Dinner and a drink

Tomatoes and cucumber from the roof, basil in the pesto from the terrace and roof, our summer garlic, too.

Somebody else's pine nuts (Spain, not China; Chinese ones give me that horrible two-week bitter mouth syndrome).

Drink, Noilly Prat and splash of St Germain, lemon, ice.

Summer.

Spot of bother

Why did she pick these tomatoes while green? they ask. Tsk.

That's why! she says, and gnashes her teeth. 

Blossom end rot. *&%%$!!*^%!

Cherry tomatoes are fine. Truth is, I am not an experienced tomato grower. I'm more a perennial, herb, shrub and fruit sort of person. Ahem. Yes, I know. Tomatoes are fruit. Picky, picky fruit.

Fruit bad, so no picky!

Funny thing is, I started this 'farm' last July - very late to start anything, I thought, apologetically.  And I was harvesting produce at about the same time, last year. Except that this year I planted in...April? March (seeds)...Lesson. Not worth it. I understand why I did  it. I couldn't wait! I was itching to start.

The aubergine (eggplant, OK) are very happy. These are growing in my milk crates lined with plastic bags with holes punched  in the bottom. Wonderful containers.

I have four Sugar Baby watermelons and this one is about bowling ball size (I have never been bowling). I do not have a single Charentais melon. I still remember the hope, the pride, the anticipation of sweet melons when planting out those precociously successful seedlings (the watermelons took forever and sickened with cold). I will remove them next week and plant something else. 

'Thing' wrestles with the cucumber. I just want to see how big it can get. They have produced very little and every third one is more bitter than the waters at Marah.

And later we are off to Fire Island for a short weekend. I look forward to seeing what the beach plums and wild cherries are doing in the Sunken Forest. I have been threatened with paddle board lessons. We get to ride on another ferry. I like boats.

Have a good weekend, wherever you are, whatever you do.

Purslane salad

...recipe for, is next door at 66 Square Feet (the Food).

I am learning some interesting things about purslane, lamb's quarters and pigweed. They may be natural anti- depressants, along with lettuce! Amino acids...

No wonder a little zip zaps through me when I eat a spoonful of morog.

Prospect Park Litter Mob, August 2nd

The next Litter Mob will be on August 2nd at 9am, sharp. Please spread the word to concerned citizens and lovers of chipmunks (there are dozens) who fancy a walk in the woods. And let me know if you are able to help.

Directions and the Litter Mob blog...[warning, images there are X-rated. It is what it is.]

Red Fruit

I may have an addiction problem. I can't stop eating the red fruits of July.

(Raspberries, red currants and bourbon cherries are from Wilklow Orchards.)

The currants are now three very big pots of jam (with raspberries).

Cherries. I bottled some with bourbon, and then I made my third cherry clafoutis of summer.

 One.

Two.

Three.

Gantry Plaza State Park

A new country. It's called Queens.

If you're from out of town, to orient you, we are looking west, across the East River(which-is-a-strait). The white circle opposite is a satellite dish at the foot of the UN.

We had a fabulous, wild ride back home on a bucking East River Ferry, with a black storm chasing us down the whole way. 

It was too bumpy for good pictures but what a view. Lightning shattered the dark clouds north of us and as we arrived at the Fulton Landing below the Brooklyn Bridge the storm broke above us, whipping trees sideways and the rain around us.

New York keeps some surprises up its sleeve, and this was a good one.

The woman who picnicked too much

The inelegant S shape on the left is a wonderfully fresh herb sauce that I made for our poached chicken breasts for a recent roof picnic, the day the temperatures started to go back down. Basil, parsley, cilantro, mint, lemon juice, a little sugar some salt, lots of pepper, and mayonnaise. The eggs were stuffed with their yolks into which I'd mashed some parmesan, a drop of soy, and a drip of lemon. My version of thousand island dressing for the iceberg - mayonnaise again (I am going to throw the bottle away. It is dangerous stuff), a squirt of ketchup (ditto), Worcestershire sauce, cooked egg yolk, some vinegar, a cornichon in lieu of pickle relish. Interesting. Not bad. But not really my kind of thing.

I had overchilled the prosecco - you get paranoid about cold things when the heat crawls above 100', even once - so we had prosecco and juneberry syrup slushies.

This time the cat remained with us, not panting. He likes picnics.

Perfection

On a very hot day last week, on a break for lunch from planting a terrace, this beautiful espresso was made for me. The cup had belonged to a grandmother, and the porcelain was of the eggshell kind.

