I walk on Kentucky Street and I still think it’s there, darkly lit, behind the green burlap canopies and the ivy clad brick. Nothing has changed, not really, save for the preposterous, Cirque du Soleil teeter totter of chairs and tables just outside, and the absence of the weathered, Corona blue and white umbrellas that juxtaposed a bit of tacky convenience against the otherwise perfect patina of overgrown rosemary bushes and wild, run amok ivy. The floors are now gone, those lacquered wooden floors, craggy and pitted in channeled rows that lay flush against the exposed, red bricks and the pinkish beige plastered walls; but those ornamental tapestries, the ones weathered and stringy looking, hanging since 1989, I suppose, a decade before I first stepped foot inside, are no longer there, replaced by the barren void of things to come. I fool myself into thinking, still, that I can walk Eva downtown and step over the decorated concrete planter, onto the outdoor patio, and sit at my usual, slightly beleaguered plastic table, the one that folds in ever so slightly, making it hard to balance that tall, skinny glass with my cafe au lait. But, instead, there are no plastic tables, and that preposterous, precarious, precipitous mountain of tables and chairs is not a mirage at all. Aram’s Cafe is closed.

I honestly thought it would never happen. My family moved to Petaluma when I was 14, the day after my birthday and the day just before High School started, and Aram’s lay in secure repose downtown, infinitely secure from its 10 years afloat since 1989. A friend I would later meet at Petaluma High would tell me, in between mouthfuls of her cayenne-spiked falafel sandwich that she had been eating there since she was a kid, possibly for as long as she could remember. She was the one who introduced me to Aram’s, first gawking at me in wide-eyed befuddlement and then exclaiming in undisguised distaste that I just had to eat there, that I had to make baba ganoush a regular tenant of my diet. My first memories of Aram’s are unfortunately hazy, besmirched with the dark, latticed pockets that my mind, in an attempt to recollect with full authenticity, smeared beyond any recognizable means. I try to convince myself that Aram’s was different then, arranged differently perhaps, with proper lighting and differently presented food; but, once I recognize the plucky mirage of my High School world, with all its starry, idealistic glows, I remember that the only thing Aram’s changed from when I first dined there in 1999 to present-day 2010, was their choice in table candle holder, switching from the original orange glass to blue. Their menu hasn’t changed a bit, not a bit since a few months back when they finally made the momentous decision to add Schwarma to the regular menu, a highly acclaimed special that should have beaten past the dredges of weekend highlights years ago. Anytime Lamb Schwarma was on the menu, I undoubtedly saw 6 people enthusiastically clamping their jaws on its spicy but sweet, oily, yogurt-marinaded lamb, rolled in pita, and adorned with red onion relish. I wish saving Aram’s was as easy as putting Lamb Schwarma on the menu, but these things are never as easy as we’d like them to be.

I first heard about Aram’s closing back in April, from one of the longtime servers – I would say the one with the blonde hair, but save for one, infrequent server, all of them are blonde. She said that Aram’s would be taking a trip down memory lane permanently, but I was too slackjawed in denial to make any definite notes in my calendar, to pencil in Last Supper – Aram’s for my own memory lane.  On that day back in April, I had just made small talk, a few woebegone statements that she bore with a patient smile, an appropriate grimace here and there, ending the conversation with the wry joke that all the customers had made similar, crestfallen gestures. And, before I knew it, I had walked downtown one day, thinking about lunch, and had come face to face with an empty storefront that was no longer Aram’s. I didn’t even have time to take pictures for this post, and so, have borrowed them from the defunct Aram’s website. I was confused: it didn’t seem that long ago that I was making weekend pilgrimages from college just for a familiar juicy but sweet bite of Pomegranate Chicken. Aram’s had always been there, you see, a quiet haven with good ambiance and reliable food. My memories of Aram’s, each passing day, seem more dashed, transitory and fleeting, a mirror of my own departure from adolescence into adulthood.

I think for me, and many others, Aram’s Cafe was more than a cafe – in some ways, what it represented was better than the food, itself. After the closing of venerable Deaf Dog on Petaluma Boulevard, there was no youth-friendly establishment where adolescents could grab some coffee, eat some baked goods or order a meal, and comfortably sit for hours chatting with friends, perhaps engage in a game or two. A middle plaza downtown remains a youth hangout to the point where adults often stray from its perimeter, but Aram’s over time became somewhat of a youth haven, like a hip Berkeley coffee house – Intermezzo on Telegraph comes to mind – where I would see a happy merge between adolescent and adult, sipping coffee side by side, engaged in their respective, but communal conversations. I’m sure Water Street Bistro will take the helm, and Mi Pueblo, to be sure, but Aram’s, like those two, is an icon unto itself, and Petaluma seems to have lost something historic and special along with it. And, the food! We can’t forget the food. No longer will I be able to enjoy a greek salad on hot summer days, or  a bowl of black bean soup with sourdough, that amazing, luscious, never to be forgotten Red Pepper and Eggplant Sandwich, with dripping aioli and Provolone. My boyfriend’s parents fairly subsisted off Aram’s takeout, and now I’m unsure what cuisine they’ll adopt next. Turkish Doner, perhaps? Regular jaunts to the prepared foods section of Petaluma Market? I know I’ll be hard-pressed to establish a new lunch routine. I was just so comfortable with Aram’s.

In its last four years of operation, I’ve heard complaints from old friends that Aram’s was no longer the Aram’s they remembered from our days in High School. The food wasn’t up to par, cheaper ingredients were maybe used, and the staff had become, according to some, more dispirited and aloof than usual. This was always a quirk of Aram’s that I fancied for some reason – the servers had faithfully worked there for seemingly decades, one memorable one always bedecked in the usual pink lipstick, pink nails, dirty blonde hair, and some bangles or fancy earrings to merrily clash with the traditional Armenian decor. She was the aloof one, barely making eye contact through slitted eyes, but she was obviously a seasoned pro, jotting her own unintelligible shorthand while, in an almost bored drone of voice, she asked for your order. In a quick 180, if you engaged in some quick banter, she would light up, laughing, her jewelry clanging sweet jingles against her wrists, transforming into a bright, gleaming oddity amidst the dim, candlelit interior of Aram’s. Now, I wish I could remember her name. As for the food, in some ways I agree with my friends: the quality did seem to change near the end, but it wasn’t enough for me to give up my dedication, my near residency at Aram’s. In 2005, before the recession truly hit, the statistics for restaurants was a 95% failure rate within the first three years of operation. That’s tragically high. Aram’s, obviously, had established its seniority after more than a decade of operation, but I can’t imagine how tough it has been for any restaurant to stay afloat in the past three years, in the darkest times of our economy in recent history. With that in mind, and my general dedication to Aram’s as a convenient lunch spot, I was willing to overlook the abundance of feta in the Greek salad, the slightly tinny and very salty, overbrewed taste of their soups, the unpredictability of their Pomegranate Chicken (will it be dry today?), the lackluster hummus, and the past expiration olives. I was also willing to overlook why they kept, all these long years, the Luleh Kebab sandwich when I have never seen anyone order it, and why they bothered making an Empanada larger than a person’s head, with more bread than filling. Or, the mysterious Mad Max coffee that tasted no different than their House Coffee, but provided the same, strangely satisfying bitter aftertaste.

But, for every bad choice on the Aram’s menu, there was something glorious. The Falafal Sandwich forever remained emblematic of Aram’s potential: two halves of a pita, stuffed to brimming with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, a spicy, cayenne and paprika spiked tahini sauce, and perfectly fried falafal was always a perfect meal. The Pomegranate Chicken, despite all unforeseen dryness, was the local favorite, the highlight of the menu, with its sticky, almost sickly sweet flavor, balanced out with a rich, herbal syrup that perfectly complemented the dark meatiness of the chicken. The serving was always ample, too, and when perfectly cooked, better than any other Pomegranate Chicken I’ve had in similar establishments. The rice pilaf and pita served alongside the chicken were effective in mopping up any residual juices, and a red potato salad – or green salad if you desired – brought some much needed vegetable variety to the dish, topped, of course, with Aram’s classic garnish: the pickled carrot. The schwarma was a special brought too late to the regular menu, but the Lamb Schwarma remained greatly sought after, due to its rare appearance on the special board. It often sold out quickly and with good reason – if you love lamb, and you love meals perfectly wrapped within the comforting confines of a flour tortilla, its interior laced with a spiced, yogurt marinade and brined red onions, then wrapped tightly in a foil package with sauce on the side, then the Lamb Schwarma was brilliantly, perfectly conceived. Even on a full stomach I would order the Lamb Schwarma, just so I could have it for lunch the next day. My favorite dinner, however, has always been the Armenian Braised Vegetables – zucchini, eggplant and potato stewed in a delicious tomato-based sauce I cannot for the life of me replicate, with buttery rice pilaf, a green salad, and pita, of course. The vegetables were almost over-stewed, some soggy and disintegrating, but it was comfort food, absolute heaven to the very last bite of each zucchini morsel. I’ve made my own version at home at least five times now, and each time I trick myself into thinking I’m one experiment, one sauce or herb away from finally creating a perfect replica, but then I have the dish at Aram’s and I realize I’m nowhere near replicating it, at all. Now, I’m not sure I ever will. Their baklava, their jars of chocolate covered espresso beans, their brownie, lemon pie and berry pie, their overlooked desserts will even leave something to be desired at other eating establishments in Petaluma. A petty quarrel, to be sure, given our excellent dining choices here in Petaluma, but what can I say?

