Spring Salad from the Sidewalk

Seattle is a city of gardeners.

For all the weekends and vacations I’ve spent in this city, it’s only since I’ve been living here that I've noticed the gardening. The first non-rainy weekend this spring it seemed as if my entire neighborhood was out gardening. Garbage day that week found bags of yard waste lining the curb. I began to feel left out because I wasn’t out there myself—digging in the dirt, mowing, weeding, and pruning.

Part of this has to do with the way this city is laid out. In the residential neighborhoods houses are set back from the street, with a bit of lawn or yard in front of it. In most San Francisco neighborhoods the houses butt up against the sidewalks and against each other. There are back yards but you never see them—I didn’t know they existed until I moved into the city myself. An aerial view of my San Francisco neighborhood shows that the blocks are hollow, buildings line the street but there’s a strip of green in the middle. Each house hides their yard away, out of sight.

But in Seattle—as in Portland and other Northwestern cities—yards are shared, flaunted, taken care of. Most blocks are bisected by an alleyway, so that even driveways and garages and garbage cans are hidden from view. The backyards may be small, but the front yards are filled with lush green lawns, blooming flowers, bushes, and trees. It makes neighborhood walks a sheer pleasure. I’ve never felt so much as if I were living in a park.

And it’s not just lawn and flowers that people are growing in their yards—they’re growing food as well.

I first noticed the sidewalk vegetable gardens in Ravenna, the neighborhood where my brother and his family live. The house on the corner across the street from them, right by where I park my car when I come to visit, has a small vegetable garden. Rows of tender green lettuces, some very healthy chives, a zucchini vine (or is it a pumpkin?). How sweet, I thought. Even in this tiny bit of space they’ve made a little vegetable garden.



The lettuces look divine—all this in a small strip of dirt that would otherwise be an unusable bit of lawn.



But the house across the street is only the tip of the iceberg. In walks around Ravenna, with my niece in her stroller, we’ve discovered many such gardens. Some people have even taken over the strip of dirt that runs between the sidewalk and the street, commandeered it for their own vegetable growing purposes. Some of them just dig up the strip of dirt or lawn and have at it, others have built raised beds (which makes sense when you think about the dog traffic).



Some have more elaborate systems—like these arty, custom designed containers with built-in irrigation system (anyone guess what that feathery green plant is in the planter to the left? Answer in the comments. There's another view here). When I stopped to take a picture, a friendly neighbor struck up a conversation with me, telling me that the planters were covered in copper sheeting, which keep the snails and slugs out (they don’t like copper), and they cost $200 each.



Even if you don’t have a bit of yard or a sidewalk strip, there are still opportunities in Seattle to grow a wee garden. A city program called P-Patches gives aspiring gardeners a plot in a community organic garden. There are 6,000 plots available in 70 gardens throughout the city—yet there are so many eager gardeners in this city there’s a 700 person waiting list (certain plots are more sought after than others; some don’t have any wait at all). Some of the gardens are devoted to a youth program that teaches kids gardening, cooking, and nutrition (to be fair, San Francisco has a community garden program as well, but it’s much smaller and not as active).

There’s a P-Patch near my house and I love walking by it. This is a boon on all levels, fresh, organic, local produce, good use of land that would otherwise lie empty—and each year the P-Patch gardeners donate seven to ten tons of produce to local food banks.

How lovely, even here in the city, to be able to grow a bit of your own food. And how nice for my brother and family, for his neighbor is a generous guy. When I dropped off a dinner I had made for them the other night I brought a head of lettuce for salad in case they didn’t have any on hand (they are well stocked with Yo-baby yogurt, Cherios, and strained peas, but sometimes grownup food is in short supply).

“Oh, we don’t need that,” my brother said. “Mike gives us lettuce from his little garden. Have you seen it there, across the street?”

Is this a nice city or what?



SPRING SALAD

I don’t have a sidewalk plot or a P-Patch, and I’ve not been here long enough for the small back slope behind the house, where I am attempting to garden, to have produced much. But I do have potted herbs in my kitchen. And I do have a farmers’ market. For those of us without a wee small garden, it’s the next best thing.

This dish was inspired by a beautiful salad made by Jennifer Jeffrey, whom I had the good fortune to have lunch with this spring. She arranged tender leaves of lettuce that served as wraps for ingredients that were scattered inside. It was so visually appealing that I couldn’t help improvise my own version (Jennifer has a wonderful sense of art, you should check out her small photo gallery). This one has radishes, peas, walnuts, goat cheese, thin strips of lemon zest, and chives from my own kitchen herb pots. It’s filling enough to be its own light lunch.

One small head of butter/bibb lettuce
3 radishes, sliced thinly
large handful of fresh peas (about half a cup)
1/4 cup walnut pieces
1/4 cup goat cheese
3-4 strips of lemon zest
fresh chives

Dressing:
Whisk together some olive oil and golden balsamic vinegar and drizzle over the top (I like this brand). I was recently introduced to golden balsamic and I love it—lighter and fresher than red balsamic, which seems syrupy and overwhelming by comparison. Try some and I bet you won’t want to go back (if you don’t have golden balsamic, some lemon juice and olive oil would do fine as well). Salt and pepper to taste.

