The Time of First Green Things; Toward a More Intimate Seasonal Understanding

There was an item in the New York Times recently about a new David Bouley venture, a Japanese restaurant featuring the food of Kyoto, which noted that in the Kyoto region they recognize not only the typical four seasons, nor our common six (add in Indian Summer and Mud Season), but twenty seasons in all. The instant I read it I was completely taken with the idea. Never mind that here in Minne’Sconsin we’ve flipped back and forth through easily twenty-plus seasons in just the last month and a half—what really intrigued me about the idea was its implication of detailed observation, a notion of seasonal change not based on the months of the year, dates on a calendar, or even astronomical observations, but of intimate phenology, determining the season by what is actually occurring in nature, not what usually does, nor what you wish would. It’s a way of thinking that might help relieve the seasonal anxiety that descends in a year like this, when “spring” is so exceedingly reluctant to commit herself. If we just did away with the very notion of Spring, with all its unfulfillable expectations, it might set our minds and hearts more at ease.

So I’m eager to start working up a natural and empirical calendar for our region, one based on what the weather’s up to, what the plants and animals are doing, and what there is to eat, fresh from nature. Unless conditions permit a January grouse hunt, the first wild food I’m likely to harvest comes from the trees, but of course it’s not fruit, it's maple syrup. This year we added another unique taste to the palate: birch syrup. I was kind of tapped out (pun intended) on the sugaring by the time we’d processed a few pints of maple syrup, so I did not go whole hog on the birch, which runs later. I distilled only about a cup, but since my aim was simply to have a taste of it, I’m happy. What a taste of it tastes like: It’s sweet in a maply way, but that’s not the first flavor I detect; a pleasant, tangy bitterness is the first note, like caramel that’s been perfectly cooked just past sweet. There’s also a savory quality to it, deep and woodsy…charcoal-y, is what I’m thinking. I thought of woodcock when I tasted the finished syrup. I imagined it brushed on a grilled whole bird then served with a rough paté of the liver and giblets, maybe with roasted celery root. We’ll have to wait a few months, and implore the game gods, to try that.

Now we’re into the season of the first green things, and the first green things from the wild are: stinging nettles, earlier than wood nettles; dandelion greens, plentiful and just pleasantly bitter now; and sheep sorrel. I've dug some ramps this spring, too, and have been eating loads of them; but they are so assertive, they almost demand a season unto themselves.   They’ll be plump and prime later in May, when nettles and dandies are becoming old hat. They can share the limelight with fiddlehead ferns.

My enthusiasm for the earliest wild spring greens has never been as great as it is this year--maybe something to do with the fact that the snow came in mid-November and stayed until mid-April.  I went on a forage in late March and set my fingers a-tingling picking wee nettles sprouts from the sandy banks of a pretty trout stream just south of the Cities.  I gathered watercress on that outing, too, and made a pesto of cress and pickled ramps that I spread on a butterflied rainbow trout (Star Prairie); I stuck that under the broiler until it bubbled and browned.  The nettles tips, they were rinsed (many times, they were loaded with sand) and simply steamed atop the rice in a pilaf for a few minutes at the end of cooking.  That meal tasted of spring in an immensely satisfying way.

We've also eaten nettles blanched, mashed with boiled potatoes and some ramps--nettles ramp champ.  Some sour cream and butter rounded out that combo.  Wild salads, too, have made regular appearances on our table--cress, dandelion greens, sheep sorrel, sometimes all wild, sometimes mixed with the first local spinach of the season.  I have felt compelled to eat green and wild every chance I get.

About the sheep sorrel, those darling little eared leaves pictured above:  It's a close relative of garden sorrel, and both are related to rhubarb and buckwheat, as well as to the family of wild plants called dock--curly dock, burdock, etc.--many of which are edible in various parts, various stages of growth.  It's not always the case that wild plants and domestic crops with the same name are closely related.  High-bush cranberry, for example, isn't related taxonomically to the common Thanksgiving cranberry (which also grows in the wild, by the way), and wild chervil has nothing to do with the feathery, anise-scented garden herb.  Autumn olives?  Don't try making tapenade from those, and ground cherries have a cultivated relative, but it's the tomatillo, not the fruit of cherry trees.  

