Real strawberry flavor - from real strawberries

A few years ago, I did pick a couple of tiny little strawberries out of an old patch hidden in the grassy field across the road, and was stunned at the revelation of what strawberry flavor really is. Since then I have totally boycotted those big red too-perfect to be real commercially grown California strawberries which actually taste like tart Kool-Aid and incidentally carry more pesticide residue than almost any other fruit. Yuk.

So two summers ago on impulse I bought a flat of "ever-bearing" strawberries from The Plantman (a local nursery, love the name) and got some help arranging them on the lower slope of the drainage field next to our house...or "the mound" as we euphemistically call it. Last year, a few berries showed up, just enough to whet our appetite. This year, a bonanza. And a feast.

When the whole patch first started showing little balls of green all over, I salivated and announced in advance that we were not sharing. Actually, I planned to sit right next to the mound and personally eat them one by one as they ripened. And they soon came on gorgeously ripe red and tasted every bit as deliciously like "strawberry" as I had anticipated. Occasionally I had a few sunshine warm ones straight out of the patch. Turns out that to save them from the birds and chipmunks we had to pick them by the handful as they ripened, and they accumulated in a bowl on the kitchen counter. So instead of noshing in a chair outside, I just grabbed a few every time I passed through the kitchen.

But last week they got ahead of me. And facing about two quarts rapidly deteriorating, I dashed to the store for Sure-Jell (powered fruit pectin) and came home and whipped out a batch of strawberry freezer jam. It's really easy. Two cups of smashed berries requires four cups of sugar, which seems an obscene ratio of fruit to sugar. But when it all jells into a jewel colored jam it comes really close to tasting like a fresh and perfectly sweet homegrown strawberry. Delicious. This is what strawberries are supposed to taste like.

Grilling for the Cousins

Hosted first big dinner of the summer season last night. Three sets of cousins from MI, VA and CA, plus their 97 and 93 year old Moms who are Bob's Aunts from AZ and MI. Kind of a crowd for this tiny summer house but as I told them several times, this is exactly why I bought that big table and really, we LIKE doing this. But to make a little more room in the kitchen, outsourced the cooking to the spouse who is still enamoured of his new propane grill (yes, the one that took 3 and 1/2 hours to assemble). Nothing super special but I think we wowed them anyway.

My old fail proof family recipe for grilled chicken is simply to baste while cooking with a concotion of just butter, worcestershire sauce, garlic salt and lemon juice, applied generously. These were rather small little fryers from the Petoskey Tannery Creek meat market - but I'm guessing they were raised locally as the flavor was too good (and too expensive) to have been raised in a large scale production facility.

As I am conscious of eating locally as much as possible, was happy to announce to all that we were eating Michigan grown asparagus (MI is third largest asparagus producer in the nation - who knew?). And new potatoes although not local as I didn't make it to the farm market to see if although still early, there might have been any available yet. And for dessert, there was really yummy old style cobbler made from Friske Orchard cherries (in Charlevoix) and wild rhubarb from the vacant lot across the road where we make our big garden. Oh...and of course, home made vanilla ice cream. They were all groaning by the end of the meal, a good sign I think.

And it doesn't get much better than this.

At least I ate well in Las Vegas

I was confined against my will to the Mandalay Bay Hotel for 2 1/2 days this week at a trade show where I knew absolutely no one. I had only about 1 day worth of meetings, so I had plenty of time to eat.

So on the first day I was on my way to register when I noticed the life size photo of a good looking chef at the front of a restaurant called Fleur, just at the edge of the mammoth hotel lobby, but with inviting patio like seating. On closer inspection, the sign said the chef was Hubert Keller, whose name was vaguely familiar enough to suck me in for lunch. (He is actually famous.) Turned out to be a very sophisticated menu and I immediately settled into an uphostered chair in the front row to watch the tourists go by in their T-shirts and flip-flops while I sipped a sinful mid-day glass of prosecco. I restrained myself on the food side and ordered only a pair of appetizers, although the chef is known for creative high concept burgers. My first delivery was a selection of marinated olives in a long ceramic boat - interesting variety and great bar food but really didn't count as a vegetable. My second choice was gnocci, which were superb: light, tender and in a dual puddle of pesto and tomato sauce, each of which were intense in opposite and complementary ways. I seriously considered asking for another portion. But sufficiently fueled & lubricated for a few more hours, my work ethic prevailed and I tacked the trade show for the rest of the afternoon.

Not having been offered dinner by any of the 325 exhibitors at the show (actually I wasn't offered anything by any of them as apparently my badge was color coded to shout "ignore her!") I bravely decided to be my own best date and decided after my restraint at lunch, something substantial was in order. I presented myself at about 6 at StripSteak (is that a burlesque pun?), was seated politely right in the middle of the room which is certainly not always the case for a lone diner in a fancy restaurant, and acquired a solicitous waiter who wanted to know if I was in a hurry to be somewhere else. Embarassingly not, so I enjoyed my very excellent Manhattan and had time to read every word of the menu about 6 times before he came back to take my order. Meanwhile the place filled up and I was able to enjoy easedropping at the tables on either side of me, both obviously filled with people who WERE invited to dinner by someone else at the show.

Under the influence of my cocktail and wanting to do something wild and crazy I ordered the Foie Gras Sliders as an appetizer. I really could have been happy with dinner made up entirely of these little guys because they were amazing. The slices of seared rich and juicy duck liver was combined with very thin slices of fresh pear and it was both rich and fresh at the same time.

Still debating the entree, I was delivered a trio of french fries, sitting up right in a special holder and with a trio of interesting dipping sauces. The waiter said it was compliments of the chef and for a couple minutes I thought it was a special amuse for the charming single woman sitting alone. Shortly after I saw other tables getting the same treat. Nevertheless it was a nice touch and although never before a fan of truffles, I couldn't stop munching on the ones fried in truffle oil and served with a truffle aoli. I'm a fan now.