Eating pigweed

It's not going too far to say that this is my favourite cooked green. At the moment. Above, a bowl of morog.  My explanation, story and more pictures at Edible Manhattan.

Slurp.

It's not fair to label this as foraged, because I picked it from the terrace. Cultivate your own, and do not over-fertilize (stock - horses, cows, sheep, etc - can get very sick from eating a lot of amaranth from fertilized fields. The plant converts nitrogen in fertilizer to nitrates, which are poisonous in large doses).

But I could not eat this bowlful fast enough.

The crostini and pigweed bredie recipes are next door at 66 Square Feet (the Food).

In other news: It's raining! A soft pitter patter. The temperature is 73'F. I feel quite giddy, and consequently had to bake another cherry clafoutis...

Neighbours

I left this bowl of Sunday strawberries outside our neighbour's door to say thank you. We share a landing, and we share a roof, and I know from experience that someone padding about on bare feet on the roof sounds like an invasion in the rooms below. So I let him know about the farming activities early in the year and asked him to tell us if they were too noisy. He said no problem. He's a nice, quiet neighbour. We've had some real doozies. Gillian from New Jersey whose dad paid her rent and a voice like a high-pitched saw meeting ground glass. The couple who slammed every door they had and did their laundry at 3am. And she yelped. High sudden yelps that made you jump out of your skin. The girl who talked and talked and talked and showed me all her tattoos. All of them. Everywhere. She rescued feral cats. The student who worked all day and studied law all night whose wife wailed,  I didn't sign up for this, you said you were going to help me dye my hair tonight! He said, in a voice breaking, I'm doing this for you. She cried a lot. Her hair was blond.

But our current neighbour is wonderful. We don't even know he is there. I'm not sure he can say the same of us. We are perfect, of course. But our cat sings.

Artichokes Barigoule and Some Men

Next door at 66 Square Feet (the Food)

Meatopia 2011

Having experienced recently what happens when you arrive at 7.30 for an edible event that runs from 5.30 - 9.30 (Food Runs Out), we arrived at Pier Five pretty promptly at 5.30pm. The so-far-undeveloped pier, part of the Brooklyn Bridge Park, whose Pier One we visit regularly for picnics,  was bare bones concrete and but anticipating a crowd - many barriers and a lot of staff, far outnumbering arrivals at this point.

After an hour it had filled considerably. It was extremely hot. Hat girl came well-equipped.

April Bloomfield (The Breslin) (nice website) had the good sense to have flowers. This minute touch made a huge difference in the massive, undressed space. A handful of other stalls did the same. We made this our first stop. Whole hog, served shredded on sliders, with slaw and beans. Good. Happy.

Our second stop was at the opposite end of the pier, at Tertulia, for Seamus Mullen's (ex-Boqueria) whole sheep, of which we ate a delicious sliver on pita bread, with a garlicky yogurt. I think. It was too good for a picture. Just three days ago there was an open call on Craigslist for line cooks at Tertulia, which has not opened yet. Free WiFi, cider on tap. Sounds good.

Here I practise censorhsip. 

Picture an entire steer on a bier-type platform, grinning teeth and face in front, tail at rear. OK? If you really want to see it I am quite sure it is on the web already. Or I'll email you a copy. I just couldn't.

Instead I show you the innocuous-looking sliders that the steer became, provided by Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors, one of the sponsors of the event. All the staff, mostly men, wore these T-shirts. Gee, cute. Sigh. In a way the no-apologies whole roast animal, the stupid T-shirts, kind of reminded us what we were doing. I passed on the beef. I know, fickle. But there was a lot of testosterone around this animal.

Custom-made Meatopia sausages, highlighting Dickson's Farmstand Meats (mislabeled on our maps as Dickson Farmstead Meat)...

Commerce's (irritating website) chicken breast with croutons and "super jus". Super tender chicken breasts. I don't know that there was any foie gras there though we did encounter a liver-like sliver of something. It was really delicious, regardless, with whipped potato to suck up the jus. Slaving over hot burners with no shade...There are either a lot of sunstruck cooks or very well lubricated ones in Brooklyn tonight.

Taking a break near the water.

Ha: Public's (lickable website) blood sausage waffle. Vince said it tasted like chocolate. You can read Michelin-starred chef Brad Farmerie's article on blood here, in Food Arts.

And I had a problem. I was getting full.

But we still made a  bee line for those Ilili (deeply annoying website) lamb ribs. Pretty crispy, with a really good side salad of arugula and little black olives and red onion in lemony dressing...meat and leaves go together perfectly. The ribs were rather sweet, so the sumac and z'atar ('zataar' on the Meatopia website menu) were in there with...pomegranate molasses? Not sure.

