The road to Copake

I've been thinking a lot lately about how we ended up in Copake. Whenever I think through the whole process of how we got here, it becomes a very long story that is hard to tell in one blog post (so stay tuned for a few posts that will tell the tale). For the most part though, we bought the house because we knew that as Mom got older she would need a safe place to live, where someone would be able to keep an eye on her, and she wouldn't have to pay rent or a mortgage. She didn't want to live in the city, and we weren't ready to move to the country full time. So we came up with the idea of pooling our money and buying a two-family "weekend" house. Mom lives there full-time, and we visit most weekends. So far it has worked out well. We see Mom more often than we used to, and she and Vivi get to spend a lot of quality time together. It's great to see them watching cartoons together, baking muffins, and planting flowers in the yard. Things that I didn't get to do with my grandmother.

I did, however, grow up in a multigenerational family. Shortly after my family relocated from Long Island to upstate, my grandfather retired and he joined us. As my sisters and I got bigger, our small ranch house got pretty tight for all of us. There were times when it was difficult to have that many people in one house, and there definitely times that I wished we could be a "normal" family of just my dad, mom, and two sisters. But I found myself thinking about Pop-Pop a lot lately. He lived most of his life in the Bronx and settled into country life in his 60s. From my perspective as a 6-year old, he seemed to fit right in. He and my mother built a small barn for the ponies we decided to raise. he and my dad put up the fencing, and he had a pond dug behind the house. He sort of became a gentleman farmer. While I was struggling with the chicken wire for my garden fence, I found myself thinking about what he had accomplished, and I was wishing he was still around so I could ask him a few questions.

So it was with a smile on my face that I recently read Ben Greenman's piece in the NY Times Magazine about his parents' wanting to buy a two-family house with him and his family in Brooklyn. It made me think about growing up with a grandparent in the house, and about Vivi being able to live part time with her grandmother. Fred and I had many discussions about sharing a house with my mother and how it would all work out. Six months later I wouldn't change a thing. So Ben, take the plunge. You and your whole family will be happy you did it.

Picking from the garden

Wow, it's amazing how much can grow in two weeks. That's how long it's been since we were last in Copake. And boy did the radishes and lettuces go crazy. The whole garden did. The tomatoes have a few flowers, the peas needed to be staked up, the carrots are really looking beautiful, and the zucchini is getting ready to stretch out and take over the back part of the garden. Very exciting stuff.



But what was equally exciting was eating the first salad from the garden. Some romaine, a little bit of arugula, and another blue/green lettuce that I don't even know what it is. I shredded a radish over the top and then drizzled a little vinaigrette. Simple and delicious. With a turkey burger from the grill, it was exactly what summer should taste like.

Cherry Chomper

Ever since Vivi was a little baby I've been so paranoid of her choking on her food. I would always cut grapes in half (I still do sometimes!) , cut carrots with jagged edges so they won't get caught in her throat. And forget about hot dogs. She ate her first one about a month ago. But don't get me started on fruit with pits. Oh, the nightmares I've had about cherries. That is until I met Cherry Chomper. This adorable little cherry pitter is the perfect tool for a chocking-obsessed parent. Jut pop the cherry in Chomper's mouth and have your kid push down on his smiling little head. The pit is safely discarded to the little cup on the bottom and the cherry is a pop-in-your-mouth, safe treat!

Happy cherry season!

Starting a new job

Since Cookie magazine closed last October I've been working part time. I had a great schedule: three weeks in the office with one full week off. It gave me time to do things at Vivi's school (the last two months have been spent producing the school's yearbook, which just came in from the printer!), plus plan the garden upstate. Next week, however, I start a new, full-time job. I like to think that certain life events present themselves to us for a reason that may not be very clear at first. This job seemed like such a life event. I wasn't looking for a new job; it found me.

I have to confess that I was a little apprehensive about giving up my relaxed work schedule, but the challenges and rewards (health insurance, anyone?) won out. The first thing that my family and several friends asked me was if I would keep up the blog. I was surprised by the question. Of course I plan to keep this up, I really enjoy doing this. In fact, I think working longer hours will actually make me a little bit more organized. I won't have the luxury of one week a month to go upstate to check on the house, the garden, and Mom. Instead I will have to really plan my weekends around chores (weeding, weeding, weeding) and the farmers markets. It will also help me become better at meal planning. I anticipate some late hours in the beginning, so I'm going to rely on Fred even more to make dinners, and to post on some of our dinner successes and failures.

When I first started writing this blog, my idea was to cull various recipe newsletters to take the challenge out of making a kid-friendly, healthy dinner every night. Since I bought the house upstate my focus has shifted to planning a garden and trying to eat locally. With this new job, I think my original mission will come to the forefront of the posts, while our gardening and attempts at a locavore lifestyle will be woven through the writing.

