Kitchen Garden Journal

The sap’s running and while it’s too early to tell what the maple season will be like this year, I can tell you that the pancakes at Gould’s Sugarhouse on Route 2 in Shelburne are fantastic no matter what’s happening up in the sugar bush. Our Saturday morning visit was the third for our daughter, Lily - an annual tradition we started when she was one month old - and the first for our 5-month-old, Oliver. Even though we got there at exactly 8:30 a.m. when they opened the doors, the wait was about an hour. Perfect timing is probably more like 8:15.

 The wait, however, is truly part of the experience of the New England sugarhouse pancake breakfast. It’s the only dining experience I know of where you can chat with real farmers doing real farm work in real time while you wait for your table. A friendly chat with the man working the evaporator about his firewood gave me some insight into his business.

There are two major external factors that determine the success of a maple crop, or of any crop, for that matter: the weather and the economy. Since the economy is bad, the local sawmills aren’t churning out as many boards, so there aren’t as many cast-off end pieces to burn. Luckily, though, last winter’s ice storm took down a bunch of hardwoods on the Gould property and they were able to split and season their own windfall crop of wood. Adding hardwood to the mix buys them more time to chew the fat with customers; instead of stoking the boiler every 5 minutes with an all pine fire, they only have to do it every seven minutes to keep the sap at a fierce 220 degrees. 

So in this case, the negative effects of the economy were offset by the positive effects of bad weather.

In other good news, local demand for pancakes seems to be stronger than ever, and Gould’s serves the best around. The secret? Good luck finding it out, but the essence of the Gould’s pancake is moistness. There are no crunchy fried bits on the outside, but who cares? Their perfect batter, whatever its makeup, is perfectly cooked, not at all raw, and when you dive into a triple stack it’s like taking a bite of birthday cake. And if that wasn’t enough, the homemade sour pickles are the perfect foil for all that syrup.

That’s what’s so great about Gould’s: the traditions. More than at some other places where they have propane boilers or reverse osmosis or lots of Bisquick, this place seems like the real deal. No one’s forcing them to spend the summer making all those pickles for the following spring. They do it out of a sense of pride in what they do, and of doing it right, and that sense carries all the way though the process from sap to syrup to service.

I am just back from a weekend trip to Montreal. Being in that city this time was a badly needed shot of French culture right into the arm. Tempered in good measure by a dose of Canadian friendliness and lack of pretension, my visit was inspiring on many levels.

Going to Montreal is like a geographical slap in the face. That there is a whole metropolitan culture beyond the desolation of northern New York never ceases to amaze me. And even though I am way more Canada-literate than most Americans, being there reminds me of the severity our collective Canada-denial. Case in point: when I think of Northeast cities, I think Boston, New York, Philly, DC. It never even occurs to me to look up. But Montreal is truly one of the great Northeastern cities, and so close.

And it’s now official: I need to go there more than once every three or four years.

I need to be in a place where you can count on good baguettes: not just one or two places, but ALL of them. Can you imagine if bakeries in the US just happened to stock four kinds of paté? People would laugh. Then the place would go under. It’s just nice to be in a place where French things are French and don’t also have to reflect American trends and tastes (or lack thereof). French food in the US unfortunately has that in common with Chinese food.

As you can tell, I carry around way too much snobbery and bitterness. And in Montreal, I witnessed a culture of warmth and openness that somehow doesn’t sacrifice coolness or good taste. Strangers are assumed to be sympathetic. I can’t but think if I lived there I would be a better person.

My trip to Montreal was truly inspiring. Most of all, it seems to have inspired a bad case of city envy and fantasies of relocation. If anyone knows the lowdown on emigration, please let me know.

I love winter food as much as the next guy: potatoes a million ways, root vegetable soups, slow cooked fatty meats, entire meals composed of treasures from the cellar, pantry and freezer. But I have to admit that with nothing much happening in the fields, the dead of winter is the one time out of the year when my cooking is suddenly free of the burden of seasonality.

