Our current Cook the Books Club selection is the historical novel Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen by Annabel Abbs.¹ The book narrates the story of cookbook writer Eliza Acton (1700-1859) and her assistant, Ann Kirby. I had not heard about Eliza Action and I thank Amy, our Club’s host, for selecting the book.

Abbs chose to tell the story alternating between Eliza’s and Ann’s perspective. Through Eliza, Abbs addresses the topics of marriage, motherhood, and the narrow options open to creative women at the time (Eliza is a poet and playwright), while through Ann, she addresses the narrow options open to poor people, particularly women, and also the care of patients with mental health problems.

The book does not include recipes (ricette) but Eliza’s main cookbook “Modern Cookery in All Its Branches” is accessible via the Library of Congress² (thank you, Amy, for searching for and finding it!) and makes for an interesting browsing. Eliza Acton liked precision in providing instructions. Her lasting contribution to cookery is the listing of ingredients (ingredienti) and their measured, exact quantities (at the end of the recipe, rather than the beginning, as is the current custom). She often adds “Obs.,” observations or comments to the recipe just detailed.

Each chapter of the novel includes a subtitle that references a dish. One of them inspired me, except I got it wrong. The reference was to turnips (rape) with butter, which somehow my brain registered as parsnips with butter. I then thought I hadn’t cooked parsnips in a while and went on my merry way developing a recipe with that root vegetable. Finding locally grown ones at the farmers market acted as an additional prompt. It was only when I was putting in order my notes that I realized my mistake.

Still, the inspiration came from the reading, so below I share my recipe for soup that uses roasted parsnips. They have a distinct, rather strong flavor, so I reached for their “cousins” carrots to balance it, then added an apple to round up the flavor profile. I also went for simplicity: the two root vegetables, apple (mela), red onion (cipolla rossa) and garlic (aglio) are roasted together before becoming soup ingredients. The result is a hearty soup that is particularly welcome when it feels like winter has no intention to leave yet.

I am glad the Club’s selection prompted me to rediscover a root vegetable that, I believe, should be more popular than it is.

¹ The book’s page on the author’s website
² Modern Cookery in All Its Branches by Miss Eliza Acton (on page 47 of the book [38/418 of the file], there are two recipes for turnip soup and one for carrot soup)

Click on the Play button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post

This is my contribution to the current selection of our Cook the Books hosted by Amy of Amy’s Cooking Adventures. (You can find the guidelines for participating in the event on this page.)

FTC disclosure: I have received the table linen free of charge from the manufacturer (la FABBRICA del LINO). I have not and will not receive any monetary compensation for presenting it on my blog. The experience shared and the opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.

     

Related Stories

• radicchio with red grapes / radicchio con uva rossa - Enclosure
• root vegetables and escarole with tofu / ortaggi a radice e scarola con tofu - Enclosure
• fava beans and peas / fave e piselli - Enclosure

 

Our current Cook the Books Club selection is the memoir Bite by Bite by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.¹ The book is a collection of 40 short essays, each centered on a specific food, ranging from fruit (lots of fruit, including rambutan, figs and mango), to spices (cinnamon, vanilla — cannella, vaniglia) to dishes, like lumpia and leche flan. Using the title food as starting point, each essay blends memories, meditations on aspects of life, and information about the food, in an evocative, lyrical language. The title aptly describes the way the book is presented and read.

Before selecting this book for our club, I knew and appreciated the author’s poetry, but was not familiar with her essays. I like how she uses a food to start a thread that weaves through memories with factual details sprinkled in. Reading most of the essays engendered a similar process for me. For example, the opening essay on rambutan made me travel to the Big Island and its wonderful farmers’ market, where, among many other fruit, you can find clusters of sweet, juicy rambutan.

The book doesn’t include recipes and rather than by one of the foods, I was inspired by the time of year and the food memory it elicited. To celebrate the New Year (Capodanno), I followed the tradition of eating lentils. My mother always prepared a pot of the delicious small lentils typical of my home region, lenticchie di Castelluccio. She cooked them with local sausages, another typical food.

I usually bring back a bag of lentils when I visit Italy. Besides the famous Castelluccio lentils, Colfiorito lentils are also grown in Umbria. They are likewise small, fast cooking and deeply flavored. Below is a photo from my favorite store in downtown Perugia, Antica Spezieria e Drogheria Eredi Bavicchi,² where I purchase this and other specialty legumes.

Besides the lentils, the dish includes honeynut squash and an assortment of leafy vegetables. For the latter, I use what I find at the farmers’ market, trying to create a balanced mix of flavors. Examples include: rainbow chard, red beet greens, radicchio di Treviso. Having one component of the dish variable means each time I make the dish it tastes unique. Note that in the case of rainbow chard and red beet greens, I cook also the stems, which I particularly like.

This dish brings me to my home region and makes me feel I keep alive an ancient tradition.

¹ The book’s page on the publisher’s website
² The Antica Spezieria e Drogheria Eredi Bavicchi
³ An unpeeled garlic clove is called uno spicchio d’aglio in camicia (where in camicia literally means: with the shirt on)

Click on the Play button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post

This is my contribution to the current selection of our Cook the Books hosted by me, Simona of briciole. (You can find the guidelines for participating in the event on this page.)

The roundup of the event.

FTC disclosure: I have received the table linen free of charge from the manufacturer (la FABBRICA del LINO). I have not and will not receive any monetary compensation for presenting it on my blog. The experience shared and the opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.

