Rogue Lettuce

A few of you may remember last summer when I made my first attempt at planting lettuce. I chose the perfect spot. I lovingly watered the seeds. I sprang out of bed each morning and ran out to the garden, hoping that day would be the day I could finally make a salad. A few of you may also remember that after months of waiting, my lettuce garden looked like this:

I gave up my dreams of growing lettuce. Winter came, then spring. I left town for three months, leaving my yard abandoned and in the clutches of a drought. When I returned from my absence, I arrived late at night. When I woke in the morning I wandered outside and what do you think I found? This beautiful head of lettuce had somehow managed to grow in my absence. Not only was it lush and green, it was growing in a container five feet from the box I had originally planted my lettuce seeds in. This little miracle could mean one of two things. 1. Human intervention is pretty much pointless in the plant world and we're all over estimating how much control we have over our yard. 2. If you have faith, good things will come to you, although rarely at the time or in the form you think they will come to you.

Tonight, I am happy to say, I harvested my lettuce. It deserved nothing but the best, so I dressed it up in my favorite and slightly decadent summer dressing, courtesy of Mom:

Summer Lettuce Salad with Creamy Dill Dressing:

1/2 cup half and half or whole cream
1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider or white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp Sugar
1/4-1/2 tsp Salt
3 tablespoons fresh dill

Mint Therapy

Remember the days when throwing your real or imaginary money around was the newest pastime and people indulged in things like vinotherapy without feeling at all like an idiot? For you sensible folk who missed out on this trend, vinotherapy refers to a multitude of spa treatments that involve soaking or rubbing down your body with red wine and its by-products. Supposedly, your skin soaks all those antioxidants right up and it's like dipping into the fountain of youth. I might be able to handle a body scrub made from "antioxidant-rich crushed grape seeds simmered in red wine" (like the one offered at Calistoga Ranch in Napa Valley) but if I'm going to soak in a bathtub filled with red wine you better believe I'm bringing a straw. I don't know about you but these days if there is a bottle of wine around, it's going into my wine glass, not my bathtub.

But I'm not one to discard of all ridiculous indulgences just because the economy has changed. Indulging was exactly what was on my mind the other night when I started to fill the tub and then realized I didn't have a drop of bubble bath in the house. But what I did have was a front yard full of spearmint. For weeks I'd been trying to make a dent in the ever-growing cluster of spearmint taking over the garden. I put mint leaves in salads, I put them pasta, I put them in drinks. It made no difference - in terms of over-abundance during the summer, spearmint puts zucchini to shame. But abundance breeds creativity. And that is exactly how dozens of mint sprigs ended up in my tub. The hot water releases a subtle, but invigorating aroma of clean, tingly mint as you bathe. It's like soaking in a giant mug of mint tea. Completely lovely and completely free if you have any spearmint in your yard. Or, in your neighbor's yard. Trust me, they won't mind if you pick some.

Oregon Sparkling Wine

Once a year, I get together with a few girlfriends who are otherwise scattered across the country leading busy lives in different states. These are not outrageous lets-go-dancing-all-night or lets-go-to-vegas weekends.
The Husband has actually started referring to these all-female getaways as "Girls Gone Mild" weekends, ever since he realized (happily, I think) the wildest thing that usually happens is we stumble upon a sea sponge on the beach.

For my girlfriends and I, the weekend is solely about hunkering down, blocking out our regular lives and focusing on the things we really love most: eating, drinking and talking. Since what we talk about is not for public consumption and what we eat is mostly cheese and chocolate (this year, Seastack from Mt. Townsend Creamery and truffles from Fran's Chocolates) I'm going to expand on what we drank: J.Albin sparkling wine from Oregon.

Oregon sparkling wine gets better and better every year - if you've tasted any of the sparkling wines from Argyle Winery you know what I'm talking about. J. Albin is a smaller venture (no website, even) and a little harder to find, but it's out there and incredibly tasty. By now we all know Oregon produces some great Pinot Noir - well, J. Albin's sparkling wine is blanc de noir, meaning it's made with Pinot Noir grapes. In this economy, a bottle of sparkling wine from Oregon might be considered special occasion stuff (prices start around $25/bottle) but it's worth the splurge and still less than Champagne from France. If you buy Champagne frequently or once in blue moon and tend to be drawn to bottles with a bright orange label, for the love of god, put the bottle down and buy sparkling wine that is not only tastier, but will teach you a little bit about what the great winemakers in Oregon are up to.

God Bless America and Our Lumpy Vegetables

America, at least the one I grew up in, takes great pride in its misshapen fruits and vegetables. You only have to attend one county fair in any small town to know this is true. The large and misshapen vegetable display at the Benton County Fair my family went to every summer was one of my favorite exhibits (less favorite than the pig barn, more favorite than the quilting displays).

I remember walking through the rows of vegetables that people had entered and actually aspiring to enter it myself one day. I really believed that if I worked hard enough, I too could grow a potato that looked like a hippopotamus or a pumpkin that weighed more than my Dad or a zucchini that had naturally taken the shape of a VW bug.

But where one person sees a work of art, another sees a piece of produce that society needs to be protected from. For the last twenty years most of Europe has regulated the shape and size of 36 fruits and vegetables that are sold in supermarkets. Cucumbers, for example, must not be bent by a curve of more than 10mm per 10cm. It is illegal to sell cauliflower that is less than 11cm in diameter. In order for a banana to be a proper banana, "the thickness of a transverse section of the fruit, between the lateral faces and the middle, perpendicular to the longitudinal axis, must be at a minimum of 27 millimeters."

What?

