If you had told me, when I landed tentatively in New York, that I would still be hanging around 14 years later, I probably would have laughed at you. I would have been positively howling had you told me that this Virginia transplant would eventually consider herself a Brooklynite – and a proud one, at that. But here I am, and as much as I itch to flee the city on weekends, I adore this little part of Brooklyn where we landed, almost accidentally, seven years ago and are raising our daughters; this post is a shameless love letter of sorts to the neighborhood.
I love the sound of the foghorns rolling off the harbor at night and the hulking container cranes at the end of our street, backlit by sunset. Nothing beats the smoky tang of the neighbors' grills firing up on the first warm day of spring, or that crazy, confused tree on Baltic that offers a profusion of pink blossoms in the dead of January – even a real January. There’s the occasional clang of the knife-sharpening truck and the synchronized flock of domestic pigeons you’ll see wheeling overhead as you walk up Henry at a certain time of day, if you look up at exactly the right time.
In a stretch that's sandwiched between some amazing restaurants and markets you'll pass Jesus in a box, the filming of Talk Stoop, and a riotously bedazzled row house. There's always a little surprise. Last week, a loud, late-night manhole explosion brought all the characters out of their brownstones, in various states of pajamaed splendor (one woman told me four times that her sleeping pills were kicking in, then followed me like a zombie down the street).
I love the fact that I have to add on 10 extra minutes to get anywhere, because I know I'll bump into a friend or neighbor I haven't caught up with in a while…but somehow, I'm always late anyway.
More and more familiar faces have landed here, and lately, the ranks seem to include Toad out of The Wind in the Willows – at least according to my 7-year-old, who upon surveying the wreckage from a couple of recent car crackups said: “I think Toad must have been out stealing cars again.” Of course she knows the truth, but we like to keep a tall tale going; it adds glamour to our already colorful corner of the world.
In addition to all that is Brooklyn, there are the riches brought into the borough by farmers from the surrounding areas. Ironically, during the winter we have greater access to regional produce here in the city than we do when we're in the country, where it grows. And almost from the beginning, our weekly farm share (CSA) became an integral part of our way of cooking. Signing up for a CSA, at first, can be like being told to sit in a room with strangers and chat amongst yourselves; some of them, you discover you hit it off with and want to get to know better. Others, not so much. Jerusalem artichokes (aka sunchokes) for me were the first kind of stranger, meaning I might not otherwise have sought them out and had probably stared right through them at the farmer’s market. They’re kind of like the mousy introvert in the room, the one you didn’t notice at first but who later floors you with a warm, nutty personality that just needed a little drawing out.
Now, since we get Jerusalem artichokes at least twice a season in our weekly share, they're regulars around here, and I find myself seeking out more when I run low or when there's no CSA – I've been picking them up lately at the green markets and at Perelandra. Often I'll cut them crossways into coins and sauté them slowly in butter, flipping so that each side gets nicely caramelized. The trick to this – and it's hardly a trick – is to not have the heat up too high, nor to crowd them in a pan. Sprinkle a little sea salt over them and serve them instead of potatoes with roast chicken. I also used to make a very creamy Jerusalem artichoke soup, using a Daniel Boulud recipe, but this Christmas the husband gave me Nigel Slater's Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch, with its lovely arrangement of fava beans on white linen across the front. He had a hunch this vegetable-centric book would be right up my alley, and he was right.
The recipe below, from the book, highlights the particular sweet nuttiness of Jerusalem artichokes. The soup is light and pure on its own and can even go vegan with a quick swap of oil for butter. Whatever you do, though, do yourself a favor and don't skip the spice mix, even though you may be tempted to save time. Yes, there's more chopping involved and yes, you'll have to clean an additional pan afterwards – but this crunchy garnish is what makes the soup something special, flavor-wise and texture-wise.