How To Make Paneer

The best way I know to make paneer—the mild Indian cheese used in saag paneer and other dishes—is to have a food blogger you know and trust make it before you do. This way they will work all the kinks out of the system and point out the potholes before you have a chance of falling in one. At least that’s what worked for me.

The first food blog I read was Food Musings, written by the ever charming Catherine. I stumbled upon it quite by accident one day, while reading a newsletter from Media Bistro. Catherine had written in to say that a piece from her food blog had been picked for inclusion by Best Food Writing.

Food blog—what’s a food blog?

I clicked over and fell into this rabbit hole of food and restaurants and culinary adventures. I spent two and a half days reading through the archives of Food Musings (the benefits, and dangers, of working for yourself). I was entranced; who was this character having all the food fun—this woman even made her own paneer!

I was stunned. Make your own cheese—who does that?

A year and a half later, such a thing no longer seems outlandish to me. In the months that have passed I’ve found my place amongst the culinarily obsessed—people who make their own vinegar, cured olives, butter, even French fries in horse fat. And, as of last week, I can now say that I too have made cheese.

A secret: it’s ridiculously easy, and totally fun.

To prep for my first venture into the land of self-made dairy products I did some research. Making cheese is not to be undertaken lightly—this is the stuff of transformation, turning milk into cheese; it’s pretty darn awesome when you think about it.

And yes, it is easy. Not other kinds of cheeses, perhaps. I'm not suggesting you start whipping up batches of roquefort or Humbolt Fog in your kitchen. But paneer, definitely easy.

All you really need is a quantity of whole milk and a small amount of acid. It is possible to make paneer either with lemon juice or with distilled white vinegar (there are also versions that use yogurt, buttermilk, or citric acid). Paneer is similar to the Mexican queso blanco or Italian ricotta, which are made using vinegar; in India, I understand, they mainly use limes. The acid will cause the milk to curdle, the curds are then strained through cheesecloth and pressed into a solid form, et voila—paneer is born!











Of course there are some potholes to avoid. Thanks to Catherine I was able to navigate them with ease. Here are some suggestions for successfull paneer making:

• The milk for paneer must be brought to a boil before the acid is added—this happens very quickly. Suddenly you can have a big foamy mess all over your stove. Use a large pot and be vigilant. I had a trivet on the counter next to the stove so I could whisk the pot off the stovetop at a moment’s notice (thanks, Catherine!).

• Because of the acid, you want to make sure to use a nonreactive pot to boil the milk. Avoid copper or aluminum cookware.

• Some recipes recommend adding a bit of cream to the milk, because American store-bought milk, even whole fat, tends to be not as rich. I didn’t do this, but it would make for a richer, creamier paneer.

• If your whey (the liquid that the curds separate from) is not almost completely clear, add a bit more acid. Also, you can save the whey for making roti.

• If you like, think about pressing the paneer into some sort of shape or mold. I pressed mine into a round, as that seemed the easiest, but the edges tended to crumble. Next time I will use a square or rectangle of some sort (one site I read recommended using a square biscuit tin and drilling holes in the bottom, I’m thinking a square or rectangle shaped Japanese pickle press could also work quite well).

But other than that, really it is a cinch. In under an hour you can have cheese! I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty freaking cool.

And, of course, fried up and a bit crispy it makes for a great saag paneer (though your non-foodie friends might think you even odder when you tell them you make your own cheese).





Why does one bother with making their own paneer? In my case it was because the store-bought paneer I found was awful—completely bland and boring (also because the challenge of making cheese was far too cool to pass up). Will I do it again? Absolutely! In addition to feeling like you have some kind of superpower (I made cheese!), the final product is just so yummy—creamy and milky tasting, fresh and delicious.

And the other reason you should let a fellow food blogger walk the cheese-making plank ahead of you? Because they come up with good ideas. Catherine mentioned wanting to try fresh paneer with honey. I took that idea and ran with it, grating some orange zest into warmed honey and drizzling it over paneer topped with toasted almonds. Yeah, that was pretty dang good.



Thanks, Catherine, for the guiding hand. I owe you one.

Catherine’s Paneer Recipe (yields under two cups, next time I'll double it)
Information on paneer from the Aryuvadic perspective
More information on making paneer on India Curry
Paneer recipe on Indian Food Forever

Happy cheese making!

Planting Hope (and Tomatoes)

The other day I got some news.

It wasn't bad news, per se, but the kind of news that makes you wonder what on earth you’re doing with your life—like perhaps you should have become an accountant long ago, or moved to Spain, or never said no when that nice quiet boy with freckles asked you out in the fourth grade. Suddenly you are second guessing every decision you've ever made, trying to figure if there was some wrong step you took along the way to have ended up here, in this moment. It’s the sort of thing we all experience at one point or another (at least I hope we all do—and if you don't, please refrain from telling me for at least a week).

So what to do, on an overcast day where I held the pieces of my life in my hands and found them wanting? The three-mile walk with a friend that morning was good but left me still empty. There was work waiting at home, that was unappealing. If I could I would have continued walking until exhaustion—perferrably on a rocky and rugged coastline somewhere in Ireland. But I don’t yet know where to go in Seattle to find wildness; I suspect it’s a long drive.

Instead I drove north, not far, to a nursery that had been recommended. I wandered the rows of green and growing things, hiding out in the flowering trees section when tears were not possible to hold back. I was glad I had my sunglasses, to shield eyes that were weepy. I am sure a Seattlite would wonder why on earth that girl was wearing sunglasses on a day that threatened rain at any moment—but I say it’s the prerogative of the Californian.



