peachleaf rum baba

I had a request for baba au rhum recently and it triggered a memory of serving them with peaches and mascarpone. It's a lovely memory and with peach leaf on my mind, it's a likely pairing.

The progeny of kugelhopf and ancestor of the savarin, babas are a type of yeast cake. They have the flavor and richness of brioche but the more refined texture of genoise. Like genoise, the baked cakes are soaked with alcohol-spiked syrup, though babas are typically flavored with rum.

These cakes were a good vehicle to test the flavor of peach leaf in a baked good. The flavor was introduced into the batter with peach leaf beer and milk making up the moisture. Chopped peach leaves were folded in before baking and the flavor was further reinforced with a soaking in peach leaf syrup and dark rum.

This dish relates like a family reunion. Peaches are represented in various stages: the crystallized peach buds with their green almond crunch, the butterflied slices of ripe fruit, the creamy curd made from peach juice, and the benzaldehyde-flavored leaves. From the same family, almonds make up the crunchy praline along with burnt sugar, whose caramel flavor is echoed by the dark rum-soaked baba. The tangy creme fraiche is the friend who was invited to keep things interesting.

Download recipe: Peachleaf rum babas

peachleaf sangria

With work kicking into full gear, I'm left scrambling to get the garden ready for planting. As if my plate wasn't already overflowing, there's the added distraction of all the things that are blooming that I'm itching to play with.

The creeping phlox (Phlox subulata) were glorious this year. I had something special planned for them but an unrelenting schedule and three days of rain have left them in a pitiful state of mush.

Ditto for the lilacs.

Oh, well…there's always next year (the gardener's mantra).

I was, however, able to harvest some of the tender young peach leaves.

Last year I learned that there is a short window– from the time that the blossoms drop until the fruit begins to set– that the flavor of the leaves is the least bitter and most almond-like.

I was able to harvest enough leaves to make a few liters of peach leaf beer, using a recipe for ginger beer. It's really more like a soda: light, crisp, barely-sweet, with refreshing effervescence from the addition of yeast.

After a gratifying day of weeding and tilling, a small celebration was in order. There was a bottle of Vinho Verde calling my name. And the peach leaf beer was ready.

Sitting in the shade of a peach tree.

Ice-cold peach leaf sangria in hand.

Life is good.

Download recipe: Peach leaf sangria

dandelion wine

"The golden tide, the essence of this fine fair month ran, then gushed from the spout below, to be crocked, skimmed of ferment, and bottled in clean ketchup shakers, then ranked in sparkling rows in cellar gloom.

Dandelion wine.

The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered."

~Ray Bradbury "Dandelion Wine"

As far back as I can remember, I've had a major crush on books.

As a child, I would enter the local library with the awe and reverence reserved for cathedrals. It was there that I would worship the written word; a place to receive the sacrament of ink on paper at the altar of ideas, imagination, and information.

Then, as now, books were magic carpets that transported me to worlds where anything and everything was possible. And I could be home in time for dinner.

I was eight or nine when I read Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. I have read it numerous times since to relive the wonder of childhood. It's a simple book; a semi-autographical collection of stories woven together into a strange and dreamy tale of an ordinary summer, filled with extraordinary moments, in a 12-year-old boy's life. It was an introduction to subtle and complex themes that revealed themselves like layers of an onion, with two in particular that keep me coming back:

The ecstatic awareness of being alive.

And the transubstantiating magic of dandelion wine.

In the book, dandelion wine is a metaphor for life itself; a prosaic weed transformed into a mystical elixir with the power to "change the season in your veins by raising glass to lip and tilting summer in."

Having never tasted dandelion wine, I can only imagine its flavor will be sweet, slightly tart, mildly bitter. It may not turn out to be the most delicious of beverages, but I fully believe that on a cold wintry day, when I head down to the cellar and raise a glass to my lips, that the snow will melt, the sky will turn blue and–if only for a moment–it will be summer.

That is the power of flavor.

That is the magic of books.

Download recipe: Dandelion wine

sakura

People who have the means and leisure to travel at whim often do so in pursuit of a passion. Some follow the sun, others follow food, music, art, or sports. Romantics follow their hearts.

Me, I would follow flowers.

At the top of my itinerary would be Japan in March. There you would find me, in a cherry blossom-induced delirium, standing like Julie Andrews on top of that mountain– eyes up, arms outstretched; twirling like a dervish–reveling in a blizzard of cherry-pink petals.

The Japanese are serious about cherry blossoms (sakura) and the ancient custom of flower-viewing (hanami). The cherry-blooming forecasts (sakura zensen) are watched fervently and the occasion is observed with reverence and enthusiasm.

Cherries belong to the plant genus Prunus, and are a member of the large family Rosaceae, which includes other aromatic fruits such as almonds, peaches, plums, apricots, apples, pears, quince, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, loquats, and roses.

The flavor of cherries are defined by benzaldehyde (sour cherry, bitter almond) and coumarin (vanilla, sweet grass, hay).

black sesame ganache

cherry yogurt panna cotta

rose-mahleb semifreddo

raspberry meringue

pink peppercorn crisp

sour cherry glass

maraschino almonds

cherry petals

cherry leaf

Download recipe: Sakura

daffodil

There's a place just up the road from me that I make a point to visit at this time of year.

