Gardening?

I think this is one of those moments when serious gardeners prepare their land and get to work. But when I listen to that wind whistling outside my windows, as I sit huddled in three sweaters beside my wood stove, as I sip my hot tea and read or write or... I'm in complete disbelief.

Yes, I should perhaps be out there tearing up last summer's tomato plants, plowing back under the remains of roots and weeds (or tearing them out), and who knows, maybe I've even some potatoes that survived the winter freeze (shows what I know, or not, of how potatoes work, hm?).

I read that this is the time to plant garlic and onions. Hm, nice idea. Ditto the time to lay out manure and compost and enrich the soil. Ahh, yes, I could give my goat cheese maker a call and see if there is more nicely aged goat turds I might receive.

Late November I planted Mâche leaves -- still looking good and still giving me a few dozen leaves for my salads -- and broccoli. This latter is basically a once a month (if that) source of kale leaves for a sir fry. I've 10 plants, and not a one looks particularly interesting or substantial enough to harvest. I wonder if and/or when this shall be? Or maybe I should be watering them more?

I simply have to confess that when the weather is nasty, I turn inside. I forget I have a yard (it's out back in any case). I only go out to get wood off the terrace for my stove. All my laundry is hung on the rack in my bathroom. I don't have chickens as yet to populate my chicken coop, and I manage to delegate nearly all trips to the compost pile.

A fair weather gardener? I'm afraid so. No doubt, if and when we truly have a gorgeous day, and I'm not galavanting about, or teaching, or correcting tests, or shopping, or cleaning the house, or getting the car fixed, or making muffins, or writing a short story... I'll be out there digging, raking, cleaning, and putting order to my small patch of brown and green. Truly.

The Signs of the Season

My favorite wild rose bush is covered in buds and just beginning to flower. The promise of a wall filled with its deep magenta is there... next week?

The cherry tree is nearly all leaf, its last blossoms hanging on for another couple of days.

The tiny thornless roses behind the pool are bursting into bloom, and stretching across the fence, filling the back garden with their light yellow tufts.

The neighbor's wysteria (glicine) is fully in blossom, a wall of magical purple cascades that I do so wish I could transplant to my facade...


The vegetable patch is coming up, happy potato plants amidst a few weeds, delicate peas.


And a forest of strawberries fit for a storybook tale of fairies and shrinking children playing hide and seek.

The nose sniffles as the fluffy things fall from the trees, filling the ground with their wafting cotton.

And the mosquitoes are happily birthing their babies and sending them to feast upon our blood as we contemplate sleep. A few head slaps before the mind finally shuts down is my new routine. Mosquito screens before the 1st of May? That's what a moist winter and early spring bring. Happily, I hear the frogs croaking away in the evening. Gorge yourselves I pray to them, consume the babes before they reach my window and my ever tender neck.

In the morning, the birds sing me awake as the sky turns slowly gray. Yes, I'm still not sleeping over much past 5AM, but I feel the slump passing, and the beauty surrounding me nourishing me and pushing me forward.

Le monde s'épanouit autour de moi.

Bedside Readings

This winter I've been working my way through Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Joan Gussow's This Organic Life.

They are inspiring, but daunting, examples of what I would like to be able to do but am not sure I'm completely capable of putting into place. Self-sufficiency, growing your own food, raising chickens and turkeys, patronizing the local markets and farms, keeping to a healthy, local diet respectful of the food chain, the environment, and yourself.

From Barbara Kingsolver I wonder if I could raise turkeys? Learning to eviscerate them, pluck them, etc., doesn't particularly phase me, I'd be more worried about the abundance of hawks I see in the neighborhood feasting upon them before myself. However would the food needed to keep them going be more expensive than themselves in the end? I create lots of good scraps -- which have been going into the compost -- but I've not a huge garden, nor funds for lots of feed corn (which I'd want organic in any case, right?) and there are quite a number of dogs in the area...

Joan Gussow goes on quite a bit about her success with sweet potatoes. And yes, I love these too. Could I manage to plant them when the ground is 70 degrees F and keep them in a back room at 60 degrees afterward? Am I sufficiently organized to do this alone?

At this point I've a strawberry patch, some garlic planted I hope for the spring, some lettuce plants, my herbs, and hopes to clear some more of the back garden to plant more this spring. However, as I rent my home every summer, it's not easy to plan a vegetable garden when you'll not be here.

