Labor Day Weekend

Traditionally your typical middle-class New Yorker would rather have his or her toenails plucked out one by one than be caught in the city over Labor Day weekend. I used to be one of these New Yorkers. But I've gotten over that. I'm in the bohemian class now, in which one dictates one's own weekends and holidays. This year those of us who were not too cool to stick around were rewarded by gorgeous weather: warm, in the low-to-mid 80's, and dry like June in Colorado.

We kicked the weekend off with a dinner party Friday night to welcome our friends Brian and Andrea, visiting from DC. I put together a faux ratatouille, dumping chopped zucchini, yellow squash, bell peppers (one yellow, one orange, one red), a fennel bulb, a large eggplant, and several cloves of garlic into a heavy roasting pan. I drizzled olive oil over all, salted, and added a few sprigs my rosemary, thyme, and lavender before plunking right on the grill. I gave the vegetables a stir every few minutes, and it came out perfectly: eggplant soft, but not mushy, and flavors mingling but still distinct.

We also grilled another large fillet of wild Alaskan salmon (fish from the gods) from the coop along with Dave's hamburgers and Shelley's turkey burgers. Lane made gin and tonics.

For dessert I served some Ciao Bella peach habanero sorbet, some lemon ginger cookies, and that jasmine tea gelatin dessert I made a few weeks back. Dave was particularly interested in trying it. He thought the gelatin could have used some sweetening, even though the condensed milk is already very sweet, so I'll have to try it one more times.

The next day we had lunch at De Marco's, a restaurant run by Dominic De Marco's (of Di Fara pizzeria in Brooklyn) kids in the West Village. His nephew, also an Italian native, is the chef. He came out to chat with us a while, and Lane told him we knew his uncle's piazzas well. He was gracious, and his pizza was delectable. We noticed that the crust was particularly cracker-y, but completely white. He told us this was because of the superfine Italian pizza flour he uses. Additionally, unlike most pizza makers (including Dominic), he does not mix his flour with semolina (cornmeal).

Just before we left our host gave Andrea and Brian some of his fragrant 2002 Parmesan, a cheese he says makes him weep with joy every time he unwraps it. Our friends were kind and gave us a sizable chunk of this gift cheese. The three-year-old cheese is sublime, mild and a little tangy. I don't even want to cook with it -- we've just been eating it by itself. Maybe I'll look Parmesan up in my Max McCalman cheese bookto find a good accompaniment.

Sunday Shelley hosted a brunch. She served waffles from the perfect apartment waffle iron. It makes lovely, plate-sized waffles, but it is only as large as it absolutely has to be. It's not one of those countertop-hogging behemoths. I'd made a fruit salad of cantaloupe, strawberries, bananas, figs, and currents, but had cut everything so small it was really more of a compote, which made it a good topping for the waffles, along with whipped cream. I also liked them with the lingonberry (?) jam Shelley had out. She also put out this fantastic runny triple cream (with Wasa crackers), and I had to exert every ounce of my willpower not to embarrass myself by eating the whole thing. It was a fun, chaotic brunch with kids running around and plenty of coffee, bloody marys, and mimosas.

Last night we grilled some big, thick pork chops for dinner. I was in the mood for something chocolate and gooey, we also made s'mores. Since I find marshmallows too sweet I picked out some semisweet chocolate and undersweetened, practically cardboard, graham crackers from the coop. I liked how they turned out, but they weren't sweet enough for Lane. He says if you're going to have the marshmallows you might as well go full hog with the sugar; he prefers the Nabisco graham crackers topped with cinnamon sugar.

We compromised tonight (after another one of our sausage and peach grills) by using some French L'Ecolier cookies. These are tea biscuits covered in dark chocolate with a little impression of a French schoolboy. We sandwiched marshmallows between them and grilled, and they were even better than last night's. We lost the too-wholesome grainy graham and there was extra chocolate. They were an excellent end to our weekend.

And now fall begins. My wonderful summer with Jasper has come to an end, but I'm glad. I had enough summer and am ready for a change. I look forward to crisp air, apples, Halloween, sweaters, an emptier playground, fall colors.

Water

Hot dogs with polenta and green tomato relish

I'm having a hard time working up the enthusiasm to post today because I've been reading about the chaos in New Orleans. Tens of thousands of people trapped together without enough resources and with no law enforcement -- and President Bush has the nerve to preach about citizens behaving themselves. I'm just heartsick. I think of mothers unable to feed their children, unable to make them comfortable, unable to even keep them safe. I'm hoping the Red Cross and other relief organizations are able to even get to these people at this point. But I am not impressed with our president's words and actions thus far.

I actually had a very lighthearted post in mind for today. Jasper and I went to the New York Aquarium and had a great time, especially at the Aliens anenome and jelly fish exhibit. We got there early and were able to beat the crowds for the first couple hours. And we were reminded of how important it is to take good care of our natural resources, specifically by conserving energy and by consuming fish responsibly. See the side column for a new link to the Audubon/Wildlife Conservation Society's Seafood Awareness Guide.

While we were there the Food Network was taping a show. I've always found the Food Network somewhat cheesy and useless. Lane and I would watch Rachel Ray just to make fun of her. True to form, FN was featuring octodogs, grilled hot dogs sliced lenghtwise to resemble octopi.