We’ll miss you Aram’s.

Miso soup is hardly a summer meal, I think. It’s too warm, too deeply flavorful in a salty way, and typically has a darker countenance that I associate more with cooler, winter days than the bright greens, the colorful pinks, oranges and rainbow hues of summer. It is soup, after all. The saving grace, though, in the Bay of CA, from those hot, arid days of June past, is our cool nights that drop precipitously, from 6-8pm, from the upper 80s down into the 60s. On these nights, miso soup is certainly more than welcome, and it takes advantage of the funny fact that I always have a jar of miso paste on hand. Plus, miso soup, once you learn its foundations, requires no skill at all to make a perfect batch. Yes, even college-age boys of ramen noodles and garlic powder – the cheap, rancid type packaged in the nondescript red bottle – can make a decent miso soup.

I, for one, enjoy the more robust, dark misos, the ones that turn your soup into a witch’s brew of black, brackish liquid punctuated with mossy bacteria blooms. They have a much different taste from the lighter misos due to their heavier reliance on soybeans and barley instead of white rice, but since white miso is the mainstay of most Japanese restaurants, that is the flavor we associate generically with miso. Miso, as it turns out, it a highly variable substance, aged and revered in a fashion similar to wine, with four common varieties of white, red, barley and soybean, that are all made from a special mold: Aspergillus Oryzae, often referred to in tandem with the blanket term koji, a steamed grain or soybean that has Aspergillus mold spores cultivated onto it. During the production of koji these Aspergillus molds produce enzymes that break down proteins and carbohydrates, in a process similar to sake and other Japanese beverage-making. The white-ish color of white miso is obtained by using a lot of rice koji (about 60%) and fewer soybeans. Of all miso varieties, white miso contains the most carbohydrates and therefore tastes the sweetest, often referred to in macrobiotics as the “dessert miso,” despite it being the most popular for miso soup here in the United States. Because of its higher carbohydrate content, the fermentation is very quick and only takes a few weeks; the downside is its shelf-life is limited to only one or two weeks at room temperature, or a mere 2 months when refrigerated.

Red miso, by contrast, is made from white rice, barley or soybeans with a one to three year fermentation time. Due to the smaller ratio of white rice and higher concentration of barley, this miso is red to brownish in color, and contains the highest levels of protein out of all the misos. Do not let the brown color fool you into thinking brown rice was used – it’s always white rice, no matter the miso. The thick endosperm of brown rice is difficult for the koji mycelium to penetrate, making it easier for other bacteria, including the food-spoiling leuconostic, to contaminate the batch. The third type, barley miso, is arguably the heartiest, with a thick, salty taste and a very dark color, made only from barley and soybeans and no rice. Soybean miso, as apparent from its name, is composed only of soybeans – this higher protein content requires a fermentation period of at least one year, in giant vats made from cypress, redwood or fir.

A special type of soybean miso is Hatcho miso. The koji for Hatcho miso contains a special mold: Aspergillus hatcho instead of the usual Aspergillus oryzae. Hatcho miso is considered the miso of emperors for its long – at least 16 months and up to 4 years – aging time, and strict use of only soybeans and little water – a tradition that has been unchanged for nearly 500 years. True hatcho miso (made by the Hatcho Miso Company in Okazaki, Japan) is 80% richer in protein and contains up to 25% less salt than similarly aged rice and barley based misos. It is also the most expensive, given the lack of grains. Hatcho miso is renowned among traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners for having the most anti-carcinogenic effects, and for being the most effective at clearing heavy metals from the body, lowering cholesterol, detoxifying blood, and aiding in digestion (due to its high levels of lactic acid). All misos, however, undergo fermentation and are thus great sources of essential amino acids, minerals, and vitamins, while being low in calories and fat.

Since I regularly shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joes, local markets here and there, my miso options are fairly limited to two brands: Great Eastern Sun Master Miso Country Barley Miso and Westbrae Natural Organic White or Red Miso. Westbrae makes a fine miso, and I typically buy their red miso, but I recently started using the Country Barley Miso with great results. In my research, there are many people who advocate using the white and red misos for soup only, reserving the richer barley miso for meat marinades, rubs, or anything thick and hearty; but given that most of these people are as white and non-Japanese as can be, probably raised on a diet of white miso in local restaurants, I decided to try my hand at a richer miso, under the guidance of a Macrobiotic cookbook. Turns out, I couldn’t have made a better choice.

I’m sure by now you’ve surmised that the miso soup in question for this post relies on the Barley Miso varietal, rather than an inclusion of the barley grain in the soup. Barley could very well be an excellent addition to miso soup – I usually add brown rice to mine – but for this recipe I kept it fairly simple, since this country miso paste is strong, indeed, tasting almost better on its own. I added Udon noodles not so much for their flavor, but for their ability to swell up with broth, lending to the broth’s flavor their own chewy, slurptastic bite. I typically enjoy Soba noodles for their better nutrition, but their thick, almost gelatinous buckwheat taste is all too powerful on its own – I couldn’t have two, overbearing flavors marauding, and vying for attention in the same cauldron. A few thin slices of zucchini, sesame seeds, and thin rounds of cucumber added some aesthetic vitality, not to mention subtle, complementary tastes. To spice up tradition a bit, I veered away from the traditional kombu and bonito stock base in favor of a quick saute of minced celery in sesame oil, with the addition of water and kombu to simmer into a base (a tip from my macrobiotic cookbook). You can even get away with only using celery in those times when you find yourself plumb out of luck, with no kombu and bonito in sight -

a plight, I’m sure, that falls on many an American kitchen.

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Barley Miso Soup with Udon

Udon Noodles (only use 1/4 of whatever package you buy), boiled and drained

2 zucchini, thinly sliced or julienned

2 stalks celery, in small cubes

6 thin cucumber slices

sesame seeds

sesame oil

1 strip kombu

7 cups water

1/3 cup barley miso

Heat a dash of sesame oil in a large soup pot and sautee the celery bits until soft, but not brown, about one minute. Add one cup of water along with the kombu and let simmer, on low heat, for a few minutes, just enough to release some of the kombu’s digestive qualities and flavors (I simmer for no more than 7 minutes). Add the rest of the water and let it heat through on higher heat, then add in the zucchini, letting the flavors meld in a simmer. Once the zucchini is nice and soft, cooked through, ladle out some hot broth into a bowl over 1/3 cup of the barley miso, whisking well to dissolve. Add this mixture back into the pot, being careful not to boil from here on out – all of those delicate probiotics and other beneficial bacteria and nutrients in miso are destroyed by any heavy heating. Once the miso has heated for another minute or two, add in the udon noodles, a sprinkling of sesame seeds, and toss in the cucumber rounds. Ladle into some pretty bowl and enjoy while hot.

I’ve been on a kale kick lately, adding it to everything, from soups and salads to stir frys, not just for its versatility, but for its excellent nutrition. But, it occurred to me that kale, in all its forms but especially the black kale, in all its ribbed, bumpy glory, has been the undefeated champion of greens in my kitchen for quite awhile now. So, I’ve decided to stage a coup with some disgruntled greens that remain, as a whole, haplessly underwhelming – sometimes unknown – to the majority of the population, like the mustard and turnip green, and the hearty, very southern collard green.

Collards – derived from colewort, meaning “cabbage plant,” and known otherwise as the botanically boring tree-cabbage or nonheading cabbage – is a cool-season vegetable rich in the vitamins A, C and K, a bit of B, iron, folate, magnesium, potassium and calcium. Despite the collard’s popularity in raw food circles for its large, enveloping leaves and fibrous nature as a wrap in place of tortillas, the vitamins and minerals contained in the collard green are more accessible cooked than when raw (except for the heat intolerant Vitamin C), and the plant, too, when growing, fares best in warm weather, but still tolerates cold weather better than any other member of the cabbage family. Collard greens are traditionally used as a replacement for kale in Portuguese cuisine – the delicious caldo verde soup of collards, onions, potatoes – but they are best known as a popular food in Southern cooking, popular to the point where they are one of the three foods people immediately associate with Southern soul food – those iconic three of fried chicken, collard greens and black eyed

peas. In the South, collards, along with other bitter greens, are traditionally cooked with a fatty meat, ham hocks and other pork derivatives the most traditional, keeping the collards intact as the main object of attention; the pork meat not only lends a mellowing flavor to the normally astringent flavor of these greens, but also imparts an important digestive function: gelatin.