At JP's? But that's pretty iffy, and I'm not there that much and so wouldn't be able to truly care for it.

What I seek is coherence, balance, investment, ownership, pleasure, nourishment, enrichment for my children and myself... And the fun of trying something, discovering how.

I'll see what I'm capable of. Before me I've a couple weeks of down time. The kids are with Erick, JP away, and my garden is staring me in the face. If not now, when?

My Oriental Spinach

To accompany my mother's Christmas goose I made what has become a much requested recipe of sauteed spinach (and Swiss chard when available) with spices, ricotta (brousse) cheese, nuts and raisins. Often I will wrap it in puff pastry, or bake it in a pie tin and sprinkle breadcrumbs with parmesan on top. Or, when these are not available, I'll serve it simply. I've not as yet had any complaints.

Ingredients:

a couple bags of fresh spinach, washed, de-stemmed, chopped coarsely
olive oil
1/3 cup chopped and toasted nuts (pine nuts, pecans, walnuts...)
2 good-sized garlic cloves peeled and minced
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon fresh-grated nutmeg
1 cup ricotta/brousse cheese
1/3 cup yellow raisins or currants
salt and pepper to taste

In a large frying pan, add a tablespoon or two of olive oil. Toss in spinach to fill the pan, put on the lid. Wait a moment or two, then lift the lid to check the quickly wilting spinach. Toss with a wooden spoon or tongs till all is wilted and reduced. Remove and place in a colander to drain. Continue till all the spinach is cooked. Toss in the nuts and stir quickly till lightly toasted. Put aside.

Sizzle the minced garlic in two tablespoons of olive oil. Toss back in the spinach. Transfer all the ingredients to a large bowl and blend coarsely together.

At this point you can either serve, or put aside in an oven-proof dish to reheat before serving. Or, you can lay it in pastry and bake, or sprinkle with breadcrumbs and parmesan and bake.

Enjoy!

Ratatouille from the potager

Ratatouille. It's rather Proustian for me. Childhood memories of visiting France with my family, in the heavy summer heat of 1976, going from one friend's house in Garche (outside of Paris) to another's in Biot (Côte d'Azur, by Antibes), and on to Marseille, ending up at my godmother's in Rennes. In each home we were welcomed with that week's fresh (or day-old) batch of ratatouille. As my mother (the French professor) worked on my pronunciation of the French gutteral Rrrr and the quite particular ouille (oooiya), we enjoyed this most colorful and traditional dish (post discovery of the new world, but hey, traditions are made over a short few centuries, right?).



My brother and I, like mimicking apes or cuckoo birds, laughed and played with the marvelous sounds of this word. It truly is a marvel of linguistic beauty. rrra ta tooiya. And the French do care so much about getting the proper accent of their language. My brother had the best accent of we three, Mom always remarked. Though these days, we rarely hear it. He made some valiant efforts to communicate with Erick, the time or two we overlapped in Michigan these past years. And he certainly still has a strong vocabulary. He was teaching his sons the word libellule just the other day (dragonfly).



Every night, and often at lunch as well (if we were there and not off doing some touristy things ourselves, leaving our hosts a bit of peace and quiet during our brief invasion), we were served the ratatouille, till there was no more in the pot. One night we would have it warmed up, with pasta or rice alongside. Another day it might be served cold, with ham, pâté and good country bread as accompaniment, the latter to soak up all those good juices. Likely the best of them all was prepared in Biot with marvelous and fully ripe vegetables from their garden, or possibly from the little market stalls down in the village. Sweet, tart, dense, textured, savory, garlicky... I can see and taste it now.



Happily, by the age of ten I'd gotten past some of my worst food phobias, and would now eat strange things like eggplant and zucchini when cooked in such a dish. I'd been rather awful at the age of five, the time of my first French voyage. If I remember right, I'd even had a random and strange trick of biting and breaking any glass I was served. This only lasted a week, but I have this memory of being unable to drink without biting down. Rather akin to my son, Jonas, during his ninth month of nursing...



This morning after a leisurely wake up time (which truly, isn't appropriate in this land of mid-morning beastly heat, but I'm still just a touch in my Northern Michigan habits), I cleaned up and headed out to the vegetable patch. After tying up many a tomato plant, I collected a dozen gorgeous tomatoes, six or seven good sized zucchini and eggplant each, a handful of tiny orange bell peppers (not sure how hot these are, I only dared put one into the pot. For the moment, the others are highly decorative). There are still plenty of tomatoes ready to ripen on the vines, though due to a run-in with mildew their leaves are rather scraggly, which could prevent full ripening. We shall see. I remain ignorantly optimistic.