But the wild (rumex acetosella) and cultivated (rumex acetosa) sorrels clearly have a lot in common, and the "aceto-" part of both their names is descriptive of that distinctive tart flavor that runs through the rumex clan.  I'd been looking for sheep sorrel on our land for quite some time, and had been frustrated in my search; this was galling, as I had read that it was one of our most common wild edibles, considered an undesirable invasive in some agricultural areas.  Turns out I had been looking at the wrong time of the year, mid-summer, when the low rosettes are hidden by taller growth.  Once I did identify it, I started seeing it everywhere, and this spring it's one of the most prominent of the early spring wild edibles.  The leaves are tiny now, maybe and inch-and-a-half long, but their flavor is great.

When some friends—Tim and Melinda—came out to Bide-A-Wee for walks and lunch this past Saturday, I mosied part of the morning away picking nettles, dandelion greens, and sheep sorrel, which I mixed into eggs and some supporting players (red bell pepper, shallot, potato) for a wild greens frittata. (Melinda, aka Lulu, Nomenclature Tsarina, brought a wicked tasty bean and sweet potato mush--I use that term with full admiration.)  Everyone cleaned their plates, and asked for seconds.

So that's how we've been observing the time of first green things, and I'm eager to start cataloging a more refined way of noting the seasons as the year goes on--apple blossom time will surely figure prominently in our calendar; fly fishermen and -women are keenly aware of the time of the spring mayfly hatches, late May into mid-June. 

I'd be delighted to hear about how others observe the seasons in fine, rather than in those clunky three-month blocks that really don't do justice to the complexities of nature, weather, and sensibility that comprise a year.

Wild Greens Frittata

1 1/2 cups packed nettles
¾ cup dandelion greens
1/2 cup sheep sorrel leaves
1 small potato, peeled and diced small--about 1/3 inch; rinsed, drained, patted dry
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped small
1 shallot, chopped
1 large clove garlic, minced
A few chives, chopped
5 eggs
1/4 cup milk
olive oil
Salt and pepper
Grated cheese--swiss, gruyere, gouda, or as you please

Rinse all the greens well.  Bring a pot of water to the boil and blanch the nettles and dandelion greens together for 1 minute.  Drain and coarsely chop.  The sorrel doesn't need blanching.

In a good heavy skillet, preferably non-stick or well-seasoned cast iron, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  Add the potatoes and cook over medium heat until they just begin to brown, then add the red bell pepper and shallot.  Cook for a couple of minutes, until the shallot is translucent.  Add the garlic, all the greens, a couple good pinches of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Remove the pan from the heat.

Beat the eggs together with the milk in a mixing bowl.  Add the chives, a pinch of salt, some pepper.  Add the cooked vegetables to the egg mixture.  Wipe out the pan and return it to the stove.  Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and heat it over medium-high until the oil shimmers.  Stir the egg-veg mixture and pour it into the pan, turning to distribute it evenly--push the solids around, too, if they seem clumped in one area.

Turn the heat down to medium-low, cover, and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, until the eggs are pretty well set.  To finish:  Our Haggis woodstove is great for gently cooking a dish like this, not so good for broiling.  What I did, I cut the frittata into quarters in the pan, then flipped each piece over, so the former top--now bottom--could brown.  I sprinkled grated cheese on the former bottom--now top--and put the lid back on for a couple of minutes to melt the cheese.  In a civilized kitchen, you can skip the flipping and finish the frittata under the broiler or in a hot oven--cook until the top is a bit brown, the cheese melted and bubbly.

We ate ours hot from the pan, but this is the sort of dish that is often made ahead and either rewarmed or served at room temp.  Without too much cheese on top, it travels well for a fisherman's or forager's lunch.
_________________________________________


If you’re just getting in to foraging, the greens here deployed—stinging nettles, dandelion greens, and sheep sorrel—are among the most easily found and indentified in our region, especially this time of year, when they stand out among the sparse early spring greenings. I’ve mentioned before the books by Teresa Marrone and Sam Thayer, local wild foods writers of great integrity and knowledge; I mention them again. Their books are essential reading for wild foods enthusiasts in our region, and their expert descriptions will allow you to identify these wild plants with ease and assurance.  Their websites are linked at right.