For once, there is no relentless parade of transient, seasonal delicacies pounding on my kitchen window. It is one of my guilty pleasures that in winter I can go to the supermarket, linger in the produce department, find inspiration in the miracle of freshness, and actually buy stuff. I love buying vegetables. It’s so easy. And I never get to do it during the growing season; there’s always something wonderful I’ve grown left over in the cooler that I feel compelled to cook with, or some blemished cast-off begging for salvation.

At one point a few years back, I thought that winter would be an ideal time for travel to the hotter parts of the globe. We got in one such trip to Thailand in 2007, and then proceeded to have two children. Now I do my tropical getaways in the privacy of my own kitchen. And it must be said that nothing perks me up out of the winter doldrums like a blisteringly hot and tangy green papaya salad studded with raw garlic, fresh herbs, and grape tomatoes from god-knows-where.

Of course there’s nothing quite as special as a Thai salad made with our own cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, and cilantro at their peak of freshness, but hey--August only lasts so long this far from the equator.

When it’s cold outside and I get the urge to crawl out of my root cellar, I head to Food Zone in Springfield. This is a full size supermarket that caters to Forest Park’s incredibly diverse community of Puerto Ricans, Vietnamese, and everyone else in between.

It’s worth a trip just to be enveloped in the sheer other-ness of the place. (It also seems to be one of the best run supermarkets in the area.) And of course, you can stock up on all those great items of produce that are not in season any time of year in Western Massachusetts: plantains, yuca, mangoes, coconuts, sugar cane, countless unidentifiable Southeast Asian herbs and massive piles of tropical roots.

The highlight, though, for sheer wow factor, are the mountains of rice, beans, frying oil and Malta Goya that tower above the center isle like a cross between midtown Manhattan and a Mayan temple.

I have become somewhat of a Southeast Asian food zealot this winter, honing my craft of this exuberant cuisine of perpetual summer as life outside my window lies trapped in suspended animation. Nothing tastes better to me than the combination of chilies, garlic, fish sauce, palm sugar and lime juice over raw and crunchy vegetables, lemongrass-marinated grilled meats, steamed fish, sticky rice, and plain blanched rice noodles, everything infused with the aromas of cilantro, mint, and Thai basil. The contrasts of flavor are as stark as jumping in a frozen lake fresh from a steaming sauna.

I’ve been finding inspiration reading the many incredible food blogs that cover Southeast Asian food. For instant access into this amazing world of flavor check out Rasa Malaysia, Chez Pim, and Viet World Kitchen. Who needs cookbooks anymore when there are real cooks offering their expertise for free?

Having thrown my lot down squarely in the local foods camp, I know as well as anyone the pleasures of fresh food grown at home and eaten the day it’s picked. But being so focused on local foods, local markets and local communities for so much of the year I relish the opportunity to step outside of all that for a moment and appreciate the best things that the other side has to offer: the different communities, cultures, and cuisines that we cohabitate with in our cosmopolitan society, and the fresh foods that we can rely on throughout the barren months if we so desire them. For the winter-weary locavore, these are the true gifts of globalization.

Recipe: Tostones (Twice-Fried Green Plantains)

On a recent outing to Food Zone I could not resist the green plantains, and despite the fact that they’re heavy and bulky and came all the way from Ecuador, it only cost me two bucks to take home eight of them. When I tasted my own homemade tostones I thought for a second that I never needed to eat French fries again. I mean, what’s not to love? They have that comfortable starchiness of potatoes and that mineral richness of bananas. Besides, I’ve never met a potato that would ripen if you left it sitting around long enough.