And to work on the ratatouille. Since living with Erick, I've opted for cooking the vegetables in three batches: the eggplant and zucchini are chopped up in even sized chunks, and put, the former in a casserole, the latter in a large deep-dish frying pan, with some olive oil and just enough water so they don't burn and will soften a bit (barely a half cup), a couple bay leaves, and a sprinkle of salt. I cover the pans to maximize the softening period. When the water evaporates--15 to 20 minutes or so later -- I let the now softened vegetables brown in the oil which has reappeared now the water is gone, stirring just enough so they don't stick. I then remove them from the heat and put aside.

Meantime, I sliced the onions and pepper, putting them in a deep casserole with olive oil to sweat, added in my tomatoes (their arrival stops the onions from browning), 3 or 4 more bay leaves, 6 cloves of garlic (at least) and another sprinkle of salt. The tomatoes, ideally, I'd let simmer for hours till they reduce and reduce and reduce to their sweetest potential. However, having already heated up the house (a sin on such a hot day), I turned off the heat beneath the tomatoes, to put it back on this evening once the windows are open again, letting in cool air to balance the heat put out by the flames beneath my pot. Thus, our lunchtime version was not the apex of flavor potential that I believe tomorrow's will be.

The first serving of the dish is thus a marriage of three distinct flavors. However, as the week progresses (always make enough to have lots of left-overs), the flavors merge and concentrate into a marvelous unity. And then, it could top a pizza, or crostini, be baked with cheese on top, or added to a lasagna. I had one au pair who even passed it through a vegetable mill and put it atop some spaghetti, persuading my son that he was only eating tomatoes (she was a bright one she was).



Ingredients: 5 eggplant, 5 zucchini, 10 or more good sized tomatoes (the extra can always be saved as sauce), 3 onions, 6 cloves of garlic, one bell pepper, plus sea salt, a cayenne pepper (if you like) many bay leaves.

Cooking time: two hours plus plus (if you count your slowly simmering tomato sauce on the back burner).

Carrots in two worlds

Last week, when I dropped off the car a friend loaned me during a chunk of my stay in MIchigan, along with a couple pairs of roller blades, paint and a couple egg cartons, I had a moment to wait till Ma came to collect me with her car. As I had a bit of time to waste, or in which I could be productive, I looked at the vegetable garden -- one amongst many labors of love of my friend -- and thought, hm, when you're super busy at work, and then at play with the kids on the weekend, weeding does rather fall by the wayside. So, I got out the little trowel and went to work turning over the weeds amongst the carrots. I carefully dug back in any tiny carrot (or two) I disinterred, and left the weeds themselves to mulch down and enrich the soil. It was a little way (very little) to say thank you, and to offset the six eggs Jonas had taken (by my request) from the chicken house.

We were then on our way back home to pack and ready ourselves for our return to France.

A week later, I'm in the dry heat of Provence and what should I see here but a garden overflowing with ripe vegetables and fruits, drying in the weight of summer's end. Leaves are turning a touch yellow, and much was ready to be harvested. So down I went with my basket for the tomatoes and eggplant, and the pitch fork to bring up an abundance of dense and long carrots. They had been attacked by some bugs and worms, but I was able to wash and use most of them. Being a hot summer week (the temperature has been up to 40C/100F!) I had two desires for these carrots -- a simple grated carrot salad with orange juice, raisins, olive oil, toasted pine nuts and a touch of soy sauce, and carrot cake.

I looked on the net for some recipes, and realized that I didn't have all the correct ingredients noted in the one I'd chosen. But, no problem, I'd read Shirley Corriher's chapter on cake making the other day in Cookwise, and adjusted as I was able. I found the recipe on the blog "l'assiette de Mimosa" where she cited it as being from the Rose Bakery.



The original recipe went like this:

300 g flour
25 cl oil
225 g sugar
6 grated carrots
4 eggs
150 g chopped walnuts
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

I adapted this to the following:

5 tablespoons sweet butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
2 tablespoons melted palm oil
2 cups grated carrots
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups flour
1/3 cup orange juice

I didn't have a mixmaster to correctly cream the butter and sugar, so I simply used a fork till it was fully mixed, and then whisked the rest of the ingredients in, one egg at a time, then the carrots, and then the dry ingredients, ending with the orange juice. The final result would have been lighter had I been able to incorporate some air bubbles into the creamed butter and sugar. Ah well, we manage as we can.

