Tomato Season 8

In a few weeks (if not sooner), heirloom tomatoes will disappear from farm stands in New York City, not to be seen again until next summer. You may have heard of widespread cases of tomato blight that occurred all throughout the eastern seaboard of the United States earlier this year. I know of at least two farmers who had to throw out over $50,000 worth of product during the first harvest in late July.

The expected increase in price hasn’t materialized but I can’t help think that quite a few vendors won’t be returning next year in order to recoup their losses.

Heirloom tomatoes

Tonight’s dinner is loosely based off of this recipe found in this article from this past Wednesday’s New York Times.

Ripe tomatoes are roasted with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, then handfuls of fresh sheep’s milk ricotta are scattered over. The result is a sweet, luscious sauce that conjures up a haunting memory of summer and a taste of a season to come.

Le Chevrier Vert

I rarely cook from recipes unless it’s something I’ve never made before. Then I’ll make it once or twice to get the technique down pat before venturing out on my own. I own a very limited set of cookbooks — 23 at last count. I use them primarily for reference, occasionally as inspiration. Once in a while I’ll prepare something lifted straight from their pages. I find that it’s best when you’ve cooked something that you’ve devised from the ground up. Besides, it’s seriously useful when you’re building your repertoire. There’s a quiet confidence that develops when you can gaze on a basket of food and call to mind ideas for the evening’s menu.

Technique is the most important element when it comes to cooking, in my opinion. Once you’re able to master something, the world becomes an open book.

And of course, nothing is more gratifying than cooking something from scratch and having it come together without a hitch.

Shelled flageolet beans

Le Chevrier vert, also known as the flageolet bean, was first obtained by a French grower named Gabriel Chevrier sometime in the late 19th century. This bean is set apart by its green color, which it holds onto even after the bean has dried in the pod. Though it is technically a white-seeded bean, it possesses the ability to retain chlorophyll much longer than other beans. It maintains its pale green shade even after cooking.

Flavor wise, the bean is creamy, delicate and slightly starchy. It tends to absorb and intensify the flavor of food it has been cooked with. Flageolets are best cooked simply with aromatics such as carrots, leeks and onion in chicken or vegetable stock, or in cassoulet.

Saturday Market Gallery

It’s high Indian summer here in New York City. So hard to believe that heirloom tomatoes are still on offer. The days grow increasingly shorter; time to take advantage while they’re still around.

Icicle and French breakfast radishes

The thermometer foretold seventy degrees this afternoon. Truth be told, it felt more like fifty-five.

Carpe diem indeed.

Chicken Dinner

Sometimes simple is best.

Roast chicken; sautéed peppers and green beans, Tuscan style; steamed rice and heirloom tomatoes

Click here for a high-resolution version of this picture.

One measure of a good cook is roast chicken. These days, I prefer Thomas Keller’s method for mon poulet rôti. It’s the essence of simplicity, a philosophy that underlies most of my cooking. Pat a chicken dry with paper towels, sprinkle with salt and pepper throughout (and in its cavity), truss with kitchen twine, then roast in a pre-heated oven at 450 F for one hour. The result: juicy, tender meat paired with stunningly crisp chicken skin. The skin alone is worth the price of admission. It’s delicious with a capital “D”.

I should mention that the chicken was bought at USGM this past weekend. Its provenance is from Flying Pigs Farm in Shushan, New York. The flavor blew me away. There’s simply no comparison to regular supermarket chicken. Score one for local food and sustainable farming.

The best part is a week’s worth of leftovers. Chicken sandwiches, chicken fried rice, chicken pot pie. Long after tonight’s dinner, the carcass gets reborn as the base for chicken stock, some of which will go towards congee, the rest for soup or whatever might strike my fancy. Very little gets wasted in Spamwise’s kitchen.

September Greenmarket

The seasons might have changed this past Monday but there was precious little evidence of that judging by what was on offer at the Greenmarket today.

Seckel pears — Developed in the early part of the 19th century, seckel pears are a variety of heirloom pear with a dull green cast and red highlights. The fruit is very sweet with a somewhat grainy texture since it is a hybrid of European and Asian pear. Seckel pears are the variety most often found in home orchards.

White peaches — White peaches were known in Europe as early as the mid-17th century, although they were so delicate compared to yellow peaches that they nearly disappeared from commercial orchards. Since the 1980’s, white peaches have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity, and newly developed later-ripening varieties have extended the white peach season to nearly match that of yellow varieties.

Indian corn

Saturday Market

You can definitely tell that autumn is on the threshold.

There’s a chill in the air; carpe diem while you can.

Yellow plum tomatoes

Golden nugget potatoes

Apples

A Gallery of Tomatoes

Heirloom tomatoes

Click here for a large version of this picture.

Click here for a large version of this picture.

Midsummer Bounty

Some pix from this morning at Union Square Greenmarket. Some of what you see in this post will appear in meals throughout this week’s menu.

Strawberries — Simple is best when it comes to in-season strawberries. I like them with cream and a bit of sugar, or with a touch of balsamic vinegar and a sprinkle of black pepper. Breakfast tip: try a bowl of fromage blanc with strawberries macerated in vanilla sugar and chopped mint.

Sucrine — Rooted in the French word for “sugar,” sucrine (sugar lettuce sounds better) is a smaller variety of romaine with soft, silky leaves, buttery texture, and, as the name suggests, a sweet-ish flavor. You can take the elongated core of the lettuce, peel it, and steam it — it is as delicate as asparagus and just as delicious.

Green garlic — Green garlic is young garlic which is harvested before the cloves have begun to mature. The resulting vegetable resembles a scallion, with a deep green stalk and a pale white bulb. It can often be found for sale at a farmers’ market in the spring, and can also be grown at home relatively easily. Many large grocery stores do not stock green garlic, although growing consumer demand may change this. It can also usually be special ordered through a greengrocer.

Menage a Trois

Only three pix today from the market today. My weekly haul: fresh pasta, clams, mussels, herbs, wild asparagus, fiddlehead ferns, potatoes (various kinds), butter and cheese.

Have a lovely Saturday, everyone!

Stinging nettles

Dandelion greens

Radishes

Gotham Taint

The Spreading Taint is the largest LGBT-friendly guild in World of Warcraft with over 2,691 unique guild members as of this writing. That comes out to about 6,897 characters of which the vast majority belong to nine sub-guilds under the Taint umbrella. Game parameters restrict the number of characters that a guild can hold to 500 characters. As you can see, we’re on track to become the largest guild in-game worldwide.

I joined in Sept. 2006 and haven’t looked back. It’s been a wild ride for the past two years and there’s more to come.

This morning, a bunch of us met — some for the first time, at a get-together at Jing Fong in Chinatown. This being a foodblog, there’s lots of pix of food and if you’re lucky, maybe a bear or two.

By the way, because I feel strongly about privacy rights, I’ve only posted my guildies’ character names rather than their real first names. Better for all concerned in my opinion.

Kaimetsu

Quorniya

Left: Devetaki
Right: Quorniya

Other

Left: Whitley
Right: Quorniya

Cressida

Finlandia

Steamed pork buns

Shrimp dumplings

Chicken and Chinese mushrooms in rice wine, with ginger and scallions

Left: Conpoy and baby corn with vermicelli noodles
Right: shiu mai

Steamed egg custard tarts

I went food shopping at Union Square Greenmarket afterwards while the others went sightseeing.