Broth made from meat and animal bones is a great source of sodium, chloride and iodine, as well as magnesium, potassium and important trace minerals. Broth made from fish carcasses and fish heads is also rich in additional substances that nourish the thyroid gland. Properly made, broth is also a rich source of gelatin, which research has shown to be an excellent aid to digestion and assimilation of cooked foods, even tough ones like the collard green. Unfortunately, when cooking collards (and other dark greens) nutrients are leached out, displaced instead into the cooking water. Most people, including myself, tend to throw this broth of sorts down the drain, without a second thought about what that greenish-yellow hue to the water might really mean. At least the Southerners know what it’s all about: this cooking liquid or “pot likker,” as it is called in Southern states, is often soaked up with a piece of hot cornbread. And, good thing too – not only is it choke full of nutrients, but when cooked with meat bones, it’s also full of gelatin and various amino acids. This creative use of broth has traditional roots in other countries, such as in the Ukraine, where Beet Kvass was traditionally ingested regularly – a digestive drink made from beets, whey, sea salt and water, and then fermented over a few days.  Next time I make some collard greens with a bit of meat, I’ll make sure to keep an open mind about using all the ingredients – pot likker included.

This actually brings up an interesting point: why don’t we use everything from cooking – like carrot tops, animal hooves, broccoli stems, and, most of all, organ meats? Growing up with a mom who was born and raised in Mexico, I grew accustomed to hearing her confounded remarks about American food culture:

*referring to chicken heart* Don’t throw that away! That’s the best part! *nibbles on heart with the utmost satisfaction, murmuring a bit as she chews the very squishy organ, like biting into a tongue that cuts apart like ricotta cheese*

In Mexico we don’t waste a thing – we eat the meat, the skin, the liver, the heart, the brains, the lungs, toes… you name it, we’ve eaten it.

You don’t like the menudo?

It took awhile before I relished open experimentation with sweetbreads and other organs, the best of which, I think, is the liver, of which my mom couldn’t agree more. She loves liver, which is the opposite stance that Mimi, my boyfriend’s mother takes, insisting that the liver is “full of toxins,” it being the filtering organ through which wastes are disposed. I’m more inclined to agree with the eating of organs, if not just for the flavor, then for the fact that foods steeped in cultural tradition – in this case Mexican – tend to be foundational foods for a reason. Foods that trace back years in a culture’s antiquity have stood the test of time usually because a) they’re indigenous to the region, and b) they provide vital nutrition of some kind. Plus, it’s hard to imagine that our hominid ancestors would have nitpicked over their latest kill, deciding to forgo the organs in favor of the muscle tissue they’d reap from their next kill in, oh, who knows when. Right, like they’d take that chance. Oh, and guess what vitamin flourishes in organ meats? That’s right, Vitamin D, only the most vital vitamin to have slipped under the noses of Nutritional Scientists, who recently discovered it to be incredibly important, if not the most important vitamin for all our bodily workings. And, coincidentally enough, we all have ridiculously low amounts of Vitamin D in our systems, even with adequate sun exposure.  Just as luck would have it, I’m sure collard greens have some devastatingly crucial apex in Southern cooking nutrition. What do you have to say about that, Michael Pollan? But, that’s a debate for another post – back to collard greens.

I find that collard greens have a taste unlike other bitters. Mustard greens I still have to develop a taste for- they’re very, very bitter, and must be cooked in the right way, absolutely never eaten raw – and Kale is only slightly bitter, more tart really, that quickly mellows into something more like arugula or baby greens. Plus, kale can be eaten raw by manually breaking down its cellulose a bit, through physically manhandling it with some fat – I like avocado – to soften it. It makes it quite palatable. Collards, on the other hand, must be cooked, or at least that’s what I believe. Collards are very tough, and very fibrous, and this physical mashing technique doesn’t work as effectively as it does on kale, with its softer leaf. Collard leaves can withstand a lot of external punishment, so it’s best to submerge them in a few inches of boiling water, in a longer blanch than usual, to break down its hard, cellulose exterior, and make the nutrients viable. Kale, I think, tastes better with a quick blanch, as well, but collards are greatly improved by a long blanch of 8 minutes or more – it sounds like a lot, but it’s well worth it.

The great thing about the sheer immensity of collard leaves is that they make excellent wraps, which I like to pair with an asian-inspired dipping sauce. For this dinner, I made sure to de-stem the leaves, then blanch them whole until they were bright green and pliable, but still sturdy enough to not rip apart upon rolling. You may fill these wraps with whatever you please – julienned zucchini with basil, some heirloom tomatoes, brown rice and sprouts would be nice – but I chose to make a raw pate of carrots and almonds, with a zesty soy based sauce accompaniment. Depending on their size, they’re quite filling, but they’re great as appetizers whenever you want a showstopping, and still healthy starter for guests at your next dinner party.

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Collard Green Wraps

1 bunch collard greens, de-stemmed, cut down the middle in half, and blanched

2 zucchini, julienned

5 basil leaves, chiffonade

Pate:

1 cup almonds

1 tbsp ginger, freshly grated

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp sea salt

3 carrots, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

1/4 cup yellow onion, chopped

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1/2 lemon, juiced

1/2 cup raisins

ground pepper to taste

Process almonds into a powder. Set aside. Process ginger, garlic and salt, then add the carrots, celery and onion and pulse into small pieces. Add the olive oil, lemon juice, raisins and almond powder back in to mix well. Place a heaping spoonful – approximately 1/2 cup – on one end of a collard leaf, add some slivers of zucchini and basil, then roll neatly all the way to the other end, like a sushi roll. Repeat until all the leaves are used – it’s ridiculously easy. Serve with the following sauce and enjoy a delicious and healthy meal!

Dipping Sauce:

equal amounts of tamari and rice vinegar

splash of sesame oil

splash of chili oil

fresh lime zest

chopped scallion

toasted sesame seeds

finely minced garlic toasted slightly in sesame oil

Toss together. Experiment with the flavors. See what you like best.

Please excuse me while I drool myself into a stupor.

Judging from my tantalizing description for my Cheddar Cheese Rosemary Biscuits, it’s easy surmise that I like a good biscuit. And, I don’t like just any biscuit – biscuits, while easy in principle and easy to master, a “quick bread” they are most typically referred, are still a finicky food for some. I encounter many a biscuit whose delicious potential is tragically marred by the slightest of grievances -  over-beating, having been baked too low in the oven, an improper ratio of wet to dry. The first is the easiest to overlook, since beating is fun – a good shoulder workout, too – and we think too fastidiously about it, wanting to beat out every lump and make a smooth batter. We fail to realize that beneath its cloak of simple mechanics, beating has chemical consequences. Gluten, that persnickety protein, likes to gather its strength from a good, vigorous beating, and thus any biscuit batter beaten into oblivion will have a greater development of gluten. What does that mean for you? Chewy biscuits with no crumble to the bite. We like our sourdoughs to have a dense chew, but our biscuits? Not so much. Biscuits should always be soft and a bit crumbly, never chewy.

There are some biscuit recipes that call for a harder countenance, influenced historically by the reliance on hardtack – that notorious sea men’s food, seemingly impervious to all environmental stress, and composed of equal amounts of flour and water, maybe some salt, and then baked to a rock hard brick that could last for years if stored properly, making it good for those long journeys overseas before the advent of canned foods – but biscuits, largely, are soft creations, meant to be enjoyed with tea or as an accompaniment to dinner due to their simple and bland nature, most recipes calling for only flour, water, salt, baking powder and a tiny bit of butter. To this day, biscuits have hardly had their share of the limelight compared to their close relatives the scone and the muffin. Many cafes rely on the golden tactic of serving coffee alongside a sweet bread of some kind, taking the form usually of pastries (croissants), muffins and/or scones. Due to their popularity, muffins can be sweet, featuring blueberry, chocolate, cranberry orange, lemon poppy seed, and apple oat, or more savory, featuring bran, corn, oatmeal, zucchini dill, and much more. Scones, too, follow along this same spectrum, and like muffins, they may boast sweet glazes and syrups to further enhance their taste. The biscuit, on the other hand, can only adopt savory flavors, it traditionally an after-breakfast food, and so it doesn’t have quite the same fancy panache as the muffin or scone. Biscuits are definitely rustic, peasant fare, probably correlated more with the bland and nondescript dinner roll than either a muffin or scone: the pauper to the prince. But, that doesn’t mean it can’t boast delightful flavor combinations all on its own.

