Barry and I don’t observe anything religious, but we can’t help it if our historical memories kick in once in a while. Usually it involves a good meal, and there’s definitely one of those in the works for tomorrow, which happens to be the day celebrated as Easter by some.
Easter has come to be associated with colored eggs, but I think it was only a coincidence that I came across these giants earlier this week.
The picture is of some of the ostrich and emu eggs being sold by Roaming Acres (Sussex County, New Jersey) at the Union Square greenmarket on every Friday. The off-white and the dark blue/green colors are achieved without benefit of coloring. The big birds responsible, while hardly native to these climes, are actually local stock (as they must be, by greenmarket regulations, and in their case also “all natural”). The farmer himself sells the big eggs (one ostrich egg equals 18-24 chicken eggs) both fresh and hollowed out. He also offers ostrich meat and handsome ostrich leather goods, but the emu are cherished for their eggs alone (both with and without original content).
This picture, or one similar, will probably soon find its way onto our food blog, since I picked up a frozen ostrich fillet while I was there. We already have an ostrich egg sitting on a table in the parlor, one I brought with me when I moved back from South Africa 35 years ago, but I have my eye on one of those dark emu beauties.
Category: Food
Whole Foods’ John Mackey wants us unwholesome
I’d love to find some excuse to continue shopping at Whole Foods, but I just couldn’t live with myself if I went with anything I can come up with.
I am a serious cook, I make a real dinner for Barry and myself virtually every night, sometimes including friends as well, and I take my food sources very seriously. I was delighted to learn around nine years ago that a branch of Whole Foods was going to be opening at the end of our block. We already had Garden of Eden on 23rd Street, about the same distance away, and I could easily visit the Union Square Greenmarket, Citarella in the VIllage, Balducci’s on 14th Street and Buon Italia and the other shops in Chelsea Market. I could reach just as many more good food outlets if I ventured a little further, and I often did.
I immediately found Whole Foods very convenient, and I had a certain amount of confidence in the quality of what they sold, perhaps buying too much into its own hype and the excitement of its fans. The store became a very big part of my hunting and gathering activities. I soon began to think of the store as almost indispensable. It didn’t hurt that since it was only a few hundred feet from our apartment I could walk out my door at 9 in the evening or even later, having no idea of what I was going to buy, and still get back in time to make a proper dinner for the two of us.
But Whole Foods has been out of my life since last Thursday (except in the telling of this story). I’m going to have to make some adjustments and I’m definitely going to be planning ahead from now on. I regret having to make the adjustment, but I may be more disturbed about the fact that it took me too long to get to this point.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that for a long time I found it convenient to ignore what I began to hear early on about the Whole Foods management preventing its employees from unionizing (I did not then know the extent of its larger political involvement fighting the union movement, including opposing the Employee Free Choice Act). And then late last week the news broke about co-founder, Chairman and CEO John Mackey’s Thursday Wall Street Journal op-ed on health care, “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare“. I could no longer ignore the fact that my money was supporting reactionary politics (the agent of the transaction was boldly broadcasting it to the world). Mackey opened his odd, obsessional piece with an ignorant, plainly specious quote* from scary Margaret Thatcher, and went on to argue against President Obama’s health reform proposals. In fact he railed against any government involvement in the regulation of health care, positing instead eight of his own ideas for reform.
My favorite:
Revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
From its beginnings this food chain, anointed (with some justification) as more wholesome than any of its competitors, has assiduously cultivated an image of social responsibility. But it’s an image which is, at the very least, at odds with much of its social and political conduct, especially because of the activities of the increasingly-eccentric John Mackey. The long arm (money, power, influence) of this very successful, wealthy corporation now manages to touch the lives of everyone, even those who have never entered one of its stores.
Even if the expected (and already dramatic) negative reaction of Whole Foods customers to the revelation of Mr. Mackey’s Right-wing adventures isn’t enough to frighten the corporation’s investors, I would be surprised if they haven’t already started to question his judgment, his ability to perform his job. Any competent CEO is well-advised to avoid political activities which offend and damage the best interests of his firm’s clients and customers – or at least avoid being discovered or outed as an extremist nut.