I bought plants—herbs, flowers, and tomatoes. I loaded them into the car, along with a rather heavy sack of potting soil, and drove back home as the dark clouds began to spit. I planted them in the rain, digging deep holes, filling them with compost and soil, covering them up and tamping the roots into place. Five different kinds of tomatoes, lemon thyme, Italian parsley, seeds for carrots, radishes, beets. I got wet and I got dirty, but that was okay.

You see, gardening is an essentially hopeful pursuit. Putting a plant into the ground is investing in a future—even if that future be tomato season a mere two months away. You are saying that you think you’ll be around to water those plants, to eat their yield, to enjoy what they may produce. You are planting hope—tender and green.



I’ve never been much of a gardener. It is something I enjoy more in theory than in practice. I still remember the weeding I had to do in my mother’s garden as a child, a chore I hated. I want to enjoy gardening, but I haven’t grown into it yet. You need a long timeline for gardening, a broad outlook. I have been too young and impatient.

I remember once, in high school, I got the urge to landscape the back of my mother’s garden, an area that had once been a chicken yard but had since lain fallow. I planned out a design, picked the plants and flowers I liked—constrained by the fact that they would get little sun. I then announced to my mother that I needed five rhododendrons at $60 each—$300 just for the hedge.

“That’s not how you do it,” she told me. “Go to the nursery where they start them, buy them small. They’ll be a lot cheaper.”

“But I want them this high,” I showed her.

She laughed. “Oh, they’ll grow. In five to seven years they’ll be that size.”

Five to seven years seemed forever to a teenager—and it was, a significant portion of my life. I just couldn’t see the long term and quickly lost interest in the project. I was too young to understand that sort of investment. Nearly two decades later I am kicking myself a little; those rhododendrons would have looked lovely by now.

But here, now, on this difficult day, I planted tomatoes. It doesn’t take the sting away. My tomato plants won’t solve my problems, magically cure the pain, make me feel less lost. But it is an act of faith, the best one I could find on a dark day when the Seattle skies threatened to cry along with me. In the midst of uncertainty and a wee dose of despair, I planted hope.



I don’t know how I will feel two months from now, whether or not the world and my place in it will seem clearer, cleaner. I hope so, but one never can tell. But I do know this—with a little bit of care and luck, two months from now I will be eating tomatoes.

Sometimes we take what we can get (with fresh mozzarella and basil on the side).

Saag Paneer, and a Reality Check

The other night I made saag paneer and invited a friend over for dinner.

Rob and I haven’t seen each other in a few years. He’s the childhood friend of my best guy buddy Paul, who introduced the two of us one 4th of July when Paul and I were both home from Japan on vacation. That evening we sat on a hillside and watched fireworks and drank beers and I heard an entire language of shared childhood memories that these two boys carry with them. Ever since that night I’ve had a soft spot for Rob. I don’t see him often—the last time was a good four years ago—but once I got settled in Seattle I gave him a call and invited him over for dinner.

Then I made Indian food.

I’m not some pro at whipping up Indian food. I’m usually content to eat it in restaurants, thinking it must be extremely labor intensive. But last fall I made a batch of chana masala from Brandon’s recipe that Molly posted on Orangette. The flavors were so much bolder than what you get in restaurants that it took me by surprise. It’s also true that there’s a lot of not great Indian food in restaurants—overly oily, overly mushy—and I wasn't sure where to go for good Indian in Seattle. I decided to see how I might fare on my own.

Indian food isn’t excessively labor intensive, at least not the dishes I picked, but it is spice intensive—a good excuse to stock my new kitchen with lovely things like cardamom pods, garam masala, tumeric, and ground corriander. There was a fair amount of prep work, mostly three bundles of fresh bunched spinach that needed to be destemmed. There was also the added adrenaline rush of not knowing if the recipes would turn out well. By the time Rob was on my doorstep, I was hours deep into the cooking process.



Rob came in and we caught up a bit before sitting down to eat. I carried the food to the table—Brandon’s superior chana masala, a smoky roasted baingan bharta made from a recent recipe in Saveur magazine, and a green and creamy saag paneer. There were plates of rice cooked with onion and cumin, and a cool yogurt raita to go alongside. We sat down and dug in.

Rob fell silent, eating steadily but saying nothing.

I sat there quietly for a moment, feeling awkward. The food was good, I could taste that, but I wasn’t sure about the silence. It felt weird, uncomfortable. Had something gone amiss?

Then it dawned on me—Rob’s not a foodie.

Any of my foodie friends would be peppering me with questions at this point. They’d want to know if I had roasted the eggplant in the oven or on the burner; had I used green cardamom or black; had I been to the great spice store in the market where they grind their own curry powders? They’d be teasing apart flavors and guessing at ingredients. They’d be comparing this Indian food to every other Indian meal they had ever eaten—and asking I had ever tasted the saag paneer from a certain restaurant, because they do a really good version and I should try it sometime.

In other words, we’d be dissecting our dinner as we ate it.

Not Rob. He contentedly ate his way through dinner, not feeling a need to comment, analyze, deconstruct, or otherwise probe into our meal. And at the end, when we’d finished eating, he said, “Thanks, that was good.” Then we spent the rest of the evening talking about music, rock climbing, family, and the pros and cons of running your own business.

