Farmers' Market - May 31

My family is going to be happy, happy, happy that peas are coming in and asparagus is on its way out. I could eat asparagus every day, them, not so much.

From the top left: beautiful lettuces, some early garlic (not sure what this will look like when I cut it open), radishes, pea shoots, asparagus, snap peas (cannot wait for snow peas), late summer honey, table onions, and some beef. Yum!

There were definitely more people shopping and selling today.

If you happen to have fresh snap peas, here's a really nice recipe I made several times last year - Green Peas and Sugar Snap Peas in Sesame Dressing.

Can we talk about rhubarb for a minute? I was going to write a post entitled 'Rhubarb: Friend or Foe?' but I never quite got around to it. I tried a recipe for rhubarb salsa- I thought it was going to be similar to a chutney. Here's a photo of my ingredient gathering.



Anyhow, I made it. I thought the rhubarb smelled funny when I was dicing it, then after it was cooked it was mushy and stringy. I threw the whole thing out which just aggravates me - I hate wasting perfectly good ingredients. There are very few foods that I really don't like. Rhubarb might have joined ranks with lima beans, for me. Maybe I just need to eat something with rhubarb that someone else has made properly, I don't know.

Quite Possibly the Best Book of the Year

I came to be a fan of Molly Wizenberg slowly, in fits and starts. I became aware of her blog Orangette, I think sometime in 2007. I read along, sometimes, not always, but when Molly became a monthly writer for Bon Appetit I became more familiar with her work and with her 'taste' in food. I knew she had a book coming out, I figured I'd read it at some point, heck - I could even wait for the paperback. But then I held it in my hands and paged through it. I put it back. Back to the bookstore another day I looked through it more closely - and knew it had to be mine. I waited for just the right moment to start it. I didn't want to be distracted by traveling and reading obligations - I wanted to focus.

It was worth the wait.

Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life is sublime. Delicious. Heartbreaking and life-affirming. Organized in short chapters, each essay is followed by a recipe or sometimes two pertaining to the content of the essay. I was nostalgic as Molly wrote about her childhood in Oklahoma, jealous of the opportunity she had to study in Paris, I became tearful when she wrote with great poignancy of her father's illness and death, and joyful when she finds herself madly in love.

Molly was born to write. In one section, she shares an essay she wrote in high school. It is shocking how well it is written. Molly is a woman who has figured out at a young age what her passion is and has been able to turn that into a life for herself. Hopefully that means we will have many more books by her.

I doled out little bits of this book to myself, chapter by chapter. This past Monday I sat outside and inhaled the last 100 or so pages in one gulp. I didn't want it to end, but I couldn't stop either. If you love food, if you love cooking, you will love this book. Even if you don't, I bet you'll love it anyway.

Here is Molly's lemon yogurt cake that I baked with the girl yesterday.




It was delicious and if you didn't have 'help' I bet you could get it into the oven in five minutes. Seriously.

Potato Gratin - How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I've said before and I'll say it again - I'd love for some sort of potato gratin to be part of my last meal on earth. Barring that, I love to eat it on holidays, with friends, just for Sunday dinner. Potato gratin used to seem a somewhat daunting dish to me, so much to peel, chop and assemble. I suppose I've just done it enough now that I'm used to the process and find it all quite simple.

I've featured a few different potato gratins here on Books and Cooks. First, there was the Yukon Gold Gruyere Galette. Not only is it divine tasting, but Karen mentioned it and suddenly - I had readers. That galette changed my life.

I thought I had posted a photo of my herbed summer squash and potato torte - a summertime favorite for sure. Here is a post by another fan of this torte.

Here is a more simple gratin in process.



Here is the link to the recipe for this one. I actually don't even remember making this to tell you the truth! Good thing I have a blog. I actually made this again just recently for company and used milk for the liquid. It separated in the oven again, but due to necessity, I removed it from the oven and then reheated it - it turned out beautifully.

This brings us to my most recent gratin, Potato-Onion Gratin from Bon Appetit and for which I can find no recipe online. This was another keeper.




Onions are sauteed in olive oil, to which garlic, thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper are added. They are divided in three parts and layered between peeled and sliced potatoes which are salted and peppered along the way. Chicken broth is poured over the entire thing which is then baked in the oven covered at first then uncovered until finally you end up with this.




So divine. I think I either added too much broth or cooked it too long since they seemed a bit too soft. But. Still very, very good, dairy free, and could be vegan if you used veggie broth.

Ah, the potato gratin. Infinite possibilities.

The Well and the Mine

Things are still busy, busy at Chez Books and Cooks. Today is the only day I haven't had to be someplace in the morning, someplace in the evening, and places to go in between. I'm an introvert and a homebody so this is not my favorite way of living. It's fun to see people and do things, but I need down time. Whew.