Biscuits may be made with the sparsest of ingredients – just flour and water – so they’re a great recipe to have when you find yourself in a pinch for ingredients after a long weekend of making tarts and flourless chocolate tortes. The best biscuits, however, have a good amount of dairy in them – both butter and milk – to give that fluffy interior that either clouds open in a fluff of steam or crumbles into layers from the richness of butter. My mom always uses a fork when mixing her biscuit batter (or any batter, for that matter), but I prefer to use my hands, given they’re cold enough not to emulsify the butter. The rule of thumb is simple, and can be used universally when adapting any ingredients into your biscuit dough: mix the dry ingredients and cut in the butter (if using), then just splash the whole thing with milk until you form a dough that is wet enough to stick to your hands annoyingly like paper mache, but not so wet that it doesn’t goop together securely in a measuring cup. I always appreciated this slapdash quality to biscuits, where the careful measuring and fastidious adherence to rules rampant in the pastry world need not apply. Biscuit baking fairly defines my mom’s approach to baking – she would mound flour in a bowl, roughly eyeballing its size, and then sprinkle a bit of this, glop a bit of that, and magically work the preposterously unplanned mess into something not only resembling a biscuit, or pie, or cake, but actually make it taste wonderfully delicious, too. When it came to biscuits, she would make the regular, old-fashioned kind, the one you’ll most likely see in Country Living magazine or books on Southern Kitchen foods, that flake apart and have a crispy, golden halo atop the otherwise pale midsection. Then again, she also made some pretty unappetizing, pallid white globs with disturbingly amorphous and spiky tops – the easiest of easy drop biscuit – that led you into thinking they tasted like sandpaper and then, lo and behold, did end up tasting like sandpaper. My mom is not a perfect baker. But, in her defense, I find it hard to call any biscuit perfect.

Cheddar Cheese Rosemary biscuits are hard to beat, but these Buttermilk Biscuits, I think, are almost as good as it gets in BiscuitLand. They’re hearty, rustic enough enough to be baked in a cast iron pan, and so rich they’re a meal unto themselves. They’re incredibly versatile, too, just at home alongside a French Onion Soup as they would alongside some thick, red bean chili and roasted chicken. Frankly, if left to my own devices, I’d eat the entire pan in one, lengthy sitting. That’s usually followed by a day of digestive recuperation, though, so I wouldn’t recommend it.

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Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups all purpose flour (or whole wheat if you want a heartier biscuit)

1 tbsp sugar

2 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

5 tbsp butter, cold, cubed

2 tbsp melted butter, for brushing

3/4 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 475 degrees and butter down a 9″ pan. Combine all dry ingredients except one cup of flour and cut in the butter. Stir in the buttermilk and heavy cream, then let stand for 5 minutes, to soften the flour. In another bowl place the remaining cup of flour and flour your hands very well – trust me, this next part is gooey, goopy, and globs of fun. Measure out a handful of dough and carefully toss back and forth in your hands, about three times to coat it with flour and roughly shape it, and then place in the baking pan. Repeat until you have tightly filled the pan with round lumps of dough (for my pan, I ended up with 8 – 7 for the perimeter and 1 in the middle). Make sure they touch each other so they bake into one another. Brush the tops heavily with the melted butter and bake for 15 or 20 minutes, until they’ve browned, almost to the point where they looked burned for a better crust (if they brown too quickly, cover them with foil).

Enjoy.

Last night I wanted pasta.

For anyone who knows me – I mean really knows me, the few of you who do – this may come as a surprise. I’m not a fan of pasta. I don’t loathe, despise, or hate pasta – those words I reserve for navel oranges, fried chicken, barbequed oysters and anything tamarind – but I find pasta to be so… boring. It’s the fallback food for many walks of life, from the college age student, unversed in cooking and looking for a quick meal when cramming for finals, to the tired, overworked and browbeaten mom looking for an easy way out from the kitchen; from the bachelor pad, rife with men schooled in the art of lukewarm ramen noodles doused in plenty of garlic powder, to the sick person, who needs a food bland enough and easily digested to not immediately regurgitate. It lacks fiber, and nutrition in general, and because of its insatiable lightness of form, it’s nearly impossible not to eat a giant plate of it.  It does serve well as a blank slate, providing a foundation for any flavor or sauce, providing its own chewy, starchy backdrop, but unlike a good, crusty bread, it cannot be eaten on its own, save for a very unappetizingly bland and gummy meal.

I suppose I dislike its inherent flexibility – it doesn’t take much to make a good pasta dish, pasta almost at par with casseroles for the leftover kitchen-sink scraps quality. With pasta, you can toss whatever you like in there, grate some cheese on top, grind some pepper, and there’s a meal ready to go. I realize I am being picky; after all, who doesn’t like flexibility? Pasta means you can run wild, experiment with flavors and meats and vegetables of all kinds, before settling on one pasta dish that becomes your favorite, the one your friends can rely on seeing in your fridge on a weekly basis, in the blue tupperware on the top shelf. I don’t have a solid, logical reason for disliking pasta other than I prefer other meals, and other grains to it. In the end, my argument is petty, inconsequential – but I still don’t like pasta.

I can, however, appreciate the new pastas that at least try to take a nutritional step forward. Whole wheat pasta has become ubiquitous in many markets, as have gluten-free types made from ancient grains or from the usual gluten mishmash of tapioca starch, rice flour, and the like. I don’t particularly condone gluten-free pastas full of the aforementioned – if anything, they’re more processed, with ingredients we wouldn’t normally come across in our usual diets than say, straight up, old school durum wheat – but if you do suffer from Crohn’s or Celiac Disease, then by all means, please eat those gluten-free pastas. Save the villi, I say. There are a few brown rice pastas on the market, but these tend to fall apart, and even the ones that don’t disintegrate into couscous have a hard and chewy quality to them that doesn’t appeal to the palate in quite the same way that regular pasta does. Whole wheat, too, can be misleadingly healthy with the “whole wheat” title, but looking at the paltry 2g of fiber per serving only tells the consumer that whatever whole wheat was originally used in this pasta, was ground down so severely as to process out most of the beneficial fiber. I opt for the whole wheat pasta merely on taste principles: I like the earthier, more complex taste. If anything, I can placebo myself into thinking I’m having a healthier pasta. That way I at least have mental coercion on my side battling against any real nutritional deficits.

My vintage O'Keefe & Merritt

Pasta is a starch, plain and simple, and many people enjoy pasta not so much for its bland taste, but for what goes on chemically, beneath your conscious awareness, when your amylase-filled saliva starts eating away at that carbohydrate-rich food. Many kinds of carbohydrates, such as candy, cereal, and pasta, can produce a temporary increase in brain serotonin—and a subsequent calming or anxiety-reducing effect. This explains why people may feel drowsy in the afternoon after eating a large meal of pasta, since a rise in serotonin in the brain can also lead to drowsiness. Carbohydrates affect brain serotonin because they increase the amount of tryptophan in the brain (Tryptophan is the amino-acid precursor of serotonin). Depending on the pasta, pasta can also be a great source of protein: protein contains two amino acids, tryptophan and L-pheny-lalanine, which also produce endorphins. It has been shown that a lack of protein in the diet can cause depressed moods in people with low intakes of these amino acids. There’s a reason why pasta, and other starches, are called “comfort food.”

Yesterday, after a long bout of writer’s block, and some time-consuming research for an investment newsletter, I was definitely in need of some comfort, more than my puppy Eva could provide. I wanted something bread-y and delicious: a bagel with cream cheese, perhaps? My favorite Della Fattoria boule slathered with butter and some Humboldt fog cheese? The problem with being healthfully minded, always thinking about nutrition, is that I cannot simply eat a chunk of bread with cheese – there needs to be substance to it… that, and I make dinner for two, and the lumberjack certainly wouldn’t settle for bare bread and cheese (though he is a lumberjack…). In the end, I decided upon pasta, for its ability to absorb vegetable matter into a reasonably well-rounded meal. So, not only did I eat pasta that night, I ate my words.

The pasta I created below takes advantage of good cheese and the simple zucchini, with some collard greens to add a bit of zesty, green punch. Parmesan is a must for any pasta dish, it seems, if even just a tiny bit grated on top to add a salty, cheesy bite. I opted for conchiglie, otherwise known as shell pasta, so my chunky sauce could fill the inner recesses of its conch-like shape, but feel free to use penne, or fusilli, or whatever cut pasta suits your whims. A good friend, and fellow musician of my boyfriend’s, generously bestowed us with an ample sampling of his homegrown fava beans, the paper REI bag holding them nearly bursting under their collective weight. I felt the fava beans would marry well with the the sauteed zucchini and collard greens, and to mellow things out, I added in large dollops of fresh farmer’s cheese, and then a large handful of parmesan while the dish was still hot. For those of you not hip to the cheeses, Farmer’s Cheese is the simplest of unripened cheeses, like a textural blend between ricotta and cream cheese, only with less sweetness, more tart, cheesy tang.