•    4 Green Plantain Bananas (1 per person as an appetizer)
•    Oil for deep frying (canola, safflower, peanut, etc)
•    Salt

Peel the plantains. This can be a little tricky. You need to score them lengthwise with a sharp knife and pry your fingers underneath along the cut to loosen the skin. Once peeled, cut them into one inch sections, or about 8 pieces per banana. Heat your oil up good and hot and drop in the banana pieces. Fry until golden, no need for too much precision, about 5 minutes. Lift them out with a slotted spoon or frying sieve and drain on paper towels. Allow to cool for a few minutes, and then gently smash them. A rolling pin, wine bottle or wooden spatula does the trick nicely. (Of course they sell a specific tool for this at Food Zone.) They should end up about ¼- ½ inch thick. Heat the oil back up really hot and toss in the flattened disks. Fry another 3-5 minutes until golden-brown and crispy. Lift them out and again drain them on paper towels (a paper grocery bag does the trick for a large batch rather nicely). Toss with salt and serve as is or with your favorite dipping sauce.

Greetings from the farm! Nothing at all is growing. What few crops were left in the field at the end of November have long since perished. But that doesn't stop us from eating our own vegetables several nights a week.

Actually, we tend to spend more time and energy cooking with the produce from our farm during the winter. And I'm glad for it, because at the height of the season when we're putting in 12 hour work days, cooking is often the last thing we want to do. But eating our own veggies this time of year is only possible because we devote a special effort during the growing season to canning, freezing, and setting aside the proper amounts of storable crops. You should do this, too. With a little planning and understanding of some basic techniques, food preservation is pretty simple. The first thing to think about when setting food aside is what you are actually going to enjoy eating during the winter; it is just as important to know what not to preserve. When I first became interested in food preservation, I would spend hours making jams and pickles that would just sit on the shelves. My pickles weren't very good, and I like my toast plain, when I eat breakfast at all. Let's just say moving day was a sad one.

Through the years, I have honed my list. I cannot live without canned tomatoes any time of year, so I put away cases of tomato puree and whole peeled tomatoes. We freeze peas, shell beans, hot peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, and a variety of greens (broccoli rabe (see photo), turnip greens, kale, chard, spinach). Strawberries and blueberries are also a cinch to freeze. We set aside enough garlic to get us through til March, and try to avoid selling all of the onions and potatoes, which doesn't always work. Canning tomatoes is time consuming and exhausting, but not disproportionate to the enjoyment I get out of having them. The rest of what we save is a snap: blanch and freeze or simply tuck away in the basement. It's easy and anyone who likes to eat local food should make it a summer ritual. Detailed instructions for preserving all of our vegetables are found on The Vegetable Pages.

If you missed the opportunity to preserve food this year, be sure to check out Winter Fare in Greenfield on Saturday, Feb. 6 from 10-2. (We won't be selling there because we sold everything we grew this year!) There's also a locally grown Pancake Breakfast to support the Northampton Survival Center at Enterprise Farm on Saturday Jan. 30 from 9-noon.

• 2lbs yellow or cipollini onions
• 1/2 stick butter, or combination of oil and butter
• 1 shot Port wine
• 2 quarts homemade beef stock, or use canned
• salt & pepper
• To serve:
• 4 slices slightly stale french bread
• grated Emmenthaler or Gruyere cheese, or a combination

This is an absolute classic and is actually pretty easy once you get all the onions peeled and thinly sliced. Heat the butter in a large, heavy skillet or dutch oven and add the onions. When they are hot and actively cooking, reduce the heat to low. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, for a long time, even over an hour. What you are looking for are the various phases the onions go through as they cook: sweaty, soft, mushy, golden, deep golden and virtually disintegrating. Be sure to stop there, before they start sticking and turning black. Add the Port and stir until evaporated. (If you happen to have saved some pan drippings from a roast, throw them in now. There are few better things to use them for.) Add the beef stock and bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper. The soup is done now but if you wait until the following day to serve it, it's even more delicous. To serve: Toast the bread. Serve hot soup into individual oven-safe bowls, topping each with a piece of bread and some grated cheese. Place all the bowls on a baking sheet and stick them under a hot broiler until the cheese is brown and bubbly.