A week or two ago I was trying to figure out what to read next. Nothing was quite clicking so when my Librarything Early Reviewer book arrived in the mail I began reading it almost immediately. The Well and the Mine was just what I was looking for at that moment. Set in Alabama in the 1930s, The Well and the Mine is the story of a family. Father Albert works hard in the mines, is respected by his peers and has come to the realization that under ground, covered with dirt, all men are equal, black and white. Mother Leta works hard at home where the family grows much of their own food. She's the sort of woman who makes breakfast and tells her husband she'll eat with the children, and when they wake up she tells them she ate with their father. Oldest daughter Virgie is the beauty of the family, unsure about boys who want to walk her home. Tess is the middle child, the precocious one we get to know best. Finally, youngest son Jack is somewhat in the background; what we learn from him comes from the perspective of adulthood.

When the story opens, Tess is relaxing on the porch at dusk when a woman approaches and drops a baby into the family's well. Tess and Virgie decide to try to figure out who the mystery woman is, paying calls to neighbors and acquaintances. Throughout the story, it is obvious that the family is poor, but the girls see a different life being lived in some of their neighbors' homes, where there is not always food to eat or shoes to wear. In the end, the mystery woman is discovered but that is not really the point of this novel. It is the story of the struggle and triumph of a family. The story comes full circle thanks to adult Jack's point of view and there is satisfaction in knowing how things turn out for this family.

The Well and the Mine is a beautifully written debut novel by Gin Phillips. She had me at hello, as they say. I felt completely immersed in the world she created; it was Southern and hot, racial tensions were running high, and I could smell and taste the food Leta prepared. At times, the characters seemed almost too good to be true, but this didn't detract from my enjoyment of this book. Highly recommended.

Farmer's Market - Week 1 of 2009

WHEEEEE!

Look at what I found today:



Spinach, green onions, radishes, asparagus, rhubarb, pork breakfast sausage and wild rice brats. For planting in the garden: basil, thyme, zucchini, and tomatoes - sweet 100's, yellow pear, red grape, and a small orange variety.

I have to tell you, I have never cooked rhubarb before. I'm not even sure I like rhubarb but I thought I should give it a try. Any recommendations for recipes? My husband and daughter are not really into the hot fruit dessert thing (I know, why not?) so I'm thinking muffins or a cake. Another idea I have is chutney.

Sunday mornings are calm at the market. It was cool at 44 degrees and quiet. There are going to be a couple of new vendors this year. One will sell ice cream (!), milk and butter, the other some cheeses and tilapia. I am thrilled to be in farmer's market season.

As an aside, I know I have been a very delinquent blogger lately. Posting, commenting and responding to emails are all taking a back seat to end of the school year activities, dress rehearsals and performances, recitals, picnics and the like. I'll be around more soon.

Have You Heard About THIS???

So, during a lull at work yesterday I was browsing through Amazon's list of popular pre-order books in my two favorite categories. I was excited to see a release date for Nigella's Christmas Book as well as a few other cookbooks I've had my eye on. I then went to the Literature and Fiction list, and what do you suppose I came across?






A new, full-length Margaret Atwood novel to be published in September. Just what I've been hoping for.

Here is the blurb from Amazon:

The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.

The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners—a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life—has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.

Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers . . .

Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away . . .

By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.

It sounds like a book that will not be for everyone.
But.
I.Cannot.Wait.

The Walking People

Growing up in a tiny hamlet in Ireland in the mid 1950s, Greta Cahill is the sort of girl called a 'goose' by her family, one who should stay close to home within the safely of her family. Greta is only a teenager when her older sister Johanna decides to leave Ireland for New York City in the company of another youth, Michael Ward, a boy who is one of 'the walking people' - an Irish gypsy. Greta finds herself along for the ride to New York. Greta jumps right into her new life, working and finding a place to leave. A turn of events and a crisis leaves Greta without the one person she'd always thought she would have nearby - Johanna. The story then jumps ahead in time, and we rejoin Greta as a working mother and wife. Greta holds a secret from her children, one that she is afraid might destroy the life she has so carefully cultivated. Eventually Greta's children bring together the two worlds she has so successfully kept apart.

I really enjoyed reading The Walking People, Mary Beth Keane's debut novel. I loved the narrative, which is traditional, except for the section in which Greta, Johann, and Michael first come to New York. This part is told in letters back and forth to Ireland; the technique really suits this section of the story. I will admit to being a bit confused when reading the prologue of this book which features Michael working his last day as a Sand Hog - men who work underground New York City on a project spanning many years that will help Manhattanites continue to have a supply of water for years to come. While I was fascinated by the work done by the Sand Hogs and researched it a bit, I was a little confused as to why the story began this way instead of with Greta. By the end of the prologue though, things are clear and the reader already knows a bit of how things will turn out for Greta. The turning point of this novel occurs in the middle of the book and while things certainly 'come to a head' if you will at the end of the novel, there is never really a great climactic moment for the reader - though we know there will be for Greta.

Having said that, I would certainly recommend this book. It is beautifully written and I found myself completely absorbed by it. I loved the varying settings of the novel and getting to know Greta from her youth through adulthood. It is a family sage for sure, and a wonderful portrayal of the modern Irish immigrant experience in America.

The Walking People will be published on May 20 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Many thanks to them for this review copy.