A walk in the woods

Walking alone in the western Virginia woods recently, I had several things on my mind. As usual, life is full. You know how it is: Family. Work. Personal goals.  

But the best part about this walk in the woods was that I left most of those thoughts behind for a while. My thought process went something like this:

Aren’t you great, for getting outdoors?!? This is so good for your mental health. And, the aerobic exercise is important. (Here I begin counting the number of times I’ve exercised this week, virtually patting myself on the back as I tromp over dried leaves and through branches and brambles).

It’s good to have time alone.

It’s so refreshing to have no music, no computer, no technology at all. We need space like this in our lives to allow feelings to occur, ideas, connections, just to take it all in.

Remember to breathe in this great country air.

Where is the dog?

How close are those deer hunters I hear shooting?

Wow, look at how blue the sky is! Always remember to look up.

These leaves smell so good.

I love the crunch and shuffle of fall.

Shhhhhhh

In short, all those more Serious Thoughts fell away and I was left with silence and joy. And a resolve to walk in the woods more often.

Feeding the masses

Who knew a freshman could be asked to feed a crowd of 80?

It’s not the expected college assignment. Unless you attend the Culinary Institute of America. Which is not the case.

We are talking about VCU Art, where my girl Clara is enrolled in the cinema program. She was part of a film crew over a long weekend. Her job: “craft.” I checked last time I was in the movie theater, and sure enough, this is a category listed in the long, long credits at the end of the film. Wow, there are a lot of folks involved in movie making.

“Craft” means food. And Clara was all over it.

She and one partner – also a college student – planned, cooked and served dinners for a crew of 80. Not just any dinners, either: they had to be cheap, vegetarian, and crock pot-friendly, so they could be kept warm. And they had to be cooked in a small apartment kitchen.

I am so happy Clara texted me for ideas – suggesting that my house is the center of all things cheap and vegetarian (that is a good thing, right?). But credit where credit is due: she came up with ideas of her own that won raves from the cinema pros.

The outcome: the best “craft” ever (well, yes, I am prejudiced). Fact: Happy film crew who came back for seconds – which, because of good planning, were available.

How does a 19-year-old kid pull this off? Well, there was the refusing to sleep factor, of course. But also a lot of planning and chutzpah. I am so proud.

Here are two great standbys for mega-serving meals, easy to multiply by however many you have crowding around your table – or your crockpots. These will stay warm, or are good at room temperature, and you can freeze the extra if you have it. They are healthy, cheap and easy to make – especially the chili. Serve it with cornbread; the ratatouille is great with polenta, which you can either buy in a tube, or make as a super-cheap alternative to pasta.

402 Chili
This is our go-to chili when we’re raiding the pantry for whatever ingredients we have on hand. For my foodie friends, it is Not. Fancy. It’s super simple, plenty satisfying, and when you’re feeding a crowd it makes life easy. This recipe serves about four; if you’ve got 80, you do the math.

1 big onion, chopped
1 green or red pepper, chopped
2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 tablespoons chili powder
Olive oil
Two cans black beans
Rather than use canned beans, I like to cook a bunch of dried beans at a time, since they are cheaper than canned beans and that makes me feel virtuous and resourceful. Then I measure out can-sized portions of the cooked beans – I have a washed out bean can for this – and freeze them in Ziploc bags. For those of you who remember Heloise, this is very Hints-from-Heloise of me.
1 to 2 cups of frozen corn (or equivalent canned corn)
1 to 2 cans tomatoes
Whole canned tomatoes seem to retain their flavor better than diced, so I like to use these
and cut them up after I’ve dumped them into the pot. Pre-diced tomatoes are, of course,
more convenient.
Salt and pepper to taste
Shredded cheddar, sour cream or yogurt, fresh cilantro for garnish
These really make the dish, by elevating it beyond just a bowl of beans, corn and
tomatoes. Especially if you can boast that the cilantro is from your garden! Other great
garnishes: onions chopped small, tomatoes chopped small, and hot sauce for those who
like a little more kick.

Heat olive oil in a skillet or in the bottom of a big pot – I love my cast iron Dutch oven for this. Saute onions, peppers, garlic and salt, cook until veggies are soft. Add chili powder and pepper about half way through.
Add beans, corn and tomatoes. Heat through. While it’s heating, place each garnish in its own little bowl and line them up – everyone gets to garnish their own bowl, a fun pick-and-choose event.

