Dandelions…On Pizza and Overtaking the Yard
Dandelion Greens, Italian Sausage and Fontina Cheese Pizza
Normally, dandelions, and the numerous other weeds that flourish in our yard, are my nemeses. But red cultivated dandelions, sauteed first in olive oil and garlic, sure do taste nice on pizza. And the ones in the yard will be easier to uproot now, with this trusty weeder my father-in-law just sent me. I’d like to forage wild dandelions but I hear they’re too bitter and tough unless picked when newly sprouted.
So I bought dandelions instead from local Denison Farms. Ivy Manning’s beautiful book was once again my inspiration: specifically, her recipe for Dandelion Greens, Italian Sausage and Fontina Cheese Pizza. EatingWell gave it their stamp of approval. Using the dough hook on your KitchenAid mixer, preparing the pizza dough is a cinch. No kneading necessary. I like her half whole wheat blend. Using a cornmeal-dusted backside of a baking sheet, we finally also successfully thrust the pizza onto the hot stone in the oven.
The sharp yet gooey fontina cheese (from Willamette Valley Cheese Co.) stood its own against the garlicky bitter greens. The anise and grease in the Italian sausage sweetened the deal, binding the flavors together. The sausage was supposedly ground from Carlton Farms pork, though the staff at old-school Emmons Meat Market looked at me strangely when I asked if the pig, beef and salmon were local. The pork yes, but the beef was from the Midwest and sadly, the salmon was farmed.
But the pizza was delish! We didn’t even miss the tomato sauce. Now if we only had the truffle oil for drizzling on top (which Ivy said was optional). Ah, the power of suggestion. I did miss it.
Pizza boy
Neko, Pink Martini, Decemberists Concerts: Not in Corvallis, But Near in Oregon
Neko Case/Flickr Creative Commons/By rgordon
Thomas Lauderdale ’92 and China Forbes ’92, both of Pink Martini/Flickr/Harvard Magazine
Dan promised we could trade concerts for friends with this move half-a-world away, which happens to have quite a nice music scene. Well, he managed to get at least get to one out of the three of them with me. We saw The Decemberists in Eugene, and though they put on the most visually and technically involved show, the performance was the least memorable of the three. Still, Shara Worden was especially sultry and potent on “The Wanting Comes in Waves,” thunderously bellowing out the “This is how I am repaid” chorus.
But the best of the three concerts was the one with the least pretense and artifice: Neko Case last night, again in Eugene at the McDonald Theater. She was so honest and real, no make-up, almost too-tight jeans, unkempt orange hair she kept fidgeting with, tucking into a bun and behind her ears. At her concerts, she bans photography and truly seems uncomfortable on-stage, her fears somehow assuaged by a more powerful urge to perform and assert her story. Her timidity is part of her charm, making those hard-wrought songs more poignant. This isn’t easy for her but she’s here. She forces herself to get up there for you. Back-up singer Kelly Hogan (ATL native, Elaine) is a spunky extrovert who really defuses the tension for Neko. She’s almost like her ventriloquist speaking for her, freeing Neko up to do what she does best. “Middle Cyclone,” the title song from her new album, most resonated with me last night. Whimsical, anime-like, hand-drawn movies also accompanied each song, amplifying their effects.
And the Pink Martini show with the Portland Symphony last week was spectacular, but now I’m concerted-out. Part of it is just having to drive an hour-plus each way to see these shows. We don’t get too many big acts in Corvallis.
With their big band, cabaret-style songs in Spanish, French, even Turkish, Pink Martini’s music resonates with people of all ages and cultures. Their first big hit, “Sympatique,” topped the charts in France. It’s so authentic-sounding my mom could have sworn it was an Edith Piaf song when I sang the “Je ne veux pas travailler” lyrics to her. Pianist Thomas Lauderdale is quite the overwrought showman. He and lead singer China Forbes met as undergraduates at Harvard, bonding over late night opera sessions in the practice studios. My actress sister and her friends were that way in college there. The most memorable part of the night was when China Forbes and conductor Carlos Karlmar traded places, she conducting the orchestra and him launching into a German aria.