When we left, hot and stuffed, there were no lines but perhaps more people arrived later. At home, watering the roof farm (where my tomatoes have blossom end rot, yay), smoke wafted up and over the rooftops.

We lay down and licked lemonade popsickles.

Meatopia

Vegetarians, avert your eyes. Really.

While my thoughts might wander naturally to crisp cold lettuce and iced soups at the moment, we are headed instead into the meat and heat of Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 5, just round the corner (whose transformation I am curious to see - from concrete pad on the river to meat palace?), for Meatopia 2011.

I was lucky enough to win a pair of pricey tickets from Zemanta, courtesy of Tin Dizdarevic (Facebook is good for some things, it seems). Our tickets allow us to taste from all the participating chefs, and buy our own beer. In return I am more than happy to do a little PR. Meat is right up my alley, and I would never have forked over $140 for this. Thank you, Tin!

Last year's event was criticized for interminable lines and food running out and this year the organizers are seasoned food pros who have almost doubled the number of chefs and cut down on the number of tickets available. We shall see.

Here is a full list of chefs cooking at Meatopia - and with restaurants ranging from Breslin to Balthazar presenting a meaty dish each, I have to say, my curiosity is piqued. This is some line up. On paper (or on screen), it looks brilliant.

On my Holy Cow I Have to Eat That list:

Spit-roasted whole sheep (that's a taste of home, almost); Barbecued whole Mulfefoot (...er...) hog; Crispy Pig’s Head Torchon with Green Beans and Horseradish; Pork Rilletes, Country Pate, Tongue Salad and an Assortment of Pickles and Spreads (the search for the perfect rillettes continues); Texas-Style Barbecued Mangalitsa Pork Belly (yes!); Sumac and Zataar-Spiced Grilled Lamb Ribs with Lebanese Salad (lamb ribs, at long bloody last, I thought it was just me); Whole Smoked Hampshire Hog (two roasted hogs for comparison's sake, of course); Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Chipotle BBQ Sauce and Creamy Coleslaw (predictable but perhaps necessary).

On the, Um...I Don't Know But I'm Curious list:

Grilled chicken hearts with burnt eggplant puree (low overheads?); Black Pudding Waffles with Red Wine Poached Pears and Whipped Foie Gras Butter (gulp...make Vince eat it first); Roast Baby Goat with Arugula and Sweet Onion Salad (I have to eat goat sometime).

On the Pass, It's Way Too Hot list:

“Doomtopia” Stew -  Taiwanese-Style Pig Foot, Oxtail, and Beef Cheek Stew (98'F. Stew? No); Sausage and Bacon-Packed Pork Pie (pie, mid summer...meh).

The WTF?! list: Carolina Whole Ossabaw Hog BBQ with Field Pea and Ramp Chow Chow, Cooked Over Wood Embers and Pig Bone Charcoal (Pig. Bone. Charcoal???...you just lost me).

What is chow chow anyway (...aside from, oh dear, dog, that is; now that would be ground breaking) - it appears twice.

And if I were going out to dinner tonight and ordered something as a main course? Why, the quail right below, top of the list.

The menu:

Robert Newton
Seersucker
Bacon and Sorghum-Glazed Quail with Watermelon-Sweet Corn Salad

Seamus Mullen
Tertulia
Spit-Roasted Whole Sheep

April Bloomfield
The Breslin Bar & Dining Room
Barbecued Whole Mulefoot Hog

Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo
Animal
Grilled Chicken Hearts with Burnt Eggplant Puree

Eddie Huang
Baohaus
“Doomtopia” Stew: Taiwanese-Style Pig Foot, Oxtail, and Beef Cheek Stew

Yuhi Fujinaka
Bar Basque
Hampshire Hog Seven Ways

Naomi Pomeroy
Beast
Braised Beef Cheeks with Sour Cherry Glaze and Rustic Summer Herb Salad

Serafim Ferdeklis
bZgrill
Cypriot-Style Pork Gyro

Aaron Sanchez
Centrico
Whole Goat Monterrey-Style Tacos with Pickled Onion

Nate Appleman
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Chorizo Tostada with Tomatillo Salsa and Queso Fresco

Harold Moore
Commerce
Roasted Chicken with Foie Gras Croutons, Potato Puree, and Super Jus

Eduard Frauneder and Wolfgang Ban
Edi & The Wolf
Crispy Pig’s Head Torchon with Green Beans and Horseradish