The recipe came out moist and dense, which is fine by me. Had I had any yellow raisins or pecans, I definitely would have added them, but at the winery, I'm a bit limited in the pantry section. Thus the need for a bit of creative adapting for nearly any recipe. I did put on some cream cheese frosting -- 2 fjords (a type of full fat fromage blanc) that I put into a cheesecloth to remove excess liquid, then some sugar, and voila, a simple glaçage/icing.

Carrot cake is pretty unusual here, but, it was enjoyed all round -- chilled, easy to eat with the abundance of table grapes, and/or a touch of coffee

Summer vegetables inspire

Shopping at the market this morning I spotted eggplant, and gorgeous tomatoes. Yesterday I'd unearthed some potatoes from the vegetable garden. And suddenly, the urge to have fried eggplant and a fresh, long-cooked tomato sauce just overwhelmed me, or at least some variation of such. Early, very early, in my time in Arles, Erick prepared me his Aubergine en Estrasses, aka La Riste d'Aubergine. It was a revelation. Never had eggplant been so delectable.

My mother had attempted fried eggplant when I was a child. Somehow it never went over. She dipped the thick round slices in eggs, then bread crumbs, and fried away, I don't know in what oil, likely a Crisco product. They were bitter sponges of oil, with, progressively, more and more burnt crumbs upon them. Now, don't get me wrong, Ma can cook, but this was not a dish she had mastered, and I found it pretty darn inedible. So, eggplant and I, well, we took awhile to get acquainted.

Then there was the eggplant in black bean sauce at the Chinese restaurant where I was hostess nearly every weekend through high school. That was pretty good, with lots of garlic. Atop rice it made a meal. Yet, there again, the oil content was rather overwhelming and I'm sure it didn't help my figure.

So, along I came to Provence, by the Mediterranean Sea, to a land of summer vegetables. Yes, both the eggplant and the tomato were late-comers to these shores, the former from the new world, the latter along the silk and spice routes. But oh how they have adapted.

The craving for the nutty, salty flavor of the olive oil fried eggplant, paired with the sweet and intense flavor of summer tomatoes accosted me, and thus, my purchases followed suit. However, there were still those potatoes to consider, and a bit of sausage meat seemed tempting. Why not attempt a variation of a Moussaka? I've not my cookbooks here with me at my friend's, but I've my taste memories, and a few culinary skills to apply so, why not wing it? What follows is what I was inspired to do, and does not follow any existent recipe by an esteemed colleague.

I began by slicing the eggplant lengthwise and sprinkling them with salt to sweat -- layer by layer in a casserole dish, I laid down eggplant slices (about 1/4 in or a 1/2 cm), sprinkled on salt, and continued till I'd filled my casserole. Then I put this aside and forgot it, allowing the salt to do its work drawing out moisture and bitterness.

My attention then turned to the potatoes. I put these in some water to boil and soften. (a handful of small ones, all told 2 cups when riced).

Then I chopped three small onions and put them in a pan with some olive oil. As they sweated I pulled out my sausage meat (yes, this time round, I was more in the mood for sausage than ground beef) and added it to the onions. While these browned a bit, I chopped up my ever so red tomatoes. The onions nicely sweated and the sausage mostly cooked, I added the tomatoes to the sauce pan. I then smashed with the side of my knife and chopped finely 3-4 garlic cloves (about 1 tablespoon plus of garlic). I went down the outside stairs to pluck some bay leaf from the tree, and added these to the mix as well. The heat drew out the liquid in the tomatoes, and the sauce began to cook down.

I then got out a thick bottomed frying pan and began a béchamel sauce. I had a memory of a smooth mashed potato topping on Moussaka. So in went a nice chunk of butter, then a tablespoon or so of flour, once I'd blended these together with the whisk I poured in a cup and a half of milk, relatively slowly, whisking all the while. For once I made a béchamel in a frying pan not a sauce pan. I think I'll continue doing this. The process goes a bit faster, and keeps me beside it, thus limiting chances of forgetfulness, sticking on the bottom of the pan, etc., Once the sauce began to thicken a bit, I sprinkled in some grated gruyère cheese, and a few leaves of oregano from outdoors. I whisked till it was all just blended, then turned off the heat and let it sit.

