A word about ramps

Ramps, those stinking starlets of Spring, are here for their brief season. Chances are, if you live in the Eastern states or midwest, you can’t escape their presence on menus, in farmer’s markets, CSAs (like our excellent Local Roots), and now even in some supermarkets. The question is, are they being foraged into oblivion? There’s hot debate about that. Although they're often photographed as impossibly lush shag carpets on forest floors, many botanists and pro foragers assert that, if harvested en masse, roots and all, they can’t properly regenerate and may go the way of the dodo. Others insist they're a weed and will outlive our own destructive presence on this planet. Whatever the case, it’s best to be safe and opt for ramps that are sustainably harvested, which ideally means leaves-only, or a few bulbs taken without removing the root stock. Lani’s farm, one of my favorite NYC greenmarket vendors, sells their ramps this way. If you forage for yourself, you can do this by digging around the ramp bulb and slicing just above the woody rootstock to free it—that part's not edible, anyway. Cover the rhizome back up so it can propagate the next year.


Although ramp bulbs taste phenomenal pickled, grilled, sautéed, and cooked just about any other way, you really don’t need the bulb to enjoy the essence of ramps. The leaves, as my grandfather would have said, “will put hair on your chest”—meaning they’re pretty feisty in their own right. I whir them into pestos with carrot or radish tops, puree them in soups, and use them to make one of my favorite things ever: ramp butter. Below is a dead simple recipe for ramp butter (Try it on warm cornbread. You’re welcome.), plus a sprightly soup that makes use of all the alliums of Spring and requires just a few ramps mingled amongst their tame cousins. I throw the leaves in raw for maximum potency, but if you have an important meeting coming up or your digestion is on the sensitive side, you can simmer them in with the rest of the vegetables until they’re wilted. The color won’t be as brilliant, and the flavor? A more demure announcement of Spring.
 

Ramp Butter
Soften about ¾ stick of unsalted butter at room temperature. Chop the leaves of about 8 ramps very finely—mince them up! Fold them into the butter and mix in a nice crystally salt like fleur de sel or Maldon until you get the taste right.

 



 






Allium, Potato, and Buttermilk Soup 
Serves 6


Ingredients:

• 2 TBS unsalted butter
• 1 large leek (or 2 small ones), white and palest green parts only, chopped
• 1 small onion or shallot, or ½ med. onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 large clove garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
• 4 ramps: bulbs, stems, and leaves (or substitute scallions)
• 3 medium-sized waxy potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 3 cups unsalted chicken stock or vegetable stock, plus water as needed 
  
• Sea salt to taste
• ½ cup good buttermilk (not fat free)
• ¼ cup heavy cream, or to taste
• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
• Optional garnish: chopped chives and/or chive flowers

Instructions:

1. Prepare ramps: Wash thoroughly and slip the outer membrane off the bulbs. Chop off and discard any roots. Remove bulbs and stems, then roughly chop them. Chop the leaves and put them aside until the very end (if you’re using scallions do the same). 
2. In a large heavy pot or Dutch oven, heat the butter gently until it melts, then add the leeks, onion, and ramp bottoms. Sprinkle a little salt over them and sweat them gently for about 7-8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Make sure they do not brown at all!
3.  Add garlic and potato and cook for about 5 minutes or so, stirring occasionally, then pour in stock. Raise the heat to bring to a boil, lower to a simmer, and cook, covered, until the potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes or so.  
4. Once potatoes are tender, throw in the ramp leaves and whir in the blender or with an immersion blender until very smooth. If you blender is not great you can run the whole thing through a strainer afterwards.  
5. Add the buttermilk, heavy cream, and lemon juice and add salt until it tastes right—the soup should not taste salty but all the flavors should assert themselves. If the soup is too thick, add a little water until the consistency is right. 
6. To serve: I prefer this soup chilled but it’s good warm, too. You can swirl a little cream or crème fraîche on the top and scatter some chopped chives or chive flowers. 

 
 
 

Seen in May

So hard to believe sweet May has come and gone, and that sultrier days and the end of school loom on the horizon. Here are some glimpses of the past month, and a cherished recipe to share: Claudia Fleming's buttermilk panna cotta, one of our favorite ways to show off the tender little strawberries that are bringing a bright pop of color to fields and farmers' markets right now. Be sure to try this creamy, gently tangy dessert; it's a bit like a custard but lighter and spruces up nicely for guests, too.

 
Also:

• Old-fashioned strawberry shortcakes

• Strawberry muffins

And, I can't help but lose hours at a time to Nigel Slater's gorgeous cookbook Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard at the moment – particularly the juicy section devoted to strawberries. For less-than-stellar berries, Slater recommends quartering and dusting the fruit with sugar and finely grated orange zest, then setting aside for an hour to mellow.

Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Strawberries

Adapted from Claudia Fleming, The Last Course

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 tsp. powdered gelatin
• 7 TBS sugar plus additional for tossing with strawberries
• 1 1/4 cups heavy (whipping) cream
• 1 3/4 cups buttermilk
• 1 vanilla bean, split longways (optional - you can get by without the vanilla bean)
• Strawberries – pile them on, the best you can find!

Instructions:
Place the gelatin in a small bowl and add 1 TBS cold water. Let the gelatin sit for 5 min. to soften. 

Meanwhile, in a small pot, warm the cream and sugar over medium heat, whisking occasionally until sugar is dissolved. With the blade of a paring knife, scrape the vanilla pulp from both pod halves into the cream (reserve the pods for making vanilla sugar: put in a jar with a cup of sugar and keep in your cabinet). Whisk the gelatin into the cream until it is incorporated. Turn off the heat and add the buttermilk, then strain the whole mixture into a spouted measuring cup. Pour carefully into ramekins or pretty serving bowls and transfer to the refrigerator to chill for at least 3 hours (or until firm) before serving. 

About an hour before serving, slice the strawberries into halves or quarters and put in a bowl. Sprinkle with a little bit of sugar and let these sit at room temperature, stirring occasionally. When you're ready to serve the berries will have made their own sauce, which you can spoon with the strawberries over the panna cotta.  

Happy trails, May!

Deyrolle

It has been raining for much of the time we've been here – a lazy, benign rain that we can't seem to take too seriously, in spite of the spectacularly crappy umbrellas we bought yesterday near the Hotel de Ville. Somehow Paris just seems right this way in April, and somehow the drizzle hasn't stopped us from walking everywhere, with perpetually soggy cuffs. Today after the 6-year-old and I made our morning pastry run we all headed east, with the intention of spending some time at the Musée D'Orsay. But on the way there we made a stop at Deyrolle on Rue du Bac and fell into a rabbit hole that spirited us away for much of the day and derailed our museum plans (OK, I admit the lost time also had something to do with shopping).

I'd wager that there's no shop quite like this "cabinet de curiosités" anywhere on earth, and it may rank up there with my kids' top Paris memories so far. Part natural history museum, part nature lovers' boutique, part gardening shop, much of Deyrolle's charm is in its whimsical styling. There's always a fetching arrangement in the front window, and inside, beasts of all sorts (preserved ones, of course) lounge together in the rooms of the old building. In display cases insects of impossible colors are arranged like precious jewelry. The store has been around since 1831 but nearly burned down in 2008; the photos from the fire's aftermath are almost too heartbreaking to look at, but the boutique has been restored to its current glory.

The children – and adults, I might add – pored over all these treasures for the better part of an hour. There's also a good little book section with prints and natural guides. I couldn't resist picking up a copy of Lecons de Choses, pictured at left. At first it just seems to be a bound set of gorgeous French botanical plates, but then there's an odd little section near the back entitled "La vie domestique" (the domestic life). In it you'll find illustrations of the perils that await you under your own roof (for example: "curiosity is always punished" shows a child overturning scalding liquid from a stove onto himself). Look further and you'll find a good-sized section on the horrors of alcoholism. 

Deyrolle enchanted us on this rainy day and the book kept the kids entertained later, as we waited for lunch at Café Varenne.

 

Apparently there was once a temperance movement in France…

Sunday hikes

On Sundays, when we’re in the country and the weather obliges, the four of us like to get up into the hills and get our legs moving. Even the little legs, by now, are pretty capable at trudging up the steadier inclines, the little hands know how to claw up rock faces and grip the strong roots of trees. We started off using the cobalt blue baby backpack that now carries my nephew, but both girls have run on their own steam for the past couple of years.

Often there are complaints, resistance. Sometimes there are tears, but if we didn’t force ourselves out, messily, we would pass a day lolling in the easy softness of our yard. I suppose these hikes are for us what church is for other families: a quiet place to admire all that is bigger than we are, to appreciate our little community, to reflect on what’s good and what needs fixing. It’s cleansing to be able to lose ourselves in that leafy, loamy world, especially when the one outside is plagued with tornadoes, tsunamis, terrorists, and people who set playgrounds on fire.

