amusing

Amuses bouches have hit the unhip boroughs of our fine country (read: not New York).  Now, everyone is amusing their bouches with them.  Frankly, they’ve been uncool since 2002 among the hipsters, but since we don’t orbit in that galaxy, Daddy-o, we shall press on.

Trying to be hip myself (and thus always already outmoded), I’d say they are Derridean food, but it’s easier to prove and more 2008 if I just spit it out: they are tiny mouthfuls of fun that precede the appetizers in your fancy restaurant meal.  Like appetizers, but smaller and more liberated, contradictory even — more fanciful, less leaden and less predictable.  Amuses bouches are like the Beat Girl of appetizers:

(Yes, I watched this last night.  You’re seeing the best of it.  Well, maybe a café scene or two is better, especially since they use two of my husband’s favorite phrases, “you wanna fight?  Then join the army,” and “aw, nuts.”  He’ll be pleased to know the former phrase contained an even better ending: “you wanna fight?  Then join the army!  That’s what all the squares are doing.”)

But ANYWAY.  Amuses bouches come from Paris, like Gillian Hills, the star of Beat Girl.  There, they’re often called amuses gueules by the French poodles, which is too hard to say for us squares, so they became known as amuses bouches.

I translate these amusing mouthfuls most often when I have a very rich or very garlicky dish.  My cream of kabocha pumpkin soup with bacon, for example, served at Thanksgiving.  Or two or three strange flavors that might be overwhelming if they were served in larger portions, like this seared flank steak with Fraga Farm raw milk goat feta, boysenberry, and homemade blackberry-thyme vinegar.  Just one mouthful, that’s the ticket, dad, something that makes your tastebuds sing.  And sing they did:  the metallic tang of the meat, the funk of the creamy fresh cheese, the tart musk of the berry, and the echo of vinegar.

Needless to say, with les amuses bouches, one needs to use absolutely pristine ingredients.  Shell out for grass-fed local beef, Oregon Tilth (the big organic certifier around these parts) cheese, and just picked berries that you’ve rushed home from the vine.  Your guests will be wild for those kicks, even if you’re a bit behind the times, verging, dare I say it, on square.

And that’s what I’ve got for you today.  I’m gonna fade out, doll.  Zero.

 

tayberries at lone pine farm

If you can find tayberries, this cross between an Aurora blackberry cultivar (an Oregon varietal, thank you very much) and a raspberry, by all means buy them immediately.  In my neck of the woods, Lone Pine Farm in Junction City had them for sale yesterday, so I snapped some up to make delicious jam.  The tayberry is an exquisitely beautiful fruit, and it’s a bit tarter and muskier than a boysenberry (which you can see pictured in my masthead above).  Dark red and elongated, the tayberry tastes far more complex than either of its parents, almost like a raspberry on steriods, dreaming dark dreams.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

And some are born to jam their plight.

 

my reputation spreads far (harrisburg) and wide (one person)

After my shift slinging no-bake breakfast bars — the Food Pantry Project recipe of the month — at the Coburg food pantry, I hightailed it north to Detering’s Orchards in Harrisburg to feed my food-drying addiction.  While I was immersed in green beans, a friendly face smiled at me and said, “nice day for cherry picking!” and “you’re Eugenia from Culinaria Eugenius, aren’t you?”  She didn’t seem to be concealing a weapon, so I came clean, and discovered I was talking to Eat Local Eugene, another local food blogger, who had rushed over to the farm after work to pick cherries and found, well, me.  I was very sad I didn’t have time to follow suit, but my dehydrator — like a crack pipe or a mound of fries or dirty Serge Gainsbourg videos on the Internet — was waiting for me at home.  Not that I’d know anything about the Serge Gainsbourg videos.

But Eat Local Eugene made a good point:  it’s cherry picking time, and the time is now.  They have lovely Bings and Royal Annes at Detering’s, and the price for U-pick can’t be beat.  I was told that the pie cherries (the sour, ruby red ones) will be ready any day now, so please give them a call to see if they’re available before you go to the orchard.  I dried a bunch of fresh Bings and some frozen pie cherries, and they both turned out sweet and tart and lovely. Can’t wait to use them in salads and desserts…

And Eat Local Eugene, I’d love to see what you did with yours!

 

it’s time for another edition of blog hits

I’m still loving the bejeezus out of what search terms hit my blog. This edition has a farm theme:

• will cats eat my chickens?
• will chickens attack each other?
• will chickens eat mice?
• will my chickens attack cats?
• will mice eat each other?