Wow, a non-foodie friend—I had almost forgotten what that’s like.



SAAG PANEER (PALAK PANEER)
Serves four as part of a larger meal.

I love saag paneer, that creamy spinach dish studded with cubes of mild paneer cheese. I order it whenever I am in an Indian restaurant, one of two dishes that I use as a benchmark to see how good I think the restaurant is. I’ve never wanted to know how it’s made—I know that spinach doesn’t get creamy on it’s own and I feared that the amount of fat involved would make me wince.

After some research I found that there are two ways to make your saag paneer creamy—ghee, which is a clarified butter used often in Indian cooking, or cream. I suspect that most restaurant versions use ghee, but I opted to try a cream version this time. Mostly because I was curious, but also because cream seems slightly healthier than butter, though I have no scientific basis for this notion.

I also wanted to make a high quality saag paneer—which, at it’s worst, can resemble baby food with all the spinach mushed together and no variations of flavor from one bite to another. I wanted texture, some interplay of spices, spinach that still looked like the leafy vegetable it had once been. I’m no expert on Indian food, but I looked at a number of recipes, took bits and pieces from those I liked, and hoped for the best.

And the result? It was good—very good, in fact. The chopped onion and tomato gave some texture, the spinach wasn’t cooked down into mush, and the spices made themselves known, mingling and dancing together. The result was a far better dish than I think you find in most restaurants—no baby food mush here. The cream-style was a little different than I’m used to, but it really is delicious (I’ve since made it with half-and-half with no problem). It melds with the spices into a soupy sauce that is fragrant with spices and savory. I will say that taking the spinach leaves off their stems is time consuming and slightly tedious, but it is worth the work in the end. Rob may not have noticed or mentioned it, but this was an excellent saag paneer.

3 large bunches of fresh spinach, washed and destemmed (this part is important)
1 large onion, chopped into a medium dice
1 medium tomato, chopped into a small dice
2 teaspoons tomato paste
1 cup heavy cream (can use half-and-half)
1 1/2 cup paneer cheese (fried in peanut oil, if you would like)
1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
1 teaspoon fresh chopped or pressed garlic
1 1/2 tbs vegetable oil
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
3 green cardamom pods, smashed
1 stick cinnamon
3 cloves (I like to crush the soft, rounded head of the clove with a fingernail)
3 small bay leaves
2 tsp salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
Can add dried red pepper or a fresh hot green pepper for spice, if you like
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped

Sauté the chopped onion in oil until soft and golden. Add cumin seeds, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves, garlic and ginger, and chopped tomato. Sauté mixture for about a minute. Begin to add spinach, turning to allow it to cook down. When all spinach has been added and the mixture has turned a dark green, begin to add the remaining dry spices, salt and pepper. Mix well and continue to cook about 3 minutes. [If you would like to fry the paneer, you can do it now, cooking in a small amount of peanut oil to get a brown crust.] Add the cream and tomato paste, continuing to simmer the mixture another 5 minutes. Add paneer and fresh cilantro at the very end. Serve with rice or naan bread.

Is it even possible to take a picture of something like saag paneer and make it look aesthetically appealing? I'm not sure it is. This is not pretty food, folks, but it is yummy.

Red Quinoa Salad: I Was Wrong

I am going to say it here and I am going to say it now: I was wrong about quinoa.

I think my mother may be laughing.

You see, she’s been trying to get me to like quinoa (pronounced “keen-wa”) for years . It’s super healthy—considered the best source of protein in the vegetable kingdom. Quinoa has been around for ages, used by the Inca in South America who called it the “Mother Grain.” When the Spanish marched into the Inca Empire in the 1500s, they found that the people lived on three main foods—corn, potatoes, and quinoa, a grain that could be grown at high altitudes, needed little rainfall to support it, and thrived in poor alkaline soil (technically quinoa isn't a grain, it's a seed, but no matter). It’s even speculated that the Spanish suppressed the cultivation of quinoa as a way to keep the Inca down.

But I never liked it.

I didn’t like the texture—roly-poly in my mouth—and I thought it had a tiny bit of bitterness. Mainly it just seemed blah. My mom would cook it occasionally and I never wanted to eat it. “But it’s good for you,” she told me. “It has all the essential amino acids—and the most protein of any grain.”

Didn’t matter, I don’t like quinoa.

Then, a few months ago, a friend convinced me to go to Café Gratitude. I generally give such places a pass (I got enough of the real hippies and their health food when I was growing up, thank you very much). But trust a vegan hippie restaurant to know their grains. This place serves up a really good bowl of quinoa. I didn’t order it myself—I don’t like quinoa, remember—but I agreed to taste my friend’s quinoa. It was nice and light and fluffy, with little trace of the bitterness that I remember.

Hmmm.

Then, when I was cleaning out all the back corners of the kitchen cupboards before I left San Francisco, I found a box of organic red quinoa that I don’t even remember buying. I must have purchased it in a well-intentioned phase of trying to cook healthier; It hadn’t ever been opened (we can see how far those phases go).

I admit that it was just a wee bit beyond its expiration date (but nowhere near as bad as the other items I found that had expired in 2000!). It was still sealed and looked fine, and I can’t stand to throw out food, so I put it in the box of things to bring to Washington. After all, it is gluten-free—and, have you heard, it has the most protein of any grain.