     

Related Stories

• fruity chard / bieta alla frutta - Enclosure
• radicchio with red grapes / radicchio con uva rossa - Enclosure
• fava beans and peas / fave e piselli - Enclosure

 

Our current Cook the Books Club selection is the novel Maame by Jessica George.¹ Following the protagonist, Maddie, a 25-year old woman of Ghanaian origins living in London, the novel tackles topics including family ties and responsibilities (a father with advanced Parkinson’s disease, a manipulative mother and a shallow brother make up Maddie’s family), friendships and relationships, racism, a young person trying to find their place in the work environment and in life. As readers, we cheer Maddie on her journey to a more assertive and realized self. I found the beat-to-beat narrative a bit tiresome and the continuous asking Google life questions quickly lost freshness. I guess the slow pace is a metaphor for Maddie feeling stuck in a situation that leaves her unfulfilled.

Maddie’s family roots in Ghana made me think first about foods from Italy, where I come from, but then winter squash and pumpkin being widely available this time of the year, I started thinking about foods from where I live now and was inspired by the Native American tradition of companion planting corn, beans and squash in a mutually supporting situation. A page on the USDA website² strives to offer a view of this intercropping method with focus on the people who practiced it, and describes it as “not simply an agricultural strategy ” but “a cultural complex”:

Some Indigenous Peoples of the Americas planted corn, beans and squash or pumpkins together in mounds, in an intercropping complex known to some as the Three Sisters. Corn provided support for beans, beans provided nitrogen through nitrogen-fixing rhizobia bacteria that live on the roots, and squash and pumpkins provided ground cover to suppress weeds and inhibit evaporation from the soil. While the origins of the Three Sisters complex are unknown, veneration of the Three Sisters appears in the earliest accounts of European explorers and missionaries in North America. As described by Lewandowski, from its earliest appearance in written records, the Three Sisters complex was not simply an agricultural strategy or technology, but a cultural complex, complete with stories, ceremonies, technology, customs and etiquette.

The recipe below is my way of honoring  what from my perspective is a great combination of flavors and textures. The ingredients (ingredienti) I used in the various renditions of the recipe are grown locally at the following farms:

• Vermont cranberry beans: Rain Frog Farm
• honeynut squash: Wild Rose Farm
• Autumn frost squash: Happy Hearts Farm
• poblano peppers: Shakefork Community Farm
• sweet corn: The Corn Crib, Shakefork Community Farm
• escarole (scarola): Shakefork Community Farm
• red onion: Shakefork Community Farm
• garlic: Happy Hearts Farm, Pomme Hill Farm
• fresh thyme (timo): Woven Hearts Herb Farm
• smoked spicy paprika and ground dried chihuacle negro: Luna Farm

This recipe has two ingredients in common with the previous one: roasted poblano peppers and roasted corn.³ I can still get fresh poblano peppers at the farmers’ market and have been roasting them to use in various dishes and also to freeze. Sweet corn season, on the other hand, is sadly over so what I use in this recipe was roasted during the summer and frozen, so it comes from my freezer.

Try combining different varieties of winter squash and beans to get a slightly different dish.

¹ The book’s page on the publisher’s website
² The quote is from a paper cited on the USDA National Agricultural Library page The Three Sisters of Indigenous American Agriculture
³ From briciole’s archive: Recipe for Roasted poblano peppers with corn. and for Strained roasted tomatoes

Click on the Play button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post

This is my contribution to the current selection of our Cook the Books hosted by Debra of Eliot’s Eats. (You can find the guidelines for participating in the event on this page.)

This is the roundup of the event.

FTC disclosure: I have received the table linen free of charge from the manufacturer (la FABBRICA del LINO). I have not and will not receive any monetary compensation for presenting it on my blog. The experience shared and the opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.

     

Related Stories

• beans, winter squash and corn / fagioli, zucca e mais dolce - Enclosure
• fava beans and peas / fave e piselli - Enclosure
• green cabbage with honeynut squash and chestnuts / cavolo cappuccio con zucca e castagne - Enclosure

 

Our current Cook the Books Club selection is the memoir Coming to My Senses by Alice Waters¹ chef and cookbook author, whose name is associated to the renowned restaurant Chez Panisse² in Berkeley, CA, which she opened in 1971 (with Paul Aratow), the farm-to-table movement and the Edible Schoolyard Project.³

I listened to the audio book, narrated by Waters. I enjoyed learning about certain aspects of what makes Chez Panisse special, like the beautiful menus. Listening to Waters’s stories, it’s important to remember that ideas like farm-to-table restaurants, now mainstream, were new when she started implementing them. I don’t share any of her experiences in terms of “food awakening” as I grew up in Italy and with strong connections to food producers.

Waters describes her travels to France and other parts of Europe. She writes off Italy, where she had an unpleasant experience. Initially I was irritated by her words, then realized that I have done the same with France, after an unpleasant experience in Paris. Indeed, first impressions leave a lasting mark.

I don’t have any of Waters’s cookbooks, but I share her focus and delight in cooking with fresh, local, seasonal ingredients (ingredienti freschi, di produzione locale e di stagione). This is the season of peppers, sweet corn and fresh onions (cipolle), including sweet Walla Walla. I was inspired by a recipe from Saveur magazine: Creamy Poblano Rajas With Corn by Fatima Khawaja.⁴ In my version, I oven roast poblano peppers and sweet corn, the balance of ingredients is more towards the peppers, and I use fromage blanc rather than Mexican crema or crème fraîche. The result is drier, to be served as a side dish.

People who follow me on Instagram know that I celebrate farmers and their products by creating still lifes like the one below, which include two of the recipe ingredients.