Sadly, I have no answers. The food chain is a cruel and mysterious thing.

And I still don’t have a recipe for “shake and bake meth,” nor do I plan to post one ever. But friends, you can get all your “how to cut an orange” tips from me, since that’s still my number one search query. Orange ya glad I didn’t say banana?

 

if you’re tired of greens

If you’re tired of greens and you know it, salad-spin, salad-spin!

If you’re tired of greens and you know it, salad-spin, salad-spin!

If you’re tired of greens and you know it and you’re trying to be a good little locavore and the whole damn state of Oregon is stuck in perpetual spring and it won’t get warm and your beans aren’t growing and your tomatoes are rotting on the vine and you’ve eaten more lettuce than an entire army of slugs and the greens still keep coming and coming, endlessly, leafily, inexorably, cruelly…

salad-spin, salad-spin!

I’ve grown so desperate, I even altered one of my oldest, dearest recipes to use up a braising mix of chard, kale, mustard greens and spinach. And the recipe? Green potstickers. Yes, potstickers. Who knew? I’ll post about it tomorrow when I have more time.

 

corn-fed

I’ve started in with the hooligans over at the Mid-Willamette Valley Eat Local Challenge, representing the South Valley, an emissary of sorts. The challenge is to incorporate more local products into one’s summer cooking. Frankly, if you’re not doing this already and you live in the Willamette Valley, you’re missing out on some of the best produce, meat and nuts in the country. I’m going to track what I’ve sourced and talk more about the changes we’ve made to our diet over the past five months since I’ve been back in Oregon in a later post, but for now, it’s all about CORNED BEEF made from local brisket.

One of the chief joys in my life lately is, as I have mentioned, my Family Food Education/Master Food Preserver training through OSU Extension. This week, we learned about emergency food storage and root cellars, and spent several hours making cheese. Does it get any better than that? Why, yes, it does. A few weeks ago, we had a presentation on how to corn beef and tongue. My friend Janet is a tongue fan, so she asked me to provide the recipe. I told her I had to make it first to see if I could replicate the deliciousness, and, after three weeks of prep and curing, it turns out I could!

I bought the 5-lb. brisket at Long’s Meat Market (see under Eugene Marketplace links to the right). The meat is from Knee Deep Cattle Company in Coburg, OR, who also makes an affordable and delicious pound-bag of ground beef that sells at Friendly Street Market for $2.99. (N.b., the cows are not corn-fed until you rub ‘em with spices and let them cure in your corning procedure.)

The Morton’s Tender Quick might cause some issues with those of you — it’s a blend of nitrates, nitrites, sugar and salt used to fix the color and help preserve the meat. Paradoxically, it turns raw meat brown and cooked meat red. Science! I’ve seen recipes without it, and if you’d like to omit the Tender Quick, please don’t alter mine but use another recipe, like this adaptation from Julia Child, at your own risk. Tender Quick can be found at many grocery stores and places that have big canning sections in spring, like Fred Meyer.  (The image is from a product website, so you have a sense of what you’re looking for.  Try the spices aisle as well as the canning supplies aisle.)

This recipe is my adaptation of OSU Extension Service document LC 712, “Deli-Style Corned Beef or Tongue.” Other cuts to try include pork loin (for Canadian bacony taste), bottom round, and shoulder. Check to make sure your brisket will fit into a ziplock bag before the process starts, and plan for several weeks of curing time!

Corned Beef or Tongue

1 beef brisket (or tongue), 4-6 lbs.
2 T. Penzey’s premium pickling spice mix, toasted (or another brand, or make your own, using the ingredients listed here)
5 T. Morton’s Tender Quick
2 T. dark brown sugar
1 t. ground pepper
1 t. smoked Spanish paprika
1 t. ground allspice
1 t. garlic powder
4-5 fresh bay leaves, chopped, or 1 t. dried, powdered bay leaves

Toast spices in the spice mix in a small pan over medium heat until mixture smells aromatic. Crush spice mix spices in a mortar with pestle. Mix together sugar, all spices, and Tender Quick in a small bowl.

Prepare brisket or tongue by removing whatever surface fat you can. In a bowl or platter, rub mixture well into the meat, covering all exposed areas. Place meat in ziplock bag, seal tightly, then place into another ziplock bag for safety, and set on clean plate.