For the next few weeks, the posts may not be as frequent as they have been, but I hope our story stays interesting, and we can inspire you to try a new recipe, plant a garden, or eat locally. Stay tuned.

Roast pork with bok choy and noodles

Well my recipe for the leftover pork turned out pretty good (I wish I could say the same for the picture. Yikes!). So here is dinner #5 from one boneless pork loin. The really great thing about this dish is that it takes about 15 minutes to make. I shouted out the instructions to Fred as I was heading to Vivi's room to read a book and tuck her in for the night. When I came out, it was done.

Here's what he did.

Cut 4 of the leftover slices of pork into strips. Separate the leaves of one bunch of bok choy and rinse with cold water. Heat a glug of sesame oil in a pan over medium heat, and grate a little fresh ginger into the hot oil. Stir for about one minute. Add the pork and coat with the oil and ginger. Add about 1/4 cup of soy sauce and let that steam for a minute, then add a cup of chicken broth. Bring to a boil and then place the bok choy on top of the pork and sprinkle some sliced mushrooms on top. Cover and steam for about 3 minutes. When the bok choy starts to wilt add some soba noodles to the pan and stir through the hot broth. Cover again and cook for 3-5 minutes. Done.



I added a little bit of Chinese chili paste to the pan when Fred wasn't looking, and it ended up being a little too spicy for him. I loved it. Leave that out for the kids. If we hadn't started dinner so late, this would have been a hit with Vivi. I have plenty of pork in the freezer, so she may get a chance to try it.

Strawberries!!

'Tis the season for u-pick strawberries. I went strawberry picking as a kid and I remember eating more berries than I put in the basket. Berry juice would drip down my chin and the sun would beat down on my neck. I would be hot and sticky but not care in the least. Well, Vivi seems to be following right in my footsteps.


Although it was gray and rainy most of the weekend, we still got out to Thompson Finch Farm and picked our own berries. I couldn't believe it when Fred said it was his first time to pick his own strawberries. Within half an hour we picked 10 pounds. Not a bad haul considering we had two novices along for the ride.

A few hours later...



strawberries with sour-cream biscuits.

1 pork loan = 5 dinners

I bought a boneless pork loin from Fresh Direct, the online grocery delivery service in NYC, last week. My cousins were coming upstate for dinner and I thought I would grill the pork with some asparagus. The piece of meat I bought was from the "bulk" section, which sounds pretty nasty. (Note to Fresh Direct: consider changing the name to something a little more appetizing, such as "Entertaining Portions" or "Food for a Crowd.") When it was delivered I almost fell over. It was 8.5 pounds, and I wish I had taken a picture of it before I prepped it, because it was as long as my kitchen counter!

I brought it upstate and slapped it on the counter and just stared at it. I figured I would cut it into two roasts. Grill one this weekend and freeze the other one. Then Mom suggested that I grill one and then cut the other half into some boneless chops and a smaller roast. Genius! Thanks for the great idea Mom. In fact, I ended up cutting eight chops, gave two to Mom to put in her freezer so she can use them for a midweek dinner, and I froze the other six for a weekend bbq in a few weeks. The roast went in the freezer too.

For inspiration for this weekend's dinner I turned to David Tanis's A Platter of Figs. Fred gave me this gorgeous book for Christmas and, believe it or not, I was yet to make a recipe from it. It was a coffee-table book in our apartment for most of the winter. I found myself flipping through the pages as I watched Season 1 of Mad Men on DVD (I can't believe I missed this show when it started. What was I watching instead?), and fantasized about the dinners I would serve. Well, fast forward six months and it's time to start cooking that fantasy dinner.

Tanis comes from Chez Panisse and his approach to food is so simple and pure (check out this great review of the book on apartmenttherapy.com). The pork was drizzled with olive oil, smothered in crushed garlic and fresh rosemary, and dusted with salt and pepper. He uses fennel seeds and the fronds from fresh fennel as a bed to roast the pork on, but I didn't see any fennel at the farmers market, so I skipped that part (next time, I promise). It was still delicious. Just as I was about to turn the grill on, the skies opened up and the rain came down so hard and for so long. Trapped inside, I simply put the roast in a pan with about five potatoes cut into cubes and popped it in the oven for 45 minutes. So delicious.


I didn't find the fennel or asparagus at the farmers market (more about this in another post) but I did get a bag of braising greens, which I made with some garlic, and white wine. I was afraid that the beet greens, dandelion, and kale might be a little bitter, so I added a tiny splash of apple juice to sweeten it up. I probably could have skipped that since the wine was enough. I sliced the pork and served it on a bed of the braised greens. Roasted potatoes on the side.