It's the kind of spot that embodies the bucolic scenery of rural New England.

There are pastoral rolling hills…

…moss-patinaed stone walls…

…ancient gnarled trees…

…steep stone steps…

…and a lake with tiny islands.

It's a magical place at any time of year, but for a few weeks in April it becomes an enchanted land of earth, water, stone, and daffodils.

Daffodils have an alluring aroma with sweet notes of honey, citrus, warm spice, and exotic fruit. However, they contain the alkaloids galanthamine and lycorine that render them highly toxic if consumed. Even deer won't touch them.

mango

whipped honey

passionfruit souffle cake

orange blossom ice cream

pandan glass

ginger honey crystals

calendula buds

Download recipe: Daffodil

forsythia banana birch

I can't go far these days without being distracted by the blazing yellow forsythia that dominate the landscape.

Forsythia, the harbinger of flowering shrubs and trees, belongs to Oleaceae, the olive family of plants. Though the flowers possess only a faint fragrance and mild flavor, they have the distinction of being a rare plant source of lactose (milk sugar).

Leave it to Nature to endow a flower with mother's milk.

milk chocolate

forsythia

birch beer ice cream

banana cake

birch syrup glass

Download recipe: Forsythia

chocolate violet carrot

Occasionally, I find fallen nests when cleaning the hedgerows. They are irresistible to me, these vestigial homes; fragile and singular as snowflakes.

I find colonies of violets in the hedgerows, too. Their cheerful pale blue flowers and heart-shaped leaves look content in the cool, moist environment. Unfortunately, these are the common dog variety (Viola canina) and are not graced with the perfume of the sweet violet (Viola odorata)

Although sweet violets have been widely used in the fragrance industry for centuries, they have no significant culinary tradition aside from the Victorians, who were fond of garnishing sweets with the crystallized flower. Their symbolic connection to spring and haunting aroma have been venerated and romanticized throughout history by artists, poets, monarchs, and even Gods.

Napoleon shared a devotion to violets with the Empress Josephine. During his exile at Elba, he promised his followers that he would return in the spring with the violets. This set off a loyalist obsession with the flower, immortalizing the violet as the emblem of the Imperial party, and earning him the nickname "Corporal Violette". He is said to have been buried with a lock of Josephine's hair and violets in a locket.

In Greek Mythology, Zeus ordered the Earth to create the most beautiful of flowers in tribute to his love, Io. The result was the violet.

Ion, the Greek word for violet, lends its name to the terpene Ionone, the defining aroma compound in violets. Ionone is a megastigmane, or a degradation of beta-carotene. Not surprisingly, carrots contain a fair amount of ionone, as do raspberries, tobacco, roses, and black tea.

chocolate nest

violet ice cream

carrot filaments

blackberries

johnny-jump-ups (Viola cornuta)

calendula

violet dust

Download Recipe: Violet nest

minestra primavera

One of my clients recently returned from an extensive trip through Italy. She called this morning to discuss tonights dinner party and the foods that she sampled in her travels, particularly the minestre. When she began listing things like minestrone, zuppa di pesce, ribollita, risotto, spaghetti al pomodoro, and even lasagna, I became confused. In my ignorance, I believed that minestre were simply soups. It was sobering to learn that minestre refers to any food that is cooked in broth or a base sauce and is always served at the beginning of a meal. A liquid minestra (in brodo) is served as a first course, while a dry minestra (cooked in sauce) is served as a second course. This classification blurred the lines of what I formerly thought of as soup.

She was especially excited to tell me about a minestra di verdura that she was served in Emilia-Romagna that consisted of barely-cooked vegetables and legumes in a proscuitto and parmesan broth. Of course, this meant that the menu for the dinner party needed to be altered, which creates a domino effect. And although I have already shopped and prepped for the long-established menu, I'm up for the challenge and aim to please. I'm just gonna roll with this one.

prosciutto consomme, parmesan sponge, parmesan biscotti, young spring vegetables (new potatoes, zucchini, pattypan squash, cavolo nero, garlic shoots), legumes (haricots, green ceci, borlotto, cannellini), herbs (dandelion, basil, marjoram, chervil)

Download recipe: Parmesan sponge

pea potato onion buttermilk malt

I've been thinking about the earth lately. Not so much on a global scale. Just a 2 acre slice.

Living in the foothills means that I get to experience a sense of protection provided by the mountains that loom in the background. It also means that in early spring, as the melting snow runs off the mountains, there will inevitably be a wet bog that forms in a hollow in my backyard. In the nearly 10 years that I have lived on this property, I have alternately celebrated and waged war on Mother Nature. Just when I dare to believe that I have one-upped her, she reminds me, every spring like clockwork, that I chose that hollow to plant a vegetable garden.

Gardening has taught me many things, not least of which is patience and hope. Patience is what gets me through 4 long months of winter and hope that when I can finally get a shovel in the ground that it will scoop up a glorious mound of loose, friable earth instead of a clump of sodden mud. Both patience and hope is what it will take to get me to try again next week. And the next.