Allow meat to cure in refrigerator for five days per inch of meat thickness (measure at the thickest part). A corned beef brisket is usually around 2 inches wide; tongues are much wider, so plan for three weeks for a large tongue.

Turn bag over every other day.

Place fully cured meat in a large stockpot, and add generous amounts of water to cover. Bring to a boil, skim surface, and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until tender, about 3 to 4 hours. Tongue will be done when you can skin it, and you should skin it before serving. Do not do this in room with vegetarians.

In the last 30 minutes of cooking, you may add whole new potatoes and/or cabbage to the cooking liquid.

Let sit for 10-15 minutes before slicing, or meat will fall apart.

 

lupine spring salad

His eyes still sparkle in a narr’wer space:
His jaws retain the grin, and violence of his face

- Ovid, Metamorphosis, Book 1

Eating new vegetables always seemed slightly inhumane to me; something like facing spring alone or long in the tooth or with one’s eyes more dull than wolfish. It’s like cutting fecundity down at the knees: eating what we grow too young. Each year I smell the feral mud and think the same thing and have as long as I can remember, and again, it is May, and I catch it in the air: that something horrible awakening when the year is new.

Then I think: they’re radishes, for god’s sake. Eat them.

And I try not to think at all about the eggs.

Hence, a salad with no more exegesis than a reference to what inspired me, Adam Roberts’ “killer salad,” a lettuce-free mix of spring vegetables in risk-aware consensual raw eggyolk dressing. I used multicolored “Easter Egg” radishes and new carrots from Hey Bayles farm via the Saturday Market, peas from my garden, some leftover grape tomatoes and avocado from god knows where, and a liberal sprinkling of chive flowers, also local beauties. You should use what your conscience dictates.

Risk-Aware Consensual Raw Eggyolk Dressing

Dresses one big bowl of no-lettuce salad. Use less for lettuce, and use promptly, discarding leftovers.

1/2 lemon, juiced (or 2 T. of your lovely lemon-chive blossom vinegar that you made three weeks ago)

1 t. dijon mustard with tarragon

1/2 t. fresh chopped chives, if you haven’t used chive blossoms in the salad

salt and pepper to taste

1 perfectly fresh-from-the-farm egg yolk

1/8 - 1/4 cup olive oil

Whisk together all ingredients but the olive oil. In a slow, thin stream, add the olive oil while whisking to make a thick, emulsified dressing. You may choose not to use the full 1/4 cup, depending on your taste. When emulsified and seasoned to taste, quickly blend with the waiting salad, and serve immediately.

 

dining with Porkchop and Meatball

My husband had two imaginary friends when he was little: Porkchop and Meatball. I decided to give them an honorary banquet yesterday. Or rather, eat them at an honorary banquet yesterday.* Inspiration is a treacherous thing. And yet, it all looks so normal, donnit? The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie.

Le Menu

Moroccan carrot purée and pita

Harissa spiced meatballs with lemon sauce

Green herbed couscous (kale, dill, parsley, scallions)

Pan-seared brined porkchops over white Russian kale with Noris butter and garlic

Retrogrouch’s salad with lemon mustard dressing

Store-bought cookies, Dagoba chocolate, and Coconut Bliss vegan ice cream

 

 

 

(Not pictured: Meatball.)

We had over a colleague from his work, and the evening was full of wine. I’m now feeling too full and lazy to post recipes, so I won’t.

And I’m so full of CSA love right now…I had never prepared Russian kale before, just regular, and it’s much more tender and pretty, with ruffly, small leaves. I used CSA dill in my couscous, their carrots in my purée and in the meatballs, their garlic and their kale, and their lettuce for the salad. Yay for local vegetables! Yay for nutritiony goodness!

The Russian kale was fantastic. I seared the pork chops, then sauteed the kale in the same pan, so it picked up the drippings. If you’re not going to simmer greens in pot likker with ham hocks, this is a method I would absolutely suggest.

*Hey, my imaginary friends were cats. It could be worse.

 

 

and speaking of stuff Eugene doesn’t need…

Here are the outtakes from my coeur à la crème flavoring experiments. I was going for high concept, thinking that it might be fun to highlight different aspects of love.