I may just become a pasta lover yet.

* * * * *

Conchiglie with Fava Beans, Zucchini and Farmer’s Cheese

Ingredients:

1, 16 oz bag conchiglie (I used whole wheat, from whole foods, at a bargain price)

5 zucchini (green or yellow or zebra)

approx. 1 1/2 cups fava beans, freshly shelled

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, chopped

5 leaves sage, chopped

8 leaves basil, torn

1 bunch collard green, de-stemmed, chiffonade

1/2 cup – 1 cup fresh farmer’s cheese

1/3 – 1/2 cup parmesan, freshly grated

Heat water in a large pot for the pasta while you shuck the fava beans. Arrange your mise en place* – chop the onions, chop the garlic (not too finely, you’ll be cooking it for awhile and don’t want it to burn), chops the collard greens, basil, sage and zucchini. Heat olive oil on high heat in a large saute pan, then add the onion and garlic, along with a dash of salt. Let them sweat for a moment, then add in the fava beans, since they take the longest to cook. Season with salt (refrain from pepper too early on – it bitters the dish). Give or take a couple minutes, adjusting the heat, add in the zucchini, tossing once again. Boil the pasta at this point, minding the directions (my whole wheat took 13 minutes). I usually cook my pasta al dente, but this is usually only achievable with regular, durum wheat pasta. Add the collard greens, the basil and sage at the last minute to the pan, once the zucchini is cooked, toss for a minute, then turn off the heat. Drain the pasta, but keep some of the cooking water in the bottom of the large pot – the starch in this water helps the sauces and flavors adhere to the pasta – and toss in the sauteed vegetables and fava beans. Drizzle more olive oil on top (two seconds worth), and then evenly distribute the farmer’s cheese by the spoonful. Sprinkle on the parmesan. Toss thoroughly to mix and enjoy with a nice chunk of bread.

Today has been one of those grossly muggy, but overcast, I’m-pretending-to-be-a-hot-day days, where gray and depressing masquerades as sunny skies, and bit of biting chill dangles at the sleeves of your sweater. Only, it’s humid enough for you to take off that sweater, then chilly enough to put it back on, then remove it, and finally put it back on, in a huff, in some vicious menopausal cycle. It’s a teeter-totter between seasons, when summer is coyly teasing us, with sunny, wagging tongue, only to blow out a raspberry between rainy, turbulent clouds. On days like today my mind is foggy and uninspiring, too, and writing becomes daunting, almost too daunting, and all I can think about is my Dad wagging a finger at me and saying “It’s because you aren’t absorbing any Vitamin D, today!” That, and I find myself making cup after cup of tea, because if the skies are gray, then I think, may as well have tea.

There are divided schools of thought on tea, just as there are on coffee: loose leaf vs bagged, certain varietals over others, brewing times and temperatures, and whether herbal teas are truly teas, at all. Tea, as a word and substance, is defined as a beverage made most typically from the plant Camellia sinensis, or also from Thea sinesis or Camellia thea; all three are evergreens of the Camellia family and are originally indigenous to Assam (India) and probably to parts of China and Japan, but are now grown in other parts of the world. The term herbal tea, on the other hand, usually refers to an infusion or tisane of leaves, flowers, fruit, herbs or other plant material that contains no Camellia sinensis. The term “red tea” refers to an infusion made from either black tea (mainly in Chinese, Korean, Japanese and other East Asian languages) or the South African rooibos plant (also containing no Camellia sinensis). In a purist sense, all teas are derived from the same plant – what differentiates them from one another is the varietal, and how they are processed.

Most people – and I am one of them – will agree that loose leaf tea is superior to bagged tea. Why? I suppose the obvious reason is that loose leaf tea is the traditional form used for brewing tea, dating back – theoretically – to the 10th century BC in China, and to 500 BC in India, the latter of which I recall from a reference when reading the Ramayana. There are many Chinese legends (too many to discuss here in depth) that discuss the discovery of tea drinking, but the most popular, by far, is a story about Shennong, the legendary Emperor of China – and inventor of agriculture and Chinese medicine. As the legend goes, some time around 2737 BC, Shennong drank a bowl of just boiled water that had changed color from the presence of a few, scattered leaves that had fallen from a nearby tree. The emperor took a sip of the brew and was pleasantly surprised by its flavor and restorative properties. Whether or not this story is true, or simply the stuff of legends, is not really important. The most important part of the story, I feel, is how tea was obviously made, discovered even, from idle experimentation – a simple dropping of leaves into hot water. Through many years of cultivation, of course, tea connossieurs have developed methods for extracting the perfect flavor, the most important step being the first: drying.

The leaves of the Camellia sinensis are delicate, wilting and oxidizing soon after picking, and turning progressively darker as their chlorophyll breaks down and their tannins are released. This process, called enzymatic oxidation, is called fermentation by the tea industry, though it is not a true fermentation, in the chemical sense: i.e. it is not caused by micro-organisms (bacteria or yeasts), and it is not an anaerobic process involving effervescence or the production of heat. To clarify, wilting and oxidation are not preventable mistakes, but are optional steps in the tea making process – different teas are made by different processing techniques that produce, perhaps, an unwilted and unoxidized leaf (green tea), a fully wilted and fully oxidized leaf (black tea), or some mixture thereof. Therefore, stopping oxidation at a predetermined stage with heat deactivates the enzymes responsible for continued oxidation, and creates the type of tea desired. Throughout this whole process moisture and temperature levels must be carefully controlled lest the tea grow fungi, causing true fermentation and eventually  contaminating the tea with toxic and sometimes carcinogenic substances, as well as off-flavors, rendering the tea unfit for consumption.

The size of the leaves is an important matter, as well. Tea leaves contain chemicals and essential oils – the foundation for the delightful flavor of tea. So, it’s easy to surmise that when tea leaves are broken up, those oils can evaporate, leaving in their wake a dull and tasteless tea. Typical tea bags – the small, generic ones with string – are usually  filled with the tiniest pieces of broken leaves, called fannings, for their convenience and affordability, but fannings, along with dust (the scraps left over from sorting out higher quality loose leaf tea) are the lowest grade of tea quality. Fannings have a greater surface area to volume ration, exposing the leave to more air which makes the flavor become stale faster. On top of the leaf size, there is also the space factor: tea leaves need space to swell, expand and unfurl. Good water circulation around the leaves is important, which doesn’t typically happen in a cramped little tea bag, and the tea bag, itself, is usually made of paper that lends an unwanted taste to the tea. Then, to boot, all the fannings inside the tea bag have gone through even more processing just to break them apart, causing even more essential oils to evaporate, further dulling the tea.

There is one shining grace about tea bags, though: convenience. Just take one tea bag, drop it in a cup, add hot water, and presto, you have a cup of tea. Simple. Oftentimes, too, the difference in taste is so subtle that the average Joe may not notice a difference, especially if he is of the mind to quickly brew up some hot caffeine to start the day.

Lately, I admit, I’ve been drinking Tetley, a mass-produced Indian Tea that, honestly, has a good enough flavor to it to keep my tea cravings in check. I enjoy it with an excellent, local honey and either milk or unsweetened soymilk. Soymilk, I admit, sounds a bit crazy, but it surprisingly doesn’t overpower the tea as much as a creamy milk does. I use the unsweetened Wildwood brand – I do entreat you to try it some time. It certainly isn’t the greatest tea, but it has a full-bodied and creamy feel to it that so far is unmatched by those overpriced Mighty Leaf teas – in their fancy pyramid shaped bags -  that usually turn out more bitter than I’d like. Obviously, steeping has much to do with bitterness – the longer you steep a tea, the more tannins are released, and the more bitter the brew becomes. Black tea should be steeped at a full boil for 4 -6 minutes, while the more delicate green tea – rife with antioxidants – should be steeped for no longer than 2-4 at below a boil (150-160 degrees). White tea should be steeped for 4-6 minutes at no more than 180 degrees, and rooibos tea may be steeped exactly like black tea, given its hardy nature.  If you don’t have a thermometer handy, you can tell the water temperature by watching the bubbles. Small bubbles will float to the surface of the water at 160-170F, and you’ll see strings of bubbles from the bottom of the kettle at 180-190F. After that, you’ll have a full rolling boil. To add even more nitpicky details, be careful with the water, too. Water that boils for too long becomes stale, much like tea already does on a gradual basis.