Digging is to gardening what dishwashing is to cooking; ineluctable. Earth must be moved and displaced, there's no getting around that. I've moved vast amounts of earth around here with nothing more than a shovel, wheelbarrow, and the willingness of my back. Now, I'm beginning to imagine what a machine will do.

I've been on construction sites and watched backhoes at work. It amazes me how effortlessly they slice into the earth and reveal striations of soil, peat, rock and clay, like the layers of a cake. It makes me consider the mysterious world that lives under our feet. After all, treasure is found by digging. And so is history.

This morning, as I walked around the yard, I took note of how much of the earth is uncovered and exposed. I thought about all of the tubers, crowns, and roots that lie dormant just beneath the surface. I wondered if they have survived the winter; if they were protected and insulated and are now rested and ready to leave their subterranean home and emerge into the layers of light and air.

Soon, my attention will waver to the life that will occupy the space above the ground, but for now, I'm thinking about the hidden, underlying landscape beneath the earth.

buttermilk pea pudding

malt powder

new potato confit

spring onion granola

pea shoots

Download Recipe: Layers of Earth

cultured butter

Last fall, I enjoyed a memorable meal at Eleven Madison Park. I would be hard pressed to tell you what I had for breakfast, but I can remember every last detail of that meal, right down to the butter. In part, that may have been because the server made a ceremony of presenting it and pointing out that it was unsalted butter from Vermont. I can't deny that it was good. In fact, it was very, very good. But I would have been more impressed if it had been made in-house.

I distinctly remember wondering, as I ate the olive-studded baguette spread with the very, very good butter, why restaurants aren't making their own butter for table service. It seems a missed opportunity for customization and bragging rights.

Is it cost, time, labor, skill? The cost is on or below par to an artisanal butter and the time and labor are negligible. Making butter is such a basic skill that a five-year-old can produce an excellent product from fresh cream, a jar, and some elbow grease. Anyone who has ever over-whipped cream (raising hand) has unwittingly made butter. What is often viewed as a disaster is, in fact, a small, everyday miracle.

Butter is essentially the fat of the milk. It is an water-in-oil emulsion, composed of 80-82 percent milk fat, 16-17 percent water, and 1-2 percent milk solids. Transforming milk into butter will take place faster and the the yield will be higher if you start with fresh, pasteurized (preferably raw, but not ultra pasteurized) heavy cream. Agitation, whether in a jar (15 minutes of constant shaking), or in a food processor (30-60 seconds), incorporates air, forms bubbles, then fat globules collect in the bubble walls. At this point, whipped cream–a light, stable foam– is formed. If agitation continues, the friction warms and softens the fat globules to a near-liquid state, causing the walls to rupture and the fat globules to cling together, forming larger and larger masses. Knowing this is not necessary to make butter–the miracle will still happen.

After churning, the buttermilk is drained off. This buttermilk is the real deal–light, tangy, refreshing–and to some, the reward of churning your own butter. Ice water is then added to the fat crystals and they are worked together with a paddle or spatula until they are creamy and homogenized.

Making butter is rewarding to those of us who are thrilled by watching matter transform from one state to another, but anyone would be won over by the flavor of freshly-formed, sweet butter. In her new book "Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through The Ages", culinary historian Anne Mendelson describes the taste of homemade butter as " the taste of cream to the nth power, cream newly translated to some rarefied spiritual afterlife." Chemically, the flavor of butter is comprised of over 120 different aroma compounds that include: fatty acids, lactones, methyl ketones, diacetyl, and dimethyl sulfide.

Aside from the inherent flavors in butter, fat has long been recognized as a flavor carrier; a vehicle to deliver whatever flavors and aromas that are put in contact with it. This is why butter is wrapped and isolated in its own compartment in storage. But this capacity to absorb can be seen as an opportunity to infuse flavor. Truffles are often buried in porous foods such as rice or eggs to infuse them with their aroma–why not store them with butter? Or other aromatics: citrus, herbs, porcini, cheese, coffee, chocolate, vanilla beans? Can garlic butter be made more efficiently by storing cut garlic cloves in a closed container with butter? Similarly, a compound butter is made by blending a flavorful or aromatic ingredient into finished butter, but this can sometimes interrupt the texture. What if flavor was introduced into the cream before churning it into butter? The infusion would have to take place at a temperature below pasteurization (185F/85C in the US) or through cold vacuum infusion. One final interesting developement with fat is that it is being studied as the sixth taste, although the actual receptors are still undiscovered.

I've made butter many times (some times, on purpose), but this is my first attempt at cultured butter, which is simply cream that has been soured (with buttermilk) and allowed to ferment or "ripen" at room temperature prior to ageing in the refrigerator. As with all fermentation, bacterial action develops acids and aroma compounds. One in particular, diacetyl, when superimposed with the compounds already present in fresh butter creates a noticeably fuller flavor that carries over into the buttermilk, which is the thickest, richest, and most flavorful that I have ever tasted. If you can resist drinking it all or turning it into amazing biscuits, it can be frozen to ripen the next batch of cultured butter.

ripening & ageing