Now we’ll take a concert break until September, when I got tickets for Pittsburgh’s finest laptronica dj Girl Talk. We’ve always wanted to see that tiny dancer live.
If we only had a wider range of indie rock stations in this land where bluegrass and folk music rule. We’ll have to content ourselves with OPB Music and KBOO for now.
Sinusitis: Trying to Heal Myself, Naturally
Soothing breakfast for an invalid: soft-boiled eggs and strawberries
Ah, to breathe freely through the nostrils again. My sinusitis, whether bacterial or viral, has finally subsided, likely thanks to the natural remedies I tested out on myself. Though many urged me to take antibiotics, I tried to hold out. After all, medical studies have shown antibiotics don’t cure sinus infections but may make patients more resistant to the drugs in the future. I tried to be patient, sleep and test out some natural remedies instead.
Having a Neti pot is key, so you can clean your nasal cavities out with a saline solution, sucking the liquid in one nostril and out the other. Be prepared for a bit of brain burn from the saline. You cough a bit up. Of course, I was so congested at first the saline solution didn’t go through. I then swabbed coconut oil into my nostrils to soothe them after the astringent rinse. I ingested raw garlic and swabbed some in my nose and ears (luckily I couldn’t smell my breath!). I ate a paste of local honey mixed with tumeric. I swallowed echinacea/goldenseal capsules and a platycodon herbal blend. I ate some lacto-fermented kimchee and avoided sweets, processed carbohydrates and dairy. And I drank lots of fluids: Emergen-C and a tea of fresh ginger, lemon, peppermint and honey.
And I watched a public television documentary on two Chinese immigrants who ran an herbal apothecary in rural Oregon just after the Gold Rush. It inspired my resolve.
Western medicine seems to always search for the quick fix, but often our bodies can heal themselves, with some natural prodding, and albeit more slowly. We pop antibiotics so we can get to work or other engagements the next day, but what complications might await us down the road?
Not Your Typical Strawberries and Cream
Oatmeal shortbread with Mascarpone cream
Craving tangy strawberry and sweet cream taste combination? The Oregonian‘s FOODday feature offers lots of interchangeable, relatively effortless suggestions that go beyond shortcake. I just happened to have picked up Mascarpone cheese at Trader Joe’s, so I made the dark chocolate-flecked cream. And the oatmeal shortbread was simple yet nutty and substantive. You can make the same dough into a crumble or press it into a tart shell. But for some reason tart pans elude me. I’ll stick to the cookies.
Not that there’s anything wrong with shortcake. It’s was the perfect end to the “That’s My Farmer” dinner Chef Intaba catered last week (I volunteered to help her with the meal). When you have to feed a crowd, and strawberries are just in season, there’s no finer dessert.
In an (Asparagus) Pickle
Dilly pickles I boiling-water canned at home
Pickles we low-pasteurize water-bath canned in class
Learning pickling has been my favorite part of the 8-week master food preservation program I’m doing through Oregon State’s extension office. Asparagus are now officially my favorite vegetable to pickle. Make some while the elusive green stalks are still in season this fleeting spring. I made a batch at home this week with local asparagus from Sunbow Farm. Boiling-water canning the pickles for 10 minutes was no problem: all the jars popped, sealed shut, upon removal. But I could have used a few extra hands of help like I’ve gone accustomed to having in our class.
Just about everyone seems interested in canning these days, whether motivated to save money, preserve local produce or simply learn an ancient food art. The New York Times had a big canning feature last week, focusing on Eugenia Bone, author of the new cookbook, Well Preserved. Then NPR features Preserved on its list of the “10 Best Summer Cookbooks.” I’ve never gotten more Facebook comments then when I posted pickling photos from my preservation class. It’s a sign of the times. Now my cousin and I lament the fact my grandmother never taught us to make her curry pickles. But as a kid, I never thought making her pickles or famous raspberry jam would interest me. Yet, here I am.
I tried to recreate the Oregon-made dilly asparagus Pretty Pickles by adding dill seed to my recipe. I also like extra garlic, but I ran out. Add a whole cayenne pepper for spice and colorful effect, if you like. Experiment with any spices you like but don’t mess with the instructions on heating the brine and water-bath processing times. I like that Eugenia Bone’s recipe has that extra garlic. But I used the simple one from my OSU Extension “Pickling Vegetables” booklet (see page 15 for asparagus). What’s your favorite food to pickle?