There is this market called A.G. Ferrari that I discovered when I lived in Rockridge, at 60th and Colby, before I met that lumberjack love of my life and moved to San Francisco, in Pacific Heights, flush against Lafayette Park; before we made the recent move to larger accommodations in none other than Petaluma, our quiet hometown nestled amid rolling, golden hills and jagged streets, cattle dispersed among scarified trees. I first noticed the bread, sweet and sour baguettes and thick, round boules, balanced perfectly upright and branching out from woven baskets in some staged cornucopia of wheat. The bread, in all its peacock flourish, was enough to tempt me inside -  that, and the sedating serenity to the building itself, clad in muted sienna red and adobe brown, a bright red cloth canopy lending a dim intimacy to the Tuscan yellow interior within. Inside my eyes were met with mountains of cheese, with names of the kind I love to roll off my tongue but can never, for the life of me, recall with perfect resolution, names like Asiago d’Allevo Oro del Tempo, and La Tur delle Langhe. The artisan, rustic pastas and sauces, fresh made salami, wines and more all hail from Italy, where the owners frequently travel to scour the land for more small purveyors and local products. And, I’m not the only one to love the market – A.G. Ferrari has been around since 1919, and over the decades have successfully opened a myriad of storefronts in San Francisco, the East Bay, and throughout Marin.

It was not the first trip, nor the second, but possibly the fourth trip – this time, to the smaller store on College Avenue in Berkeley – that I discovered the deli in A.G. Ferrari. Normally, I avoid delis – I associate them too much with the murky, Jewish delis of New York, with their hard-to-pronounce, seemingly unpalatable foods, and with the modern deli, those purportedly convenient, food afterthoughts affixed to large supermarkets, or, on a smaller, grosser scale, those delis slapped together in the dusty, slightly musty back of many a corner store where we usually go to buy cheap liquor, Home Run Pies or condoms, definitely not a salami sandwich. The predominance of, and reliance on, such supermarkets as Safeway, Lucky’s, and Raley’s have transformed the once exquisite delicatessen into a slapdash version of itself, its name shortened even, to the slapdash deli, a place where bland bread meets bland cold cuts, not so much married as forced together in some dry sandwich of mustard and mayo, a few sour pickles, shredded iceberg, and an overall countenance of beige. A coleslaw is usually present, more mayonnaise than slaw, and deviled eggs make their untimely appearance every few weeks, sweat beading off their puffy, protein casing and clumping the decorative paprikia in slowly sliding spindles. When I see those deviled eggs I always try to picture the brave soul willing to tackle E coli.

In smaller enclaves, however, in hole-in-the-wall recesses of city neighborhoods, or along the shoreline of Tomales, on Sir Francis Drake Rd., there exist the true, the original delicatessens. In these proper delis you’ll find excellent sandwiches – nothing fancy, but filled with interesting cheeses and the option for liverwurst – and sides or salads that were obviously concocted by someone’s wife, after many years tinkering with cider vinegar and celery root in her tiny, cottage kitchen. The menu never changes, but the options are always downright delicious and homey: regular ham is replaced by smoked boar’s head with three peppers; ground sausage is replaced by chicken apple sausage with smoked paprika; local bread usurps generic, market bread; and salami, in all its fatty glory, takes the helm from the lowly Slim Jim. Who knew a deli could have great beer, great food, and great character?

I knew A.G. Ferrari was on to something when its deli was rife with sandwich options like Aged Coppa, Bresaola, Prosciutto di San Daniele, Willie Bird Smoked Turkey, Salame Milano, Italian Mortadella, Gorgonzola Pine Nut Spread, Garlic Mayonnaise and more. Ready made paninis include the Toscana, made with Salame Toscano, olive tapenade, provolone, leaf lettuce and balsamic vinaigrette on a house-baked ciabatta, and desserts run the gamut from the traditional Tiramisu to the Torta Di Ricotta, a decadent cheesecake baked in a sweet pastry crust. Another amazing dessert is the Salame del Papa, a traditional Italian chocolate treat made in honor of the Pope, with cocoa, eggs, sugar, butter and biscotti. Risottos, roasted chicken drumettes, pizzas, and hand shaped beef and pork meatballs in a spicy, housemade sauce also exemplify the stellar choices at the A.G. Ferrari deli.

On that day I couldn’t pry my eyes away from the Torta Pasqualina, a spinach torte baked with Parmigiano and ricotta in a thin, savory dough. The dough was thin, barely 1/8″, but the torte, itself, was thick, beastly almost, with a good 3 inches height of filling. Spinach was used, wilted in olive oil, with a heaping mass of ricotta and parmesan, and most likely an egg or two to bind. The crust served as a nice backdrop to the savory filling, accenting here and there with a soft breadiness, a bit of salt. Every mouthful had something new to offer: a bit more bitter spinach in this bite, more milky ricotta in this one, something savory and full of umami, a meatiness I just couldn’t detect beyond that overwhelming, full-boded parmigiano. I suppose that’s why I felt I need to recreate this torte on my own.

I never like to create exact replicas of foods I’ve eaten (I’ve eaten it once, and I know where to buy it, so why should I bother with frustrating myself in some thinly veiled attempt at recreating something already perfectly done?), opting instead to add my own quirks and insights, choice in ingredients and such. I decided to make a thicker crust, and to overlap the edges on top to keep the filling more moist; I thought a dash of white wine to the crust would give it extra zing, especially now with a filling of ricotta, leek, parmesan and black kale I had selected. Bitter greens, like kale, can have an unpalatable bite to some people, but with the right amount of acidity – wine in the crust, lemon zest in the filling – this can be mellowed out (not to mention, of course, the abundance of ever so mellowing cheese).  Three eggs, honestly, is the best to create a more quich-like richness and firmness, but you can get away with using only two eggs, but make sure you really dry out the ricotta, otherwise a watery demise may befall upon your much anticipated torte.

* * * * *

Ricotta Leek Torte

Pastry Crust:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup unsalted butter, cold, chopped in small cubes

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup chilled white wine

In a small bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Using your hands (if cold enough), a pastry cutter, large-tined fork, or a food processor on pulse setting, cut the chilled butter into the flour until it resembles coarse sand with a few pea-sized pieces of butter still visible. Sprinkle the wine evenly over the mixture and toss gently a few times, just until it forms a ball that holds together.

Separate the dough into two balls, flatten slightly into thick disk shapes, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for several hours before working with it.

For fast preparation: Put the dough in the freezer for 40-50 minutes before working with it.

Filling:

2 leeks, washed, thinly sliced horizontally

3 cloves garlic, chopped

2 bunch black kale, washed, thick chiffonade*

2 cups ricotta (whole milk, for obvious reasons, is best)

1 cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano

1 tsp salt

zest of one lemon

3 eggs, beaten

plenty of fresh ground pepper

olive oil

Extra egg, beaten, for egg wash

Preheat oven to 425.

Roll out the dough and line a 9″ round pan, pressing the dough into the pan while leaving all the edges around intact. Place in fridge while you make the filling.

In a large skillet (I favor the cast iron pan) saute the leeks with the olive on high heat. Once they start to sweat a bit, add the garlic, so it doesn’t burn. Lower the heat and add the kale, letting it wilt completely, and adding a bit more olive oil and the lemon zest to taste. Remove from the heat, and mix the ricotta, the parmigiano, the eggs, salt and pepper together first before pouring over the kale and mixing thoroughly. Pour into the pie crust and fold the dough edges over the filling, overlapping in a circle. Brush with an egg wash. Bake for roughly 15 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 325 and bake for an additional 35 – 50 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown, almost darkly so.

Enjoy.

*chiffonade = a cutting techniquere you lay green atop one another, roll them like a cigar, then cut them horizontally in slices. Usually thinly cut, or shredded.

I have a confession to make.

It’s nowhere near Quince season. In fact, it’s so far away from Quince season that if the quince and I were geographical locations, we’d be antipodal points from each another, one of us sitting comfortably in her roofed, upland apartment, and the other plunked unfortunately off the southwestern coast of Madagascar. The poor quince hasn’t even taken its most nascent form as budding, barely-there fruit, and yet I feel the need to post a recipe on Poached Quinces, torturing you until the fall of 2010, when those fuzzy yellow apples finally hang from branches in their engorged, rotund glory, waiting to be picked.