3 TBS butter or vegetable oil (such as olive or sunflower)
3 medium/large celery ribs
1 lb. (give or take) Jerusalem artichokes, or sunchokes
4 cups light stock (chicken or vegetable), and/or water
salt and pepper to taste
Small bunch parsley, chopped (to yield about ¼ cup)
For spice mix:
½ tsp. ground coriander seeds (fresh ground from about 1 tsp. whole seeds is best – in a spice mill or mortar and pestle)
¼ cup shelled walnuts, chopped fine
1 oz. ginger
4 tsp. peanut or sunflower oil
Instructions:
Slice the white and palest green part of the leeks into rounds, then rinse away any grit. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter and add the leek slices. Sweat over low heat until they are soft enough to crush with the edge of a wooden spoon. Meanwhile, slice celery and add to the pot when leeks have begun to soften. Peel and chop the artichokes (I don’t peel too scrupulously – just the really thick, crusty skin) and add them to the pot. Cover the pot and let the vegetables soften without coloring, then pour in stock and/or water, and bring to a boil. Lower heat to a simmer and partially cover with a lid. Cook for about 25 minutes, until artichokes are very tender.
Meanwhile, peel the ginger and slice very thinly, then slice into very thin matchsticks. Warm oil in a small skillet and add ginger. Fry for a few seconds, until it is golden and crisp, then add coriander and chopped walnuts to the pan, let them sizzle briefly, then drain on paper towels.
Puree soup thoroughly in a blender (or with immersion blender), stir in chopped parsley, then adjust seasoning – you will need to add salt until the flavor tastes full, and crank in a bit of black pepper if you like. Serve topped with spice mix.
A neglected house is a sad house, and sometimes even a bitter one. After the turn of new year, when we finally opened up our beloved little cottage after eons away, we were greeted by a puff of musty air – as though the place was angry at us for leaving it for so long to the field mice. It was slow to share its charms.
The answering machine was blinking. We had three hang-ups in a row and a message from a mystery lady saying “Phyllis? You there? Call me. There’s been a…development.”
Outside, the New England landscape was stripped down to her shabby underthings – frumpy without a pretty blanket of snow to dress up her figure. There have been no good blizzards to speak of this winter, unless you count the October freak that snuffed out power for weeks and splintered our lovely tulip magnolia in half–the tree that explodes in pink blossoms every year for Ben’s birthday.
The first thing we do, always, is put the kettle on. The bags come in. The children stumble inside and squeal in horror at how frigid the house is and jostle for a spot on the sheepskin throw. It’s a tiny house, though, so it heats up quickly, the little woodstove chugging away to warm the floors and corners and bedsheets. That cast iron stove so terrified us when the girls were wobbling, grasping toddlers, but it is now our salvation, and once the logs start popping inside, we know the place is ours again.
But the process is never complete, the house not fully alive, until a good satisfying meal gets cooked in the big, blue pot that guards the stove. A real, wintry one. Our choice this time around: pork paprika. It’s my mom’s bachelorette dish, the one that emerged with her out of Richmond, VA in the late 60's and rose above a sea of cream of mushroom soup-based standards that long ago fell by the wayside. She can’t even remember where the recipe came from, except that the original was intended for veal and she changed it somewhere along the line. One time she proudly cooked this dish for her post-college roommate, Betty, whose taste buds she accidentally assaulted when she shook in the better part of a jar of cayenne pepper…instead of the intended paprika. It was the first and last time she ever made that mistake.
About ten years ago, the first time Mom cooked pork paprika for Ben, she hooked him and there was no going back. Now, there's no way she can not cook it for us when we visit them in Colorado in winter, especially after a cold and vigorous day outside skiing, when our legs are jello and our fingers and toes are still burning back to life. And so this year, when it looked like the vacation was about to pass without her having made it, Ben politely pointed out that fact to her. And so, to start 2012 off right, we enjoyed big, heaping bowls over noodles for New Year's day dinner.