One day last week I opened up the package and, after sniffing carefully, poured the red quinoa into a pot of boiling water and cooked it up. And you know what—I like red quinoa! Perhaps the red variety doesn’t have the same shade of bitterness that I tasted before, or perhaps my taste buds have just grown into the flavor as I’ve gotten older, but I like quinoa, I really do.



Turns out that roly-poly-ness, which I always complained about, is actually a lovely texture. The bitterness I remember probably comes from the fact that quinoa has a resin-like substance called saponin that coats the grains while it is growing. This discourages the birds and bugs, but must be removed once the grain is harvested. To do so the quinoa is cleaned with an akaline solution that can leave behind a bitter residue. This is easily taken care of with a pre-cooking rinse, but if not rinsed thoughly the grain may taste slightly bitter.

But fully rinsed and cooked, it has a delicious nutty flavor and a texture that reminds me of tobiko—that small crunch in your mouth feeling. I like quinoa, I really do.

Mixed into a salad, with crunchy red radish, tomatoes, fresh oregano, red onion, chopped up capers, goat cheese, and vinaigrette dressing, I like it even more.



And, you know, it’s really good for you. Has the most protein of any grain.

Go ahead, mom, you can laugh, but I’m feeding you quinoa next time you come to visit.

RED QUINOA SALAD
Serves two

1 cup organic red quinoa
2 cups water
6 radishes chopped in a medium dice, about 1 1/2 cups
Half a small red onion, cut into a small dice
1 large tomato, or equal amount of cherry tomatoes (1 cup) chopped
3/4 cup crumbled goat cheese
2 tbs. capers, chopped coarsely
2 tsp chopped fresh oregano (could use fresh parsley, or skip entirely)

1 tbs Dijon mustard
4 tbs red wine vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Bring the water to a boil and pour the dry quinoa in, cook for until all the water has absorbed and the quinoa is done—about 15-20 minutes (you can also cook quinoa in a rice cooker).

Let the quinoa cool and then toss with all the salad ingredients except the cheese.

Whisk the mustard and vinegar together until smooth, begin to drizzle olive oil in, whisking constantly, until the mixture begins to emulsify. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour dressing over salad, toss to mix, adjust seasonings. Fold cheese in carefully at the end, so as not to get all mushy.



Of course, I am not the first food blogger to go nutty over quinoa (have I mentioned that is has a lovely nutty flavor?). Check out these:

Autumn Squash, Red Pepper, and Red Quinoa on Gluten-free Girl.
Belly Timber's Quinoa crusted salmon with baby bok choy.
Gaspers Block primer on quinoa, with four recipes.
Quinoa Vegetable Paella from Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen.
Mexican-style Quinoa Black Bean Salad at Savvy Vegetarian
Quinoa Salad with Mango and Walnuts at YumSugar
And of course, Heidi likes quinoa—check out her Quinoa Big Bowl on 101 Cookbooks

There are more quinoa recipes in Heidi's New Book, Super Natural Cooking:
how about Quinoa and Corn Flour Crepes with Chile de Arbol Sauce, or Quinoa and Crescenza with Sauteed Mushrooms, or Red Quinoa-Walnut Cookies? Yum.

What a surprise, these days I can't get enough quinoa.
And yes, sometimes mom does know best.

Salad Niçoise on the Front Porch

Spring comes late to Washington State, much later than I’m used to. Long after the sun has been shining in California, Washington is still chilly and raining. That’s okay, spring in Washington is worth the wait.

This is not the first time I’ve lived in Washington State. When I was eighteen I left California to go to college in the small eastern Washington town of Walla Walla. I had never lived in a four seasons climate before; that year spring took me by surprise.

It came in with drumroll. Suddenly, the sky was blue, flowers were bursting into bloom, and after weeks and months of cold weather and bulky sweaters, it was finally pleasant to be outside. I felt like I had been reborn.

And there were lilacs.



I had seen lilac flowers before, the house I grew up in had a lilac bush across the street, but I had never seen so many lilacs. They were in bloom everywhere in Walla Walla—lacy purple flowers everywhere I looked. One of my favorite things each spring was to go for bike rides. Riding through the residential neighborhoods of town I coasted through clouds of sweet lilac scent, one after another. It was like a springtime high.

I haven’t thought much about lilacs, not since college. The places I’ve lived since then—Japan, San Francisco—lilacs are not common. Every time I see a lilac bush I think of Walla Walla, but the sightings have been few and far between.

Until I moved back to Washington State.

It seems that lilacs are not just a Walla Walla thing, here in Seattle they are everywhere. Not as profuse as Walla Walla, perhaps, but each residential block has at least a few bushes bursting into light purple bloom. My own block here has eight lilac bushes in different shades of white, lavender, and magenta—eight! I can’t tell you how happy this makes me . Every day, when I go for a walk, I stop and smell the lilacs. The fragrance is at once young and fresh, yet also sweetly old fashioned. It intoxicates me and leaves me dreaming—of spring and of youth.



The last spring I spent in Walla Walla was sweet with the scent of lilacs, but it was also bittersweet. I had returned from a year of living and studying in Europe, back to this small town surrounded by wheat fields. Coming back to college felt confining after a year of such heady freedom and I wished that I had stayed in Europe, as I wanted to, and had not done the safe thing of coming home to finish my degree. After Europe, Walla Walla felt bereft of culture or sophistication.