Despite having feasted my mouth on plenty of exotic fruits – the kinds of which you can only find at small farmer’s markets in San Francisco, or at Berkeley Bowl, fruits like the Black Sapote, with its sweet, pudding flesh; the imposing Jackfruit of noisome, heavy musk; and the horned melon, or kiwano, whose rough hewn exterior has all the appearances of a child’s imagination, complete with preposterously slimy, green goo interior, the banana slug texture of which overshadows any ability to discern sweetness, savoriness, or any pleasure at all whilst eating it – I was only introduced to the Quince by way of familial, opportunistic coincidence. When my boyfriend first introduced me to his parents, the first thing I noticed about their home was not the darkly beckoning countenance of their forest green house, the thick planks of which are sandwiched in between bright, berry red frames and antique, apricot doors, nor the very prominent water tower jutting out alongside the overgrowth of jasmine that bordered the entire property. No, it was the large, magnificently drooping Quince tree, taking up a good one third of the front yard, that first caught my eye when we parked alongside that curb in November of two autumns past. The tree had this appearance of great strain, of barely standing under the weight of the plump, hairy quinces pulling its branches downward. The ground, too, was littered with quinces, some unfortunate in their premature demise, still green with a barely perceptible pubescence, while others were keenly ripe, radiantly yellow and with a full, peachy fuzz. My first inclination was to feast my wanton hands on this indelible showcase of uneaten fruit, but it occurred to me, just then, that I had absolutely no idea whether quinces could be eaten raw, if they were poisonous, or if they were best stewed, roasted, baked, boiled, or pureed.

Quinces absolutely cannot be eaten raw, unless you want your mouth to pucker in ways that only an unripe Hachiya Persimmon can mirror. Apparently, the only way they may be eaten raw is if they are submerged in salt water: the acids contained within quinces are composed of hydronium ions, which are solvated in water – when in water, the sour taste is neutralized because the hydrochloric acid becomes more dilute, and since our mechanism for detecting sour tastes is similar to that which detects salt tastes, the salt, too, is diminished in power, allowing any sweet taste to come through more prominently. In most cases, however, cooking trumps any experimentation with salt water, because the end result of cooking a quince is a perfumed, rosy, and earthy miracle.

Quinces may be used in many ways, so long as they’re cooked to a pulpy, blushing version of themselves. The Quince cannot be cooked, or reduced any further than it is for a marmalade, and this continues to be one of the best, and favorite ways to enjoy a quince, as apparent from the word marmalade, itself. Marmalade is derived from the Portuguese marmelo, which means “quince,”and the English marmalade originally referred to a jam composed of quince. In Mexico, quinces are called membrillos and are often cooked into a jelly form called dulce de membrillo, which is often eaten in tandem with manchego cheese, or even in sandwiches. Should you want a less processed dessert, Quinces may be added alongside apples and pears in tarts and pies, lending their rosy and woody scent to perk up an otherwise traditional treat. I, myself, enjoy them poached – as simply as I would pears, in white wine, with sugar and lemon, a few cloves and whole black peppers for an earthy edge. Once poached, they may be eaten as is, in their fragrant jus, or used as a topping for ice cream, folded in a dough and then baked, or even on top of granola for breakfast.

* * * * *

Uncooked quinces, just plunked into the pot.

Poached Quinces

5 cups water

2 cups white wine (a nice, buttery chardonnay actually works well here – otherwise, just use all water)

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup honey

1/2 lemon, juiced

rosemary sprigs (just a handful)

black pepper (maybe 4-5 balls)

6-8 quinces *they should be yellow, and firm, not squishy, with a nice fragrance right at the stem ends*

Pour the water (and wine if using) in a large pot and add in the sugar, honey, and lemon, bringing it to a boil and then immediately lowering to a simmer. While the pot is heating, peel and cut the quinces into 1/8ths, coring them in the process. Be careful: quinces are incredibly hard to cut and if your knife is not sharp, or your hand not strong, you may slip and cut yourself. I cannot stress this enough: those suckers are slippery. Once the pot has boiled and you’ve reduced it to a simmer, add in the rosemary and black pepper, give it a stir, and add in all the quinces.

With parchment lid

To keep the mixture from evaporating too much – and just to keep the heat in more readily without a full lid – make a parchment lid to cover the quinces. Fold a sheet of parchment in half, then in half again, the in half once more, put the folded contraption along the pot and eyeball the parchment tip approximately dead spot in the center, then make a mark where the parchment hits the pot at the other end. Cut at this point, unfold, and voila – a rough, parchment circle. Cut a small hole in the center to make sure the parchment doesn’t boil up all the time.

The quinces should simmer for however long it takes for them to become lusciously, deliciously ruby in color. Some take only an hour, but I once had a pot that took 2.5 hours. Don’t be deterred if you peek at the quinces after an hour and still see a yellowish, pear color, despite all softness to the contrary. And never raise the heat to higher than a simmer – you don’t want a mushy paste, do you? Please, just hold your horses: the color will come through eventually, and once you take a bite of your long-awaited quinces, you’ll never want to make anything else ever again.

I have a puppy, named Eva, a German Shorthaired Pointer who, as many people like to insist, resembles a chocolate lab, but who actually looks nothing of the sort. Puppies, of a certain age, and of a certain sporting type, closely resemble one another throughout their younger months, and for the untrained eye it can be hard to distinguish, particularly when the Labrador Retriever, being the number #1 most popular dog in the nation 10 years running, is the most easily identifiable breed to Americans. Everyone has a lab, loves labs, understands labs, and everyone, of course, without question, can easily recognize the dog they so ardently cherished from the time they picked it out from a litter of 12. Maybe, but probably not. We can only know as much as we experience – whether it’s through owning a dog, or reading books – and for those who have owned a few Labradors in their lifetime, they may very well see Labrador qualities in every dog they meet. But, that doesn’t mean that dog is a Labrador.

The Labrador Retriever, with its wide and neutral features, could very well be the quintessential dog, if there was such a sense of the word. I wouldn’t say archetypal dog – that I would reserve for the Dingo, or the Canaan Dog, or some other dog with a still very wild look to its features, almost pharoah-like, with pricked ears for long-range hunting, a lean, neutral-colored body – of the sand, buff, or beige family -, and a medium build. From their earliest sprouts of creativity, when children draw dogs, they draw them the same way, almost innately: floppy ears, short to medium coat, brown eyes, lean body, a wagging tail. I suppose you could argue that children draw what is most commonly experienced by them, something they can model from life, and in that case, the quintessential dog in their lives truly is the Labrador, it being the most commonly seen and owned dog the world around. The German Shorthaired Pointer, however, is in possession of those same traits (as is the Hovawart, the Golden Retriever, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, etc ad nauseum) – those floppy ears, the brown eyes and coat – possibly more so than the Labrador, and, for lack of better phrasing, just looks like a dog dog. It’s less all-American looking, is a bit hound-like and sporty, with a nicely tapered muzzle and distinct stop, carving out a very chiseled and proportional face, like something out of a 17th century European tapestry. When I look at Eva, past her cuteness and her jovial nature, the words that come to mind are regal, elegant, old world. The way she carries herself, the smoothness of her gait, her quietude of manner and demeanor are what distinguish her from her hunting relative the Labrador.

Eva 3.5 months

When strangers look at Eva, they look at the pendent ears – the tips reaching just to her jawline – her fairly broad skull, her very glossy brown coat (chocolate, as they say), her large paws, and her slight jowls. Her head, upon first, cursory impression, is quite similar to a Labrador’s. If you look up a chocolate lab puppy and a German Shorthaired Pointer puppy, the two are nearly identical up to about 5 months of age – even after this age, the German Shorthair can still easily be confused for a lean, almost skinny Labrador, with a shorter coat and a more pointed muzzle. What makes it infinitely more difficult is that most people, if familiar with the German Shorthair, don’t realize that the breed standard accepts a solid liver coat, with maybe a white patch or two. Eva is solid liver, with yellow, bird-of-prey eyes (a showing fault), and a white patch on her chest. Her toes are webbed and highly arched, her face is much narrower than a Labrador’s, and she possess a lean and supple, but muscular body, with a noticeable tuck upward past the stomach. Taking in all these subtle details as a whole, she is far from the AKC standard of a Labrador Retriever. Of course, most people have in their mind one perfect representation of a breed (the AKC merely posits it in stone cold writing), a quintessential version of each breed of which there are no deviations.

Eva's hindlegs and paws

Let’s take into consideration the vast, phenotypical variation present among all purebreds: the German Shorthaired Pointer has a definite foundation of Spanish Pointer bloodlines in its genome, along with other hunting dog lines. The preponderance of hound-type blood within the Pointer breed is without question, and so many a German Shorthaired Pointer bears a more longish ear, hanging below the jowl line, accompanied by a more droopy, sad face that we associate with the Coonhound or, in a more extreme version, the Bloodhound. It is just as common, however, for a German Shorthaired Pointer to possess a shorter ear, directly in line with the cheek, resembling largely a Lab’s. Despite all commonality of the longer ear among many breeders, the shorter ear akin to the Labrador’s is actually the AKC breed standard, refuting any idea that a longer ear is more desirable.