Roasted Ratatouille
Serves 4-ish (the veggies will shrink when roasted)

1 medium-sized onion, sliced
2-3 zucchini, sliced into rounds
1-2 medium-sized eggplant, cut into chunks
2 red or green bell peppers, cut into chunks
1 pint cherry tomatoes, stemmed
6 or so whole cloves garlic, skins on
Olive oil
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary and/or basil, chopped roughly
Salt and pepper to taste

Place all but the cherry tomatoes in a bowl with plenty of olive oil to coat. Add herbs, salt and pepper. Toss.
Spread all the veggies into one layer on a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet – use two if you need to. Place in 350-degree oven for 20 minutes. Check for tenderness, add cherry tomatoes, toss together so the veggies don’t stick to the bottom of the pan, and cook another 10 minutes or so. An alternative is to grill the veggies – if you do this, skewer them, and turn them so they cook evenly. It takes about the same amount of time, maybe a little longer.
For the polenta:
Add one cup polenta (which is basically corn grits or corn meal, depending on how smooth you like your polenta – or you can buy the package that says “polenta” on it and follow the directions) to one cup cold water. Meanwhile, boil 3 cups water. Add the polenta/water mixture to the boiling water and get ready to stir constantly for 15 minutes (well, I do walk away sometimes for long enough to set the table, or feed the dog. You do want to keep stirring enough to keep this from sticking to the bottom of the pot, though). The polenta will be thick and gloppy in about 15- 20 minutes. Add about ½ cup shredded parmesan cheese or, really, any cheese you have on hand and think would be tasty. Done.
Serve ratatouille on top of the polenta. Yum.

Road trip

Speeding along the highway
Time slows down so
Everything is possible.

Between looking for the turnoff to I-77 and absorbing the spectacular view along I-40
Between the temptation of gas station Moon Pies (the idea much better than the taste), and balancing how much water I drink with how many pitstops I make  
My ambitions float around the car
Like prayers.

I will bake cookies every week
Organize my favorite music (including this song on the radio)
Mend my blue jeans
Make potholders from fabric scraps
Do Yoga every morning
Take long walks through the woods.

I will
Build a cold frame for a winter garden
Preserve the harvest in neatly sealed Ball jars
Look into starting a bee hive
 
I will write a book of recipes with stories and photographs to accompany each one
I’ll write a memoir about my year on a boat
Or a book about my father

Maybe if I get off at this rest stop with the autumn leaves and picnic tables and water bowls for dogs
I will begin to write, or draw plans for the cold frame, or knit
And there, next to the trucks and cars racing for home

My prayers will be answered.

Quintessential, food and family

Woody's Beach BBQ, Chincoteague, Va.

Sitting at the office desk thinking about the leftovers I brought for lunch, all I want is a juicy sandwich, delivered to me over a counter somewhere, maybe with some of those string fries that are so crunchy they were probably fried twice. Warmed up falafel just ain’t cutting it.

I am thinking instead of Woody’s juicy softshell crab sandwich, from a crazy little compound involving two food trucks and a lot of yard games, at the beach in Chincoteague, Virginia.

There are a few exemplary foods that I go to again and again in my mind (and sometimes in my car), each a sort of pinnacle of its category, against which every other is judged. It might be that perfect combination of crunch and chew, sugar and salt and chocolate (Whole Foods jumble cookies) or the smooth and tangy mixture of cream and fresh berries against just the right bite of liquor (Simeone’s homemade trifle). You never know where you will find these gems—a paper cup filled with crunchy, rich fried chicken livers at a meat counter in Baltimore’s Lexington Market, or my sister Jean’s perfect peanut butter cookies warm from her Montana oven are just as iconic as the Palak Chat fried  spinach salad at the tony Rasika in D.C.

Woody’s Beach BBQ softshell crab sandwich has joined this family of deliciousness and perfection.

I know, this may be sacrilege, since Woody’s isn’t even a fish joint. Its owner – who is a really friendly, fun guy who is supremely good at running a great little roadside eatery -- is not even  named Woody. And, he’s not the guy who’s out on the boat pulling crab traps, either. He’s not even the brother or son of that person, and is not really a local islander (he’s a “come-here,” which means he moved here from elsewhere and adopted the community as his own). Maybe the person behind the food-truck counter, the one doing the actual cooking, is a local?

But really, in the face of such a sandwich, who cares? The food here is more important than the bona fides, plus Woody’s, with its surfer-vibe (there are board shorts hanging on clotheslines, games like corn hole and tetherball to entertain you while you wait for your food, and tables made out of old surfboards and boats) charms me every time.

The sandwich is perfect: flavor-packed crab fried golden but not greasy, with the crunchy little crab legs sprawling out the sides and the soft center meat sweet and yielding, all enhanced by a tomato slice that tastes as if it’s just been picked from the garden down the street, the poster-Big-Boy of ripeness. And, there’s exactly the right amount of sauce, with exactly the right balance of tangy and smooth – some sort of mayo, garlic, lemon combo, done just right.

What could possibly compete with that? Not leftover falafel.