And then we reprised it a week later for Ben's parents, who were up for the day. I browned and paprika-ed and simmered it on our stove, and the little house sighed with happiness. We let the flavors find each other in the blue pot while we went out for a Sunday hike. October's storm had yanked down trees and peeled off entire sections of hillside beside the trail, but the hike along Bee Brook was still lovely and bracing, and bowls of pork paprika made a warm, spicy ending to a satisfying day. Afterwards, as we sat around the table and listened to the wood popping in the stove, there was no denying that the last of the cobwebs had been dusted away and the blue house was home once more.
Notes on this recipe: my mom never measures when making this, and come to think of it, nor do I. I did my best to get the amounts down, but still: think of this as a guideline. You might want more mushrooms, or fewer. You might decide chopped peppers are in order. All paprikas are not created equal, so play with amounts of hot vs. sweet and taste and adjust often (I strive for a subtle degree of heat but mostly lots of brightness). This, I think, is key when making any kind of savory dish. Also, the meat: my mom usually uses pork loin, since it's lean and readily available, but I used shoulder and – sorry mom – it was tastier. Shoulder is always my go-to cut for braises and stews, as it has more texture, flavor, and marbling. This one came from the Arcadian Pastures stand at the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket in Brooklyn. The mushrooms–earthy creminis–came from Madura farms. I used a pork stock I had made from the pig and frozen, but you could also use chicken stock or even water. The secret ingredient, though, is a few hours' rest time–I highly recommend this step if you can find the time…or better yet, give it a night's rest and look forward to it the next day.
Pork Paprika Serves at least 4
Ingredients:
2 lbs. pork shoulder, cut into 1-2 inch cubes and trimmed of excess fat
1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
2-3 TBS sweet (not smoked) paprika
1-2 TBS hot paprika
Salt, pepper
Vegetable oil, such as canola
1 TBS butter
4 medium onions, diced into smallish pieces
1 lb. white or cremini mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced thin (about 1/8”)
½ cup dry white wine
1 pint pork or chicken stock
1 cup tomato sauce (or a combination of diced tomatoes and tomato paste)
2 TBS crème fraîche or sour cream (approx. – adjust to taste)
To serve: Broad, flat egg noodles, such as pappardelle
Instructions: In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, some salt and pepper, some of the sweet paprika, and some of the hot paprika. Toss pork into flour mixture to coat each piece. Heat a dutch oven (such as le Creuset) or other heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high flame, add oil, and patiently brown the meat in batches on all sides, taking care not to crowd pieces in pan or burn the outside of the meat. Transfer to a clean plate. When all meat has been browned, splash wine into the pot to deglaze. Add stock and simmer for a couple of minutes.
Meanwhile, in another skillet, heat butter and sweat the onions until translucent. Add mushrooms and shake in some more paprika (this will depend on your taste and the strength of the paprika, but unless you like it super spicy, count on about half as much hot as sweet, and taste as you cook. You can always add more as you go) and a little salt, and sauté for a few minutes. The vegetables will, at some point, release their liquid. At this point, turn the heat up a notch until the liquid has mostly evaporated and mushrooms have begun to brown a touch. At this point, remove pan from the heat. Add the meat back to the pot with the liquid, add tomato sauce, and turn the heat up until it boils. Add a bit of water if needed to cover meat in liquid. Turn down heat and allow to simmer for about 45 minutes, then add the vegetables. You can splash a bit of water in the pan and scrape all that sautéed goodness into the pot with the meat.
Cook on a low simmer, stirring occasionally, for another hour or so. Taste and add more paprika if needed; mixture should be a lovely russet at this point. If liquid seems to be getting too low, splash in a bit more water. It’s done when meat is tender and yielding. Ideally, you will make this the night before and re-heat the next day. The flavors really come together this way. But, even if you can let it rest an hour or two and re-heat before serving, you'll see the difference. Taste for seasoning at the end, add more salt, pepper, and paprika if you need to, and finally stir in a generous dollop of crème fraîche before serving – this will round out any sharp edges and take the deliciousness to a whole new level. Serve over egg noodles.