I’m not going to pretend that my decision to no longer darken the threshold of the Chelsea Whole Foods outlet is of much consequence in the grand scheme of things, but I know I’m not alone in wanting to see John Mackey relieved of his duties. Stranger things have happened, and corporations are not known for courage, or preferring stupidity over the bottom line.
Should he be removed, John Mackey, the free market libertarian, should be able to appreciate the irony of the marketplace deciding that it had to be.
*
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people’s money.”
[image from gezellig-girl’s Flickr photostream]
Food Blog: white pizza with ramps and guanciale
[detail]
Since the middle of March Barry and I have been assembling posts for a very modest new site, “Hoggard/Wagner Food Blog“, which we want to use to document, mostly for our own use, some of our more successful meals and make it easier to dig up information we could use in preparing others. Actually, the ArtCat calendar started out much in the same way: It was originally built for our own use as a device to simplify the listing of gallery shows we wanted to visit.
To date the Food Blog has been used only to write about dinners we’ve enjoyed at home, but some day it may be stretched beyond that limited assignment. Even the colorless name is probably just tentative. And, speaking of color, I hope to add some by including rotating pictures at the top at least, probably in the form of my Greenmarket images rather than pictures of the food being described, since Barry and I have both found that food photography is not easy – especially if you’re hungry.
Last night I tried something I’d never done before: I made pizza at home. I had never thought it made any sense for me to try to make fresh pasta in a tiny Manhattan kitchen, especially with so many store-bought or Greenmarket choices available close by, and I felt the pretty much the same about pizza. There were a number of times however when I’d dreamed of putting some very fresh or unusual greens or vegetables on white pizza, or even tomato pizza, the kind of thing I’d never be able to arrange for delivery.
When I changed my mind it was on account of the dual blessings of finding I had fresh ramps and fresh guanciale in the larder at the same time. What I went for wasn’t a pizza that most people would recognize: White pizza with ramps and guanciale doesn’t show up on the menu of the corner pizzeria.
I had already decided I was never going to make my own dough from scratch, and even dealing with the frozen ball I picked up at Whole Foods almost exceeded both patience and counter space. I’m going to be looking into alternatives, although we both thought their product was delicious – and very inexpensive.
After letting the dough rise (twice) and arranging it on top of a sprinkling of semolina flour in a large stoneware pan, I brushed it with oil and covered it with shredded mozarella, a dozen or more tiny ramps from the Union Square Greenmarket which I had quickly blanched, adding a scant ounce of guanciale [wanna make your own?], chopped and slightly pan-warmed, which I had picked up at the Murray’s Cheese location inside Grand Central Market, and I finished working it by adding some grated Parmignano-Reggiano before I slid the pan into a hot (450 degrees) oven for nine or ten minutes [barely enough time to clean up a messy counter area now covered with flour glue].
While I was fretting over the dough, Barry was deciding we’d accompany the pizza with a Venaccia di San Gimignano ‘Rondolino’ 2006 from Philippe Wine. I suppose, if we had found any in our wine rack, a bottle of a more northern Italian white (or red) would have seemed even more appropriate, but the Vernaccia, one of our favorite everyday choices, worked very well.
As I said earlier, it was the first time I’d ever attempted a pizza of any kind, so until I had actually put it into the oven on the (previously-heated) heavy pan I thought the whole thing was going to be a total disaster. Instead, I think it may have been the best pizza I’ve ever had, both a perfect crust and a rich, savory topping.
We’re being more and more conscious of costs these days (we’re now eating at home more not just because I really enjoy cooking), so I’ve been very happy and proud to see that some of our best meals can be reproduced for very little money. On the food blog I should really make it a habit to point out those that shine in that category. I estimate the total cost of this particular meal for two, without the wine, to be just under $10.00.
[images by Barry]
Ligurian hake and potatoes, grilled baby bok choy
Merlucciidae Common Name: Silver Hake, Whiting, New England Hake
Oh wow, I do love this fish. It’s very popular in Spain, but the species in European waters may be different from that found in our own. I say that because I remember how after less than a week in Madrid Barry and I would both groan when we saw merluza on the menu. It was tasty, but hidden bones were always a serious obstacle to our enjoyment. I haven’t had the same experience on this side of the Atlantic.
But maybe it’s just the estimable fishmongers at Citarella.