I am happy to report that I heard on NPR yesterday the EU has rescinded the ban on 26 of the 36 fruits and vegetables that have been regulated. Ugly, misshapen fruits and vegetables are now free to co-mingle with the pretty ones! Hopefully, the last ten will soon be free as well. Although I have to admit, I kind of like the regulation on pears that states, "Pears must not be gritty." In some cases, those Europeans have their priorities straight.

Happy 4th of July everyone.

Pea Soup - Not Just for Winter Anymore

When you have a small kitchen, choosing which tools and gadgets deserve a drawer or cupboard or spot on the counter involves ruthless triage. A toaster, coffee maker, food processor and KitchenAid mixer are the only large items that make the cut in my kitchen. The crockpot (I miss it) and microwave (don't miss it at all) had to be banished to the garage. I gave the breadmaker away and the ice-cream maker is in my bedroom closet (which doesn't inspire much hope that I'll suddenly start churning ice-cream every week. Anyone want an ice-cream maker?)

Smaller items I give a little more leeway to. Certain kitchen tools stay in one of my three kitchen drawers not because I use the tools all the time, but because they do one specific job really well. Like a tiny sieve I use to make Summer Pea Soup with Cardamom. Whenever I make this soup I am reminded how much I love this little sieve, even though I honestly don't remember how or when it even ended up in my kitchen. From where does this love spring? From the silky smooth texture of the soup, that's where.

This soup involves three steps: simmer the peas, puree the peas, push the peas through a sieve. This third step traps the chunky insides and skin of the peas and releases their essence, a liquid form of pure flavor. Do not try this soup without a sieve - both a colander and cheese cloth will result in a soup texture that is unappealingly babyfood-like. But when the soup is made right, it's hard to believe such a simple process can yield such a lovely soup.

Summer Pea Soup with Cardamom
3 cups fresh peas or a 16 oz bag of frozen peas
3/4 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1/8 tsp cardamom or more to taste (but don't overdo it - the cardamom should be very subtle)
Optional garnish: fresh parsley and a swirl of creme fraiche

Simmer the peas in the broth for five minutes or until just soft. Puree in a blender or food processor. Pour a little bit of the puree into the sieve at a time. Hold the sieve over a medium-sized bowl, or the pot you simmered the peas in. Push a spoon against the peas, mashing them so their liquid drips into the bowl. Discard the chunky remains of the peas (or eat them later with salt). Re-warm the pea soup, adding more broth if you want the texture to be thinner. Add the cardamom and a pinch of salt. Garnish with parsley and/or creme fraiche.

Recipe by J.Meier

Dried vs Canned Beans

I have always felt a little bit guilty when I buy beans in a can. Granted, there are much bigger things in life to feel guilty about. But along with a degree from a culinary school comes a lifetime of guilt whenever you take shortcuts in the kitchen. Cake mixes? No way! Store-bought pie crusts? Never! (except for every time I make a pie...) Pasta sauce in a jar? Why, when I can spend six hours making my own? The same goes for canned beans. Real cooks use dried beans. Real cooks know that the hours of soaking and cooking dried beans result in a flavor that is far, far superior to canned beans. At least this is what always goes through my head when I buy cans of black beans and pinto beans and garbanzo beans each week.

But not this week. I reached for the can of garbanzos on the grocery store shelf, then paused. And right there in the bean aisle I made a decision to change my life. I was going to start buying dried beans.

But change is never easy. I began, of course, by using a shortcut; instead of soaking the dried garbanzos overnight the package said I could boil them for 2 minutes and soak for only 1 hour. After an hour of soaking I transferred the beans into a vessel (a crock pot) where they could slowly and comfortably cook into the amazing beans they were supposed to be. And while I went about my day, those little beans cooked and cooked and cooked. As they filled the house with an amazing aroma I kept thinking, cooking beans in a crock-pot is so easy! Why did I ever buy those pathetic canned beans anyway?

But seven, yes, seven hours later those canned beans weren't seeming so pathetic. I'm not sure if I was disappointed or pleased to find out that dried garbanzo beans, carefully cooked for seven long hours, tasted exactly like the garbanzo beans I'd been buying in cans all these years.

Eventually I'll give dried black beans and pinto beans a fair chance to prove their superiority and I'll let you know how it goes. But garbanzos? I'm back to buying them in a can, without the tiniest bit of guilt.

Curried Garbanzo Beans

1/2 onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced or put through a garlic press
1 can garbanzo beans, with liquid
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup broth (or water)
2 carrots, sliced thinly (optional)
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
1 1/2 tsp red curry powder


Saute onion in olive oil until soft. Add garlic. Just as garlic starts to brown add the rest of ingredients. Simmer on low until broth reduces and mixture is somewhat thick, about 25 minutes. Salt to taste. Serve over rice.

Best New Picnic Spot

I love picnics. I can't tell you the last time I went on one, but I love them. I think this stems back to a childhood book - I don't remember the title or most of the plot but what's always stuck with me is a scene involving a red gingham table cloth spread on the grass & a chocolate cake. They brought an entire chocolate cake to their picnic. How can you not fall in love with that?


If you happen to be in New York this summer, I highly recommend picnicking on the newly-opened High Line. I visited this weekend and even in gray, rainy weather I was amazed by this magical park set 30 feet above the ground. An elevated train line, abandoned for almost 30 years, has been transformed into what I think is one of the most impressive and creative new green spaces in a downtown setting. There are only a few tables (which may make it difficult to bring an entire chocolate cake) but there are plenty of benches and seats. I even spotted a City Bakery pastry cart, so if you don't pack in your own picnic, you won't go hungry. You can take in the views of the city, or pretend it doesn't exist. You can gaze at wild flowers or at views of the Hudson River. There are apparently similar projects being created in St. Louis, Philadelphia, Jersey City and Chicago - soon all of you lucky dogs will have no excuse not to go on a picnic in the city.