We had a great visit with the cousins and ended up not getting up from the table for about three hours. Dinner turned into dessert (homemade rice pudding from Mom), after which, they headed home and I went to take a short nap on the couch. It was a really good weekend.

But for those of you paying attention to my math skills, you may notice that I have only come up with four dinners from that original pork loin. Well tonight I am using the leftovers from dinner with the cousins to make sliced pork with bok choy and soba noodles. If it comes out as good as I'm hoping (I'm making this recipe up!), then I'll post it tomorrow.

Here's the recipe as I made it.
(Adapted from David Tanis's A Platter of Figs)

5 lb boneless pork loin
5 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 tbs pepper
salt
olive oil
2 rosemary sprigs, roughly chopped plus additional sprigs for roasting

Flip the roast upside down and insert the garlic slices into the slits of the meat. (I helped this along by creating a few shallow slits with a sharp knife.) Sprinkle with pepper and season generously with salt. Add a good glug of olive oil and the rosemary. Massage the seasonings into the meat.

Line a roasting pan with some more rosemary sprigs and rest the meat on top. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or up to overnight. Bring back to room temperature before cooking.

Preheat oven to 425°. Roast the pork for 45 minutes (1 hour if you're using a bone-in cut), or until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 130°.

Let the meat rest between 15 and 30 minutes before slicing.

Enjoy!

Homemade Pizza part 2

A few weeks ago I posted about making homemade pizzas and our favorite sauce. A friend pointed out that I did not mention the importance of the cheese. For good reason: the pizza pictured for that post was made with regular old mozzarella. Whenever we have the chance we go to Casa Della Mozzarella (604 East 187th Street) in the Bronx and get their homemade cheese. It is so hard to describe how incredibly delicious this cheese is. It's creamy soft, slightly salty and sweet at the same time. It melts on your tongue. Well worth the trip to Arthur Avenue.


The biggest problem we have when using it is that we start nibbling it before it goes on the pie and suddenly half of it is gone and we don't have enough for the pizza.

Fred made a pie with the Casa cheese the other night, and we snapped some pics. Enjoy!

Sunday Supper: Arroz con Pollo

Sundays come too quickly at the Copake house. There's always something we didn’t get to—planting the cucumber seeds in the garden or the daisies next to the stone wall. Carl, Vivi, and I like to prolong our stay as much as possible so as to get the most out of the house and the yard. We usually leave after dinner, around 6:00 or 7:00. This past weekend we had one major chore that had to get done—sweeping and mopping all the floors. Every floor in the house, including the kitchen, is wood so this is no small feat. When it comes to a division of labor, Carl usually does more of the cooking and I do more of the cleaning. We both find our respective duties therapeutic. When he asked me would I prefer to cook or clean, he sensed my hesitation and immediately volunteered for the less desirable of the tasks. He gave me the chef’s toque and a recipe of arroz con pollo.

Carl’s mom Kay lives in the apartment attached to the house and is part of our dinner planning each weekend. Sometimes she even convinces us to let her cook for a change. The chicken dinner was a joint effort of sorts. Kay had chicken thighs in her fridge that she donated to the recipe. Carl had made some chicken stock weeks earlier that I was able to use, and the onion, peppers, lemon, canned tomatoes, and rice came from the local Super Y grocery store in Great Barrington, Mass. It’s a fairly simple recipe involving browning the thighs for about 5 minutes a side, followed by adding your vegetables (peppers, onions) to soften, the stock, and the rice last. This should be a one-pot meal but I didn’t have a Dutch oven to go from stove to oven. I browned the chicken in batches in a cast-iron skillet. Up to the point of adding the stock and rice, I continued to use the skillet. Once I had to put the chicken back into the mixture for cooking in the oven, I transferred all the ingredients to a Pyrex baking dish. This worked totally fine. I covered it with tin foil and baked for 30 minutes. The rice softened perfectly and the chicken became flavorful sucking up the juice of the tomatoes, the stock, and the flavor of the peppers, onions, and garlic.

As the oven timer buzzed, Carl just finished mopping the kitchen floor—the last one of the house. We all sat down to eat (rather slowly) enjoying our last minutes at the house before packing up the car. Kay volunteered to clean as we made our rounds of closing windows and packing bags, including our leftovers, for the trip home. This week we didn’t leave until 8:00 p.m. Where does the time go?