Last night I put together a dinner of “Ligurian fish and Potatoes” (using an 11-ounce Hake fillet and two scrubbed-but-unpeeled red potatoes). Thanks for the recipe, Mark. The hake rested on a cushion of red-rimmed potatoes which were remarkable not just for their taste but for being deliciously juicy, yet still al dente, while staying crispy on some of the edges.
Along with the fish, bought at Citarella in the Village, a few blocks southwest of the Union Square greenmarket from which I had just left, I prepared some very small baby Bok Choy which I was surprised to still find in this increasingly-deserted open-air market at the very end of December (praised be the inventor of the cold frame). But then I also bought some delicious Niagara grapes from another vendor yesterday; how’d they manage that?
The recipe for the contorno, which I modified somewhat from this recipe I found on line seems a bit fussy, but it turned out to be way toothsome, and a sensational complement to the sweet, white fish. It amazes me that this excellent vegetable still makes only rare appearances in Western cook books; I mean, the Italians managed to find New World peppers and tomatoes without making a big fuss, so where’s their bok choy?
GRILLED BABY BOK CHOY
After cutting them in half, brushing them with garlic-infused oil, and sprinkling them with lemon and thyme, I grilled the little cabbages face down in an enameled-iron ribbed pan for about four minutes, covering them loosely with a sheet of foil. I then turned them over and added drops of balsamic vinegar, grilling them for about three or four more minutes. Once they were on the plates, I topped them with a mixture of pine nuts which had been sauteed in the garlic-infused oil and then heated with the chopped dark green outer leaves I had removed earlier.
We had nibbled on taralli al peperoncino while we waited for the main course, and when we had finished the fish I brought out two very small cuts of slightly-aged Caprini Tartufo, accompanying it with thin slices from a loaf of Tuscan bread I’d also picked up at the greenmarket that afternoon, and some phenomenal dried Turkish figs.
Oh yeah, sure, there was wine. We shared a bottle of Spanish Naia Verdejo which we sometimes think of as our current “house white”; it cost us only $12 or so.
Even though I’ve written before about the meals we enjoy at home, when I had already begun this post I suddenly thought that it might be a mistake: Maybe because it was so good and because I seem to be boasting about it publicly, but mostly because while I know that not everyone might want a meal like this many who would are unable to assemble it for one reason or another.
I will admit that it helps, and is probably essential, to have someone you love to enjoy it with you, but that sounds like another assignment.
“Geography is destiny”, may be only a clich�, but if you’re not in a city like New York you may not be able to reproduce this or most of the meals which we enjoy and which I sometimes describe, but you may come up with something just as pleasurable to suit different resources and circumstances. It doesn’t have to mean taking a huge chunk of time out of a day: While this main course took me a little over one hour to put together, a call to the local Chinese or Mexican will always beat the time spent in the kitchen preparing any meal, but on the other hand, it’s not a chore. Finally, considering what real cooks have been able to do without great kitchens and without fat purses, I don’t think that inadequate space should stop anyone who really wants to prepare good meals. In fact I started cooking for myself when I had only a sink, a refrigerator, a stove and two feet of counter space on one side of a one-room apartment ( I now have an additional 4 1/2 feet of counter, but that extra length is only 16 inches deep and my refrigerator is now tiny).
I know that limited funds should be even less of an obstacle. Were I were disposed to feel any embarrassment about what looks like indulgence in this meal, and it certainly was not an exceptional event for us, I would just remind myself that the cost of the entire dinner for two (including the portion cost of herbs, oils, lemon, vinegar, etc.) was something like $16.
But I also get great pleasure (and some physical and mental exercise hauling and bending) out of the planning, gathering and preparation of these dinners, not to mention my huge delight in the enjoyment and sharing of good food, and the good conversation it encourages, while also listening to music of which we might take almost no notice during any other part of the day.
Most days I wouldn’t trade it for any restaurant, even if I do have to do the dishes.
[image from University of Southern Maine]
August home dinners
Thanks to the Union Square greenmarket and good fishmongers, we enjoyed some very good meals at home this weekend, once again in excellent weather, windows open to the garden.
Only now as I’m composing this entry do I realize that two of these suppers seem quite closely related. I experienced them as totally distinct when planning and sitting down to them, but I’m still surprised that the outward similarities (from happenstance, and from the modest bounty of our larder) didn’t occur to me at the time.
