Clearing the Decks

((I've been documenting what I cook, mostly for my own edification but perhaps to get people to ask to visit, or ask to come to dinner (really! please ask!) here, but every so often I like to spend a few more words on the subject...))

We pick up our weekly CSA vegetables on Wednesdays, and that means that somewhere around Monday I have to critically examine what lurks in the vegetable drawer and find a way to use it. It isn’t that I’m not liking what we get, but it is still leaning a little towards the greens, and those aren’t the easiest to get my cooking head around, at least creatively. This Monday found a particularly large offering; I’m pretty sure I haven’t cooked enough in the face of Arugula’s Star bounty.

A trip to Publix on Sunday evening had turned up Sockeye salmon, fresh and wild and impossibly red. We bought it, remembering a summer in Redwood Shores where the local Nob Hill had it on sale for a week and we ate it exclusively, somehow not tiring of it even after the cat progressed from begging for scraps to refusing bits of actual flesh. It was as good as I remembered, broiled with a little bit of tarragon mustard and local honey, and I missed Martini weaving furrily around my ankles, asking for just a little bit.

I sliced yellow summer squash thinly and put them in a foil packet with a lemony herb so fresh that it bled into spicy, olive oil and a healthy sprinkle of the German herb salad mix I’ve been keeping on the counter. Those went in with the salmon while I tackled three bunches of young fennel, feathery tops and all, in a chef’s pan with olive oil. I wanted to add lemon but Mike had co-opted them for Pisco Sours, so I sliced the rind finely and tossed it into the pan with a spoonful of sugar and kept stirring until the whole mess was wilted together and sporting brownish black edges.

The peaches we’d bought for flavoring vodka demanded attention, too, so I picked out the most ripe candidates, peeled and sliced them and dumped them into a baking dish, topped with a little sweet short dough. I’ve always read that you should make sweet pastry dough by mushing the butter into the flour with your fingers, and this has always seemed a hassle to me that I have avoided with melting butter and stirring and using a mechanical device, but I didn’t want to dirty anything else so I used my fingers. Surprise, surprise, it was easy, quick and resulted in really light short crust dropped over of the peaches.

I made a salad, too, with (what else) CSA greens and radishes, a few dried black currants thrown in for sweetness, but the lettuce was too bitter even for me, and I ended up picking the currants and radishes out and ignoring the lettuce. I’ve been reading about grilled romaine salads recently, and maybe this lettuce has a date with the new grill, but it might be finding its way to the Piggers. They’re certainly asking noisily for fresh greens, and they aren’t picky.

I’m not quite used to cooking in this kitchen yet. I have so much space, but it seems like once I start cooking I’m out of space quickly. I miss being able to chop right on the counter, and I’m never sure if I should be using the island the way I am (facing out) or the other way, making it convenient to the sink. The expanse of counter baffles me, and I feel like things get marooned out on it and make it crowded, so I’m always shoved into little bits and corners. Having worked in a small space for years, I’m still learning how to best make use of this big one. I’ll have plenty of materials to practice with soon enough – CSA pickup is in two hours…

Here’s what we drank – Mike is calling it a Pisco Inferno, and I’m pretty pleased that I spotted the powdered egg whites on the shelf that made it possible!

1 1/2 oz Pisco
1/2 egg white
1 oz lemon juice
1 oz 4:3 Simple Syrup - 1 oz = 1 tsp sugar at this ratio

Combine all ingredients in a shaker and shake more than you think you need to - you are working up a heady foam. Pour into rocks glasses filled with ice.  Garnish with Angostura Bitters. ((He’s just taken delivery of a Misto he plans to load with bitters and flame onto the surface of the drink, per instructions from Jeffrey Morganthaler’s blog, a place I can see is going to lead us to all sorts of fun and trouble. If he (and the house) remain unexploded, it should be fun.))