Here's the recipe. (Adapted from the ivillage.com recipe newsletter)
Serves 4

2 tbsp olive oil
8 chicken thighs
1 onion, finely sliced
2 red bell peppers
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
one 14.5-oz. can chopped tomatoes, drained
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1 cup long-grain rice
pinch of saffron threads
3 1/4 cups chicken stock
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
salt and freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup frozen peas, rinsed


Preheat the oven to 350°F. Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a large flameproof casserole dish over high heat. Add the chicken thighs and brown, turning once, about 5 minutes. Transfer chicken to a plate and set aside.

Pour the remaining 1 tbsp oil to the casserole and reduce the heat to medium. Add the onion and cook about 3 minutes, until softened. Stir in the green and red peppers and garlic and cook for 5 minutes, until they soften. Add the tomatoes, smoked paprika, thyme, oregano, and bay leaf, then stir in the rice. Stir for 1-2 minutes.

Crumble in the saffron, then stir in the stock, tomato paste, and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.
Return the chicken thighs to the casserole, nestling them in the rice. Cover and bake for 15 minutes.

Add the peas and bake for 10 minutes more, or until the rice is tender and has completely absorbed the cooking liquid. Serve immediately, while still hot.

Tomatoes and herbs are finally planted

The weather was crazy this weekend, what with a tornado warning in upstate New York. But we managed to get to the nursery for the tomato plants that I had planned to plant last week, and in the midst of a torrential downpour, I got the plants in the ground.

We picked up some herb plants too. Planting the cukes and zucchini got rained out, so Mom's going to get them in this week. Thanks Mom! I'm finally starting to feel as if the garden will really take shape. I just need to keep weeding and weeding and weeding.

It's going to be worth the effort. And having Vivi at my side while weeding has been great inspiration. The radishes and lettuces are growing nicely, and Vivi's getting curious about how they're growing and when we can eat them. That curiosity is exactly what I was hoping for. I just hope she'll eat the veggies. If only I could plant a mac and cheese plant, all be will happy in Viviland.

Is it summer yet?

The transition from one season to another is always a time of flux. And not just in terms of the weather, but what we eat and what we crave. As soon as the temperature starts to rise I immediately have visions of corn on the cob and tomato salad. The truth is that those are our culinary rewards for surviving the heat and humidity of summer. They're at their peak in August and September, and are so worth the wait. But it's hard to eat seasonally. What with strawberries from California and corn from Florida available all year long, why should we have to wait?

This spring we tried to stick to a more seasonal approach to eating veggies and gobbled up pea shoots, asparagus, and some recently sprouted radishes. But they aren't always available at the Key Food in our neighborhood in NYC, and we end up buying what's in front of us. I have moments of guilt when I buy that mix of gourmet tomatoes from Mexico or California. I think about how they were shipped across the country and how my carbon footprint just got gigantic.

I made a salad from that box of tomatoes, and although it was quite tasty, my guilt was weighing down on me. Does anyone else have this type of food anxiety: eat local versus eat organic versus eat seasonal? Or should we just be focused on eating healthy foods that are available to us regardless of the season or their provenance? Any thoughts?

Chicken cutlets, summer style

Fred has a favorite, little Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side—Coppolla's—which he swears has the best Chicken Parmesan in the city. I, on the other hand, think that their Chicken Milanese is out of this world. The crispy, fried, extra-thin chicken cutlet covered with a mix of greens and chopped tomatoes. Mmm. My mouth is watering just thinking of it.

Since I had tons of leftover arugula I decided to make some Chicken Milanese at home. It is so easy to do, and so easy to alter based on what you have in your crisper. Fred's sister also made some last week and she used fresh basil and tomatoes instead of arugula. You could substitute mesclun salad, fresh spinach, or chop some flat-leaf parsley and toss that with tomatoes. There are no hard rules with this dish.

Start with your favorite recipe for chicken cutlets. This can be done ahead of time, since they don't need to be hot when eaten. In fact, I like to eat this with the chicken just warmed a little, kinda like room temperature. That's what makes it so perfect for summer. Then toss a mix of chopped greens and tomatoes with a glug of olive oil and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar in a bowl. You can use your hands for this part. Put a cutlet on each plate and then top with a handful of the salad mix (for the kids, you might want to put the salad on the side). Lick fingers and enjoy the taste of summer.

Crafts with the one-armed-bandit

Well, we've been very busy lately, and not with the garden or cooking. Poor Vivi had a scooter mishap and broke her right arm. She's in a giant, hot-pink cast and getting very frustrated with only having her left arm available to do all the things that a five-year old needs to get done (bike riding, coloring, eating spaghetti.

I tried different activities to keep her busy this past weekend (and no, playing croquet was not a good idea!), and we came up with the idea of making vegetable stakes for the garden.

Vivi was a trooper and did her best at writing out the names of the veggies with her left hand. Here's the proof.



And check out those radishes in the background!