Market goodies for May 18

These are the days I live for. I woke up on the absolute wrong side of the bed this morning, got flipped off by a crazy driver, everything was irritating me, I was just in a “Rar, world, why?” mood. Within 10 minutes of walking around the market (first time in Evanston this season), the metaphorical clouds were lifted and everything was right again.

How could a bad mood survive when these little guys are around?

Whether it was the amazingly perfect weather, the stacks of bright red rhubarb stalks I’ve been waiting for, remembering to bring my knives for sharpening, watching the little kids dance to the guitar music, unexpectedly running into a friend, chatting with the honey guy about maple syrup-making, not-so-discreetly inhaling the bunch of lilac sticking out of my bag for the better portion of my visit, or any or all of the above–it was perfect.

This kid was a tough critic

I couldn’t even get today’s stash in one picture!

Lilacs (learned today that smashing the stems with a hammer and soaking them in hot water perks them up perfectly!); rhubarb, so much lettuce, radishes, green garlic, bread, mushrooms, honey (basswood linden, my favorite), maple syrup,  plus some lettuces, oregano, lavender, and orange mint to plant. Hopefully these herbs will do better on my mostly shade porch than last year’s chives/parsley/lemon balm, and the squirrels will keep their grubby paws out of my lettuce.

Happy Mother’s Day!

The very first picture of my mom and me

How do you tell your mom how awesome she is? It doesn’t seem enough to just say it. A card, or flowers, or brunch…none of those things is really my mom (also, being four states away makes brunch plans difficult). So for my mom on Mother’s Day, here’s how to make a soft-boiled egg.

Lest that sound completely random (more random than anything else I write? Probably not), there’s a story. Two years ago, my mom and I went to Italy (luckily my mom happens to think I’m a good travel buddy). On our first morning at the hotel, she spotted some contraption with simmering water and a bowl of eggs among the rest of the breakfast treats–how very European, we thought! My mom’s near-immediate response was to tell me how she used to love when my great-grandmother would make soft-boiled eggs when she was little, served in tiny egg cups with tiny spoons.

One egg and a few minutes later, my mom tap, tap, tapped the top of the shell open…to a nearly raw egg. Unfortunately there was no sign or anything about how long to leave the eggs for the desired doneness, so oops. We laughed and tried to figure out how to hide the fact that we clearly failed at apparently the most basic of cooking tasks. Ah well, we would get it right the next morning… and of course the next day ended up with a solid hard boiled egg.

I think we tried different variations nearly every morning of our trip and it became a running joke, but in my mind it was also a testament to just how memorable the women in my family are.

My mom and me, then

There was a lot about that trip–a lot about my mom in general–I could point out as a reason she’s amazing and inspiring. Her confidence in me–my ability to hike nine miles a day and more recently her confidence that I can do a 10k with her–makes me feel like I can do anything. I aspire to be in as good a shape as she is!

Mom and me, now. My mom’s arms would put Michelle Obama’s to shame.

She got me into cooking and showed me how good it feels to share good food with good people; she’s (nearly) a certified master gardener, I’m proud when I don’t kill my houseplants and love growing my little pots of flowers every year. My mom got her executive MBA while working full time with three kids under 13, and was a senior executive at a Fortune 1000 company until she decided to leave on her terms and go after her passions. She inspired me to get my Masters degree and while I may not aspire to her level career-wise, damn it, my mom kicks ass (sorry Mom) and I love bragging about her.

My mom is the funniest person I know, and knows that sometimes you just have to take the crap life hands you and laugh (Fine! Fiiiiinnnneee!). She has the best taste in movies, taught me how important a good hug and a good handshake are, always has my back (and has no problem telling me when I’m being an idiot), and is the reason I love to travel and be outside and can’t imagine moving too far from the water. Her home is my aspiration and inspiration.

This kind of derailed from my original story but I guess the point I’m trying to make is simply this–Mom, you’re awesome. And I finally figured out how to make soft-boiled eggs so we don’t embarrass ourselves the next time we’re in Italy.

