Winter at the greenmarket

This is the time of year when I start rebelling against roasted root vegetables–I mean really dreading them. What was such a refreshing change from tomatoes and zucchini back in October is now about as welcome as another snow day. Although I don’t follow the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle diet by any stretch, I do try to support regional farmers by eating as locally as comfortably possible through the winter–and that’s no easy feat in the New York City. It can be limiting. Our growing season looks like a mirage glimmering in the distance right now, and our fresh vegetable and fruit CSAs won’t kick in again until June. And yet, on certain days–yes, even freezing ones–I find myself craving a nice crisp raw salad–one bursting with real, vibrant leafy things beyond the wan lettuces on the store shelves.

It turns out, thanks to inventive, intrepid growers, we have quite a few options around here now: wonderful, colorful creations that were actually grown within a morning's drive. Roots, of course, store well, and we still have some nice looking ones from this fall’s CSA–and believe it or not, roots don't have to mean cranking up the oven (more on that in a second). Our winter share, from a Hudson Valley-based cooperative called Winter Sun Farms, not only keeps us in frozen vegetables for our soups and berries for our smoothies, but delivers the sprightliest (greenhouse) pea shoots you can imagine, which we enjoy this fine way.
 
They're brave people, the farmers up here, and I'm grateful for that. Last Saturday I trekked to the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket in Brooklyn with temperatures in the teens, and quite a few growers had shown up, offering wares such as grass-fed milk, crisp apples, sustainably raised pork, frilly mushrooms, and roots–and even some whole, frozen heirloom tomatoes from last fall.

Then, on Wednesday, at the start of another mighty blizzard, I hopped the subway to the Union Square Greenmarket to answer the burning question of what sort of inspiration can be found on a snowy day. The answer was this: plenty, including some truly amazing options for salad. And not just sprouts, like the psychedelically-hued selection at Windfall Farms. I also spied cucumbers, lettuces, and peppers at Bodhi Tree Farm. Peppers! Even my beloved shishito peppers, which I blister in a hot pan and dip in paprika salt, and to which I thought I had bid farewell until August. At first coming face to face with them in a greenmarket tent in January felt all wrong, until I realized that the bell peppers I occasionally buy in our organic market are raised in greenhouses and shipped all the way from Holland.

…At Windfall Farms:

In the end, there were simply too many choices. I paid a pretty penny for some of the greenhouse items, but I believe supporting local growers will pay dividends in the end, on many different levels. The salad I ended up tossing together was a happy marriage of greens and of raw root vegetables. What's that? Raw root vegetables in a salad? Yes! If you have a mandoline or even a very sharp “Y” peeler, you can shave your root vegetables thin as petals, for texture and flavor that are brighter, more delicate, and leafier than what results from cubing and roasting those very same vegetables. Jerusalem artichokes, which are actually the roots of sunflower plants, taste especially nice this way and add a touch of nuttiness. Watermelon radishes and black radishes (below) supply color and drama and a hint of heat. Try it–just make sure to get them thin enough to let light through.  

My salad was mostly raw, but I did sprinkle some toasted hazelnuts on top because they work so nicely with the nuttiness of the sunchokes and the sunflower and rosy buckwheat sprouts. I used hazelnut oil too, and would recommend it, but there’s no reason not to use other nut oils, or olive oil. (The hazelnuts were not local, and if anyone could point me in the direction of hazelnuts grown around here, I would be grateful!). The recipe below is a loose guideline, meant to incorporate anything you might happen upon in the market, on any given day. If you sprout your own beans and seeds at home, this is a perfect place to use them.

Winter Greenmarket Salad: 
Vinaigrette:
Serves about 2

• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
• 1/8 teaspoon honey
• 1 tablespoon white wine or champagne vinegar
• pinch sea salt
• crank of black pepper
• 3 heaping tablespoons hazelnut oil (or other oil, such as walnut or olive)

Whisk together all ingredients except oil. Gradually whisk in oil a drop in a time, then in larger dribbles until it's all incorporated smoothly. Taste, and if you feel it's too acidic add a couple more drops of oil. 


