slowly) up to 5 Tb of sugar and 2-3 ounces of your favorite dessert-embellishing liquor (we prefer bourbon or Grand Marnier in these parts). Once it looks like whipped cream, you are done.

Combine and pretend it is summer.

-goldlentil

CSF and the WSJ June 17, 2009

See what the Wall Street Journal has to say about Cape Ann Fresh Catch! I believe this is the first CSF near a big city (and which also drops off in a city) in the US. Evidently we are cutting edge, up here on the North Shore (who knew?).

 -goldlentil

The Obsessive Canner and the Zombie Apocalypse May 27, 2009

[New York Times, we are way ahead of you.]

 

It could just be that I’m an obsessive personality. Instead of buying a complete bike, I buy a frame and spend 2 years tinkering to get 10 speeds out of a 28-speed gruppo.  Instead of waiting and saving for a hot tub, I drag an old one out of someone’s yard so it can beautify mine. A pattern has been established.

 

So, I think about BPA being in all of that “organic” food I buy in (plastic-lined metal) cans, and decide to buy some nice, inert Ball jars and a pressure canner. Maybe you can see where this is headed.

Pork and Apple Pies May 22, 2009

Yes please! No Egrets won my eternal devotion for making pork and apple pies, also known also as pork pasties, but if I put that on the blog title, lord knows who would have shown up. This is not a summer dish, but it is very very yummy.

(see more below)

Community Supported Fisheries in Gloucester!! May 5, 2009

Exciting news! This is a little lukewarm off the presses, as I’ve been distracted by other things, but sign up here for Cape Ann Fresh Catch. A twelve-week assortment of fish is available in whole shares (6-8 lbs. a week for $360) and half shares (3-4 lbs. a week for $180). Pickup may be available in Ipswich, Gloucester, Marblehead, and Cambridge, depending on interest.

 

Support your local fisherman and learn how to cook new kinds of fish!

-goldlentil

Beef Sushi April 27, 2009

Before you run away screaming, let me explain. Always on the lookout for something with which to culinarily impress his friends, No Egrets began to think about ways to modify the sushi formula. What  he came up with was beef nigiri, a perfect dish to take to our friend’s surprise birthday party.

 

The evening before the surprise celebration, we cooked a vat of sushi rice (which is nice and sticky) with a little rice vinegar and put it in the fridge. No Egrets also marianated the filet mignon (it’s true)  in soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic.

 

The next morning we got up and sprung into action. No Egrets seared the beef and cooked it until it was (to my non-beef-eating eyes) quite red. He shaped the cold rice into little oblong shapes, and put a thin slice of beef on top. Next time he will add a dab of wasabi between the rice and beef.

 

The rare steak resembled rare tuna, which was a nice effect, and almost broke my non-beef-eating ways. (OK, I confess, it looked so good I tried a piece.) It was an overall success, and may be a great way to introduce sushi to your midwestern friends and family when fresh seafood is merely a fantasy.

 

-goldlentil

 

PS Our friend was taken completely unaware. Ha!

Five Gallons of Carroty Goodness April 12, 2009

I went out into the garden for the first time this year. Well, I had passed it while gathering firewood, or bringing something heavy around to the back of the house, but today was the first day I actually put my hands in the dirt. I got in touch with my inner weeder, because don’t you know, the herbs were straggling up but the dandelions and long-haired-weed-number-seven were so green and lush it could have been June (I wish).

One of our surprise gardening successes last year was the five-gallon pot of carroty goodness. I had received a packet of carrot seeds as a favor from a wedding a few years back; but I’ve never been much of a gardener. (In my bachelor days, I kept one spider plant and one pot of basil in the window of my JP apartment, and considered myself a success.) I had been using the carrot seeds as, um, a bookmark, when No Egrets saw them and liberated them from a life of dormant literacy.

Not having a clear idea how old the seeds were, No Egrets proceeded cautiously. He filled a five-gallon pot one-third with sand and two-thirds with rich beautiful soil and sprinkled the carrot seeds. We waited. A month later, we had scads of baby carrots. We harvested a few, and many grew in their place. Every time we were in the garden, we picked one and ate its fresh, almost peppery, carrot self, reminding ourselves why it was worthwhile to weed out the dandelions. Again.

-goldlentil