The center (which I thought I’d call Ground Up Angel Wings) is flavored with Meyer lemon zest and Clear Creek kirschwasser, the bottom (Heartbreak) is Angostura bitters, the right (You Dirty Slut, my favorite and the one my Valentine wouldn’t touch) is habeñero, Qi Black liqueur, and cinnamon, and the left is boysenberry (Boysenberry). He liked Boysenberry the best, which I guess means our love sign is Boysenberry.

But honestly, if you wanted to have a Down with Love Valentine’s celebration, you could do something that looks like the second picture.  I particularly liked the slightly bitter edge of the Angostura bitters-flavored crème on the bottom.  The Angostura has such a pretty color and a herbal sweetness, but the punch from the quinine lingers, just like heartbreak.

You could even crack open the heart and pour the toppings in the middle and around the side. I love the idea of a goth coeur, too, flavored with absinthe and surrounded by rosepetals. The anise would work well with the mild creaminess of the base.

The toppings, by the way, are local meadowfoam honey, brandied cherry and raspberry reduction, and boysenberry puree, and each was tasty, if not exactly candidates for Miss Oregon 2008.

 

what’s black and white and read in eugene?

On January 1, we started receiving the local paper. This marked the first time I’ve regularly read a local paper in over 15 years. It’s partly a fluke — the New York Times delivery person refused to deliver the paper to my porch, which meant that more often than not I’d have to get dressed, go outside in the cold rain BEFORE my coffee, and retrieve the wet, besmirched paper from the muddy grass or behind my car. After repeated calls, I gave up and just stopped reading the paper in the morning.

The Eugene Register-Guard is no New York Times. I feel my IQ dropping each time I read it. Still, it has its charm. I’ve had limited knowledge of local politics for years, since I don’t watch much TV and only occasionally pick up the alternative weekly. Eugene is such a small town, with small-town insular attitudes and chatter, that we really lose an ability to communicate with our neighbors and friends when we don’t have access to news in the vernacular.

All in all, it seems like Eugene is often a chicken running around without a head. To a newbie, the yuppie v. hippie battles are very amusing, the slapstick routines of local government less so. There’s some ridiculous, everchanging plan about a new hospital, and another about wasting a few mill on a new stadium. Meth addicts are stealing copper wire from power stations, so The Man made a plan to start painting wire in identifiable colors. The newspaper editors removed a comic about a black family after segregating it to the classifieds page. Someone’s up at arms about the design for the new pizzeria, complaining that the modern-style architecture (excuse me, “Northwest contemporary with an urban buzz and shadows of ancient Italy”) will fit into the neighborhood less well than its current design (Gay 90s green, red, and white Farrell’s ice cream parlour with encrustations of light bulbs ). A charter has been taken away from a free-for-all alternative school thanks to assessments like No Child Left Behind. No laggards here in Eugene, that’s for sure!

I think I like the obituaries the best. Horrible writing. It’s been a while since I’ve seen formulaic prose done so poorly. Someone who was murdered had an entry last week, as did a grandmother who was known for her baking. Something you’d never seen in the NYT? They published a recipe for her chocolate chip cookies in the death announcement. So I bring you, with all due respect:

Deceased Grandma Chocolate Chip Cookies (edits in brackets are mine)

2/3 c. butter or margarine

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1/2 c. brown sugar

2 eggs

[1 t. vanilla]

2 1/2 c. flour

1 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

1 c. chopped walnuts

1 - 12 oz. package chocolate chips.

[Preheat oven to 350 degrees.] Combine the butter, sugars and eggs. Beat well. [Add the eggs after creaming the butter and sugar and vanilla, and ignore "add vanilla" later.] Add the dry ingredients, beat well. Add the vanilla, nuts and chocolate chips. [And mix with wooden spoon to combine. Drop dough in tablespoon-sized portions on a cookie sheet lined with foil.] Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Enjoy!

The family obviously loved grandma, and I like the idea of the recipe addition to the obituary very much. I’m pretty sure, though, without checking, that this is a variation of your standard Toll House cookie recipe, which makes the recipe addition even more fascinating. To be remembered most of all for your standard recipe that has been printed on the back of chocolate chip packages for decades? Awful? Or is it the same quest for — and certain achievement of — immortality that grips artists and writers? I can say this: I made the cookies, in memoriam. They are honestly an old-fashioned cookie: a bit cakey and rather plain. I served them to my husband, who said they weren’t anything like my regular chocolate chip cookies. Indeed, quoth he, they reminded him of his (dead) grandma’s cookies.

And that’s why I like reading the local newspaper.