Farmer’s Market July 24
It seems a lot of my sentences start with either- ‘I had this really
great meal last night’ or ‘I’m reading this really great book right now’.
I’m reading this really great book right now. There a few things I like
to do besides eat food, cook food, ferment food, talk about food, or
write about food. I like reading about it. I like reading in general-
probably because in my house growing up the two most asked questions
were either ‘what are we going to cook for dinner?’ or ‘what are you
reading right now?’ I’m reading Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl. I
found another one of her books awhile ago- Tender at the Bone- and
instantly fell deep in love. She was the restaurant critic for the LA
and New York Times at one point- a job that it seems both she and I have
mixed feelings about. I won’t go into any detail about it because you
just have to take my word for it and read everything she’s written. (she
is very honest, down-to-earth, passionate, AND a really good writer) In
the last few chapters I’ve read her husband tells her that she has lost
grip on who she is and she responds by ducking back into her own kitchen
and cooking up a storm. For some people this is the best therapy there
is and I am pretty sure I fall smack dab into the middle of that category.
Nobody has told me that I am losing my grip on reality (although they
probably should every now and then) but I have found myself wanting more
than anything to lose myself in my kitchen. I have been canning pickled
beets by the gallon, pickling little baby onions from Williams Island,
putting away corn relish, and peeling garlic and pulverizing it into
batches of pesto that go into the freezer. I was torn this morning
between pickling banana peppers from Signal Mountain, making another
batch of corn relish (this time adding tomatoes from my own yard),
cutting down the cabbage in my yard and making a big batch of
sauerkraut, or writing this letter.
I think maybe the summer abundance of food has made me delirious and I
can’t think of anything but ‘what should I cook for supper tonight?’ (I
am plotting on chile relleno with some poblanos from Sequatchie Cove or
maybe some gazpacho with Signal Mountain tomatoes, Williams Island
cucumbers and more tomatoes, and Sequatchie Cove peppers- or maybe both).
I bought a half a lamb from Williams Island because there was no way in
the world I was going to resist that. I haven’t really bought any amount
of meat in my whole life but you can’t turn down lamb. For one thing
Katahdin lamb is the best in the whole world and the only I will ever
eat. It is tender and mild and has a touch of that familiar lamby taste
but is not overpowering. For another, it is perfect for someone like me
who either cooks for two or three people at a time or in the other
extreme-ten or fifteen. A packet of lamb chops is perfect for two
people. Everything about lamb is smaller and more delicate. You can
throw all of a half in a home freezer and still have plenty of room for
the gallons of basil pesto (that story will come later) and pasta sauce
slow cooked with tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. If you have a crowd
you can pull out a few packs of stew meat and make a wonderful curry, or
maybe the big leg and roast it up with some potatoes, onions, and lemon
slices.
Last night we had lamb chops cooked in beer and surrounded by two
head-fuls of garlic. With that there were udon (the favorite noodle,
beside homemade of course, of my house) tossed in garlicky pesto and
chunks of rich purple tomatoes. And a salad of cucumber, sweet pepper
(when I say sweet pepper I mean it- I got some orangish long peppers
from Sequatchie Cove and they were the crispest, sweetest things), and a
splash of vinegar and salt. The best thing about all that was I had
already made the pesto so the whole meal took about twenty minutes.
Which left me plenty of time to plot what I was going to do with all my
OTHER pesto.
I don’t know if you saw the huge bags of basil Crabtree was selling for
ten dollars last week but I did. The first thing I did when I saw them
was run away really fast as Candice called after me- you KNOW you want
it Ann! Of course I did NOT want it. Who wants a garbage bag full of
sweet, pungent, the-romantic-essence-of- summer basil? Not I. But I did
want a few cayenne and when I ventured back, hoping Candice would be
distracted, I ended up with a handful of cayenne and a huge bagful of
basil. The ride home was delightful. When we got back we cracked open a
couple beers, cranked up some short stories on cd, sliced and salted a
few tomatoes, and started plucking basil leaves from their stems. It was
like a sewing circle or corn husking party except it turned my thumb
nail black and smelled a whole lot better. I turned most of it into
pesto and fell asleep dreaming of focaccia slathered in pesto, pesto and
ground lamb stuffed tortellini, bagels covered in cream cheese and pesto..
To follow up my Indian dinner the other week I had a Thai dinner. I made
a spicy curry of cayenne, a few cilantro plants pulled out of my yard
(the recipe called for the root but since my plants we kind of teeny I
added what was left of the bolted leaves, some of the green seed, and a
few dried seeds as well (that would be coriander- cilantro and coriander
are the same thing and most English speaking countries call it all
coriander- when it’s cilantro they just call it ‘fresh’), some ginger,
garlic, galangal (a cousin of ginger- I buy it dried from the Asian Food
store on Hixson Pike but I recently discovered they also have it frozen-
along with wild lime leaves and a lot of other roots I needed and didn’t
have for this dinner- I guess that only means there will have to be a
re-make), lime, and some fish sauce. I had slow-cooked a Sequatchie Cove
pork shoulder the day before and put some of it into spring rolls along
with sliced Williams Island carrots, kale from my yard, sliced yellow
squash from Clover Wreath, and loads of basil. The rest of the pork was
chopped and put in the curry along with eggplant from Signal Mountain,
and green beans from my own yard. I gave myself a blister cutting
carrots into thin matchsticks. I let them sit in rice vinegar, salt, and
a touch of honey while I sliced cucumbers and sprinkled them with minced
ginger and rice vinegar. I cooked up some sticky brown rice, sliced up
some cabbage and sweet peppers, finished off the curry in a hot wok and
served it all up (well, we ate the spring rolls first in the living room
while we listed to This American Life and THEN migrated out to the big
rock in my front yard where we ate. I have discovered that it is very
nice to sit on big Indian cushions on the ground in the garden to eat
dinner)
And that is all I have to say. I have heard I have a tendency to rant
and rave and need to make my letters short and sweet. I can make them
sweet but I’m not sure about short.
I just want to say before I end this sweetly but at the same time
shortly- I am SO excited about the variety at the market. If you hit up
every booth you come home with everything you could possibly need-
seriously. There are potatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, eggplant,
edamame, okra, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and more tomatoes (I’m a
little hysterical about that part), insane yard-long purple beans (check
them out at River Ridge- they are awesome), berries, honey, bread, and
herbs. You don’t even have to turn on a LIGHT when you eat your supper
past dark because you can buy as many candles as you need (what kind of
barbarian would eat by the glow of an electric light anyway?) from Lou
at Sale Creek Honey.
I have discovered one more thing- this is the first year I have actually
legally PAID for my vegetables (somehow I always ended up trading cakes
or bagels or time hoeing the green beans for spotty tomatoes or the
overflow of squash) and I think the market is only place I should be
allowed to shop in town. For thirty-five dollars I can go home with
enough to food to get me through at least a large dinner party, my own
meals throughout the week, and even a few months this winter via
anything I happen to can, freeze, or ferment. And impulse-buying at the
market is no more harmful than a ten pound bag of basil that takes up a
whole car seat by itself. That just leaves my coffee habit to support
and the bags of flour I go through to support my bagel-making habit.
Let me know what you’ve been cooking- I love to hear about it. See you
at the market (I’ll be the one that smells like basil- I have this new
plan to make perfume with the oil.)
-Ann Tindell Keener