Another recently discovered gem, this time back in the city – well, Silver Spring, Maryland, which is sort of a wanna-be city in the suburbs – was part of a celebratory meal at 8407 Kitchen Bar (celebratory because even though I’d love to eat here weekly, it’s just too darn expensive). I’d thrown caution (i.e. credit card) to the wind and ordered without holding back – an act, when I can pull it off, that always make the food taste sweeter.

My reward, among other delicious treats: a fig and raspberry tart like no other I’ve tasted. In fact, I’ve never tasted that combination at all.

The crust: buttery perfection, just the right crumb. The filling: soothingly soft, sweet fresh figs offset with zingy raspberry accents. The result: Best. Tart. Ever. I’m afraid to make another pie as it can’t possibly measure up to this pastry delight. Props to pastry chef, Rita Garruba.

Actually, I will still make pies – just not this particular one.

In fact, I recently made a more rustic and perhaps more special-by-association pie—two, actually, for Tyler’s birthday. Which is a different story, but a short one:

Why two pies? It’s a legacy. Each Thanksgiving, when my mother would ask whether my dad – Tyler’s Grandad Myers – would like apple, pumpkin or mincemeat pie for dessert, he would always answer, “yes.”

So, Tyler didn’t have to choose: he got both a chocolate pecan pie and an apple pie, plus a merry and very loud round of the happy birthday song. Even if the pies were not epic, I have to admit they did turn out to be new markers for especially good. And the love around the table was, well, perfect.

Tuesday Night Dinner

When my children are living at home, the door swings open and it could mean just one kid home for 5 minutes, or it could mean my own child (or two) and six friends coming in for dinner. I love this. If I have to put some extra pasta in the pot, some extra beans in the chili, or an extra leaf in the table to accommodate a crowd, I’m a happy mama.

It always feels a bit breathless, though, as it’s generally last minute. But I even miss that part, that make-it-up-as-you-go element that happens when you’re parenting. I mean, cooking.

When the kids all went off to college, I thought it would be nice to preserve a little of that spur-of-the-moment, extended family and friends time. And my friends had been talking about all the empty nesters in the neighborhood, and how it was not uncommon that a single person would be sitting alone at her dinner table, just down the street from another person sitting alone. Why not get together?

So we created Tuesday Night.

The original idea was to open my door every Tuesday to whoever was around for dinner. My lovely friends turned it into a taking-turns sort of endeavor, so now we trade off hosting. 

Sometimes, it’s true, with all our busy schedules, work demands and aspirations to finish that garden project, fit in another client, attend yoga, or dance, or zumba, Tuesday night can feel like one more thing to fit in. And when it sneaks up on you, it reminds me of the last-minute requests from when the kids were small: birthday cupcakes for the classroom, remembered the night before, or a pink leotard required for ballet class next day, when the only dance supply store that’s still open is in some obscure neighborhood half an hour away.

But like so many worthwhile endeavors, Tuesday night pays off.

Last week, we had all three couples involved, plus Joseph’s daughter, home from two years of living abroad, and her boyfriend. Once, Joseph’s brother dropped in unexpectedly, and brought a good bottle of wine and a fresh perspective to the table (thanks, Dave, for goosing our liberal ideals!). Assorted children appear as they pass through our households, or sometimes it’s just two of us at the table. It is a safe place to discuss anything and everything, and we do. Conversations range from aging parents to presidential debates, unions and education to travel adventures. The food is always great, and the company is even better.

We don’t put on the faces we wear to parties; we wear the faces that have just finished the work day, the faces of a Tuesday night. Like a family. Which is why we no longer call this weekly gathering Tuesday Night. We call it Family Dinner.

Found food

Each time we go to the mountains, I find something new.

Once, it was grapes. Then, I discovered edible violets and dandelion greens. Recently, the dogs were crunching tiny berries all over the ground – they turned out to be wild cherries, little buttons of chewy, raisin-like sweetness wrapped around a big pit. Not good for much more than a novelty chew, but pretty tasty for the moment they last (and the dogs actually chewed the pits!)

This trip, I found chestnuts.

Most of what I know about chestnuts comes from the song – roasting on an open fire and all that. So I looked them up and discovered I was right to gather up bags of them, foraging beneath the shady tree. Roasted, they are delicious, with a creamy, lightly nutty flavor.

Another of nature’s armored fruits, chestnuts come in a prickly package: wrapped in big green balls that look like sea urchins, or tiny porcupines, covered in needle-sharp, short spines. Wear gloves.

Or, look for the seeds – the actual chestnuts we might recognize roasting on stands in New York City, or in the produce section at the specialty food store – littering the ground. They are a deep brown color, a little bigger than an almond shell and impossibly smooth, the sort of thing you put in your pocket for later, so you can reach in and stroke its surface like a good luck token. I gathered an enormous bag of them, compelled by their simple beauty, one discovery leading to another and another, clutches of perfect little nuts hiding in the grass like misshaped Easter eggs.