Finally, after perusing prices on the steaks over and over and trying to suppress my sticker shock, I settled on the mid-price range and confidently ordered a $65 hunk of "American Kobe" dry-aged wood fire roasted rib-eye beef (yes, $65), plus creamed spinach and a glass of Australian Malbec, 2008 please. The steak was indeed perfectly done, kind of crusty on the outside and juicy pink on the inside. Yum. But sadly I left about 3 bites on my plate, too stuffed to finish and no dog to take the leftovers home to.

I did give serious consideration to the desert menu, not being even slightly inhibited by prices any longer. But nothing really called to me and I felt like I had been eating for hours (actually it was almost 2). I asked the by this time semi-frantic very busy waiter for the peppermint-ginger tea to go and he kindly took time to bring me a teapot and drinking glass bound in several napkins to carry some back to my room. In face he was so accommodating I hardly noticed that I had spent about $150 on dinner for me, just me. Hello expense account.

Contentedly I signed the check and said good night to my table neighbors who were probably on their way out to some wild late night casino parties. I quickly made my way back to the elevator banks and my room and my comfy bed.

Rustic Texas Marmalade

We may have created a new holiday tradition. Or I may have just moved my non-cooking friend Bonnie a little bit closer to cooking. Either way, the marmalade we made just before Christmas turned out to be beautiful jewels, lovely sweet/bitter treats, if a tad "rustic".

I used an Alton Brown recipe and as not uncommon to me and many cooks, skipped over the part involving equipment I did not own, ie a mandoline for slicing the oranges paper thin. Actually I didn't even work too hard at slicing the oranges, lemon and grapefruit particularly thin at all. Hence, when you spread this marmalade on your toast, you need to be prepared for some chewing and/or navigating around the big bits. But the flavor in the jelly parts makes it all worthwhile. And think of the fiber!

We used Texas grown organic oranges (not pretty and kinda small) and one gorgeous Rio Grande Valley Texas grapefruit, and a couple lemons - I think some Grand Marnier too (can't remember...). Hence Bonnie's labels: Rustic Texas Marmalade.

Another apple enthusiasm

After using up the Paula Reds (see below) in applesauce, bought the next bag to catch my eye at the local grocery in MI: Ginger Golds from Friske Orchard http://friske.com/ which is about 40 miles from us. Good eating out of hand. Small apples, kinda yellow but not as bright as Granny Smith. Very nice sweet tart flavor. Not something our ancestors enjoyed as are apparently a 20th century apple, created when an orchard crashed in VA due to Hurricane Camille and the owner found an accidental hybrid sometime later. Nice accident.

Beware Californians bearing fake cake

As we were wined and dined at their cottage last summer, our neighbors from the LA area and who spend 4 weeks in Northern Michigan each summer, were invited to dinner at our house last week. Husband Bob "caught" some really nice fresh salmon at the Tiki Fish Market. I roasted the home grown baby potatoes the tile man had gifted us with, ditto some green beans and threw together a lovely green salad with ranch dressing. But the piece de resistance which I was hugely proud of and salivating over all day, was going to be The Driskill's 1886 Room Chocolate Sheet Cake (Driskill = historic Austin TX hotel), which has got to be the best chocolate almost anything I have ever put in my mouth. In case you want to slam down the laptop and go to it right now, here's the recipe from Texas Home Cooking:

CAKE

1 cup unsalted butter

2/3 cup water

1/2 heaping cup cocoa (secret #1: Hersey's dark)

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs beaten lightly

1 cup buttermilk (secret #2)

2 teaspoons vanilla (have used liquer of some sort before eg Cherry Herring, Cointreau)

1 heaping teaspoon baking soda

ICING

1/2 cup unsalted butter

3 heaping tablespoons cocoa

3-4 tablespoons half and half

2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup chopped pecans toasted (yes, you need to do this step)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat over to 350. Grease and flour 9X13 pan.

Melt the butter in a large heavy pan over medium heat. Remove from heat. Add water and cocoa, stir well. Sift together flour, sugar, salt and stir into the chocolate mixture. In another bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, baking soda and add to the chocolate mixture. Pour into cake pan and bake 30 minutes oruntil toothpick comes out clean.

While cake is baking, make the icing. Melt butter with cocoa in another pan (can be smaller) over medium heat. Add the half and half, heat. Mix in the remaining ingredients ie nuts, blend well and remove from heat. Pour over cake while both are warm hopefully covering cake somewhat evenly but icing will flow to lowest points.

Unfortunately our guests arrived - bearing a (so called) chocolate cake! Turns out this was a Weight Watchers version made from (wait for it...) black beans and (I am not kidding) chocolate cake mix! The flavor was OK but the texture was something like chewing on chocolate erasers. I dutifully put a small piece of it next to the real thing on each plate although no one (even the Weight Watcher herself) opted to forego the real thing. Can't ever see making this kind of substitution a lifestyle choice, regardless of the wasteline.

Accidental best lasagna ever

Bought a box of those pre-cooked lasagne noodles on impulse - still don't trust them entirely. Had some left-over fresh tomato sauce from a previous pasta dish. Brought home a pound of ground chuck and some shredded mozzarella. That's as far as the planning went. Had to substitute cottage cheese for the ricotta and threw in a layer of spinach just for fun. Oh...also a little nutmeg on top of the spinach and meat as I've been craving Greek food lately. Stretched some spaghetti sauce with the tomatoes and built some layers. The best improv was that I didn't buy enough mozarella so had to cut little circles from the mozarella snack sticks and threw them over the top along with some shavings from a rind of old parmesan. Voila. Who wudda thought.