I’d been working on a post about Brussels sprouts, when all of a sudden I woke up one morning and Wham! was on the radio singing “Last Christmas”, and the tree people had come down from Vermont to re-forest the corner of Kane & Clinton. This means, by necessity, that letters for Santa have been painstakingly scrawled in childish hand, and Good Curious Elf has begun his nightly patrols. We’ve already been swept into the whirlwind of the Christmas Spectacular and tree viewing at Rockefeller Center, and we've handed the tots off to the grandparents for the more onerous Manhattan errands. So suddenly, shredded Brussels sprouts with lemon and cappellini, as much as I love that dish, seems colossally un-special. It’s time for some baking, and I’d like to share a cookie recipe that, for us, always kick-starts the holiday season. It’s not the most original one you’ll see in this year’s cookie line-up, but it was my great-grandmother’s. That sounds even more impressive when I tell my daughters we are baking their great-great grandmother’s cookies, the ones my mom used to make with my sister and me every December.
Mrs. Julia Butterworth, known as “Juju,” lived in the tiny town of DeWitt, VA. This is not the first time I’ve written about her here. Since she reached the venerable age of 96 I got to know her for a handful of years, but those being my youngest years I only caught her in glimpses, which at this point in my life have gotten muddled together in a grainy black-and-white montage. I imagine her with a nimbus of snow-white hair and old-fashioned eyeglasses, slimly built and simply dressed, with a sweet, old-lady smile. I suppose, now, I know her more from Mom’s stories than anything else and can almost feel the feeling of climbing in between cold sheets in her guest bedroom, peering out at the dark shadows that gathered in the corners of her old farmhouse. I can hear the birds chirp in the morning as I imagine stealing into her garden to pull sweet young turnips from the dirt, warm underfoot in the Virginia sun.
And so, following her recipe for “tea cakes,” rolling out the buttery dough and pressing down onto the cookie cutters and snapping a crisp cookie between my teeth, I almost believe I can visit with her for a while and bring my daughters along to meet her. They don’t yet appreciate time passed and memories preserved as I do, but they adore a good tea cake and beg for them year round. We’ve been known to pull out this recipe at Halloween or Valentine’s Day, too, merely as an excuse to wield cookie cutters.
There’s nothing especially elaborate or new about this recipe, it’s just a good, solid one for this old-fashioned type of cookie, which inhabits the space somewhere between a butter cookie and a sugar cookie. In spite of what the name might suggest, there’s nothing cake-y about them–especially when rolled thin as we’re in the habit of doing in my family. Juju had two different versions: the “everyday” ones baked with Fluffo instead of butter and cut thicker in the shapes of bunnies, with raisins for eyes…and then the fancy “tea cake” rendition for special occasions: made with real butter, rolled thin, cut in a variety of shapes, and decorated prettily with sprinkles. That’s the kind my mother made with us at Christmas. It was part of her slim repertoire of sweet treats, and in fact the only thing we ever baked during the holiday season. But she was a decent baker and had her opinions about how things should be done. The dough had to be stretched whisper-thin and lightly adorned, preferably with 4mm silver dragees. My sister and I used to torture her by loading on the colored sugar, as much as a cookie could physically hold, as soon as she turned her head…and gleefully watched her horror when she turned back around to discover our handiwork. As I make these cookies with my daughters every year, I catch myself falling into the same OCD patterns, tensing up as they pile on the crystallized red dye #5. But I hold myself back, letting them unleash their little creative demons.
Around here, it’s not Christmas until a round of these cookies gets made, and flour dusts the whole kitchen, and the house fills with their buttery-sweet smell. I do roll them wafer thin, a habit which demands a little more work and watchfulness (they burn in a flash). My preference is for cookies that are golden and a little toasty around the edges, with a hint of caramelized flavor. I am also partial to the glittering dragees, even though I’m not quite sure what sort of metals we’re ingesting (note: I prefer the 2mm size to the 4mm; they’re more like birdshot than BBs and much gentler on the teeth). Brooklynites can find all sorts of pretty sprinkles, dragees, and cutters at A Cook’s Companion on Atlantic.
