I like to think of myself as a seasonal, regional cook who chooses local
ingredients and prepares them in their proper season. But this morning, I ate
homemade cinnamon swirl bread, toasted and buttered. It’s August and there is
nothing local or seasonal about buttered cinnamon swirl bread. And yet, that
breakfast really hit the spot.
When I thought about it, I realized that the Ultragrain® flour in the bread,
plus the eggs, milk and canola oil all came from Costco. So did the organic
sugar and the Saigon cinnamon. For that matter, so did the organic butter I
spread on the finished toast.
What’s up with that?
The whole situation compelled me to re-read an essay I wrote about the mega
food warehouse a couple of years ago for an article in Pacific Northwest
Magazine. Read it here: On Shopping at Costco. Recently I read that the company
aims to collect twenty percent of its members’ food dollars and I guess that’s
just about the right figure for my household. Another twenty percent goes to
local farmers where I buy all our meat – a quarter of a steer and half a hog
plus some random fruits and vegetables. The rest goes to the local groceries
and stores like Trader Joe’s, where I occasionally shop.
I guess I am a seasonal, regional cook but I’m also a regular person with the
freedom to shop wherever I want to gather the ingredients I need to make the
things I like to make.
I was never a
big fan of coconut when I was a kid, but that’s because most of the coconut I
encountered was partially dried, overly sweetened and had the texture of
cuticles. When I tried my Great Aunt Lois’ fresh coconut cake, all that
changed. She insisted on using fresh coconut and said if one was not available,
not to bother making her cake. I love fresh coconut, but they don’t grow where
I live. And even when I can get fresh coconut, getting one open and ready to
eat can be intimidating enough to prevent me from making anything with one.
Fortunately, some brands of fresh-frozen coconut are now imported from Asia and
they are infinitely better than the dry stuff in the baking aisle, almost as
good as fresh. And Asian canned coconut water, intended as a beverage, makes a
great baking ingredient, light and fresh tasting, it’s a world away from
canned coconut milk.
So, armed with better frozen shredded coconut and great-tasting coconut water,
I set about making my Aunt Lois’ cake in the form of cupcakes. We have trouble
finishing a whole cake around my house, but cupcakes seem to disappear pretty
well. These stay moist for days and they are downright delectable.
Here's
a wonderful video of Michael and Ariane Batterberry. They "discovered"
me in Friday Harbor, asked me to write about what I was doing at Canlis
restaurant, and put me on the masthead of Food Arts as a contributing
editor. Thanks to Michael's recommendation that I keep a journal of my
experiences cooking in several restaurants in New York for one week, I
won the James Beard Award for best food story of the year in 2000.
Thanks to them, I have had the most amazing opportunities of my career.
Michael passed away earlier this month. Watching this video is like
having a bit of Michael's spirit back: Michael and Ariane Batterberry
I recently procured a
set of ice pop molds: plastic vessels with lids that
include a plastic stick to penetrate whatever goes inside the mold;
they came as a set of six with their own tray to hold them securely upright
in the freezer. My son, who is no longer a child – he’s twenty-one this summer
– persuaded me to buy them when we spotted them strategically placed near the
check-out stand at our local grocery. And the pop molds have prompted us to devise a number of delectable frozen treats
this summer.
First came coconut bars; we made four different versions. I got us
started with a simple and straightforward blend of canned coconut milk, organic
sugar and water. We stirred the warm water and sugar together until the sugar
was dissolved then added the coconut milk, distributed the mixture evenly
between the molds and popped them in the freezer. While his sixteen-year-old
brother and I thought these were perfect, my older son thought they needed some
work.
“The ice crystals are too large,” he said, “and they could use some shredded
coconut.” Our next trip to the city found us scouring the freezer section at
Viet-Wah, Seattle’s huge and wonderful Vietnamese grocery store. We bought
frozen shredded coconut and a box of coconut cream, richer than mere coconut
milk. This time the mixture went into the food processor before it went into
the molds, but the results were less than perfect; the pops seemed dry and a
little grainy. We persevered.This
time an unprocessed mixture of coconut cream, shredded coconut, sugar and water
spent a short sojourn in the ice cream maker before going into the molds.
“I think the ice cream maker will prevent the formation of those large
crystals,” I said “and if we don’t process the mixture, the shredded coconut
won’t give it that mealy texture.” Voila! We had nailed it!
Next came frozen fudge bars. Fudgesicles® were my favorite treat from the ice
cream truck when it rolled through the suburban scene of my childhood summers
so I set about trying to recreate the elusive texture of those “quiescently
frozen confections.” I had always wondered just what that meant, but had never
bothered to look it up; turns out it means “frozen in a restful state,” to
distinguish it from ice creams which are churned. Mystery solved.
After boiling a mixture of water, sugar, corn syrup and cocoa powder, I added
milk and vanilla. The results were good. The flavor is infinitely
better than the flavor of the processed junk,but the texture was not as smooth as the traditional
‘sicles. A visit to the Popsicle® website revealed the ingredients list for my
gold standard. Some guar and some palm oil were involved. Guar gum – not as dreadful as it sounds is actually a starch derived from the
guar bean and Bob’s Red Mill produces 8-ounce bags of the stuff that cost less
than four dollars at my local grocery store. Like other polysaccharides, the
complex starch acts as thickener and a binder; it does basically the same
things eggs might do in a traditional ice cream or custard. Palm oil in the
form of Spectrum® natural organic shortening comes in a two-pound tub. I
usually have some on hand for certain pastries; but that’s another story. So my
next attempt at frozen fudge pops will include both of these -- albeit in trace
amounts. For now, here’s the best I have come up with so far:
While perusing that Popsicle® website I learned that the world’s most popular
flavor for the frozen treats is cherry. So, before cherry season is over, I’m
trying out some Bing cherry pops. The surprisingly short and non-scary
ingredients list on the original brand lists guar gum in these as well. But I’m
thinking natural fruit pectin might be more appropriate. I'm going to try some peach pops using the same technique. I'll
post the results of those experiments soon.
Meanwhile, some early-ripening blackberries prompted our third ice pop flavor. These
little beauties, still warm off the canes in the backyard were pureed with a sugar at the end of an immersion blender then passed through a strainer to
remove the seeds. We stirred in Greek style yogurt and opted for an agitated
rather than quiescent finish. That is to say, we put the stuff in the ice cream
maker to get it mostly frozen before piping it into the molds. The results?
Sublime.
Summer in the Pacific
Northwest sometimes seems like a parade of berries. Early on, strawberries, the
sweetest on earth ripen to tender red perfection. Then come the raspberries
with their incomparable fragrance. And as we move toward August, the
blueberries begin to ripen. Then, at last, the blackberries ripen and
by the time they have ended, summer’s gone and cranberries arrive.
Right now, we’re at the height of blueberry season and I learned recently from
Tami Sakuma, whose family has been growing berries in the Skagit Valley for
four generations, that blueberry season in the valley is the longest on earth.
Long after other berry growing regions have surrendered their harvests, the
Skagit keeps producing. Even in November, berries from the Skagit are sweet,
firm and succulent. So we've got lots of time to enjoy them.
We like to tumble a handful of blueberries over a salad that’s topped with
chunks of alder-smoked salmon, or just about any green salad. Like all berries,
blueberries lend themselves to creative savory dishes. But we think their best
and highest use might be in baked goods. We love blueberry pie and blueberry streusel
coffeecake appears regularly on our weekend breakfast table as do buttery
blueberry scones.