Text and photos copyright 2011 by Brett Laidlaw

I'm still here, and the book is...kind of...done? I'm goin' fishin'....

I guess when the recipes are all written, the essays polished and placed, and all the photos (but for a couple) taken, and my editor tells me I'm off her hook for a few weeks, until there are laid-out pages to proof, that my work is pretty well finished.  It's just that, as it all came together in bits and pieces, with mucho editing, rewriting, swapping recipes in and out, it's hard to feel that it's really done.  I'll feel differently when I see those page proofs, for sure. 

For now, I'm not going to think about it.  I've got new laces in my wading boots, my line is dressed--even washed my vest, haven't done that in years!  Tomorrow I'm heading out down U.S. Highway 52 to the Whitewater, to wet a line for the first time this year.  Gone fishin'.

Before I go, a recipe:  From a Wisconsin woods I was able to gather a sack of ramps this week, and for dinner last night I prepared this pasta dish, a wild and smoky carbonara:

Cut a thick slice of bacon into 1/2-inch pieces.  Take a good fistful of ramps, separate the green tops from the bulb and stem sections; slice the greens thin, chop the rest.  Sweat off the bacon in a big skillet, and as it's starting to brown, add the chopped ramp bulbs.  Cook those until they're a bit brown, and turn off the heat.

Meanwhile you're cooking some pasta--we used thin spaghetti--five or six ounces serves two at our house. 

In a small bowl combine an egg with 1/3 cup of cream and mix well.  You also need some grating cheese--Wisconsin asiago for us, about a half cup grated.  And then just salt and pepper, a good pinch of espelette or cayenne pepper. 

When the pasta is done save about 3/4 cup of the cooking water, then drain the pasta.  Add the pasta and cooking water to the skillet and turn the heat on to medium.  Add the egg-cream mixture to the pasta, tossing with tongs to thoroughly distribute it--also mixing in the bacon and ramps still in the skillet.  Add half the cheese, and the ramp greens, a few grinds of black pepper, couple pinches of salt, and the espelette or cayenne.  Serve it out and bring the rest of the cheese to the table to add to taste.

The aromas of this were amazing, especially as these were the first ramps of the season.  Those wild alliums have gotten caught up in a lot of retro-culinary hoopla and trendy cheffiness in the last few years--you'd think they were as rare and precious as saffron or truffles.  They're not, but they're maybe just as good; for a few weeks in the spring, it's worth eating your fill.

Hey, Look, a Cookie!

Buckwheat shortbread.  This unassuming little cookie has become my favorite over the years.  Nothing tricksy about it, just flours, sugar, butter, a little baking powder and salt.  Extremely forgiving.  The first time I made these I misunderstood Mary's cryptic jottings on the recipe (she's our home's main sweets baker), and combined the ingredients in totally the wrong order.  They still came out great.  Sablé means sandy in French, an apt description of the slightly gritty quality the buckwheat flour lends.  These are rustic and somehow elegant at the same time, distinctive, but comfortingly familiar.

Buckwheat Sablés
makes about 6 dozen


8 ounces butter (2 sticks)
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large egg yolks


Preheat oven to 325. In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly mix the butter and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar, mixing with your hands to incorporate. Form a well in the center and add the egg yolks, then mix them in with a fork until the texture is uniform, a bit like wet sand. Test the dough to see if it will come together by squeezing a little ball in your hand. If it's crumbly, mix in cold water a tablespoon at a time until it coheres.

Two ways to proceed from here: Roll out the dough 1/4 inch thick and cut out small fluted cookies (or another shape you like).  Or divide the dough into four pieces and roll each into a log about one inch in diameter. Wrap these in plastic and refrigerate for at least 45 minutes. When the dough is cold, slice off 1/3-inch pieces.

In either case: Place the dough on non-stick or parchment-lined cookie sheets, and bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until lightly brown--the color or the buckwheat make it a little tough to tell, but they shouldn't need more than 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool on the cookie sheets for two or three minutes, then remove them to a wire rack to finish cooling. These keep quite well in a close container.
_______________________________________

p.s.~ I switched to the new blog editor, which seems to have solved the line break problem I was having--but I wonder why I can't seem to be able to add more than one photo at a time to the blog...?