What Walla Walla does have, which I was unable to appreciate at the time, is a good dose of American charm. It has lovely tree lined streets and large houses with yards, the best of which have front porches. I was lucky enough to live in one such house my final year. The house had been broken up into apartments and the section I lived in included the house’s original living room, a huge room with a grand fireplace. It also had what may be the world's tiniest kitchen—smaller even than the kitchens in both of the apartments I had in Japan, and that's saying a lot.

This kitchen had been carved out of what had been, in the original house, a closet. It connected the living room to the bedroom and was exactly the width of a small electric stove. That tall and narrow window to the left side on the ground floor in the photo was my kitchen window—it spanned the entire "room." The fridge door barely cleared the counter when opened, if the dish drainer were in use there was no prep space, but it had a tiny window sill where I tried to grow herbs, a small little shelf for my cookbooks. Best of all, it was mine—the very first kitchen of my own.



I bought spices and dishes and proceeded to cook. It was here that I poured over cookbooks, trying to recreate dishes I had eaten in Europe—Greek moussaka, Austrian liptauer spread, and creamy garlic soup. I invited friends over for little dinner parties and weekend brunches—constrained, as I was, by the fact that I only owned three chairs. And on late spring evenings, when the weather was warm and the lilacs in bloom, we sat on the railing of the front porch and ate Salad Niçoise—or as close an approximation as I could make.



SALAD NIÇOISE, AMERICAN STYLE
Adapted from the The Silver Palate Cookbook

This is a somewhat bastardized version of a Salad Niçoise. The only olives to be found in the town of Walla Walla at the time were standard pitted black olives; there was only one store, on the far side of town, that sold white tuna. I used to walk there just to buy it, packing the cans of tuna into the leather bag I had bought in Florence, walking home dreaming wistfully of Europe. This was before Salad Niçoise had made its way onto the lunch menu at restaurants throughout the US, I felt like I was sharing something special with my friends. I’ve since made this dish for a million potlucks and picnics, always to great acclaim. It may not be absolutely traditional, especially in the olive department, but it’s really quite good.

8 small red potatoes, cooked in salted water until tender but not mushy
2 lbs green beans, trimmed, blanched in boiling water until bright green but still crispy
10 Italian plum tomatoes, quartered (I like to use the oval shaped cherry tomatoes)
1 small purple onion, sliced thinly
1/2 cup olives (Nicoise olives are traditional, black canned work in a pinch)
pinch of salt
1 tsp pepper
3/4 cup dressing (recipes follows)
6 hard boiled eggs, quartered
12 oz oil packed, white tuna
2 oz anchovy fillets (can be omitted, for anchovy-phobes)

Assemble all ingredients, except eggs and tuna, in a large bowl or on a serving platter.



Dressing:
1 tbs dijon mustard
4 tbs red wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp sugar (I've omitted this in the past, but it really doesn't taste as good without)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped flat leaf parsley (don't omit, it makes a difference).

Whisk the mustard and vinegar until smooth. Add the olive oil in a slow steady stream, whisking steadily until it thickens and emusifies (I stop adding oil as soon as it thickens, as I like my dressing on the sour side). Add sugar, salt, and pepper. Mix to blend. Incorporate chopped parsley.

Gently toss the salad ingredients to mix. Pour almost all of the dressing over, toss to blend. Arrange the eggs around the outside of the dish, the tuna in the center, and drizzle the remaining dressing over the tuna and eggs, making sure to moisten each yolk. Top with additional chopped parsley.

Serve chilled, with french bread for sopping up any extra dressing. Preferably on a front porch, during a late spring or summer evening. If you're within the smell of blooming lilacs, all the better.

Cilantro Bread Soup: High Risk Entertaining

The first week I was in Seattle I invited Molly and Brandon over for lunch. The two of them had been kind enough to have me over for dinner several times already, on visits I had made over the past year. Even though I had only just arrived and was still setting up house, I wanted to have them over for a meal.

I had a menu picked out, but the day before I read an article in San Francisco magazine about a Portuguese bread soup, Acorda. As soon as I read about this cilantro bread soup with chard, white beans, plenty of garlic, and a poached egg on top (as served at Bar Tartine), I knew I had to make it. And I had to make it for Molly—the person responsible for me learning to like chard and poached eggs in the first place. I also suspected that Brandon would like the garlic.

The only problem: there wasn’t a recipe included with the article.

Any sane person would probably not try to make a recipe for which they had no recipe, especially not on the day they were going to be cooking for an exceedingly accomplished food blogger friend for the first time. I, of course, am not always sane.

There was a photo in the magazine and a brief description. I couldn’t find anything online about acorda, The closest I got was a website that said the soup was traditionally made with only three ingredients: bread, water, cilantro. That wasn’t much help. I made a batch of chicken stock that night and figured I could find my way towards acorda in the morning.



The next day I was up and out early. I had only been in the house two days and was still buying basic things—a dish drainer, measuring cups. The DSL hadn’t been hooked up yet and I was in and out of cafés, checking email and trying to keep on top of work. It was a busy morning, but I figured as long as I had an hour’s time I could throw together a soup. How hard could it be?