Julia Jaksic
Employees Only
Grilled Cevapi (Croatian Sausage) with Pita, Kajmak, Onions and Tomatoes

Scott Smith
Rub
Double-Smoked Pastrami Burnt Ends

Ron Silver
Bubby’s Pie Company
Sausage and Bacon-Packed Pork Pie

RL King
Hundred Acres
Pork Rilletes [sic], Country Pate, Tongue Salad and an Assortment of Pickles and Spreads

Orhan Yegen
Bi Lokma
Turkish-Style Lamb Breast Stuffed with Fragrant Rice

Jo Ng
RedFarm
Kowloon-Style Beef Short Rib Tart

Floyd Cardoz
North End Grill
Roast Baby Goat with Arugula and Sweet Onion Salad

Anthony Goncalves
42
Lamb Belly with Toasted Couscous, Radish, Piri Piri

Franklin Becker
Abe & Arthur’s
Grilled Kalamansi-Spiced Chicken Thighs Served with Scallion-Tomatillo Salsa

Amanda Freitag
The Food Network’s Chopped
Jamaican Jerk Chicken Thighs with Grilled Green Onion and New York Cornbread

Robbie Richter/David Shuttenberg
Big Apple BBQ/Dickson’s Farmstand Meats
“Meatopia” Sausage

Charles Grund, Jr.
Hill Country Barbecue
Texas-Style Barbecued Mangalitsa Pork Belly

Chris Hastings
Hot And Hot Fish Club
Elk shoulder Crepenettes with Olives, Clementines, Almonds and Frissee Salad with Anchovy Vinaigrette

Sean Brock
Husk (Charleston, SC)
Carolina Whole Ossabaw Hog BBQ with Field Pea and Ramp Chow Chow, Cooked Over Wood Embers and Pig Bone Charcoal

Ignacio Mattos
Costillar a las Brasas: Whole Roasted Veal Ribcage and Sweetbreads with Chimichurri

Philippe Massoud
ilili Restaurant
Sumac and Zataar-Spiced Grilled Lamb Ribs with Lebanese Salad

Michael Psilakis
Kefi 
Greek Lamb Offal Mixed Grill

Ludo Lefebrve
LudoBites
Korean Marinated Hanger Steak with Goat Cheese Chantilly and Cauliflower Paper

Aaron Israel
Mile End
Bahn Juif – Jewish Bahn Mi – Petcha, Ground Veal and Garlic Chopped Liver

Ben Del Coro
Fossil Farms
Smoked Elk & Bacon Sausage w/ sweet and sour onion relish
Smoked Duck & Apricot Sausage w/ scallion spread
Smoked Wild Boar & Chile Sausage w/ chimichurri
Fermin Iberico de Bellota Costillas (spare ribs)

Ariane Daguin
D’Artagnan
Duck Tenders with Foie Gras Sauce

Fred Donnelly
Mo Gridder’s World Famous BBQ
Hand-Pulled Pork with Cherry Smoked and Dry Rubbed Baby Back Ribs

Eric Johnson
Mr. Bobo’s World Famous Traveling Allstars! 
Barbecue Braised Beef Ribs with Bourbon-Infused Sweet Potatoes and Cabbage

Floyd Cardoz
North End Grill 
Roast Baby Goat with Arugula and Sweet Onion Salad

Michael White/Bill Dorrler
Osteria Morini 
Spit-Roasted Hampshire Porchetta with Sage, Rosemary and Lemon

Brad Farmerie
Public 
Black Pudding Waffles with Red Wine Poached Pears and Whipped Foie Gras Butter

Bobby Hellen
resto 
Veal Belly Gyros with Grilled Radish

Adam Sappington
The Country Cat Dinner House & Bar 
Crispy Pig Head Stuffed with Scrapple on a Buttermilk Biscuit with Oregon Chow Chow

Craig Koketsu
The Hurricane Club 
Grilled Duck Magret with Green Papaya

Daniel Holzman
The Meatball Shop 
Spicy Lamb Sloppy Joes

Sam Barbieri
Waterfront Ale House 
Maple-Cured and Smoked Wild Boar Ham and Belly with Home-Made Mustard and Pickles

John Schafer
Wildwood Barbeque
Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Chipotle BBQ Sauce and Creamy Coleslaw

Shane McBride
Balthazar
Whole Smoked Hampshire Hog

Mike Price
Market Table
Nose-to-Tail Ground Veal Hoagies with Pickled Peppers

John Rivers
4 Rivers Smokehouse
Smoked Angus Brisket and Southern Pulled Pork shooters with Baked Cheese Grits and Creamy Southern Slaw

It is entirely likely that I will have converted to vegetarianism by Monday. Is there a ceremony for that? Prostration followed by the scourging of one's back by thousands of little cloven hooves? Waterboarding by hens? 