In the spirit of a Chez Panisse menu, below are the sources of the ingredients used in the various rendition of this recipe, purchased at local farmers’ markets or farm stands:

• poblano peppers: Happy Hearts Farm, Luna Farm, Shakefork Community Farm
• sweet corn: Earthly Edibles, Flood Plain Produce, Shakefork Community Farm, The Corn Crib
• Walla Walla onion: Neukom Family Farm
• garlic: Happy Hearts Farm, Luna Farm
• fresh oregano (origano): Woven Hearts Herb Farm
• Foggy Morning (fromage blanc): Nicasio Valley Cheese Company

When sweet corn and peppers are in season, roasting them is a kind of ritual I follow once I get home from shopping.

¹ The book’s page on the publisher’s website
² Chez Panisse
³ The Edible Schoolyard Project
⁴ Recipe for Creamy Poblano Rajas With Corn by Fatima Khawaja from Saveur magazine. In reference to food, rajas means strips of a food item, most commonly poblano peppers.

Click on the Play button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post

This is my contribution to the current selection of our Cook the Books hosted by Claudia of Honey From Rock. (You can find the guidelines for participating in the event on this page.)

The roundup of the event.

FTC disclosure: I have received the table linen free of charge from the manufacturer (la FABBRICA del LINO). I have not and will not receive any monetary compensation for presenting it on my blog. The experience shared and the opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own

     

Related Stories

• roasted poblano peppers with corn / peperoni poblano arrosto e mais dolce - Enclosure
• root vegetables and escarole with tofu / ortaggi a radice e scarola con tofu - Enclosure
• fava beans and peas / fave e piselli - Enclosure

 

Our current Cook the Books Club selection is the historical novel A Bakery in Paris by Aimie Runyan¹, which alternates between the story of Lisette and that of her great-granddaughter Micheline. Both lived in Paris. Lisette’s story is set during the German siege (1870-1871)² and subsequent Commune (1871)³, that of Micheline immediately after the end of WWII.

Lisette is the original founder and owner of the title’s bakery, which Micheline reopens, offering the usual assortment of French pastries, prepared based on Lisette’s recipes (documented in a notebook and provided at the end of some of the chapters) and her culinary academy training.

One of the pastries is croquembouche (pièce montée). Years ago I made a version of it where I used melted chocolate (70% cocoa) instead of caramelized sugar (zucchero caramellato) to bind the choux pastry, because “I don’t like the contrast between the hard caramelized sugar and the lightly crisp bignè shell, which segues immediately into the soft filling. Melted chocolate offers, in my opinion, the perfect binding material: it provides stability by hardening into a layer of the right consistency, so the progression of taking one bite is: 1) crack thin layer of chocolate, 2) break crisp bignè shell, 3) glide into creamy filling. Basically, heaven.”⁴

After her husband, Théo, dies fighting with the Communards, Lisette, pregnant, is expected to marry her first fiancé and go to Provence (Provenza) with him until after giving birth. She ends up not going and not marrying him (again), but I decided to stay there for inspiration.

Tarte aux blettes is a Provencal dessert made with Swiss chard. While I was not interested in replicating it (we don’t eat dessert), I played with the idea of adding a sweet note to a vegetable I like and eat regularly.

For my first try, I bought a bunch of rainbow chard at the Little Wing Farm stand⁵ outside Point Reyes Station while I was riding my bicycle. I had planned to stop there, so had a couple of bags in my backpack. The chard was kept in a tub and I didn’t realize until I took up a bunch how big it was, with long colorful stems (which I adore!) and large leaves. When I put it in the backpack, the top stuck out giving me, I am sure, a curious appearance when riding.

At the San Rafael farmers’ market, where I shop when in the Bay Area, some vendors offer slightly blemished or overripe fruit at a discounted price, and I usually get some to add to dishes, like this one. This is the season of stone fruit and I decided to try pairing the chard with white nectarine (pesca noce or nettarina) first. I then tried using a peach (pesca), peeled, and also apricots (albicocche). All the fruit worked well. The sweetness balances the light bitter nuance of chard and the result is a side dish that nods towards dessert without being overly sweet.

Print-friendly version of briciole’s recipe for Fruity chard

Ingredients:

• 1 pound / 450 grams rainbow chard or Swiss chard, stems included, up to 6-7 inches / 15-18 cm (if you have more, save them for another dish: do not discard them)
• 4 ounces / 112 grams red spring onion
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 tablespoons / 30 ml extra-virgin olive oil OR 1 tablespoon / 15 ml extra-virgin olive oil + 1 tablespoon / 15 grams unsalted butter
• 1/4 teaspoon Harissa spice mix
• 2 tablespoons / 30 ml warm water if needed
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste
• 4 ounces fruit (e.g., nectarine, peach, apricot), clean weight

Finely chop the onion and mince the garlic.

Separate the chard stems from the leaves and chop the stems. Halve the leaves lengthwise, stack 5-6 at a time and cut them into 1-inch / 2.5-cm wide ribbons.

Warm up a 5-qt cast iron Dutch oven and add the olive oil. When hot, add the onion and cook on medium heat for 2 minutes, then add the stems and sprinkle the Harissa spice mix and thyme. Stir well and cover. Turn the heat down to medium-low.

Cook for 8 minutes or until the onion is soft, stirring often.

Add the garlic and stir. After 1 minute add the chard. Cover and cook for 1 minute to let the chard wilt, then stir. Cover and cook for another 7 minutes or until the chard is tender.

In the meantime, cut the fruit into 3/4 inch / 2 cm- side cubes. If using a peach, peel it first.