While driving back to the house I remembered I hadn’t cooked the beans. Yikes! I soaked them, yes, but they still needed to be cooked. And I only had an hour. Was that long enough?

Once I got home I realized that, while I had made chicken stock the night before, I didn’t have a colander to strain it with. I had a tea strainer but nothing more. Crap! What to do?

Okay, I could sort of strain the stock by clamping the pot lid on and allowing a tiny crack between pot and lid for the liquid to seep out. I ran a skimmer through it to fish out any leftover particles. It wasn’t perfect but good enough. One hurdle down.

I’ve heard you’re not supposed to boil beans (something about boiling protein making it harder to digest), rather they should simmer long and low. No time for that today. I set the beans to a steady low boil and hoped they’d cook in time.

I didn’t really know what I was doing about this soup. I had bought some leeks to give a little body to the soup. I chopped and sautéd those, adding garlic to the mix as well. The house smelled good, but I cringed every time I saw the clock. I was running behind.

Dang! The beans boiled over onto the electric glass cooktop. Have I mentioned how much I hate this new stove? The residue stuck and burned, setting off the fire alarm. Just what I needed.



Twenty minutes to go and I was frantically chopping cilantro and wishing I had stuck with that nice, safe recipe I had originally planned on making. What on earth possessed me to get all adventurous?

Note to self: next time, be reasonable.

Ten minutes to go and the beans were soft and fully cooked. Yay! I thanked my lucky stars—and Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo—for beans so fresh they cook in under an hour. Whew.

Five minutes to go and I had something that almost looks like soup. Still had to add the chard—yeesh, I still had to chop the chard!

The phone rang, it was Molly. I had apparently given them the wrong street number (did I mention I’d only been here two days?). I was embarrassed by the mix-up, but selfishly grateful for the extra few minutes it gave me.

Beans in the soup—yes. Chard chopped. Napkins in place. Cheese and charcuterie plated. Holy cow, I think I’ve pulled it off! Whoops—need to taste the soup to see if it’s edible.

Yeah, I think it is. Maybe even good, who knows. At this point, who cares?

The soup turned out to be quite edible. The toasted bread soaked up the garlicy broth and were, by turns, crunchy and deliciously soggy. The cilantro and chard lent a feeling of springlike green. The beans were soft and plump, and the runny thick egg yolk oozed pleasingly over it all. Later Molly emailed me: “That soup was a smashing success! Are you going to post the recipe? I'd love to have it.”

Not that I suggest anyone try to emulate my brand of kitchen madness. I’m sure all of you are much more reasonable people, aren’t you?

And anyway, here's the recipe. Now you don't even have to try.



CILANTRO BREAD SOUP (ACORDA)
Serves four

1 cup dried white beans (I used Rancho Gordo marrow beans)
2 tbs olive oil
3 leeks (about 2 cups, chopped)
6 large cloves garlic
8 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cups packed cilantro (you could try with parsley, but I'd use less than the two cups).
one large bunch chard, stems removed, coarsely chopped (about 4 cups)
one loaf baguette sliced, or other crusty bread
4 eggs
distilled vinegar
salt and pepper, to taste

Cook the beans in water with one clove of the garlic, which you can smash, until soft. Drain and set aside. You could also use canned beans.

Trim and clean the leeks, making sure to get all the dirt out of the leaves. Cut in half, lengthwise, and slide in 1/4 inch slices.

Saute the leeks in olive oil until limp. Add three cloves of garlic, diced or pressed through a garlic press. Continue sautéing until the garlic is soft but not brown, lower heat as needed. Add four cups of the stock and set to a simmer.

Add the beans and continue to simmer.

Blend the cilantro with the reserved 2 cups stock. I do this with a hand blender in a bowl or large glass measuring cup. Use a blender if you prefer. Could also use a mortar and pestle—though in that case, add only enough of the stock to make a smooth paste. Do this as late in the game as you can, for the bright green of the cilantro mixture will begin to darken and fade after blending.

Bring a small pan of water to a low boil and add a bit of white distilled vinegar, about one tsp per cup of water. Poach the four eggs in this water, until the yolk has just set. Drain and set aside.

Add the chard to the soup pot and stir until it is just wilted. Add the cilantro mixture and season with salt and pepper.

Toast the bread slices and rub with remaining garlic cloves. If you are not fond of garlic, rub lightly on only one side. Garlic lovers can go for both sides.

Lay the bread in the bottom of a soup bowl. Ladle the soup over. Top with poached egg.

Chimol!

Sometimes you stumble upon something so good you just have to share it. I found chimol while looking for radish recipes for a post I have in the works, but I wasn’t planning on telling you about it for a while. Then I made a batch tonight and it’s so very yummy, so wonderfully summery, so perfect for a sunny afternoon or warm evening—both of which we had today in Seattle—that I can’t help but share it. To hold out on something this good just wouldn’t be right.

Chimol is a Salvadoran dish. I first noticed the recipe on the Mariquita Farm website, in their section of radish recipes. If you haven’t checked out their site, or the Ladybug Letter blog that farm couple Andy Griffin and Julia Wiley keep, you should definitely take a look. Mariquita stopped selling their wares at the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market earlier this year; I miss seeing them each week—and buying their wonderful produce.

Chimol is a chopped salsa that incorporates radishes, along with tomatoes, cilantro, onion, and lemon juice. On the website they mention that it is traditionally served with carne asada. It sounded intriguing, so I added it to my list of radish recipes to try.