I will not be pickling eggs, as our teacher did in class. But their pink pickled beet-enhanced color did contrast nicely with the yolks.
Pickled eggs
Summer Reading: Food (and Cycling) is Hot
Elegant book review illustrations by Chris Silas Neal
It’s a rare delight to feel the theme of a magazine’s issue or newspaper section was selected with you just in mind. That’s how the New York Times Book Review made me feel today. I wanted to read everything all at once: the sections on cookbooks, foodoirs, gardening, a David Byrne-penned review of an Oregonian reporter’s book on the Pedaling Revolution, the backpage essay on the previously unpublished culinary tidbits from the Federal Writers’ Project, or the “Food Bloggers of 1940.” What would I give to be a part of such an endeavor, that attracted the likes of everyone from Zora Neale Hurston to Eudora Welty, among a mass of mostly unestablished writers, “lots of chaff.” If only President Obama would resurrect the writer’s project for our own trying times.
The “Heartburn” review of three food memoirs-with-recipes reminded this food blogger to cling to her journalistic chops, to guard against cloying sentimentalism in her tales of food. I’m most eager to read Molly Wizenberg’s A Homemade Life, as I follow her Orangette blog and Bon Appetit columns. But Wizenberg’s whimsical tone and fairy tale days do seem out of touch at times.
She goes to Paris for a few weeks, then returns to her apartment in Seattle and does . . . what? It isn’t clear how she spends her days beyond making sentimental meatballs or French-style yogurt cake with lemon and writing about them in her fine-tuned, flowery prose…
While she’s mastered the short-attention-span form, Wizenberg can be wincingly twee, writing in a confidential style that flips into blog mode and addresses the reader directly: “I learned that kissing a man while leaning against a warm dishwasher is a lovely, lovely experience. (Go ahead! Try it! I’ll wait.)” Compared with many other bloggers, though, she’s Alice Munro. Besides, you’re not looking for literature in the cookbook section, are you?
Goodies abounded in the Cookbooks section. I’m most excited to sink into Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More, co-authored by Oregon’s own Cory Schreiber, founding chef of Portland’s Wildwood restaurant who now works with the Oregon Department of Agriculture to get more local produce into public schools. We have to have him on the radio show!
Cured Scallops and Green Sputniks
Cured Bay Scallop Salad
Kohlrabi (Green Sputniks)
There’s nothing like raw, simple, vegetal foods once the weather warms. Simple dishes, though they’re never quite that easy to prepare. But ceviche-style is my new favorite way to prepare scallops and the fact that the dish doesn’t require cooking is a plus. I tried this Cured Bay Scallop Salad recipe from Gabriel Rucker of Le Pigeon, one of Portland’s hottest (yet relatively unpretentious) restaurants. Sliced paper thin, the crisp radish, cucumber, apple and red onion slices accented the mellow lemon juice-marinated sea flesh. Red paper flakes and fresh mint slivers really made the plate jump.
And Ivy Manning inspired the other two courses I made (and I say courses because I never seem to have my dishes ready at one time). I want to cook my way through her book. On our radio show she referred to kohlrabi as a vegetable that even intimidates classically-trained chefs and tends to “die a lonely death in the crisper.” But these green Sputnik-shaped vegetables (in the broccoli and cabbage family) are delicious and versatile if you know how to prepare them. We made Ivy’s Kohlrabi Slaw, which is adapted from The Farm Cafe in Portland. Peeling the kohlrabi is key to get at the bulb’s sweet flesh, a crispy cross between broccoli stalk and sweet young cabbage. The rice vinegar and fennel seeds are key ingredients here. Still, I substituted toasted anise seeds and got the same deliciously spciy licorice accent.
And don’t throw out those collards-like kohlrabi greens. They’re an added gift. Again, I followed Ivy’s simple recipe that pairs the greens with toasted sesame oil and soy sauce. Just be sure not to overcook them! And it’s the fresh local ingredients that really make these dishes shine.