When the chard is almost cooked, add the fruit, stir and cook for 1 minute.

Remove from the heat, sprinkle the sea salt and stir. Transfer to a plate and serve.

Serves 3

I like to eat this side dish alongside a more decidedly savory one, like mixed vegetables with thyme⁶ or the roasted vegetable medley I prepare weekly using zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, mushrooms, roasted corn and garlic.

¹ The book’s page on the publisher’s website
² The siege of Paris
³ The Commune of Paris
⁴ From briciole’s archive: profiterole
⁵ Little Wing Farm Instagram page
⁶ From briciole’s archive: Mixed vegetables with thyme

Click on the Play button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post

This is my contribution to the current selection of our Cook the Books hosted by Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. (You can find the guidelines for participating in the event on this page.)

The roundup of the event.

FTC disclosure: I have received the table linen free of charge from the manufacturer (la FABBRICA del LINO). I have not and will not receive any monetary compensation for presenting it on my blog. The experience shared and the opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.

     

Related Stories

• fruity chard / bieta alla frutta - Enclosure
• root vegetables and escarole with tofu / ortaggi a radice e scarola con tofu - Enclosure
• fava beans and peas / fave e piselli - Enclosure

 

Our current Cook the Books Club selection is the historical novel The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson. I borrowed the book by accepting a suggestion within the Libby app. I was intrigued by the long title and wanted to know what it was about. I soon found myself drawn to the story, which is set in the UK in the summer of 1919, post-WWI, during the Spanish flu pandemic. It is a challenging time for veterans re-entering civilian life, for women forced to abandon the jobs many held during the war and for the country overall.

The protagonist, Constance Haverhill, has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. There, she meets a kind refugee waiter, a group of women motorcyclists and a (physically and emotionally) wounded veteran. The elderly woman Constance is tasked to take care of turns out to be a more interesting character than expected.

I enjoyed Simonson’s style and treatment of characters so much that after finishing the novel, I borrowed her earlier ones: “The Summer Before the War” (where again the war in question is WWI) and “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand,” probably her most famous book.

While the Hazelbourne novel is not food-oriented, it includes a number of references to foods. I was inspired by “tiny spring peas” included in a restaurant meal in chapter 2:

There were celery stalks on a long glass dish served with small silver tongs. There were dishes of small green olives, and a plate of the ubiquitous tinned sardines rolled around tiny white onions and stuck through with a cocktail pick. A broth followed, slightly cloudy. Then an indeterminate course of oeufs mayonnaise. Finally, the main course: Mrs. Wirrall had ordered Dover sole for the ladies and the pie for Harris. She had commanded, and was delivered, buttered new potatoes, a dish of tiny spring peas, and a carrot mash. There was even a small wedge of lemon in a muslin cloth, which the waiter squeezed over their fish with a silver tool.

“I haven’t seen a lemon since before the war,” said Constance. There were one or two frowns from ladies at neighboring tables, which indicated that not all patrons had been honored with such an intoxicating spritz.

As we move towards late spring, the farmers’ market is filling with colorful fruit (hello cherries!) and a wider variety of vegetables, including fava beans and peas, both favorite of mine, fresh spring onion (cipollotto) and garlic (aglio — hurrah for no more storage allium!).

I decided to add a carrot (carota) to the green on green motif and was happy with the result. The small size of the dish reflects the fact that I made it for myself only: you can easily multiply the recipe. Both peas and fava beans require shelling. The latter are much tastier if you remove also the skin (trust me on this).

Print-friendly version of briciole’s recipe for Fava beans and peas

Ingredients:

• 3 ounces / 85 grams shelled fresh fava beans
• 1 ounce / 30 grams shelled fresh peas
• 1 1/2 ounces / 42 grams red spring onion
• 1 ounce / 30 grams carrot (1 medium or 2 small)
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tablespoon / 15 ml extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/8 teaspoon Harissa spice mix
• 2 tablespoons / 30 ml warm water
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste
• 1/2 tablespoon finely minced fresh flat-leaf parsley

Shell the fava beans and weigh the necessary amount. Blanch the fava beans for 30 seconds, then drain them and plunge them into a bowl of ice-cold water to stop the cooking.

Slit the skin with your thumbnail then pinch or twist to slip the bright green core out of its coat and into a small bowl. (You don’t need to peel tiny fava beans, whose skin is quite thin.) Set aside.

Shell the peas, weigh the necessary amount and set aside.

Finely chop the spring onion.

Scrub the carrot well and scrape the surface to remove a thin layer of skin, then grate it using the extra-coarse side of a hand grater.

Peel and mince the garlic clove.

Heat up an 8-inch/20-cm cast-iron skillet, then add the olive oil. When hot, then add the onion and stir well to coat. Sprinkle the Harissa spice mix and stir. Cook on medium-low heat for 2 minutes, stirring a few times.

Add the grated carrot and stir. Cover and cook on low until the onion is soft, 6 minutes or so, stirring often.

Add the garlic, stir and let cook for one minute.

Add the peas and warm water, cover and cook for 4 minutes.

Add the fava beans and stir. Cover and cook until the peas are tender, 2 minutes or so.

Sprinkle the sea salt and stir. Remove from the heat, sprinkle the parsley, stir and serve.

Serves 1

I like to serve half the amount the recipe makes with an egg sunny-side up on top and a side of mixed vegetables with thyme²

¹ The book’s page on the publisher’s website
² From briciole’s archive: Mixed vegetables with thyme

Click on the Play button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post

This is my contribution to the current selection of our Cook the Books hosted by me, Simona of briciole. (You can find the guidelines for participating in the event on this page.)