Friday, August 22
Pimientos de Padr�n sprinkled with salt
baby yellow watermelon
Rioja Reserve Riscal, served slightly chilled
Sunday, August 24
red heirloom tomatoes, basil, oil, Boucheron, Panelle
Arctic char fillet pan-grilled on bed of salt, dribbled with excellent Spanish oil
boiled small red new potatoes, oil and parsley
grilled miniature sweet yellow, red, orange bell peppers sprinkled with salt
Kulfi Pistachio Cardamon ice cream
Argentine Torrontes Torino
[first image from nygirleatsworld; second from reimerseeds]
Chrystie Street silver
untitled (silver fish) 2008
I pass this and the many other rich, Chinese open-market landscapes of dried meat, fish and vegetables to be found on Chrystie Street virtually every time I’m in the area. I snapped this shot very quickly last Saturday, while trying trying not to get out of step, because of the crowds of serious shoppers.
four heirlooms
waiting for dinner
The larger of these four heirloom tomatoes were just too weird to pass up at the Norwich Meadows Farm stand at the Union Square Greenmarket yesterday. At least half of them will be giving their all tonight.
good dinners at home
do it yourself
Those who know us are already aware that Barry and I like to eat well. Okay, I know this may sound absurd these days, but we actually dine, at least on most evenings. We often go out to performances and such, so those evening meal times would not seem strange to most Madrileños.
But, for any number of reasons, those hours being one of them, we don’t dine often enough with friends. Fortunately I like to cook, I like thinking about and planning meals, and shopping for the food. Most surprising (even to me), I even like cleaning up afterward. All of that can take up a larger part of the day than most people can spare: We know we’re lucky we can enjoy the time I have for both of us since I was able to “retire” almost a decade ago. Since I’m also distracted by so many other interests I can’t blame my insufficiently-frequent blogging on our eating habits alone, but maybe I can use that connection to help justify this particular post.
We eat very well, meaning we sit down for a leisurely meal and use real napkins. There’s great music, amazing conversation and sometimes exceptional (but usually inexpensive) wine. Of course everything in the room has to look really good. Sometimes there are birds singing out in the garden, even very late at night. Wow. That does sound good, and it’s only about 6 o’clock right now.
There’s no fast or junk food (unless occasionally ordering good pizza or Mexican dishes from trusted neighborhood sources counts), the ingredients vary hugely, and all their sources as natural, organic, seasonal and local as I can find. We don’t include meat of any kind very often, and then it’s in pretty small amounts. Cooking fairly regularly these days, I find I’m able to incorporate any extra any amounts of fresh ingredients and condiments, and any leftovers, in succeeding meals, so very little is wasted. I’m also getting better at letting what I find in our local Greenmarkets, and even in daily visits to the several decent food stores near our apartment, determine what the evening meal is going to be. I look for sales from meat and fish vendors. I’m improvising more.
I know I’m talking about habits and opportunities which are unimaginable luxuries for most New Yorkers today – and perhaps for most Americans anywhere, even the wealthy. We try to invite friends over as often as we can, but it’s never often enough as far as we’re concerned. Part of the problem, at least for me, has always been my difficulty in visiting with anyone while I’m busy in a small kitchen not set up so guests could hang out. We tend to concentrate on any number of baked pastas prepared ahead of time when friends sit down with us in our home the first time, but I have to feel that’s pretty restrictive in spite of how good those recipes are.