Truly, the best thing about these cookies always was–and still is–the raw dough. Rich and vanilla-scented, with a sugary crunch between the teeth, it is the very essence of what cookie dough should be, and there is no better anywhere. I still gobble up the scraps as I roll and cut. Mom used to give us each a beater off her 1968 hand mixer–the one she still owns in spite of the gaping hole in its casing and exposed wiring and gears within (“I keep things until they die,” she'll proudly tell you). We would strip off every atom of dough with our tongues and stick our heads into the empty mixing bowl for good measure, until somewhere along the line there was a salmonella scare, and a dough-laden beater acquired the same, suburban menace as a raccoon out in daylight or unwrapped candy on Halloween. It became every parent’s responsibility to keep cookie dough away from children’s mouths, and so Mom fell in line. Still, we managed to swipe our fingers in the dough bowl while she wasn’t looking and later, growing bolder, to steal down to the refrigerator where the dough rested, peel back the plastic wrap and break off hunks of chilled dough, which was even better, somehow, than it had been at the freshly-whipped stage. After she got wise to our ways and threatened to cut us off from Christmas sweets forever, our deceptions grew more intricate, and we honed the art of opening the fridge swiftly with a well-timed cough to mask the sound, and with a potter’s skill, of molding the dough back into place after prying off a sugary chunk.
Enjoy this recipe any way you like: pressed thin, left thick, modestly or garishly sprinkled, iced, pale, tawny at the edges, or burnt to a crisp. Enjoy the meditation of flouring the board and rolling out the dough. And if you happen to be making these with kids, savor the way you're forced to slow down a bit during the holiday season. Let go of your control freak side for a moment and make a terrible, floury, sprinkly mess.
Juju’s Tea Cakes
Ingredients:
2 sticks butter (8 oz.), softened at room temperature
1 ½ cups sugar (the natural kind works if it’s finely textured)
2 eggs (large sized or smaller. Just use one if they're "jumbo")
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour plus extra for flouring cookie surface
1 tsp. good-quality vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
Instructions: With an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. Sift dry ingredients together into a separate bowl, then add to the butter mixture in two additions. Mix until just combined. Scrape out of bowl and shape roughly into four disks, wrapping in plastic wrap or parchment. Chill for at least an hour, or overnight, until firm.
When ready to make cookies, preheat oven to 350º. Leave dough out at room temperature for 20 minutes or so, until softened and workable but still cold and somewhat firm. Prepare trays with either parchment or silpat. Ready a clean surface and rolling pin, along with some extra flour for dusting. Lightly dust your work surface and rolling pin and roll out cookie dough, working from the center outward and rotating the disk for the most even thickness. When you’ve reached about between 1/8" and 1/16” thickness (or as desired), cut out your cookies with floured cutters of your choice. Transfer to prepared cookie sheets (a dough scraper really helps) and decorate as desired.
Bake, checking frequently, between 15 and 25 minutes. Ovens vary widely, and much depends on how thinly you've rolled your dough. When done to your likeness (I like them golden around the edges), remove tray from oven and cool cookies before handling. They keep in an airtight container for a couple of weeks.
Signing up for a CSA, at first, can be like being told to sit in a room with strangers and chat amongst yourselves; some of them, you discover you hit it off with and want to get to know better. Others, not so much. Jerusalem artichokes (aka sunchokes) for me were the first kind of stranger, meaning I might not otherwise have sought them out and had probably stared right through them at the farmer’s market. They’re kind of like the mousy introvert in the room, the one you didn’t notice at first but who later floors you with a warm, nutty personality that just needed a little drawing out. 