Our favorite destination these days is Macedonia Brook state park, at the Western end of Connecticut. Its expanse stretches out endlessly green in the warm months, blazes bright and unreal out of the valley in autumn, and turns raw and contrasty against the muted winter sky. This time of year, we trek up under the thinly clad trees, and through them glimpse the valley rolling away, the new leaves sparkling like peridots among the branches. The hike we usually choose, Cobble Mountain, winds up through the forest, skips across streams, scrambles over a field of lichen-covered boulders, then reveals its secret view, over gentle foothills and glimpsing the bluish Catskills in the distance. Most times, we pack lunch for the top. There’s some grumbling, yes, and the requisite whip-cracking. But I think the four of us agree we always feel calm and nicely tired afterward, buzzing a bit from all that free oxygen.

The last time we went, on May Day, Spring was still tender upon the park, and we hit the trailhead only to bump squarely into a towering man in overalls and bushy, bleached-out eyebrows, holding a straw hat full of freshly-dug ramps in one hand and a leash in the other. The leash was attached to a black and white goat, and a matching goat was being toted by the man’s embarrassed-looking teenage daughter. We stopped and chatted with them for a while, because this is not a sight you see every day, and my daughters insisted on meeting the goats.

“This one’s really well trained,” said the man, gesturing toward the one he led. “I’ve taught him to not tap dance on command. Watch: ‘Don’t tap dance, Merlin!’”

The goat stared out of slitted pupils, unblinking, and flicked a fly off his ear.

“See? He didn’t tap dance. This other one’s mama was a prize-winning milk goat, so she’s actual royalty. If the two of them ever get married she will wear a long, fancy dress and train, and the wedding will be on TV, watched by millions.”
 
I’m sorry I didn’t get a photo of them. I was so awestruck that I forgot about the camera hanging, tourist-style, around my neck. Actually that’s not quite true, because I did become aware of the camera’s weight just before we parted ways, but I couldn’t bear to mortify the teenager any more than she already had been. My daughters will be there soon enough.

Yes, the woods hold unexpected delights, and nature herself puts on quite a show with more wardrobe changes than Lady Gaga, but there are important lessons I think my daughters are learning from our forays, even if they don’t quite realize it yet:

• Find a good, steady pace that will work for the long haul.
• Learn to trust your own footing.
• When crossing a stream, always test the rocks. Choose strong, solid ones. Avoid the wobbly unreliable ones.

• No one’s going to carry you.

• If you fall, pick yourself up and get on with it.

• It’s not a race.

• You may not always know where you’re going. Keep an eye out for markers.

• The reward is not always at the top. It's all around you, if you look closely.

 

• You are part of nature. Respect and treat the great outdoors as you want to be treated. 
• There is no better bath, no better sleep, than the one following a hot, dusty hike. (There’s no tastier beer, either, but that’s a lesson for later)
• Always fuel up! 

Homemade Trail Bars 

Modified* from Kim Boyce's Good To The Grain

Ingredients:

• 2 oz. (1/2 stick, also 4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, plus extra for pan and hands  

Dry Mix: 

• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats 
• 1 cup crispy rice cereal (unsweetened) 
• 1/2 cup flaxseed meal (ground flaxseeds)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• Optional: 1/2 cup nuts, such as chopped peanuts, walnuts, pecans, or sunflower seeds.

Syrup:

• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon unsulphured molasses (or very dark grade B maple syrup)
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Instructions:  

1. Preheat oven to 325°and butter a 9-by-9 inch baking dish (one with smaller dimensions will yield thicker bars).
2. In a large skillet, melt butter and stir in oats. Over medium heat cook, stirring occasionally, until oats begin to color a bit darker. Add crisp rice and continue to stir until oats are a couple of shades darker than when raw. 
3. Pour oats into a large bowl and stir in flaxmeal and cinnamon (and nuts, if using).
4. To make syrup, put honey, brown sugar, molasses, and salt into a small saucepan. Over medium heat, cook, stirring to combine, until evenly boiling, about 6 minutes. Don't skip the boiling! It's the secret to a good, chewy granola bar.
5. Pour syrup over the oat mixture and toss very thoroughly, to coat every last flake evenly in syrup. Make sure you scrape out every bit of the syrup from the saucepan. Transfer granola mixture into prepared pan. 
6. Butter your hands and press oat mixture firmly and evenly into pan.
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes, rotating pan halfway through. The outer edge of the granola bars should be a little bit darker, and the bars should have a nice sheen. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Cut into quarters, then into quarters again for a total of 16 squares (you can cut into long bars, as pictured, but you will have some scraps left over). 
8. Remove from pan and cool before eating. They will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days. 

*The original recipe, for Granola Bars, calls for raisins. Since we can do without raisins but love a bit of crisp, I substituted crisp rice and scaled back the oats a bit. Good to the Grain is a gorgeous cookbook filled with wholesome treats.