I thought sharing in this space what some of the more successful (and particularly simple and easily-prepared) one-course meals we’ve enjoyed alone recently might not do any harm, and it could conceivably encourage me to expand my range as host. Of course not every meal’s a winner; I jotted these notes down after meals we liked especially over the past month or so:
Saturday, April 12
Sicilian-sautéed swordfish steaks
Boiled parslied red new potatoes with olive oil
Grilled ramps
Sicilian Munir Bianco 2006
Thursday, April 17
Grilled marjoram-stuffed baby squid with a sauce of lemon, hot chilies and olive oil
Boiled new potatoes with olive oil and thyme
Boiled and sautéed spring green beans from Georgia
Galician Albarino, Rias Baixas Salneval 2006
Friday, May 1
Ligurian baked Cod with potatoes
Grilled spring scallions
Vermentino di Sardegna
Monday, May 6
Lemon-and white-wine-braised pork chops,
finished with fingerling potatoes and Marjoram
Grilled spring scallions
Spanish Rueda (Naia)
Sunday, May 18
Small marinated eye-of-round steaks
Oven-roasted potato chips (wedges) with rosemary, finished with parsley
Roasted whole carrots, finished with thyme
Cotes du Rhone (Estezargues Grandes Vignes 2006)
Wednesday, May 21
Grilled duck sausages
Rosemary-roasted fingerling potatoes finished with spring garlic
Grilled ramps
Austrian (Burgenland) Blauer Zweigelt Nittnaus 2006
[images, starting at the top, from esterlange; room 9; deep sea news; wildeducation; encore editions; oceansbridge; tunisia info
happy meals
Juan Gris Fruit Dish, Glass, and Lemon (Still Life with Newspaper) 1916 oil on canvas 28.75″ x 23.5″
I don’t know anything about cooking, but I know what I like. No, that’s not quite right. I do know something about cooking, and I know when it’s right, but I’m not really a creative chef. When it comes to the things I love (including the arts) maybe I usually get by with only an intense curiosity about the new, a certain amount of taste and a good deal of almost-academic deliberateness.
I started cooking years ago while a graduate student at Brown. Perhaps imagining myself more impecunious than I really was, I convinced myself that learning to cook would be the most reliable way to be certain that I would eat very well – at least some of the time.
I can report right now that two nights ago Barry and I ate really well. No, it wasn’t the first time, but I did get pretty excited about it, partly because it was so unexpected – and so easy. It’s now Wednesday, and the immediate near-ecstasy of the moment has passed, but I told myself while clearing the table on Monday that I had to write about a meal which, although rather casually assembled, ended up an almost perfect little Italian table. I wish I could pull that off every night, and even more to the point, I wish we could share it with others more often than we do.
I had spent several final hours at the Armory show that afternoon while Barry stayed home to work, and when I returned home I wanted to go through mail and post a bit before dinner, so my early-evening Whole Foods trek for provisions was more perfunctory than usual. At the market I decided on squid (I know, it was don’t-buy seafood-on-Monday, but they looked and smelled great) and some very fresh-looking broccoli rabe. While there I remembered I had a small net of golden fingerling potatoes hanging on a hook at home.
Altogether it was a pretty modest Italian meal, especially since only if I were to count our eager “seconds” could I begin to relate it to the three or four courses and dessert tradition:
Dressed Squid briefly roasted in the oven together with crumbled red chilies, dried oregano, a bit of olive oil and the juice of half a Meyer lemon;
potatoes on the same plate, also roasted in a baking dish in the oven, but for a full half hour, after being cut lengthwise into four pieces, mixed together in a bowl with chopped garlic, oregano leaves (the recipe had specified marjoram, but the larder showed only the fresh form of the dried herb called for with the squid), a little olive oil and this time two lemons, each cut into twelve wedges and squeezed with the rest of the ingredients;
the very green contorni, served in separate bowls, was the rabe, quickly boiled, drained and then sauteed in a pan which had first heated a few garlic slices in olive oil;
the wine was a simple bottle of Fiano Di Avellino from Campania.
The pleasures were of both the palate and the eye, as they must be with a good meal.
I was amazed at how fantastic the seafood and the potatoes both looked and tasted together, and the vegetable was as perfect a visual contrast as it was a gustatory one.
The cooking utensils, my old white-lined blue enamel NACCO baking pan for the squid, a red-brown terra cotta rectangular pan for the potatoes and a heavy, black Wagner iron frying pan for the greens, all eventually found a home on top of our high-legged dark green and cream deco 73-year-old range, but there never seems to be time for pictures at these moments. Sitting at the old maple turned-leg drop-leaf in the breakfast room we ate off sturdy cream and mushroom-colored Shenango restaurant ware, with small lightly-tinted ribbed-glass Duraflex kitchen bowls on the side for the greens. Once again we found this really good homey restaurant in the middle of Manhattan; we’ll be going back.
The recipes I used for the squid and the potatoes are from the really excellent “Italian Easy: Recipes from the London River Cafe
by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, which is accurately summarized in Amazon’s editorial review: “These are visually spectacular, remarkably simple recipes for those who love good food but have little time to prepare it.”
[image from the Artchive]