Dorky as this idea is, I had to try it today. Because I got skinny weenies from Dines Farms I could only slice them lenghtwise into four tentacles, but they still looked cute. Cut carefully with a very sharp knife. I was pleased to see that the weenies also take less time to cook this way.

Since the octopi would be too gangly for buns I decided to serve them with polenta, along with a simple relish of green tomatoes, red onions, and cornichon, and some of that Bone Sucking Sauce I mentioned back in July. The culturally confused meal worked. Lane loved it and thought it seemed very southern. You could make it even more southern by serving grits and frying the green tomatoes -- and washing it all down with some coke'cola.

I'm the last person who needs cheering up, given what's going on in the world (did I mention all the fires in the slums of Paris?), but these silly octodogs gave me a bit of a lift. Especially when I consider them a little one-fingered message to George W.

Seared lamb steak with parsley sauce

Lamb round steak, parsley sauce, wilted kale, semolina fennel golden raisin bread

The coop doesn't get lamb that often, but this week we recieved a shipment of four lambs in parts. I picked up a big, promising-looking steak and seared it on my trusty cast-iron pan, seasoning only with salt and pepper. Despite my inattention it came out perfectly, browned on either side and less-than-medium rare in the center. Despite being one of the leaner cuts with a reputation for toughness it came out pretty soft, and even a little juicy.

I made a sauce inspired by one in that Terence Conran article in Saveur from yesterday's post. I put a bunch of parsley, two cloves of garlic, three anchovies, about ten calamata olives, and too much (alas) balsamic vinegar in the processor. The balsamic was regrettable, but Lane made little sandwiches with the sauce, lamb, and the raisin bread and thought it was a tasty combination. I have a lot of the sauce left, so I think I'll add another bunch of parsley to cut the vinegar a little and use it again soon. It should keep for another week.

I sauteed the chopped (crosswise) kale in the lamb juices with some garlic and salt. This was also tasty, though it seemed a little redundant next to the parsley sauce. And yes, I buy that Amy's fennel raisin bread all the time. We're both just crazy about it and still not sick of it, so we'll continue to eat it at least every two weeks.

In other news, yesterday's failed gelee turned out this morning. Apparently I did add enough gelatin, I just didn't let it set long enough. So I got to enjoy it with my leftover chicken for lunch. Oh golden ambrosia!

Poached chicken and vegetables

Whole chicken poached with aromatics, boiled potatoes and carrots

I've been subscribing to Saveur for years now, which means countless recipes. And yet some recipes I never even got around to trying continue to linger in my mind. I tried one of these today, a poached chicken with gelee by Terence Conran in the July/August 2000 issue.

I poached a whole chicken (Fingerlakes Farms pasture raised) in water and white wine with onions (skins left on for color), leeks, carrots, parsley, thyme, a bay leaf, and peppercorns. I was also supposed to add a calf's hoof, but after I'd bought all the other ingredients I realized the one store in my neighborhood that would carry it is closed on Monday. Grocery shopping with Jasper is too exhausting to repeat in one day, so I decided to forge ahead anyway.

The calf's hoof is for the gelee, or aspic, you make from the chicken broth after reducing it to about four cups. Since I didn't have the hoof I decided to try some Knox gelatin I had around. Only because I didn't want it to come out as stiff as Knox blocks I used half the amount of gelatin. And as it turns out it wasn't nearly enough. After several hours I was left with broth with a thin layer of gelee at the bottom.

I also think this recipe should have involved some salt. I believe Saveur always include salt if it's called for, because some recipes include ingredients that are salty themselves -- in other words, salt is not a given. Maybe there's an assumption that when the broth is reduced for the gelee it becomes salty enough, but not for me.

But the chicken itself turned out well, moist and flavorful. Saveur suggests serving with potatoes boiled with mint, which I'd never heard of before. I tried that (and added some carrots). You could barely detect the mint, so subtle I'm not sure I'll try that again. At any rate, I'm now determined to do the chicken recipe again with hoof and salt.

Over the weekend I was stricken with an end-of-summer malaise. This hits me every year. I grow weary of the heat, the cotton clothes, the grilling, all the lovely things that make summer so wonderful suddenly become odious and I can't wait to snuggle into a woolen sweater and make stews. I don't know what the hurry is. I'll end up longing for summer again through the months of February and March. But that's the end of August for me.

I tried a few things to cure myself. I shuffled desultorily through the summer clearance sales in my neighborhood boutiques, but this was a drag. I went to the new chocolate bar in my neighborhood and had a frozen "hot" chocolate, but it was just ok and what I was really craving was more chocolate sorbet from Maison du Chocolat. Today I bought some Ciao Bello chocolate gelato, and I think that'll hold me over until Labor Day Weekend. I'll perk up then.

Rerun

Lane asked for those fig and blue cheese sandwiches again, so that's what I made for dinner tonight (see Refrigerator Offal). And tomorrow Lane is making dinner before going off to this silly art party, so I probably won't post then. In place of anything remotely substantial, here is a picture of Jasper after his very first haircut. Just keep chanting "It's a food blog, not a mom blog. It's a food blog, not a mom blog..."