With the air inside the house so dry this time of year, fresh bread has a life of about 12 hours. Luckily, there are many things you can do with the stale ends, like this classic Italian peasant soup.

• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 medium leeks, thinly sliced, or 2 cups sliced onions    
• ¼  cup extra virgin olive oil
• salt & pepper
• 1 quart whole peeled tomatoes
• 4 cups vegetable stock or water
• 2 ½  cups cubed stale bread
• 8 large basil leaves, cut in strips, optional
• freshly grated parmigiano

Heat the oil in a pot suitable for making soup and saute the garlic until just beginning to brown. Add the leeks or onions and saute until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Add tomatoes, salt and pepper, and cook 10 minutes until soft. Add stock and simmer another 10 minutes. Add bread, cover pot and remove from heat. Let stand 15-20 minutes until bread is falling apart. Add basil, and serve with olive oil and freshly grated parmigiano. Tastes even better the second day.

One of the best cookbooks of 2009 was "The Pleasures of Cooking for One" by Judith Jones. I gave a copy to my mother and enjoyed perusing it during our Christmas visit. Here's one of the recipes that stuck with me.

• 1 frozen ball of greens or 1 fresh bunch (use chard, kale, beet greens, spinach, etc.)
• 2 Tbsp Olive oil
• 2 eggs
• Salt & Pepper
• Toast

Heat the oil in a small wok or frying pan. Add the greens and saute for 5 minutes, adding a few drops of water if necessary and a pinch of salt. Make two little pockets in the greens and break an egg in each, sprinkling with salt & pepper. Cover the pan with a lid and increase heat to high for 30 seconds to generate some steam. Immediately reduce heat to low and steam for 6-7 minutes or until the eggs are set. Avoid peeking if possible. Serve on toast for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

We have a limited quantity of this amazing vegetable available for sale Tuesday 11/24. To place an order, call Caroline at 387-5163. The price is $8/lb or 5lb for $35. There are about 5-6 heads per pound. You can pick it up at the farm.

In Italy, this is the one true radicchio. When you taste it, you'll instantly know why. Because of its exquisite looks, they call it "the flower of winter."  Because of it's amazing sweet-and-bitter crunch, it is the winter vegetable per eccellenza; it's used not only in salads, but grilled, in risotto, antipasti, pastas, you name it!

What makes it so unique is the unusual way that it's grown. The seeds are planted in June, and it grows into a large, leafy chicory plant in the field. Only after repeated hard frosts is it dug up, formed into large bunches, and placed in vats of water in the dark. Here it begins to grow again, sending out its amazing crisp and tender white and crimson shoots. After 3 weeks, the field grown plant has rotted away and is trimmed and discarded, leaving only the blanched heart.

Since 2004 when I went to Italy to learn about this process for my Hampshire thesis, radicchio tardivo has been a traditional part of our thanksgiving meals and holiday parties. Maybe I just like it because it's the only fresh vegetable that's only in season during my birthday.

• 1 medium onion
• 2 oz mild flavored pancetta or bacon (optional)
• 3-4 heads radicchio
• 1.5 cups Arborio or Carnaroli rice
• 2 quarts boiling homemade chicken or vegetable stock
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 4 Tbsp butter
• ½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano or Grana Padano cheese
• Salt and pepper

Heat the oil and 1-2 Tbsp of the butter in your preferred risotto pot.  Add the onion and optional pancetta and sauté until golden.  Add the rice and sauté to coat in the oil, 2-3 minutes.  Add the chopped radicchio and ½ cup of the stock and stir until evaporated.  Lower the heat to a simmer and continue to stir, adding an additional ½ cup of stock as necessary until the rice is cooked to your liking (30-40 minutes).  Salt and pepper to taste. Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining butter and the cheese.  Serve immediately as a first course with more cheese at the table.