Meantime, my potatoes were cooked (I just gently tested them with a knife, to see if they were tender). I put them in some cool water so I could handle them, and then put them through the vegetable mill to rice them. These I added to the béchamel, and blended together.

I could then turn my attention back to the eggplant. I'd only let them sweat the time it took me to handle the other manoeuvers. Erick would have been sure to let them sweat at least an hour and a half, if not two, till properly wilted. Ah well, perfection is attainable by some, and others make do with the time at hand.

So, as I learned from Erick, I rinsed these eggplant in lots of running water, squeezed them out and laid them on a dish cloth and tapped them with another till all the droplets of water were pressed out. I poured some olive in a frying pan -- enough to nicely cover the bottom. I turned on the heat, and 3 to 4 slices at a time I fried for just over a minute a side -- I wanted them lightly browned, but not too. I used my tongs to turn them, and then lift them out of the frying pan, letting a maximum of oil drip off before transferring them to a colander to continue draining. I continued till I'd finished all the slices.

All along my tomato sauce was simmering and concentrating. mmmm.

Now, all my separate ingredients were ready and I put it all together: In a square baking dish a layer or two of eggplant, then some of my sauce with sausage, another layer of eggplant and sauce, and then topped off with the smoothed potatoes (to which I'd added a bit more milk as I saw them thicken when cooled). I grated a touch of nutmeg on top, sprinkled some paprika and hot pepper, and then into a hot oven for 30 minutes till the top was nicely browned.

(not the most elegant of presentations, but it was yummy!)

A proper lunch for a summer's day, no? and my vegetable cravings soon to be sated. Mmmm

Here is Erick's original recipe for the fried eggplant and sauce:

Riste d’Aubergine/ Aubergine en Estrasses - Fried Eggplant in tomato sauce

A dish so simple and yet very rich in flavor and pleasure. Its second name “en estrasses” makes reference to the appearance of the wilted and fried eggplant (esstrasse means an old dish cloth).

Preparation time : 1-2 hours to sweat the eggplant; plus 45 minutes -- though if you’ve a bit more for the sauce, it can only get better.

One kg eggplant (2.2 lbs)
salt for sweating the eggplant
1/2 - 1 cup olive oil for frying

For the sauce :

3 tblspns olive oil
One onion sliced
One kg tomatoes (2.2 lbs) peeled and chopped coarsely
3 garlic cloves crushed and chopped
3 bay leaves
one tiny dried hot red pepper (cayenne, bird’s tongue)
fresh water as needed

Slice the eggplant in 1/4 inch (1/2 cm) thick lengths, leaving on the skins. Layer in a rectangular casserole dish, sprinkling liberally with salt to sweat. After an hour or so, rinse well under fresh running water, and tap dry.

While the eggplant is sweating, start the tomato sauce. In a large sauce pan pour in the olive and add the onions. Simmer till translucent (sweated), approximately 2-5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook till they release their juice (5 minutes or so). Add the garlic, the bay leaves, and the pepper and let simmer. -- A note here, I prefer to use a tiny hot pepper in my tomato sauces rather than black pepper. I find that black pepper becomes bitter when simmered over a long time (like black tea) and in the end, adds only a bit of “hotness”. Whereas, the tiny red pepper raises all the flavors in the sauce, never too hot, but just more lively. -- As needed, add fresh water (especially if you’re working with a sauce pan without a lid). This has the added benefit of allowing you to cook the tomatoes longer and therefore have a sweeter richer sauce flavor when you serve it. Do not let the liquid reduce to a thickness that would encourage the bottom to burn. You want a relatively liquid sauce. Cooking time can be an hour or more. The general rule with tomatoes is the more they simmer, the less acidic they’ll be. Towards the end of the cooking time, take a potato masher and crush the chunks of tomato in the sauce, this will thicken your sauce and smooth it out.

Your sauce underway, check your eggplant. If it’s well wilted, rinsed and tapped dry, pour the olive oil into a deep frying pan (you want at least a 1/3 inch or 1/2 centimeter of oil in your pan). Let it heat up (a minute) and then start frying the eggplant slices, as many as fit into the pan easily, turning when lightly browned, and then remove them to a platter with a paper towel on it to absorb extra oil. Continue till all the slices are done. Set aside till you are ready to serve. To serve the dish, ladle the hot sauce on the eggplant in a deep serving dish, each person receives 3 or more slices with accompanying sauce. Enjoy!