Eva, 4 months, on Ocie

Also, unlike the Labrador Retriever, the German Shorthaired Pointer has no sub-genres within the breed delineating a difference between show and field types. A German Shorthaired Pointer, despite all, minute variations in looks and temperment, is just one type, used universally for field and show. The Labrador Retriever, however, has two, very distinct types: The American, or Field Lab, and the English, or Show Lab. The American Lab is the more familiar of the two, physically, used primarily as a companion and hunting dog, rather than for show/conformation. It possesses a more lithe body – lighter in build overall – with a shorter coat, a longer muzzle, and longer, narrower ears. The English, or show Lab, has a thicker body, robust even, with a more lethargic countenance, is heavy-set, with deep set eyes, a thick neck, a very pronounced stop, and short pendant ears perched high on the head. The AKC actually recognizes only the English Labrador version, with its leggier field counterpart considered a conformation fault for the show ring. Of course, in the field, the body type of the American Lab bears more relevance, and would not be considered a fault – a positive, more likely, than the heavier, English counterpart.

What’s interesting about this is that the Labrador, himself, has huge genetic variation within his breed; by comparison, the German Shorthaired Pointer does not, and yet people cannot believe that German Shorthairs can be solid liver, solid black, piebald of many colors, leggy and lean, or more muscular and deep-chested, and have either shorter or longer ears.

This certainty people have over Eva’s bloodlines is absolutist to the point where they dismiss me, with impertinence, waving their hands in rapt disagreement, “Oh, she must be a Labrador. No question. She’s a lab. What did you say she was, again? She can’t be.” People usually strike up a conversation by fondly remembering their chocolate lab, a dog called Hershey or something otherwise food-related, who they loved dearly until he passed away this last fall.

Hershey was such a great dog. They all are.

What kind of dog was he?

*puzzled pause* Well, a chocolate lab, of course. *gives companion a funny glance in confidence, the nonverbal equivalent of jabbing a thumb at me and asking Who’s the idiot?

These kind of interactions make it all the better when I encounter people familiar with the lesser-known German Shorthaired Pointer, all of whom instantly recognize the dog. A few weeks ago I had the fortune of meeting a man who bred German Shorthairs for a living, who asked me where I bought my German Shorthaired Pointer. My knees nearly buckled in delirious joy over someone recognizing Eva for what she is. Just like the Lab afficionados, all he could see was a German Shorthaired Pointer.

But, don’t misjudge me: I don’t mind that Eva is confused for a Labrador on a daily basis. I love labs. I think they’re great, happy-go-lucky dogs that many families across America are fortunate to own. What really bothers me is when people insist on their opinion, when I clearly don’t ask for it. They give Eva a cursory once-over, taking in her morphology, then quickly conclude that she is, without question, a lab, and then verbally reprimand me when I inform them otherwise. They react as if I like to refute for the sake of refuting. What I’ve learned, since becoming a dog owner, is that dog owners are a very winnowed bunch – socially gregarious, but brazen and pushy, diehard fans of their breed.

I suppose I, too, by extension of Eva, am now one of them.

Eva, 8 weeks, not yet home with us.

I mentioned in a previous discussion on seasonality that I prefer using fruits in season – not only do they offer more nutrition, but they often taste far better. I cannot recount the myriad of times I’ve bought a Granny Smith apple off-season, only to bite into it and grimace from the mealy, grainy texture. It’s like eating tart sand, or a Red Delicious feigning under a cloak of blushing green. Those Red Delicious – they always leave a little something to be desired, don’t they?

The reason I say “prefer using fruits in season” is just that – I prefer, not require. I love apples and pears, but after those long months of January and February, I really want some watermelon, maybe some strawberries or peaches. The opposite holds true, too – when it’s summer, sometimes all I really want is a fragrant Anjou Pear. Some fruits, like peaches and apricots you’ll be hard-pressed to find off-season (highly unlikely), but if it’s summer and you’re craving an apple, then you’re bound to find Granny Smiths, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Fujis, Braeburns and Gravensteins at your local market. You’re also just as likely to see a year-round stock of Bosc, Bartlett, and Anjou Pears, as well as bananas, grapes, mangos and papayas. It’s rare when I’m not in the mood for an apple – I’ve been known to eat an entire jar of peanut butter in a week, dished out by the spoonful with a bowl of sliced Granny Smiths. But, for all the amazing fruits in the world, it’s hard to beat a good pear: one that is firm, but juicy, with a fragrance and sublime creaminess that makes it a dessert unto itself. Pears, amazingly, hold their taste and texture well off-season, or at least, they do at Whole Foods, so I find ample opportunity to use them in different ways. It’s even better news that pears, I think, are best served as dessert, either sliced thinly in a tarte tatin, chopped into pieces and baked into a cobbler or coffee cake, or just roasted slowly in the oven, emerging like a puckered glass version of itself, resplendent in its own juices and charred tops.

Today, the rains from the past two days have just passed, and everything feels clean, renewing that freshness of summer to come. There’s a lingering chill to the air, still, a bite leftover from the season’s last gasps of winter breath, but the sun is warming the ground again, tickling the beginnings of freckles across the bridge of my nose. We’re in that limbo between spring and summer where winter rears his last tirade, his last harrumph before the sun takes over, squelching every last drop of moisture clinging to those microscopic grass fibers on our lawns. To me, this is the perfect time for baked custard. A custard with pear.

A rose is a rose is a rose, but a custard is not always a custard. A custard may be baked, boiled, stirred, untouched, thin like a cream, thick like pudding, made traditionally with eggs, or not be a custard at all, with – blasphemous to some – the addition of stabilizers like cornstarch. Custard has so many incarnations it’s hard to decide what a custard is, exactly, other than it just being a creamy, egg base contained within another dessert. A bavarian cream is arguably a custard, as are the basic and quintessential dessert sauces, creme anglaise and creme patisserie (pastry cream). Boston cream pies contain a layer of custard, as do trifles, and some desserts take the form of a custard, without people actually defining it as a custard, like creme brulee, flan (or creme caramel), clafoutis, and yes, even pumpkin pie. What’s even more difficult is that most pastry chefs use the words custard and cream interchangeably, which obscures a useful distinction. Custard, really, defines more a dish prepared and served in the same container, often baked and therefore unstirred, so that it sets into a solid gel. The custard family includes savory quiches and timbales, as well as sweet flans, creme caramels, pots de creme, creme brulees, clafoutis, and cheesecakes. Creams, by contrast, are auxiliary preparations, made from essentially the same mix as custards but stirred continuously during stovetop cooking to produce a thickened but malleable, even pourable mass. If we want to be truly persnickety about it, we could define a custard as simply a ratio of 1 egg per cup/250 mL of filling, which is the egg per solid ratio you will find in most of the aforementioned desserts, with perhaps the addition of another egg for the more firm quiches or frittatas. All of which brings me back to my main point: a custard is not a custard, but it is always a custard. Have we caught on, yet?

On to the custard at hand. The baked custard that I thought would be perfect for this time and temperature is a clafoutis, a pear clafoutis, to be exact. The great thing about the clafoutis is it’s served warm or cold, is always light as a feather, and always contains fruit, cherries being the traditional. It truly is the perfect, transitional, come-hither-summer dessert. The creaminess of the custard, along with the billowy cloud effect from the eggs expanding within the custard, provide the perfect, milky blanket for the pears to take center stage, thickly sliced, and seasoned well to bring out their nuances, those hints of geranium and musk. I selected Bosc Pears for this particular recipe, but feel free to use either Bartlett or Anjou, or whatever varietal you come across – I’m sure they’ll taste all delightful in this dessert.

* * * * *

Pear Clafoutis

1 tbsp unsalted butter

1/3 cup + 1 tbsp sugar

3 eggs, room temperature

6 tbsp all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

2 tsp vanilla

3 pears (firm, but not underripe – too ripe and they’ll fall apart while baking)

powdered sugar and creme fraiche to serve (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Slice the pears into reasonably thick slices and arrange in concentric circles with the skins facing out, in a 9-inch tart pan. Melt the butter and set aside. Whisk the eggs with the sugar until the mixture nearly doubles in size and the whisk, when lifted, leaves a ribbon trail on the batter (otherwise called the “ribbon stage”). Add the vanilla and melted butter. Whip the cream into soft peak then fold it into the egg mixture, followed by folding in the flour. Immediatley pour over the pears, tap once to settle any air pockets, then set in the oven, no water bath needed. Bake for 25 minutes, no more, or until the borders of the custard have set, but the center remains nicely jiggly. Serve with a nice dollop of creme fraiche and a sprinkling of powdered sugar.