Salad:

• Young greens: dandelion, mizuna, arugula or tat soi
• Sprouts: sunflower, buckwheat, or radish
• Roots: Jerusalem artichoke, radishes, turnips, celeriac
• Hazelnuts
• Optional: minced chives

Toast hazelnuts in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes, until deep golden brown. Cool them, and rub the skins off. Crush the hazelnuts under the side of a large knife, or in a bag, with a rolling pin. Wash the roots you have selected, dry, and then thinly shave them horizontally (see picture above of the pink watermelon radishes). It's up to you to decide the amount and proportion of roots and greens you want. Count on a small handful of greens per person, with about half the volume of roots. Put these in a large bowl and drizzle dressing, starting with about 1 tablespoon per person. Toss gently with clean hands, adding more dressing if needed. Gather up haystack bundles of salad and heap onto plates. Sprinkle with toasted hazelnuts and, if you like, fleur de sel (fine sea salt crystals).

Good mornings

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we are not morning people around here. Ben and I missed our own post-wedding brunch because we couldn't wake up in time, and old habits stick. So yet again, in 2011, I'm vowing to greet the day more gracefully, and to motivate the rest of my crew to do so. Will the resolution stick? Not likely. With the exception of my bright-eyed four-year-old, the rest of us excel at hitting the snooze button, ignoring the daylight creeping in, and hiding beneath the duvet until we have no choice but to crawl out in search of coffee. Our six-year-old, who in the morning hours is simply known as “The Teenager,” sets the tone, and even our energetic puppy has come around to our way of doing things.

I know there are important things I’m missing by rising at 10:00 on weekends. The sunrise, for one (there were fleeting windows, when the girls and the pup were new, when sunrise viewing was a big part of my life). I'll never show my face at the first yoga class of the day, and I'll always forfeit dibs on the choicest eggs at the farmer’s market–the ones from Grazin’ Angus Acres and Flying Pigs Farm, who sell out by 9. The scones and muffins will always already have cooled by the time I drag myself to Ted and Honey, and I can forget about ever making it out for a weekend breakfast date.

But compensatory strategies have evolved, and these have yielded rewards of their own. We're pretty good company at night, and those post-dawn lie-ins are delicious. The rogue earlybird of the family now pulls her weight in the morning; she is, dare I say it? Well-trained now. When we’re in the country, we’ve mastered the art of sending her downstairs to unlock the door, let the dog out, and push the ON button of the pre-loaded coffeemaker (next she’ll be fixing herself breakfast, as my own parents taught me to do by age five). By the time the pup has circled the yard and the aroma of Stumptown has wafted upstairs, we’re ready to join her, and then the six-year-old floats downstairs sometime in the next half hour: wraith-like, dandelion-headed, unwilling to eat or talk.

So to help revive her, and to make Saturdays a bit sweeter for all of us, I have a secret weapon, and it's called Meyer Lemon and Ginger curd. That last word does not sound very nice, so I prefer to just call it “morning sunshine” instead. I think of it as the golden love child of custard and marmalade: smooth and rich and tart. The ginger imparts a bit of added bite but can be toned down or left out altogether.

If you're not already acquainted with the meyer lemon, it's a lovely cross between a lemon and a mandarin, with lemon's bright and clear tones, the pucker tamed and rounded out by a hint of orangey sweetness. If moving to California were ever a consideration for me, meyer lemons, which grow like crazy there, would certainly be the deciding factor.


I'm aware that a curd can be whisked together over direct heat, but I prefer the security of an improvised bain-marie, or double boiler: by setting a metal bowl over a pot of simmering water, you heat an egg mixture more gently and help prevent scrambling or an uneven texture. If you'd like to try the recipe below over direct heat, go for it–just keep the heat very low and don't stop stirring.


When we have this addictive confection on hand, we slather it on toasted croissant halves or crispy toast. The girls sneak it out of the jar by the tottering spoonful, and we've found these spoonfuls an even more effective elixir for weekday mornings. And, although the sugar content is somewhat toned down here, this recipe is also great as a dessert component, with pound cake and fruit or in a flaky, pre-baked tart shell with berries on top. But we prefer to save this much-needed brightness to take the edge off our mornings. Graceful? It's a start.

Morning Sunshine  
adapted from recipes by David Lebovitz, and Claudia Fleming's The Last Course 

Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs
• 3 large egg yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar 
• Zest of 2 large meyer lemons (preferably organic)
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed meyer lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon grated ginger (less for a more subtle taste)
• Pinch of sea salt
• 6 tablespoons (3 oz.) unsalted butter cut into pieces, at room temperature

Instructions:  
Prepare a medium saucepan with water in the bottom, and find a metal bowl that fits snugly on top of it without touching the water. Bring the water to a gently simmer. Meanwhile, in the bowl, whisk together eggs, yolks, and sugar. Stir in juice, zest, ginger, and salt. Place bowl on top of saucepan and cook, whisking constantly so eggs don't scramble, for about 10 minutes. Stop when mixture is glossy and custard-like and coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat and whisk in butter in a few additions, until it blends into mixture. Strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve (use a spatula to push it through), and refrigerate immediately.

