Among the many pleasures of spring are the season-straddling meals, which retain some of winter’s rich comfort quality while opening up to the verdant splendor of new growth. And morels. Lots of morels. Throw in a duck leg, some transformed leftovers, and kumquat/absinthe marmalade, and you’ve got yourself an exemplary dinner.
I’ve written before about leeks in vinaigrette being one of my all-time favorite appetizers. Leeks have a particularly savory completeness to their flavor, an almost meaty umami element that’s extremely compelling and addictive. They take well to all forms of cooking, and their silky texture when perfectly done—slick layers sliding apart under the fork—is hard to beat for sensual pleasure in the vegetable kingdom.
Even though there’s some snow on the ground, it’s rapidly melting as the March sun beats down upon it with increasing vigor. I was going to shoot a bunch of pictures of all the green goodness that’s popping up all over, but those will have to wait for a bit. Meantime, though, a post about my favorite of all the wild spring edibles.
This came together nicely, and fairly quickly, and the result was as good to eat as it was healthy. Not the worst combination in the world.
We invited some friends over for New Year’s Eve dinner, and I was setting forth to procure something celebratory when I bumped into my neighbor getting his mail. “Hey, I’ve got something for you,” he said. We had given them assorted homemade things (ketchup, salsa, jelly, etc.) and he wanted to reciprocate, so he led me to his freezer, from which he pulled out neatly wrapped and labeled white paper packets of frozen venison and bear meat. He had had an excellent hunting season, unlike the previous year when he got nothing. And thus was my search for exotic vittles complete before I even got in the car.
This predates Christmas, and thus was photographed without a flash, but it was a pretty good dinner and warrants a quick mention. Kind of a mishmash, it nonetheless managed to be both seasonally resonant and really fucking good to eat. Which you look for in a dinner.
The cooler weather (crystalline and perfect in these parts lately) combined with the explosive home stretch for the garden—the damn peppers always hit their stride right before the frost—can be inspiring to the point of madness, especially when the farmers’ market throws in even more treats like mushrooms and fish. To wit: yesterday, when as a result of all the bounty I thought it would be a good idea to make tapas. You know, six different dishes, in an attempt to duplicate that wonderful restaurant experience of having a table crowded with plates, all boasting varying colors, textures, and tastes that showcase the best of the season. And the nightshade-heavy late summer bounty positively screams Spain.
Yesterday I was out all day for a story—90 minutes each way in the car, three hours of chatting, 375 pictures taken, stop at farmers’ market on the way home—so dinner was not in any danger of being a complicated endeavor. Circumstances conspired to make it another one in the seemingly infinite series of “chicken parts cooked in a vaguely winglike manner” meals that I’m sure you’re all thrilled to read about on a regular basis. But bear with me; this technique works a treat and is dead easy with any bird parts you might have laying around.
Everyone jokes about the excess of zucchini that burden gardeners all summer long, and I see lots of anguishing about how to use them up. Ratatouille, caponata, breads, salsas, chutneys: the list is endless and not overly inspiring. My answer is to grow fewer of them. In recent years I have taken to planting just one or two plants and using the rest of the space for winter squash like kabocha, butternut, and acorn which last longer and have more culinary uses. As a result, finding ways to eat or preserve zucchini is less of a priority for me than it used to be.
Remember that your gardenless, non-CSA-subscribing friends will be less likely to label gifted zukes as the self-serving purge that they really represent, especially if you throw in some carrots, beets, and tomatoes to sweeten the deal. And yet, after years of painstaking research on the subject, I am happy to report that I have developed the single best way to eat them every day without getting sick of them (and that includes as a pizza topping, which doesn’t suck). And I have gotten a request for more vegetable posts, so here you go.
Some friends came to visit on their way home from Maine the other day, bringing lobsters. The timing was perfect, because a friend who lives in Maine had messaged me the day before telling me that it’s a good time to eat lobster since there’s a glut on the market and prices are low. We boiled them–sadly not availing ourselves of this awesome technique for anesthetizing them first, but clove oil is on my shopping list–and had local sweet corn as well, with frisée aux lardons and 63˚C eggs as a starter. But what I did with them the next day was the real story.