Text and photos copyright 2011 by Brett Laidlaw

Winter's Last Soup

  Sometimes I plan my cooking, and sometimes I just cook what's thrown at me. Case in the latter point: carrot apple soup. Things turned rather hectic around here last fall, and organization of the root cellar sort of fell by the wayside. We store our root vegetables in a large crawlspace cum dirt-floored cellar, separate from the rest of the basement. We call it "The Dungeon," kind of a creepy place, lots of spider webs, dank. But it keeps a temperature in the mid-40s through the winter, pretty much ideal.

Into this dungeon/root cellar last fall I unceremoniously shoved a couple of boxes containing potatoes, garlic and shallots, and a bin of carrots. When I needed any of these things, I would go down with a flashlight and rummage around, quickly, for the required vegetables. I don't like spending more time in there than I have to. If I wanted a carrot, I would just grab one off the top of the bin, and vamoose. At a certain point, a few weeks back, I noticed the carrots becoming kind of...grotty, I think is the word. Some were sprouting, some rotten at the core, some generally slimy. But there seemed to be a lot left, and quite a few still good, so I eventually had to screw up my courage and address the situation.

I pulled the whole bin out into daylight. I regarded it a bit askance, one eye half closed, pretty sure I was not going to like what I saw. And...

...And it wasn't that bad. I probably deserved to punished for my poor management of root cellar resources, but I dodged the bullet on this one. It took a good half hour to trim and clean up the salvageable carrots from the bin, and when I was done I'll bet I had around fifteen pounds of nice, sound, sweet carrots. And since the weather here continues soup-worthy, that is what I did.

I was afraid of the soup becoming too sweet, so I paired the carrots with some tart apples we had in storage (those are just about done, and the apple trees will soon be blooming). I had also thought to finish it with buttermilk, but the carrots were not ultra-sweet, the apple tartness really came through, and it wound up needing rounding off more than tarting up. So I stirred in a little cream at the end.

I’m not sure if it’s a  positive or negative that the finished soup looks and tastes remarkably like a luxe version of Campbell’s tomato soup. The sweet carrots and tart apples create an amazing trompe-bouche tomato effect. The garnishes are inspired, if I say so myself. The carrot and shallot shreds reprise flavors already in the soup, the cheese and garlic bring different depth and richness. I'd recommend using one of the other. Both would be over the top, I think, but maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing. If you don’t want to make it fancy that way, just drop some croutons in--or crumble on some saltines.



Carrot Apple Soup
Serves four as a starter, two as a main course

1 shallot sliced
4 1/8-inch slices ginger
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 ½ teaspoons canola or grapeseed oil
3 ½ cups excellent chicken or vegetable stock
2 small tart apples, peeled, cored, and chopped (1 1/2 cups)
3 medium carrots(12 ounces), peeled and chopped (1 ½ cups)
¼ teaspoon salt
3 sprigs thyme
1 small clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup heavy cream

Garnish #1:

½ a small carrot, cut into fine shreds or grated
1 small shallot, sliced very thin
2 tablespoons olive oil

Garnish #2:

1 clove garlic, minced
¼ cup grated swiss or gruyere cheese

Cook the sliced shallot, ginger slices, and crushed garlic in the canola oil over medium heat until they take on a good bit of color, four to five minutes. Be careful that the garlic does not burn. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Simmer partly covered for 30 to 40 minutes. Strain the stock and discard the vegetables. You should have at least 2 ½ cups of liquid left. Add stock or water to make up the difference if too much has simmered away.

Return the stock to the saucepan. Add the carrots, apples, thyme, minced garlic and ginger, salt, and a few grinds of black pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook covered until the carrots are very tender, 40 to 45 minutes. Let the soup cool for ten minutes or so, then puree it in a blender or food processor until it is very smooth. Pass it through a sieve or food mill back into the saucepan. Add the cream, and reheat gently just before serving. Taste for salt.