Market goodies for May 11

It’s 55 degrees and grey and drizzly this morning. Come on spring! Lettuce, radishes, chives, tulips, potted herbs and other starts, and lots and lots of asparagus at the market this week. I did see a bit more rhubarb, but I’m going to give it a few more weeks until I let loose with a pie. The most random thing this week? Four stands selling hunks of wood. I couldn’t figure it out until I looked more closely–it was apple wood, presumably for smoking. And I did find a new vendor for milk today! I have some kick-ass ice cream planned, and can’t wait for strawberries to go with whipped cream. Soon, soon….

Today’s take-home? Not much green, honestly. Purple asparagus, bread, cultured butter, milk, and cream. I forgot radishes though!

Cure for the crazies

Sometimes I’m a little crazy. Five people coming to stay for three days in my two-bedroom apartment? Perfect time to  start a dozen different projects that have been on my list for a year into the few free hours I can eke out after work! And hey, can’t have my guests go hungry, best make granola, a batch of carrot cupcakes, blackstrap molasses ice cream with pecan praline (um, yum), and…well, at least I had one easy thing on my list.

Everyone needs a go-to dish for when you’re slightly crazed–last minute guests, forgotten party you promised a dish for, or just bordering on hangry (my new favorite word=hungry+angry. Because who hasn’t been there?). For me, this is that dish.

More than a dip, kind of a spread, it’s all delicious however you use it. Plus–and this is key–it takes all of 30 seconds to make and can be made with pretty standard cupboard fare. Dump everything in the food processor, turn it on, scoop it into a pretty bowl (or don’t, I know how demanding the hangry can be), devour. Pita chips, crackers, vegetables, spread on a sandwich instead of hummus…all are perfectly valid and perfectly delicious options.

There is one thing that makes this dip extra special–namely, pomegranate molasses. If you’ve never tried–or heard of– it, it’s a great little secret ingredient in everything from salad dressings to a marinade for grilling meat or vegetables, or even drizzled over strawberries. Tangy and tart, it provides a depth to the dip that you can’t quite put your finger on. (Ok, maybe pomegranate molasses isn’t “standard” cupboard fare, but it should be! And it actually lasts a long time in the fridge, so if you can find some it’s worth a purchase. Otherwise you can easily cook down pomegranate juice with some sugar and lemon juice until it’s nice and syrupy–look, Alton Brown even has a recipe!)

In any case, thank god for easy recipes in between frantic project-doing, apartment-cleaning, cupcake-baking, and general chicken-sans-head-running. Molasses is blitzed together with toasty cumin and spicy cayenne, walnuts, roasted sweet peppers, olive oil, and bread crumbs. Done. If nothing else for my guests, I knew this would go over well.

So I may make myself crazy, but at least I make some damn good dip too.

Market Goodies for May 4

Happy opening day for two of my favorite farmers markets in Chicago! Early spring greens, chives, and asparagus are out in full force along with some over-wintered root vegetables. And of course cheese, bread, and eggs. I was hoping for rhubarb, but I only spotted one bunch. Maybe next week!

I took home radishes, garlic mustard greens, lettuce, garlic chives, purple asparagus, mixed mushrooms, bread, eggs (spring eggs are just about the prettiest things ever), and ricotta and feta.

Getting deep on deep dish

If you go down a checklist of what makes a Chicagoan, I’m still an East Coast transplant. I think no hot dog is complete without ketchup. I root for the Cubs and the Sox (unless the Sox play the Indians, then it’s Cleveland pride all the way). Soda is soda, not pop. The appeal of craft beer is lost on me–or any beer for that matter, though I’m working on it. I think thin crust pizza is where it’s at.

However.

On a rare gluttonous occasion, deep dish calls. Some Chicagoans say deep dish is only for tourists who eat at Uno’s, and that the best Chicago pizza is the extra thin cracker-crust. Personally, I like both for what they are. A monstrous bread/cheese/stuff/sauce casserole, deep dish is a one-slice meal and most certainly has its appeal–when it’s good.

Cooked in pans as ancient as the Cubs last World Series appearance, the crust somehow comes out flaky and buttery and golden and crisp as the most perfect croissant, but with midwest heft. The reverse-layering of cheese/stuff/sauce goes to show Chicagoans’ ingenuity when it comes to food. It keeps the crust from getting soggy (the bane of all good pizza is a soggy crust, also why I don’t like NYC-style pizza), protects the cheese from burning, and is overall just one of those “Oh. Duh.” moments. As for the “stuff,” sorry, deep dish is not meant for just cheese and sauce. Peppers, onions, chunky mushrooms, spicy sausage, yesss.