Snowy day food

The blizzard came and went and spoiled plans. Christmas was Christmassy, with all of us gathered at Ben’s parents house out in Sag Harbor, the usual happy blur of candles, presents, turkey, and wine. Our collective pack of dogs kept things interesting, all five of them running in and out of the house, alternately sparring with one another and storming the table.

And the next morning, we awoke to a sweet garnish of flurries. Except those flurries began to thicken and whip about in earnest as the wind picked up, and when accumulation became a reality we thought to check the forecast–and the status of our flight to Denver the next day. By noon our flight and all others were nonexistent, with nothing else until the 30th. Nothing. Not even working airports, as it turned out. Our visions of gliding through powder in the Rockies vanished.

Down with an awful cold, I watched the blizzard beat against the window as the day wore on. I watched as Ben made the best of it, rallying the girls to roll a snowman out in the front yard, their heads bowed against the gales howling off the Long Island sound, giggles rising above it all as they poked in walnuts for eyes. From inside, the din from those winds crescendoed to a high whistling whine in the nighttime hours, as though we were holed up inside a medieval fortress.

The snowstorm was shaping up to be the Grinch of Christmas 2010…except, like the Grinch, the snowstorm’s heart grew a few sizes and decided to give something back. Because the next day, when we returned–and oh, what a return–we got to experience New York at its New Yorkiest, New York in the hush and beauty and excitement of a big new snow. There’s really nothing like it. Except we relied too confidently on memories of past snowstorms and swift plowings, and we didn't quite realize there was twice as much snow where we were going than where we had been. Our neighborhood, buried under a 20-inch blanket of white, had become a maze of heaped streets and more than a handful of abandoned vehicles–including multiple ambulances and taxis wedged sideways in the middle of major throughways.

We drove around searching in vain for clear passages, feeling the fools for motoring at all, especially in a car lacking four wheel drive. People were using main streets as sidewalks, as cross-country ski trails, as snowshoe paths; they were the wise ones. Eventually we did find a way to our front door, barreling the wrong direction up our one-way street, which was blocked at the other end by a stranded van. Then, just as we squeezed ourselves out of the car, our friends Lauren and Jon happened along and sprang into action, helping us unload all our luggage and loot while their son distracted our daughters from their catfight of the moment. We didn’t even have to ask–they were just there. That’s our neighborhood for you.

Later, the car safe in a garage (street parking is not happening for anyone, for a while), we went out into the deserted streets, feeling like pioneers in a new landscape. In the yellowy light we walked up Henry, past a paralyzed taxi, past the school, past ghostly Christmas decorations and twinkling strings of lights. The unmanned vehicles, buttressed by wind-chiseled drifts, created a sense of suspended animation that could have been an elaborate art installation. Our daughters dove into the best playscape ever: snow heaps to scale and slide, pristine drifts to destroy, smooth planes offering the perfect canvases for snow angels. My four-year-old reclined blissfully into the banks, experiencing the sensation of simultaneous floating and sinking.  On Amity, an ambulance that had been left for dead attempted to extricate itself from a headlock with a parked SUV, in the process grinding headlights and crunching metal. Further up, a van spun its wheels until some guys with Vermont plates offered to push it out of its rut with their own car.

We tumbled gratefully into our good Japanese restaurant up the street, peeling off layers of ski gear and absorbing the indoor heat, ordering miso soup and hot edamame. Then came eel and yellowtail for the grownups, avocado and cucumber rolls and sticky rice for the little ones. We nearly had the place to ourselves, the moody globe lamps and cheery Japanese waitresses and French chanteuses on the stereo. Chopsticks for all, the children's rigged with beginner hinges. And for dessert: green tea ice cream four ways and cups of roasted barley tea, then back on with the gear and back out into the streets, where the occasional drama of dig-outs continued. And as we fell asleep, our windows admitted that unique glow that happens when millions of icy crystals refract the street lights into our rooms.