For garnish #1: Heat two tablespoons olive oil in a small saucepan. Add the shredded carrots and cook until they become shrunken and a bit brown. Remove them from the oil. Add the sliced shallot and cook until lightly browned. Remove from the oil, reserving the oil. Place a spoon of the carrots on top of the soup, and a spoon of shallots on top of that. Drizzle some of the olive oil around the edges.

For garnish #2: Place a half teaspoon of minced garlic and a couple tablespoons of grated cheese in the bottom of each bowl. Place the bowls on the table, and--carefully!--ladle the very hot soup into the bowls. The aromas of garlic and cheese released by the hot soup will make your guests swoon.


Text and photos copyright 2011 by Brett Laidlaw

On the Reluctant Season & Plans for the Warm Months to Come (with a Whacking Good Maple-Calva Cocktail)

We were out pruning apples trees, clearing brush, and setting a few taps in the maple trees at Bide-A-Wee last weekend. The temps had hardly dropped below freezing all week, and the snow was melting steadily. We could watch the snowline creep down the southern exposures day by day. Problem was, there was so much snow accumulation over the winter, only those southern slopes were clear, and everywhere else the snow was close to knee-deep, and degraded by the warmth into corny, icy pellets, so walking without snowshoes was like slogging through a vast white Slushee . Even Lily, our five-year-old griff' and a gentle beast of prodigious strength, was having trouble getting around; senior dog Annabel, just a couple months shy of 13 years old now, struggled mightily, but she's a gamer and kept up throughout the day.

Besides the receding snow we noted other signs of the changing season: Saturday morning a vanguard pair of Canada geese flew honking right over the cabin, and while pruning we heard, though did not see, migrating tundra swans on the other side of the hill. We noted red-winged blackbirds trilling in the cattails of the marsh down the road. Most thrilling of all, Lily flushed several woodcock off one of those snow-free hillsides on the first day of spring. It seems remarkable that they return this early, dependent as they are on finding insects and worms in the barely thawed ground, probing with their elongated bills. And when a late-March snow descends, as it has today, I worry that they'll all perish. Thing is, this kind of storm in March, even into April, is not at all uncommon, and the timberdoodles have been dealing with this sort of thing for millenia, I reckon. You have to grant some wisdom in Great Nature's design. (Last year the male woodcock started their odd and charming mating dances on March 24. More on that annual ritual in a future post.)

And there were green things springing forth, though barely. Little sprouts of this and that, nothing I really recognized. Back at our house in Saint Paul I saw one thin sliver of sorrel pushing up, though half the bed was still in ice, and dandelions getting started. When we tapped the maples on Monday the sap flowed freely out the spiles, such a treat to taste that clear, cold liquid, just slightly sweet yet somehow distinctly maple-y (or perhaps I imagine...).

Other phenological observations, cultural and domestic, pointing toward the changing season: The Hay River Transition Initiative announced educational and support meetings on the topic of Lyme Disease as tick season impends, and I found that our composting toilet which resides in an unheated barn-red outhouse (the Tardis) had thawed. You've seen those backyard compost tumblers, big black drums that turn with a crank to speed the breakdown of yard and kitchen waste? Our composting loo works exactly the same way, except the drum is contained within something that looks like a very large, awkwardly shaped white toilet. When it gets cold in the fall the composting action stops, the contents freeze in winter, and that's probably TMI right there, but when spring brings the thaw to the loo, it's a day of joy.

As I write this I feel like I'm reminiscing about a happy time long past, as Great Nature has turned her bitter white back on us AGAIN, and the snow sweeps past the window, some flakes big and lacy, some small and pelty, and it piles up, and schools close, the freeways clog. With a forecast for below average temperatures for the next few days, it will be a week before we see substantial melting again (good news for those in the path of spring flooding; bad news for gardeners and everyonesickofthisfreakinendlesswinter).

Just a little patience is required now, dears. When spring does arrive I think it will arrive with a vengeance, with all the pent-up energy and inexorable vigor that that little spear of sorrel showed, slicing up through the frigid turf. With more winter calamity in the forecast I finally got around to sorting out my garden seeds and setting up my seed-starting table. The many packets of beans, melons, and squashes unplanted last year showed that my hobby farmer ambitions got well ahead of our capacities. I just planted one five-by-ten plot at Bide-A-Wee last summer, late, and hope to put another in this spring. Perhaps I'll do a little stealth guerrilla gardening out there, too, popping some melon seeds into the loamy mounds that the pocket gophers throw up all over the land, let the vines spread into the meadows where, perhaps, the critters will not find them. Hey, ya never know....

