Posted by Brian Halweil, August 8, 2008 at 10:00 AM
One of the only poems I have committed to memory is “Blackberry Eating,” by Galway Kinnell, a fourteen line homage to the pleasures of picking produce at the peak of ripeness. (The Italian term scorpacciata, loosely translated as gorging on whatever is in season, evokes this same sentiment.) Galway’s verse takes place in September, but as some farmer friends recently told me, and as the wild berry bushes behind my garden indicate, the East End’s berry season is climaxing now.
A couple weekends ago I was fortunate enough to rendezvous at the Sag Harbor Farmers' Market (Saturdays, from 9 to noon, on Bay Street) with chef Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern, whose ripeness radar zeroed in on blackberries and gooseberries. Gooseberries are making appearances at more and more farmers' markets around the country. Growers like their exotic sexiness. Shoppers like the pop delivered by the tart little turgid balls. Chef Mike liked what their sourness could bring to a vinaigrette when mixed with blackberries and enjoyed on top of tomatoes and assorted greens from the market. (All the same ingredients can also be found at the East Hampton farmers market on Friday mornings in the Nick & Toni’s restaurant parking lot, the Westhampton Beach farmers market on Saturday mornings in the parking lot on Mill Road next to the Historical Society, and the Riverhead farmers market on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. near the Aquarium.)
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Posted by Ed Levine, July 20, 2006 at 9:35 AM
When I brought my great white apricots to my friends on the east end of Long Island I also brought out some sensational cheeses, a wonderful, crusty loaf of bread, and some lomo, cured Spanish pork loin that is so satiny and flavorful it could give prosciutto de parma a run for its money.
In the middle of our third meal assembled from what I brought, my friend Tom said, "Man, we have eaten so well, and the great thing is we haven't done much cooking. All we did is assemble what Ed brought."
I guess that's my thing. I can cook all right, but I can assemble and forage better than just about anyone else I can think of.
Assembling in the summer in New York is easy. Our local fruits and vegetables are ready to be harvested, we get great West Coast stonefruit that if you look hard enough you can find tree-ripened juicy cherries, peaches, nectarines, and plums, there are so many first-rate cheese stores and departments around; and there is good bread to be had in virtually any big city in this country.
So here's what I've been using to assemble impromptu and delicious dinners:
1) lomo: That great Spanish pork loin that we served last weekend with quartered fresh figs. Fantastic!
2) Rare-Breed Smoked Ham: It's a slightly salty smoked ham that could go with a fresh melon or on a Balthazar baguette with a little French sweet butter.
3) French Feta: French Feta Cheese is flavorful, creamy, and much less salty than its Bulgarian or Greek counterparts. And there's no different brands to choose from. All French Feta is made by one company. Serve it with some vine-ripened tomatoes from the greenmarket. The tomatoes have been delicious this year.
Posted by Ed Levine, July 17, 2006 at 6:23 AM
On the way to visiting friends this weekends on the East End of LI I stopped at the Citarella on 75th and Broadway. Citarella's produce is consistently better than its next door neighbor Fairway, and on Saturday Citarella had what is for me one of the greatest pieces on fruits to be found on this earth, white apricots.
Some of you might remember the John Seabrook piece on the fruit detective, David Karp, which mentioned white apricots.
I know white apricots are not local (they're grown in California), but man are they delicious. They're sweet and juicy and have the most intense apricot flavor.
I bought eight (they're small), ate one immediately upon exiting the store, and after shopping at Fairway for some phenomenal cheeses and some lomo (more about these in another post), I decided to buy eight more. Because I was in a hurry I just put one bag of the apricots on top of the other instead of combining them. Big mistake. When I checked their condition two hours into the train ride I discovered that most of them had fallen apart. I had unwittingly created chunky white apricot puree.
When we arrived at our friends' house our host Joan tasted one and declared them to be apricots from the gods. We decided that she would bake a French tart crust and then place the broken apricots in the crust uncooked with a little lemon verbena from her garden. Brilliant! I suggested a little Haagen Dasz vanilla ice cream would complete this masterpiece. One bite later, and Joan's brilliance was confirmed. Nobody, not Alice Waters nor Nancy Silverton, could have improved upon this creation.
So if you can get your hands on some white apricots (they have a very short season, so definitely go to Citarella this week), try to follow Joan's method. And if you don't want to bake the tart crust, just serve them with vanilla ice cream. White apricots will change your life. Mark my words.
Posted by Ed Levine, December 20, 2005 at 1:29 PM
I seem to be on the pear diet. I eat at least two pears a day, and I hope that when I get on the scale Thursday, I'll be down ten pounds. Not bad for a fat food writer. A ripe pear is a mighty fine food, one of mother nature's sweetest, juiciest creations.
I've been sampling different pear varieties. Bartletts are the Tauruses of the food world, an excellent, everyday eating pear, and a good bosc is a stabbingly sweet substitute for baked goods or candy. But my favorite pear currently is a red D'Anjou. It has a spicy edge that I find addicting. I am having a hard time figuring out when to eat the red D'Anjous, as the last four I bought haven't gotten much softer over time.
A couple of things I've learned about pears:
Unlike peaches and most apple varieties, pears only ripen off the tree, so I have had good luck buying hard pears and letting them ripen in my kitchen for two days.
Here's a shocker. The pears I bought at my farmer's market this past Saturday had this brown flesh close to the core. They never got really sweet, and they were really mealy.
They were nowhere near as good as the pears I've been getting at my local produce market.
I'm sure that the storebought pears were grown in Washington or California to be shipped and stored, while the local pears represented the last of the seasonal bounty.
Still, when storebought pears are better than farmer's market pears, that's a man bites dog story in the food world.