The roundup of the event.

FTC disclosure: I have received the table linen free of charge from the manufacturer (la FABBRICA del LINO). I have not and will not receive any monetary compensation for presenting it on my blog. The experience shared and the opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.

     

Related Stories

• fava beans and peas / fave e piselli - Enclosure
• mixed vegetables with thyme / verdure miste al timo
• radicchio with red grapes / radicchio con uva rossa - Enclosure

 

Our current Cook the Books Club selection is the memoir Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten¹. I am aware Garten is a popular cookbook author and food TV personality. I don’t watch TV (of any kind) so don’t know her. The book’s style is lively and if you are interested in the author, you will probably enjoy reading it.

There was a long wait list to get the book from the library, and when I finally started reading it and doing some research on her recipes, I got sick, in a way that made experimenting in the kitchen out of the question for a while. I am finally better, but also short on time and not yet comfortable in straying far from foods I know I can consume. I had made the recipe below a few times while reading the book, before getting sick and I made it again after I got better, as it belongs to the “safe” category. Adjusting to life happening,I may say.

Spring brings to the farmers’ market ingredients I enjoy using, including red spring onions, spring leeks, purple daikon. I still remember the day, a few years ago, when a farmer at the Temescal market in Oakland, suggested I try purple daikon: it’s become a favorite, both raw and cooked. And as with other root vegetables, its greens are edible, so when you purchase a beautiful bunch like those in the photo below, you get two vegetables.

Beside daikon radish (daikon), as root vegetables I used carrots (carote) and red radishes (ravanelli), plus another favorite vegetable escarole. It a type of endive, slightly bitter, and delightfully so. In the photo above you see the curly variety of escarole. like to use the outer leaves (foglie esterne) in a cooked dish, while I add the inner, tenderer leaves to salads. Using carrots and escarole in the same dish creates a delicious bittersweet combination.³

Sometimes, when unwell, I crave a specific food: I like to interpret this as my body telling me what it needs, so I listen. This time it was baked tofu. I decided to purchase it already prepared, which makes the dish quite quick to prepare, another nice feature when energy is low.

If using only olive oil, the dish is vegan. I like to substitute 1/2 tablespoon of the oil with butter (unsalted), which goes well with the carrots.

Print-friendly version of briciole’s recipe for Root vegetables and escarole with tofu

Ingredients:

• 3 ounces / 85 grams carrots
• 3 ounces purple daikon radishes OR a combination of purple daikon radishes and red radishes
• 3 ounces / 85 grams escarole leaves
• 2 tablespoons / 30 ml extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 ounces red spring onion, clean weight, diced small
• ¼ teaspoon Harissa spice mix
• Leaves from 4-5 thyme sprigs
• 2 tablespoons / 30 ml hot water
• ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste
• 1 ¾ ounces / 50 grams baked tofu, sliced thin and each slice halved

Scrub the carrots well and scrape the surface to remove a thin layer of skin, then grate them using the extra-coarse side of a hand grater.

Scrub the daikon radishes and red radishes (if using) then grate them using the extra-coarse side of a hand grater.

Wash and drain the escarole leaves, halve them lengthwise then slice them crosswise into 1/2-inch / 2.5 cm strips.

Warm up the olive oil in a 10-inch / 25-cm skillet.

Add the onion, lower the heat and stir, then after 1 minute, add the grated carrot and stir, sprinkle the harissa spice mix, add the thyme, and stir well. Cover and cook on low heat for 2 minutes, stirring often.

Add the daikon and radishes, if using, to the skillet and stir. Add the hot water and stir, then cover and cook for 2 minutes.

Add the escarole to the skillet, stir well, cover and cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring a few times.

Uncover, sprinkle the sea salt and stir.

Distribute the tofu on the vegetables and allow it to warm through, 2 minutes or so. Fold the tofu into the vegetables (as in the top photo) or leave it on the surface (as in the photo below).

Before removing the skillet from the heat, taste to ensure the vegetables are tender to your liking.

Remove from the heat and serve warm.

Serves 2.

You can add more tofu, if you wish. I find the amount given in the recipe a good balance with the vegetables for a side dish (contorno).

¹ The book’s page on the author’s website
² The brand of baked tofu I like [this is not a paid link]

Click on the Play button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems]

This is my contribution to the current selection of our Cook the Books hosted by Debra of Eliot’s Eats. (You can find the guidelines for participating in the event on this page.)

The roundup of the event.

     

Related Stories

• root vegetables and escarole with tofu / ortaggi a radice e scarola con tofu - Enclosure
• mixed vegetables with thyme / verdure miste al timo
• fava beans and peas / fave e piselli - Enclosure

 

Our current Cook the Books Club selection is Land of Milk and Honey, a novel by C Pam Zhang. The story is set in a world, where “A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing.”¹ The protagonist and narrator is a young chef, who

escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world’s troubles. There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound.¹

Early in the book, after we are told that one of the ingredients she had to be creative with was “mung-protein-soy-algal flour distributed by the government,” the protagonist gets access to some strawberries: the scene describes in lush, sensual language the encounter with their “rupturing sweetness.” It is a powerful moment. From then on, however, the description of luxury ingredients and rich dishes becomes monotonous and the fact that a lot of food ends up discarded does not help. The novel has a serious purpose and raises questions about personal responsibility towards our planet, the world’s reliance on technical solutions to problems, the role of foods in our life. Readers who enjoy dystopian stories may agree with the praises bestowed upon this one.^1,2

After briefly considering to prepare a dish with strawberries, I turned my attention to another food I like that is mentioned in the novel as one the protagonist longs for: radicchio.