What did we miss? Good skiing, Fat Tire, time with my family and with friends I only see out there these days. Colorado and is another home to me. It's where I spent my Christmases ages 14 through 26. But New York truly is home now, in the realest sense, and it took a massive snowstorm to remind me of that. A snowstorm that recalled some of my earliest winter days in the City, during the honeymoon phase, when I was initiated into that sense of benign anarchy only a New York snowstorm can create (we all know, in the end, that the able army of plows will save us, so we enjoy it while we can). It's also when you come face to face with your neighbors, who are grumbling but secretly cheerful as they shovel their sidewalks in their bomber hats. We're all in it together.

The next morning, the spell was broken as more roads got cleared and people took matters in their own hands, digging out portions of streets themselves and carving parking spaces along the sides. Cars moved through. Salt uncovered more of the sidewalks and the less-white blanket began to reveal just how filthy the city really is: soot, garbage, dog pee, and grease streaking from restaurants' back doors stained it as the day went on. Out of the melting piles hidden bikes will emerge and lost mittens will materialize. In our house the cautionary towels and piles of soggy boots will remain by the front door for a while, and hearty, sustaining fare will simmer away on our stove well into March. We will be more carnivorous than in warmer months. 

Yesterday, I hadn't made it to the store since our return, and as it happened I didn't need to: in October I had picked up gorgeous, grass-fed beef shanks from Grazin' Angus Acres, at the tiny but excellent Carroll Street greenmarket. They awaited in the freezer for just such an occasion as being snowbound, and I had the other necessary components as well: root vegetables from our CSA, frozen homemade stocks, frozen tomato puree from our winter CSA, and a splash of leftover wine. I even managed to uncover some chilly but fragrant rosemary from our herb "garden." 

What resulted could barely be called an osso buco, as that traditional Milanese dish is made from veal. Even though I know of sources for humanely-raised veal, I still can't bring myself to eat it (and although we eat more meat in winter, I always source it from responsible farms). But it's the same cut–a shank bone–just a more rustic and improvised preparation: beef stew with the drama of a marrow bone. Since it's a muscular (hence flavorful) cut of meat, a long braising time is needed, and to that I tack on a resting period; overnight is best, but if that's not possible the dish can be cooked in morning, rested for the remainder of the day, then re-heated for dinner. Traditionally the Milanese serve their osso buco with risotto, but since this was a bastardized version of the classic, and I had all those roots on hand, I made Mario Batali's "turnip risotto", from Simple Italian Food. It's a lot of meat, so whatever we can't finish gets thrown back into the braising liquid and saved as a beef stew that's even better the next day.

Beef Shank "Osso Buco" for two
Ingredients:

• 2 beef shanks, cut crosswise about 2 inches thick
• Kosher salt
• Ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds
• 3 celery ribs, chopped 
• 1 cup (give or take) wine, red or white
• 1 cup beef stock
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 sprigs rosemary, leaves removed and chopped
• 2 tsp. thyme leaves, chopped
• 16 oz. tomato puree, or whole, peeled tomatoes 

Instructions:
Salt and pepper the shanks. Heat a dutch oven (Le Creuset style, with lid) that will comfortably fit shanks, add oil and brown the shanks on all sides. Remove and pour off any excess oil. Add onions to the pan and sauté for a few minutes, then add garlic, carrots, and celery and sauté for a few minutes more. Remove from pan and set aside. 


Deglaze plan with wine, simmer a few minutes, and add shanks back in along with the herbs. Cover with the stock and enough water to submerge completely, bring back up to a simmer and allow to simmer gently for about an hour, uncovered. After an hour, add tomatoes and vegetables and simmer these for 2 more hours, or until meat is falling off the bone and tender. Skim off any grease, and taste and add more salt, if needed. Allow to rest overnight or for a few hours, and serve with gremolata (below) sprinkled on top. Serve with risotto, mashed potatoes, or turnip "risotto" below.

Gremolata:

• 2 tablespoons minced parsley
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1 clove of garlic, minced 

Stir ingredients together and sprinkle on top of shanks. All that garlic, I imagine, is good for fighting winter colds.


Turnip "Risotto"
Adapted from Mario Batali, Simple Italian Food
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large shallot, minced fine
2 large turnips, cut as evenly as possible into 1/8-inch dice
2 cups hot chicken stock
salt and pepper
1/3 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese


In a large skillet, melt butter and gently sauté shallots until softened. Add turnips and cook a couple minutes, stirring so they cook evenly, without browning. Add chicken stock a ladleful at a time, and stir until stock is absorbed. Repeat with remaining stock until turnips are tender and fragrant, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and stir in grated cheese (and more butter, if you wish), about 1 minute. Serve immediately.