It’s funny how the nine years I’ve lived in or around Chicago have made their mark on me. While I still like ketchup on my hot dogs, they seem naked and bland now without sport peppers, and I’m somewhat distraught that I can’t find them at a grocery store back home (poor misguided Wegman’s stock guy, your confusion made me sad). The difference between “downtown” and “the city” actually makes sense. Trying to navigate somewhere that the streets aren’t laid out in a nice, organized grid would confuse the hell out of me now. Holding a conversation about the Bears and actually following a game no longer makes me laugh out loud at its impossibility. I appreciate the unique pride (and gloveless pain) Chicago has in its 16″ softball games. And I will whole-heartedly come to Chicago’s defense if anyone tries to compare it unfavorably to any other city.

I love this city, my adopted home. I know it has its problems, which aren’t insignificant, but what city doesn’t? Its neighborhoods and lakefront, culture and history, quirks and perfections, and of course its food from pizza to farmers markets–these make Chicago great to me, especially when I can share them with you.

The problem with mediocrity

I can only plead ignorance. No one told me carrot cake was this good. True, I knew it included some of my favorite things–spices, nuts, and cream cheese frosting–but somehow every time I’ve encountered it, it’s just tasted of mass produced bleh that didn’t even seem worth trying to redeem. And so I didn’t.

I was wrong. So, so wrong.

My few run-ins with carrot cake usually went like this: a half-eaten, generic, leftover grocery store cake appears by the communal coffee pot at work and I, who should know better by now, help myself to a slice. It doesn’t taste anything like carrot, only vaguely of spices, and the frosting (which tastes nothing like cream cheese and inevitably includes tiny frosted carrots, because how else would you know what flavor this cake is supposed to be?) peels off like putty. If there are nuts at all, they are sad little crumb-sized pieces not worthy of the warning label “This product may contain nuts.”

The cake isn’t offensive, I still eat my slice, but I won’t even remember it ten minutes later, the only evidence a wadded up paper napkin and a few rouge crumbs on my desk.

And this is why mediocre food is really terrible; it’s not that the cake actually tastes bad, it’s that it’s uninspiring. It’s easy for great food to be inspirational, and bad food at least inspires me to never ever combine those ingredients again. But mediocre food? It just makes me think I wasted calories eating it. And I really hate thinking about calories.

I’m not saying all food should be drop-your-fork-and-drop-to-your-knees amazing. Shoot, for every post here I probably made a dozen average dishes or meals that weren’t worth the effort to type up, but if I’m going to eat cake, it had better be some damn good cake.

Back to the carrot cake. Last weekend I tried a sample of grocery store carrot cake mix, which was just good enough for me to say “Oh. Hey. I could make this.” (Sometimes I feel bad for grocery stores and their samples. I’m sure it’s not their intention that I taste and forgo the box in favor of making it from scratch.)

Flipping through a few cookbooks and combining bits and pieces of recipes from two of my baking bibles, I think I came up with something that is definitely better than mediocre. I may have, in fact, taken a bite of slightly warm, gooey-frosted muffin/cupcake hybrids and actually mumbled through a mouthful of delicious, “Why didn’t anyone tell me carrot cake was this good?”

This carrot cake is packed with everything I think it should be. Carrot, of course, makes its presence known in no uncertain terms; crunchy chunks of walnut will not be ignored (sorry Alton Brown, you were wrong on this count);   raisins plump up to better, juicier versions of themselves. And the spices? Let me put it this way: these cupcakes were under a heavy glass cake dome and I could still smell them every time I walked past.

And last but not least, though these are delicious without any frosting at all (dare I suggest they’re almost breakfast-worthy?), I would actually suggest doubling the frosting recipe to make sure you get a good ratio of frosting to cake–this coming from someone who generally scrapes off frosting like a picky six-year-old.

Now, of course, this discovery makes me question what other mediocre dishes I’ve eaten that could be spectacular. I think I have some more tasting to do.