I understand longing for radicchio: it’s what I did for years after I moved to California, where I could not find it. Then, slowly, things started to change: radicchio di Chioggia for salads became available (see photo below, top right), then radicchio di Treviso (see photo below, the two on the left) and now I can get radicchio varieties (varietà di radicchio) at the grocery stores where I shop and from multiple vendors at farmers markets.

Besides being delicious, radicchio is pretty in all its incarnations. While the better known color is reddish-purple, there are other colors, including pink, green and variegato.

Taste-wise the defining characteristic of radicchio is its light bitterness. While I like the pure taste of radicchio, I also like to balance out its bitter note. In a salad, I do that with sweet salad greens, carrots, fruit (for example, persimmon). In a cooked dish, I often use sweet corn³. I had never tried fruit, so decided to do that. A recipe in an issue of Edible East Bay for roasted Brussels sprouts with walnuts and grapes suggested that fruit.

The results of various experiments is a recipe that is easy to prepare and makes a side dish with a strong personality. The only — slight — downside of radicchio is that its brilliant, distinctive color does not survive cooking.

The side dish is a little bitter and a little sweet, and you can easily make it vegan by substituting the butter with another tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil.

Printer-friendly version of briciole’s recipe for radicchio with red grapes

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces / 170 grams seedless, large red grapes
• 4 ounces / 113 grams red onion, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon / 15 ml extra-virgin olive oil + 1 tablespoon / 15 grams unsalted butter OR 2 tablespoons / 30 ml extra-virgin olive oil [vegan]
• 12 ounces / 225 g radicchio di Treviso, variety precoce (early) or radicchio di Verona (red or pink variety) or a mix
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• ½ teaspoon smoked paprika⁴
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste

Heat the oven to 350 F / 170 C.

Line a baking or cookie sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

Halve the grapes lengthwise and distribute them on the sheet. Bake for 8 minutes. Remove the sheet from the oven and transfer the grapes and any juice they may produce into a small bowl.

In a 10-inch/25-cm deep sauté pan, warm the olive oil and butter (if using) over medium heat. Add the onion, stir well, then reduce the heat to low. After 1 minute, cover the pan and cook over low heat for 8 minutes, or until the onion is soft, stirring often and making sure the pan does not become dry.

Separate the leaves of radicchio, wash and drain them. Cut them in ribbons 3/8 inch- / 1 cm-wide.

Add the garlic and smoked paprika to the pan and stir well. After 1 minute, turn up the heat to medium, add the radicchio and stir well. Add 1 tablespoon of water and stir well. Cover, lower the heat and cook until the radicchio ribs is just tender (6-7 minutes), stirring every now and then. If the pan becomes dry, add another tablespoon of water.

Add the red grapes and stir. Cover and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes until the grapes are heated through. Adjust the salt, give it a final stir and take off the heat. Serve warm.

Serves 2-3.

In one of the variations I tried, I cooked the cut red grapes with the radicchio. I didn’t like the result as much as when the red grapes are roasted before being added to the radicchio.

In the photo above you can see radicchio di Treviso precoce (top) and eye-catching radicchio variegato di Castelfranco (bottom).

¹ The book’s page on the publisher’s site
² The review of the book on the Guardian
³ From briciole’s archive: radicchio and sweet corn
⁴ I use spicy smoked paprika from Luna Farm

Click on the Play button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

This is my contribution to the current selection of our Cook the Books hosted by Claudia of Honey From Rock. (You can find the guidelines for participating in the event on this page.)

The roundup of the event.

FTC disclosure: I have received the table linen free of charge from the manufacturer (la FABBRICA del LINO). I have not and will not receive any monetary compensation for presenting it on my blog. The experience shared and the opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.

     

Related Stories

• radicchio with red grapes / radicchio con uva rossa - Enclosure
• fava beans and peas / fave e piselli - Enclosure
• green cabbage with honeynut squash and chestnuts / cavolo cappuccio con zucca e castagne - Enclosure

 

Our current Cook the Books Club selection is Crying in H Mart a memoir by Michelle Zauner. In August 2018, the author had an essay published in The New Yorker magazine¹ with the same title. It starts like this:

Ever since my mom died, I cry in H Mart. For those of you who don’t know, H Mart is a supermarket chain that specializes in Asian food. The “H” stands for han ah reum, a Korean phrase that roughly translates to “one arm full of groceries.”

The essay became the first chapter of the memoir, which

maps a complicated mother-daughter relationship cut much too short. Stories of Korean food serve as the backbone of the book, as Zauner plumbs the connections between food and identity. That search takes on new urgency after her mother’s death — in losing her mother, she also lost her strongest tether to Korean culture.²

For most of the book, I had difficulty connecting to the author. I finally felt the connection when, after her mother’s death, Zauner experienced the unbearable weight of perceived failure in their inability of winning the fight against cancer. (My mother died 14 years ago, also of cancer.) Adding that crushing burden to a person’s grief is unfair. I believe we should erase the metaphors used to describe cancer’s progression in favor of factual words.

I expected the book to make me want to try Korean food, but it didn’t. Part of the reason is that most of the dishes mentioned (and there are a lot!) are meat-based. Then, the food is part of the language and narrative of the book. Not being Korean, I don’t have any memories of, or associations with those dishes. However, I understand the feeling. Shopping at a supermarket (supermercato) is one of the first things I do when I arrive in Italy for a visit: surrounded by familiar foods, I have truly arrived.