Back home in the kitchen, I processed the nuts in a fall ritual that I’m sure has been repeated countless times – and here, again, for the first time. I arranged the nuts on a cookie sheet, smooth, flat side down, scored an “X” on top of each one to let steam escape, and put them in the oven at about 350.

Turns out the X’s weren’t big enough, and a couple of the nuts exploded. Kapow. Nut meats all over the oven. So I turned off the oven, let the nuts cool just enough to re-score, then cooked them some more. Trial and error. In all, the nuts should cook about 30 minutes.

Then, they cool again, but not too much: they have to be warm for peeling. When they were ready, I sat down at the table with a bowl for the peeled nuts and another for the shells and set to work. An hour later, I had probably three pounds of chestnuts.

I’d found an old recipe for chestnut soup online (its origins were actually Gourmet magazine, circa 1978) and another recipe for chestnut cookies, which I made a couple of days later. The soup was fantastic, rich and creamy autumn in a bowl. The cookies were savory and, well, okay. They are reminiscent of Italian wedding cookies, and I think would have been fabulous with a little more salt and maybe some lemon in there somewhere.

Next year, I’ll try another recipe – because now this ritual is my own.

Here’s the soup recipe – and a couple notes on the cookies, which can be found at the link above: Don’t roll them in sugar until AFTER they are out of the oven (scraping powdered sugar off this dough is tedious, as I discovered. Oops). Also, enjoy the meditative quality of rolling buttery dough between your palms – and then smelling like butter for the rest of the afternoon.

Chestnut Soup Thanks to epicurious.com and Gourmet

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup finely chopped celery
• 1/2 cup finely chopped carrot
• 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 3 fresh flat-leaf parsley sprigs (I used the remnants of curly-leaf parsley from the garden)
• 2 whole cloves
• 1 Turkish or 1/2 California bay leaf (what? There’s a difference? I used what I had)
• 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth (used my homemade broth from Weathertop Farm chickens)
• 1 (14- to 15-ounce) jar peeled cooked whole chestnuts, crumbled (3 cups)  (Ha! Used fresh ones!)
• 1/4 cup Sercial Madeira (thanks, Norah, for the loan)
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Melt butter in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over low heat, then stir in celery, carrot, and onion. Cover surface of vegetables with a buttered round of wax paper or parchment (buttered side down) and cover pan with lid, then sweat vegetables 15 minutes (to soften). I didn’t do this, as I had no waxed paper! Just let the veggies cook a bit on their own.

Wrap parsley, cloves, and bay leaf in cheesecloth and tie into a bundle with string to make a bouquet garni. My first bouquet garni! Felt very retro.

Discard buttered paper from vegetables, then add broth and bouquet garni and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, 20 minutes. Add chestnuts and Madeira and simmer, covered, 3 minutes. At this point it doesn’t look much like soup, but wait for the next step…

Purée soup in small batches (4 or 5) in a blender until smooth (use caution when blending hot liquids), transferring to a 3- to 4-quart heavy saucepan. Stir in cream, pepper, and salt to taste and reheat soup over moderate heat, stirring occasionally.

Makes about 8 cups.

Mixing it up/cookies and work

This morning I woke up 20 minutes early. Instead of frittering it away amongst the week’s worth of newspapers piled up on my dining room table, or the pile of clean laundry that needs folding, I switched it up entirely.

 

I made cookies.

 

I can thank my kids for this, in two ways. One, they are the ones who taught me that any time is a good time to make cookies. My first lesson in this had more to do with 11 o’clock at night than 7:30 in the morning (By the time the cookies waft buttery chocolate through the house it’s the perfect time for a midnight snack).

 

Two, both kids are away in college, and one way I can connect with them is by sending care packages with a taste of home.

 

It really doesn’t take long to pull together a batch of cookies – 10 or 20 minutes, max, then the batter goes into the frig for baking later (I could have baked them, too, but there’s a limit to workplace flexibility and I did have to get out the door). Tomorrow, I’ll pack them up and send them off.

 

It’s one way to thank the kids for the many lessons they’ve offered, and hold onto them for whatever lessons they may offer next.

 

Speaking of which: I just read a great article about the new approach some members of Generation Y take to work, suggesting that, perhaps, we middle aged folks have more to learn. These young adults expect flexibility, autonomy and respect in the workplace – and despite their tenuous status as newbies, sometimes demand that they have it all. For their ambition, they get labeled "spoiled."

 

But wait! Flexibility? Respect? In the work place? Shouldn’t we all have those things? Like, the flexibility to make a batch of cookies before work?

 

Next time I’ll make a double batch and save some for myself.