I'm going to be reasonable in what I plant here in Saint Paul, too, not crowd so much in that the whole thing becomes one big grotesque slug farm. We have wonderful farmers markets in town and in the country, and neighbors out there who really know how to grow, and charge too little for their produce. I'm happy to support that economy as we move gradually toward a greater self-sufficiency. But I would like to put up a hoop house at Bide-A-Wee, to extend the growing season a bit on either side. And we've put a hitch on our Jetta wagon so we can borrow Mary's folks' little trailer to get manure from our livestock-owning friends and neighbors, and really get the gardening going out there.

Regarding the aforementioned apple trees, we're in our fourth year of clearing, pruning, and assessing the dozens of severely overgrown trees that came with the property. And frankly it doesn't seem that we've gotten a hell of a lot done in that time, until I remind myself that the actual pruning is just the icing on a big gnarly cake that also involves scything through tough blackberry canes, pulling out encroaching prickly ash, and fightinig off the box elder jungle. After all that, we can almost reach the tree--all that's left is wriggling in to the trunk through a maze of broken branches, dead wood, grape and Virginia creeper vines. That process usually takes us until lunch, just one tree at a time. And after lunch, man, I need a nap....

So it goes a bit slowly, but it goes. Our big ambition for this year is to clear most of the brush around our North Meadow trees so we can scythe as the meadow plants start to grow, to create a sylvan glade of pastoral splendor. Mind you this is all done by hand, but we may try to find someone with power equipment to mow some paths around the land for us, and maybe mow the North Meadow, too.

We have big hopes for the apple crop this year, and not much we can do about it but wait. Our trees tend to be "on" in odd years, though some bear fruit every year. Last year, an even, "off" year, saw a hard frost in mid-May, reducing the crop even further. Luckily a few of our better trees did bear fruit (better meaning less susceptible to insect and disease, longer keeping), and we pressed enough cider that we still have fresh (from the freezer) and some keepers good enough for baking (getting to the end of those).

If this year is anything like 2009, the cider press will be humming from September into November. I want to ferment a lot of cider this year, and explore other areas of apple preservation and cookery, too. Apples were once such an important food crop in this country. In a 1990 Whole Earth Review article, Richard Sassaman wrote:

Americans today probably don't understand how much the early settlers appreciated apples, which in Price's words are now "relegated in normal modern diets chiefly to side dishes and casual eating." Apple butter would keep for winter use, apple brandy was a cash export sent downriver to New Orleans, apple cider a social favorite, and apple vinegar the basic pioneer preservative.

We'll never know for sure exactly what varieties of apples are growing on our land--and some, the wild seedling trees, are unique to Bide-A-Wee--but I'm eager to really get down to seeing what we have there and what the various apples are good for. This summer of 2011 will be our first without farmers market baking since 2003! I'm not sure that has quite sunk in for either Mary or me, but I think we're both eager to see what it's like.

Another goal of mine for this year is to delve deeper into the world of wild foods. With the help of the excellent books by local authors Teresa Marrone and Samuel Thayer (both are linked as "Bide-A-Wee Neighors & Friends" at right) I've expanded my knowledge of wild edibles quite a bit in the last few years. Flipping through their books, I realize how much I still have to learn--cattails, wild chervil, butternut, serviceberry, nannyberry, highbush cranberry, and I haven't even thoroughly explored the possibilities of the ubiquitous nettles. The forest starts to look like a splendid delicatessen! No need to take a number, just dig right in.

Phew. I'm thirsty now. With all the talk of apples, and given that it is maple syrup time, here's a lovely sip with local flavors. Make it with just maple syrup, lemon juice, and sparkling water, and it's a refreshing spritzer. Add a tablespoon to a shot of Calvados, the French apple brandy, and you've got something else altogether--a very tasty, very grown-up sort of apple juice. It'll make the blizzard outside seem a lot more tolerable.