So the book inspired me to look at a food from my upbringing, something not only Italian, but from my family traditions. When I was in Italy last month, the smell of roasted chestnuts (caldarroste), which in Italy are sold as street food, reminded me of my mother. Every October, she would buy a large amount of chestnuts from someone in Casperia, the village in central Italy where she grew up. Then, in the following weeks, we would eat them often, as dessert at the end of dinner, alternatively roasted and boiled. I liked them both ways.

In Bressanone, a city in South Tyrol, where we spent the first week of the recent visit, one day I rode my bicycle through a castagneto (grove of chestnut trees) and saw people foraging for chestnuts, freeing them from the spiny burs (ricci). While chestnuts are not widely available where I live now, one farm brings them to the market. When, upon returning from Italy, I saw them, I was inspired to use them to make a side dish, together with other seasonal ingredients: honeynut squash, green cabbage, leeks.

The side dish is earthy and sweet (almost dessert-like) and you can easily make it vegan by omitting the butter and adding another tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil. It is a great choice for Holiday-related gatherings as it accommodates a variety of eating styles.

Print-friendly version of briciole’s recipe for Green cabbage with honeynut squash and chestnuts

Ingredients:

• 5 ounces / 140 grams raw chestnuts
• 1 small bay leaf
• 8 ounces / 225 grams honeynut squash, clean weight
• 6 ounces / 170 grams leek, white and light green portion, clean weight (set aside the darker green portion to make broth or stock)
• 2 tablespoons / 30 ml extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon / 15 grams unsalted butter OR 1 tablespoon / 15 ml extra-virgin olive oil [vegan option]
• 1 pound / 450 grams green cabbage
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
• ½ teaspoon harissa spice mix
• ¼ cup / 60 ml lukewarm water
• ¾ -1 teaspoon fine sea salt, to taste

Notes: 1) The chestnuts must be prepared in advance, so plan accordingly. 2) If you cannot find the honeynut squash, you can use a small butternut or red kuri squash.

Do ahead: Cook the chestnuts
With a pointed blade, make a slit in the shell without cutting through the meat. Place the chestnuts in a saucepan, cover abundantly with water and add the bay leaf. Cover the saucepan, bring to a lively boil then cook on low heat until the chestnuts are tender (check one after 30 minutes to estimate the time remaining).

Take the pan off the heat. Take out of the water 3 chestnuts. Wait a minute to let them cool and peel the first one. Use a sharp knife with a pointed blade to remove the shell, then the skin. Take another one out of the water, then peel one of the first 3, and so on: this creates a lineup of chestnuts cool enough to handle but warm enough for easier peeling. If a chestnut breaks while being handled, it is fine: they will be roughly chopped later anyway. Set aside.

Prepare the dish
Use a sturdy swivel vegetable peeler to peel the squash. Deseed the squash, if needed. Slice it, then cut it into cubes no larger than ½ inch / 1.25 cm. (If you use a red kuri squash, quarter it and deseed it first, then peel it.)

Cut the leek (or leeks) in half lengthwise and slice into 1/8 inch / 3 mm half-moons. Rinse well in a colander, then place in a bowl and fill it with cold water. With your hands, swirl the leeks to clean them well, then scoop them out of the water with a sieve or slotted spoon and drain them in a colander.

Warm the olive oil and butter (if using) in a 10-inch deep sauté pan or large skillet on medium heat. Turn the heat down to medium-low, add the leeks, stir well and cook for 2 minutes. Add the squash, stir well and cook for another 2 minutes. Cover the pan and cook on low heat for 8 minutes, stirring often, until the leeks are just tender and the squash has softened a bit.

In the meantime, quarter and core the cabbage. Cut away the external thick ribs. Slice each quarter into ¼-inch / 6-mm-thick ribbons.

Turn up the heat to medium-low. Add the garlic to the pan, sprinkle the harissa on the vegetables and stir well. After 1 minute, add the cabbage and the water, stir slightly (this will be a bit awkward, given the volume of the raw cabbage) and cover. Cook over low heat until the cabbage is almost ready (15-18 minutes, or as needed), stirring often.

In the meantime, cut each chestnut into 6-8 pieces.

Add the chestnuts to the cabbage and stir well. Cover and continue cooking for 3-5 minutes, stirring often, until the chestnuts are heated through and the cabbage and squash are tender.

Sprinkle ¾ teaspoon of salt on the vegetables, stir, taste and add more salt, if needed. Remove the pan from the heat. Serve immediately.

Serves 5-6.

¹ The essay published on The New Yorker
² The book’s review on NPR

Click on the Play button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post

This is my contribution to the current selection of our Cook the Books hosted by me, Simona of briciole. (You can find the guidelines for participating in the event on this page.)

The roundup of the event.

FTC disclosure: I have received the table linen free of charge from the manufacturer (la FABBRICA del LINO). I have not and will not receive any monetary compensation for presenting it on my blog. The experience shared and the opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.

     

Related Stories

• green cabbage with honeynut squash and chestnuts / cavolo cappuccio con zucca e castagne - Enclosure
• mixed vegetables with thyme / verdure miste al timo
• radicchio with red grapes / radicchio con uva rossa - Enclosure

 

Our current Cook the Books Club selection is The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd¹. The novel is set in South Carolina in 1964. Young Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped by her mother’s death and a violent father, and stand-in mother Rosaleen run away from their home and hometown and find refuge in the house of the three Boatwright sisters in Tiburon, South Carolina—a town that is somehow connected to Lily’s mother’s past. Lily learns about bees, beekeeping, making honey (miele) and about life in an environment that is nurturing — with a dose of eccentricity.