Finally Foraged for Stinging Nettles
Stinging Nettles (not to be confused with wild blackberry leaves) from Willamette Park
Spaghetti carbonara with nettles
Who would have thought that something potentially harmful would be edible? Yes, stinging nettles sting, like mild poison ivy, but when cooked, they have an herbacous, spinach-like taste and consistency. Spinach has a sweeter and more complex flavor, but when Mother Nature offers up such bounty for free, I’m always up for trying it. Foraging rules! Just don’t pick them when they’re going to seed, as I almost did today.
Also, don’t mistake them for wild blackberry vines. It’s easy to do. At least that’s not a lethal mistake. Chef Intaba pointed the nettles out to me in Willamette Park this afternoon. They have two opposition leaves (rather than the blackberry’s three and look very similar to lemon balm.
We cooked the soaked nettles into our spaghetti carbonara, made with house-cured bacon from a half a pig Intaba just butchered herself. Instead of parmesan, we dusted the pasta with the sharp aged and local Willamette Valley Cheese Co. Brindisi. We topped our salad with Intaba’s house-smoked pecans and frizzled leeks and edible pansies, redolent of wintergreen, that I didn’t even realize I had in my garden.
Intaba's bacon
Pansy salad
The meal provided nice closure to a Memorial Day of wine-tasting at Chateau Lorane just south of Eugene. The Willamette Valley’s big wine tasting weekends center around Memorial Day and Thanksgiving. I really fell for Lorrane’s Baco Noir, more rich than any pinot I’ve had. All the other wines seemed like water next to this voluptuous Baco, which painted the glass with deep purple. I only know the difference between good and bad with wine. But with this one, I could sense there was something special going on.
And be sure to stop at Our Daily Bread bakery and restaurant in Fern Ridge on Highway 99W between Corvallis and Eugene.They make a mean marionberry scone.
Dining Al Fresco
Our yard and cut flowers from the garden
We finally dined al fresco at home tonight, on our new recyclable resin (ie. cheap) table and chairs from Bi-Mart. Don’t let its small Wal-Mart appearance deceive you. This worker-owned store is a wonder of the Pacific Northwest. Bi-Mart is where I purchased my shellfish digging license, got waterproof boots, the lawn furniture and supplies with which to preserve food.
After my recent interview with Ivy Manning, I keep turning to her Farm to Table cookbook for inspiration. We made her refreshingly zesty Watercress, Snow Pea and Shitake Mushroom Stir-Fry. I substituted peppery mustard greens for the watercress (since they both have bite) and added tofu to make for a more substantial meal. We also had a springy salad and served the brothy dish over short-grain rice studded with millet, a trick I learned from Chef Naoko. Our friends brought a growler of oatmeal stout from local microbrewery Block 15 to chase down the meal. (Note to self: take advantage of Block 15’s special Sunday $7 growler refill rate). Then rhubarb bread, coconut ice cream and “blueberry teas” for dessert (a McMenamin’s-inspired concoction of Amaretto, Grand Marnier and hot Earl Grey tea…which is surprisingly evocative of the fruit). Ah, spring.
Mustard Greens, Shitake, Snap Pea and Tofu Stir-Fry
Still Revved Up For Rhubarb
Rhubarb syrup
Rhubarb bread
Just can’t get enough of that astringent yet oh so sweet, ruby red rhubarb. It’s a tonic old souls swear by, and so I’m freezing a big bag of it and cooking up a storm with the scarlet stalks. You’ve got to make rhubarb spritzers, and with or without alcohol, they are just as intensely refreshing.
Rhubarb spritzer
Then Dan reminded about the rhubarb bread I made once from a recipe I clipped from The Sun’s food section. But so many recipes got misplaced in the move. I’m still working on a recipe archiving system. Which ones are bookmarked on Delicious? Which ones are hard copies? So I settled on this rhubarb bread recipe I found online instead. It didn’t disappoint, though I wish I’d chopped my rhubarb a bit more finely. I substituted hazelnuts for the walnuts, adding nutmeg and cardamom and diced crystallized ginger on top. All those aromatic pie spices really complement rhubarb’s tangy flavor.
BaltimOregon to Maine 