Maple (Calva) Spritzer

Per drink:

2 tablespoons maple syrup
Lemon juice to taste
6 ounces sparkling water
Calvados or applejack, a tablespoon to 1 1/2 ounces, optional

Combine the maple syrup and sparkling water in a glass (& Calvados if desired). Add fresh squeezed lemon juice to taste. Drop in a couple of ice cubes and imbibe.


Copyright 2011 by Brett Laidlaw

Am I Blue?/Treasure from the Larder

To end the week simply and cheesily: A lovely wedge of Ader Kase Reserve from Seymour Dairy Products over in eastern Wisconsin, Outagamie County. Salty, tangy, rich and creamy. Nice cheese. Accompanying, pickled crab and ramp chutney, a snap to make if you have the pickles.

Here's how you do the ramps.

And here the crabs.

We'll be back in the woods harvesting ramps again in no time. The crabs will be a bit longer. Pruning is on tap for this weekend; tapping is on tap, too, as it's maple syrup time.

Sappily yours,

Brett


Pickled Crab & Ramp Chutney
Makes one half-cup

Treasure from the larder. Excellent with a wedge of blue cheese at meal's end, as consort to a grilled cheese sandwich, or alongside pork any way.

5 or 6 pickled ramp bulbs, rinsed, cut in half the long way, sliced 1/4-inch thick (1/4 cup)
1 tablespoon canola or sunflower oil
4 or 5 pickled crabapples, cored and chopped, 1/2 cup
Pinch salt
2 tablespoons liquid from the pickled crabapples
2 teaspoons liquid from the pickled ramps

Cook the ramps very gently, without browning, until they start to soften, four to five minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients, and simmer very gently, uncovered, stirring frequently, until the chutney thickens, three to five minutes. Remove to a small bowl, cool, cover, and refrigerate. Best if it sits for a few hours before serving.


Text and photo copyright 2011 by Brett Laidlaw

Slowly

This is the kind of dish at which our Haggis woodstove excels. Do not ask Haggis to stir-fry--that is not in the Haggis genes. Haggis will sear a steak only reluctantly. Haggis is a phlegmatic creature; sudden changes in mood do not suit Haggis. Haggis can cook an egg, or an assemblage of eggs, like a frittata, very well, slowly brown a piece of meat or fish, render bacon solicitously.



But where Haggis really shines is in the long, slow simmer. On a winter afternoon still deep in the white but leaning toward spring, Haggis emanates a gentle heat for hours, coddling a pot of chicken and vegetables flavored with homesmoked bacon. The pot never comes to a boil--it's kind of a backwoods half-assed sous vide, if you like. In the end the broth is deeply, beautifully imbued with the flavors of all the components, yet the meat and vegetables retain their integrity--the vegetables are still a bit crisp, the chicken is not stringy or washed-out tasting.

This is the kind of simple food I love, and I think one grows to appreciate this kind of cooking over time. It's a good thing that some benefits come with age.



Chicken Bacon Hot Pot

Very slow cooking produces a succulent broth and meat and vegetables that retain excellent flavor and texture.

2 ounces slab bacon, in 1-inch chunks
4 chicken thighs or a small chicken quartered
1 large carrot, quartered the long way, cut into 2-inch lengths
1 medium onion, sliced
1 rib celery, halved the long way, cut into 3-inch lengths
4 small potatoes
3 cloves garlic, whole, unpeeled
1 turnip, peeled and quartered
¼ cup white wine or dry vermouth
2 sprigs thyme
Salt
Mustard
Cornichons
A light vinaigrette
　
Brown the bacon in a heavy dutch oven. As it starts to render fat add the chicken and brown well on both sides. Remove the bacon and chicken from the pot. Drain off excess fat, leaving about one tablespoon in the pot. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic cloves. Sauté until lightly browned. Deglaze the pan with the wine. Return the chicken and bacon to the pot. Add four cups of water, the thyme, and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

Cook at the lowest simmer, the surface just shivering, for 60 minutes. Do not let the liquid boil. Add the potatoes and turnip. Simmer 60 minutes more, or until the vegetables are tender. Serve with dijon mustard, cornichons, and a bowl of vinaigrette on the side, if you like.



Text and photos copyright 2011 by Brett Laidlaw