I can see how the novel became a bestseller (and a movie): individual lives play out in a small corner of the American south against the backdrop of the civil rights’ movement. Rosaleen gets assaulted at the beginning of the novel for wanting to register to vote, following the passing of the Civil Rights Act. It’s a bit slow-moving at times, like poured honey.

While Tiburon, SC, is fictional, Tiburon, CA², is a lovely town on the San Francisco Bay (tiburón means “shark” in Spanish). I ride my bicycle through the town fairly often. The view from the bay front is spectacular. On a day without fog you can see the Golden Gate Bridge. When there is fog you can get a portion of it, like in the photo above, or you see nothing at all. From Tiburon, you can take the ferry (traghetto) to Angel Island. The U.S. Immigration Station, in operation between 1910 and 1940, was on the island, which is now a State Park³.

Given the novel’s setting, I should have been inspired to prepare something with honey, but instead I went with the color yellow and chose sweet corn. Freshly harvested Coco Nero beans in their pod at the farmers’ market⁴ plus seasonal delights like tomatoes and sweet peppers pointed towards a nice salad and that’s what I prepared.

The salad requires some planning as the beans, sweet peppers and sweet corn must be cooked beforehand. The recipe can be easily doubled.

Print-friendly version of briciole’s recipe for Bean, tomato, sweet pepper and corn salad

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound / 225 grams Coco Nero beans in the pod, about 4 ounces / 113 g shelled
• 1 cup / 240 ml water
• 1/4 small onion, halved
• 1 small garlic clove, peeled
• 1/2 bay leaf
• 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 3 ounces / 85 grams roasted sweet peppers or bell peppers (recipe below)
• 3 ounces / 85 grams roasted sweet corn (recipe below)
• 4 ounces / 113 grams tomatoes, slicing or small heirlooms
• 1/2 ripe avocado
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon or lime juice
• 1 tablespoon minced shallot
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt, or to taste
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Notes: For efficiency’s sake, I suggest shelling more beans and freeze what you don’t need for future use. Same for sweet peppers and sweet corn: you can use them right away in other dishes or freeze them for future use. Beans sold still in the pod require less water and less cooking time than dry beans.

I recommend roasting

• at least 2 fresh ears of corn, still in their husks and with silks attached (otherwise wrap them in foil before roasting)
• at least 1/2 pound / 8 ounces / 225 grams sweet peppers (choose a meaty variety)

Cook the beans
Place the beans in a saucepan with the water, onion, garlic, bay leaf and salt. Bring the water to a lively boil, then turn down the heat and let the beans simmer, covered, until they are tender. Taste them after 20 minutes and estimate if/how much longer they should cook. Check the beans at regular intervals and add some hot water, if needed to keep all the beans moist.

Let the beans cool in their cooking broth (pan uncovered), then remove the aromatics and discard them. Let the beans rest in their broth until ready to use.

Roast the corn
Heat the oven to 450 F / 230 C.

Place the corn on a baking sheet leaving a bit of space between the ears and roast for 20 minutes. Let the ears cool briefly, then remove the husks and silks.

Working in a shallow bowl or dish, stand the corn vertically and use a knife to cut the kernels and scrapings from the cob. (Save the empty cobs to make stock or broth.) Weigh the necessary amount, toss with a fork to separate the kernels, and set aside.

Roast the peppers
Heat the oven to 375 F / 190 C.

Place the peppers on a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat or aluminum foil. Roast for 15 minutes, then turn the peppers 90 or 180 degrees, depending on their width.

Roast for 15 more minutes, then turn the peppers. Repeat after 10 minutes. Continue roasting until they are ready, i.e., when the skin has turned dark and is detaching in places. (The time depends on the type and size of peppers.)

Put the peppers in a sealed container or paper bag to steam, then peel off skin, discard stem and seeds, and the liquid they release. Weigh the necessary amount, dice and set aside.

Assemble the salad
Drain the beans and place them in a small salad bowl. (Set aside the cooking liquid for use in a soup or stew.)

Add the sweet peppers and corn to the beans. Chop the tomatoes and add to the bowl.

Scoop the avocado flesh into a ramekin and mash well with the lemon or lime juice. Spoon over the salad and toss.

Add the minced shallot and fresh parsley and toss briefly. Sprinkle sea salt and black pepper on the salad and toss one last time.

Refrigerate the salad an hour or so, then take it out of the refrigerator ahead of serving it so it is not too cold. The salad is best consumed the day it is assembled.

Store any leftover salad in the refrigerator and consume within a day.

Serves 2

¹ The book page on the author’s website.
² Wikipedia: Tiburon, California
³ Angel Island State Park. To learn more about the immigration station and the people who were detained and processed there, visit the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation website, which includes virtual exhibits.
⁴ Thanks to Star Route Farms farm in Bolinas for growing special produce including the Coco Nero beans

Click on the Play button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post

This is my contribution to the current selection of our Cook the Books hosted by Debra of Eliot’s Eats. (You can find the guidelines for participating in the event on this page.)

The roundup of the event.

FTC disclosure: I have received the table linen free of charge from the manufacturer (la FABBRICA del LINO). I have not and will not receive any monetary compensation for presenting it on my blog. The experience shared and the opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.

     

Related Stories

• fava beans and peas / fave e piselli - Enclosure
• beans, winter squash and corn / fagioli, zucca e mais dolce - Enclosure
• root vegetables and escarole with tofu / ortaggi a radice e scarola con tofu - Enclosure