I am sure I deserve all of it.

What to eat in a heatwave

Well, the heatwave picnic was a success. As I was slicing the cucumbers I decided that I wanted lightly pickled raw vegetables instead of cucumber sandwiches. On Thursday, when planting  a terrace garden with my nice clients, we took a break for lunch and sat down and ate sushi with pickled vegetables (- and ice cold water with lots of lemon juice and mint), and I craved some more of the vinegary crispness, so I sliced some carrot and radishes thinly and added them to a bath of rice vinegar with salt, sugar and water, very simple, and let them sit for about an hour, in the fridge. The tuna shape, form, mold, mould was perfect! I like such things, smooth and wobbly. It has nothing green or fresh in it. Tuna from a can, mayonnaise, cream cheese, ketchup and soy, and...ah, lemon juice. That's fresh. And I tossed in two gherkins. And some gelatin melted in hot water. I whizzed it all up in the blender, poured it into a bowl ( I need a couple of proper moulds - time to make Le Blob again) and tipped it out two hours later. Creamy, silky, and dangerous We ate it all. I'll have to figure out the measurements I used and post it, but it's not rocket science.

Vince loves his new phone. It read the temperature. For the celsius brigade that is 37'C, at 8.30 at night. Three degrees cooler than the afternoon. Please add the humidity in your heads. The roof was hot beneath our kikois. We had brought the cat up with us, to picnic, but after he lay down he started to pant, so we sent him back into apartment again. He supped on his usual pellets with water plus an ice cube (after I read that the tigers in the Boston zoo had been given frozen  blood lollipops today. Yuck!).

For the humans, seeing the water helped cool us off psychologically. Lights moved across the harbor, layer caked ferries, green and red-masted tugs, belching smoke in a nearby slip as they prepared to move a barge out, strings of fairy lights for tourist cruises.

The pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus)  soup worked. Too terrified to really use the stove, I simmered it for about four minutes with some scallions and olive oil and chicken stock, then turned off the gas and let it steam under a tight lid till tender. Blender, yogurt, whizz. This somehow suggests to me Bulgaria. Anyone? Pigweed, or wild greens, yogurt? Then it, too, was chilled. I love this vegetable, and need some more. Any Brooklyn gardeners need weeding help? I've eaten all mine.

Other pigweed recipes:

Pigweed bredie
Pigweed crostini

Beating the heat

It is 104'F/40'C in New York right now. A slow trip into the world left my skin running freely with perspiration. In the apartment, with airconditioning, under the hot roof, it is a cool 79'.

I picked up the ingredients for a supper worthy of a 50's cocktail party. Why be normal when the weather goes bonkers? Golly! So:

Tuna mould. Or mold. Or form. Or shape.

Good canned tuna (meaning in olive oil, and imported), mayonnaise, lemon,  a little cream cheese, gelatin, perhaps some chopped up cornichons. Perhaps a squirt of ketchup and a drip of soy...

Cucumber sandwiches. Persian cucumber slices quick-pickled with salt and sugar and rice vinegar, on yesterday's cold-buttered white bread, sliced thinly.

In the fridge an iceberg lettuce (yes, it is food) is wrapped in a clean, damp napkin, having been sat upside down, and core removed, under a dripping tap for a few minutes, per recent instructions from Graeme Hardie. He says that this rehydrates the lettuce. Then it must chill. Then it is super crisp. It will be chunked and drizzled with genu-ine Thousand Island Dressing. As soon as I figure out how to make that. I'm a little frightened.

Gee whiz. Jeepers. Well, gosh. I will be singing as my husband climbs up the stairs, home from subways and hellish heat, and I will give him a condensation-cold drink as he steps in the door.

And when he has had a good long draught, I shall tell him that our first course is chilled yogurt and pigweed soup.

Just in case you thought I had lost my edge.

Chris Arnade's photos

I have been looking at Chris Arnade's pictures for a couple of years on Flickr. Back from when he called himself Carnade. He gets better and better. I look forward to the day when we can say, We knew him when... I don't know him, we've never met, and probably never will. But his eye, point of view and ease with his subjects elevate his images to a level whose singularity will win him some serious attention. Quite apart from his talent, I envy his rapport with people.

I am enjoying this particular series of his, but you can see his whole photostream here.

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