Then today, while driving back from a late afternoon spent at the beach with my two little niece-lets (certainly the best hooky-playing I’ve done in years), I got the craving for flank steak. I know, I know, for a former vegetarian, I really have strayed. I don’t cook red meat at home often, but flank steak is something I do make every once in a while, usually with chimichurri sauce. I love chimichurri sauce.

Not today I don't. Today it was all about chimol.



I tweaked the recipe a bit, deciding I wanted equal parts radish and tomato. I added half that amount in cilantro and chopped red onion. A squeeze or two of lemon and a few pinches of salt finished it up—a crunchy, slightly assertive sort of a salsa that cut the richness of the meat. This is a salsa that won't get soggy, even if you leave it out all day in the sun. On top of strips of flank steak wrapped in corn tortillas, it was simply heaven.



So here is the recipe for you to enjoy, no waiting. ‘Cause I’m thinking you might be in the summer cookout mood this weekend. If you are, chimol would be a happy addition to your menu.

As the good folks at Mariquita say, chimol is great on chicken or fish—even grilled slabs of tofu. Use it as you would a salsa, with scrambled eggs, chips, tacos. The radish will keep it crunchy throughout a long warm afternoon—hopefully at the beach.

As for me, my cheeks are rosy, I have a bit of sand in my hair, and I smell like sunscreen. It feels like the first summer I've had in many years. Right now my neighborhood in San Francisco is buried so deep under layers of fog that you can barely find it, and any trip to the beach requires jackets and mittens. Hardly cookout weather down there.

Seattle, I am loving you right now—with a serving of chimol on the side.

CHIMOL
Makes enough for two generous servings, multiply as needed
1/2 cup radish, chopped in medium fine dice
1/2 cup tomato, chopped in medium fine dice
1/4 cup cilantro, coarsely chopped (cilantro haters could substitute flat leaf parsley)
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice, or to taste
3 pinches salt, or to taste

FOR FLANK STEAK
1 1/2 lb. flank steak, washed and patted dry
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp black pepper

Mix the salt, pepper and spices in a small bowl. Rub the spice mixture on both sides of the beef. To broil: set the pan about six inches from the burner and cook four minutes per side. Let sit at least five minutes before slicing. To grill: let's just say that if you have your own barbeque, you likely know what to do with it more than I do.

Yum.

Eight Food Things

Yeah, yeah, it's another meme. I generally wouldn't go there, but Catherine tagged me with such effective guilt inducing technique. And the fact is, I was already tagged a while back by a non-food blogging friend (they exist, I assure you). I guess it's time to start singing for my supper.

But eight things about me? I already did that five things about me post a while back, and I felt so silly that I deleted it after it had been up a few weeks (ha, those of you who missed it will never know about my sordid career as a college ______). There's no way I am going to be dragging out further skeletons from the closet for this one.

But how about food? I like to talk about food, what if I make all the questions food related? That might be tolerable. And even if some of the questions are kind of prosaic (favorite foods, most hated foods), I'll go for quirky, unique answers that you might not know already.

Yeah, that's the ticket. I could get into a meme like that.

EIGHT FOOD THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT ME

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE FOODS?
Umeboshi (Japanese pickled plum) and shiso leaf—this uniquely Japanese flavor combination is one that I will crave until the day I die. You can find these two together in sushi rolls, including the oh-so-delicious Medicine Roll at Medicine Eat Station in San Francisco.

Hot rice—a bowl of just steamed plain hot rice is near nirvana for me. Doesn’t matter if it’s white or brown, basmati, Jasmine, or sushi rice (okay, I’ll pass on instant rice, but that’s about it). For me, this is comfort food at its finest.

Avgolemono—Greek lemon soup with rice (I had to get something lemon in there; it was this or Shauna’s Meyer lemon sorbet). Warm, lemony, and comforting, I adore this soup. If it’s served with a wedge of spanakopita next to it and a Greek salad, all the better.

WHAT FOODS DO YOU HATE?
Liver—the cafeteria at my work in Japan made liver twice a month. They covered it in a sauce that was so delicious, you could smell it cooking all day long and it made you hungry. But no matter how good the sauce, it couldn’t cover up the fact that (to me) liver tastes awful. Worst taste ever.

Unagi—for years I hated it for the tiny little bones. I recently tried it again and now I don’t hate it I’m merely unimpressed—the texture is so often mealy; the sauce completely masks the taste of the eel (does the eel actually have a taste?); and am I the only person slightly put off by eating something so snake-like?

Swiss cheese—on the rare occasion I decide to give Swiss cheese another go, to see if my tastes have changed, I can’t help feeling like this is a cheese that needs more salt.

FOODS YOU LIKE BUT ARE EMBARRASSED TO ADMIT?
Pace Picante Salsa—I’ve had a ton of gourmet prepared salsas, I’ve made my own as well, but I confess a deep love of Pace Picante Salsa (medium, thanks). It's what I use for the stuffed pita pockets. This is the only reason I go to Safeway a couple of times a year (well, that and the next item on this list).

Kraft Mac & Cheese—bright orange, totally artificial, and oh, so good.

Conversation Hearts—those little Valentine hearts with the writing on them. I kinda dig the fact that they taste of dried toothpaste. I also like those tiny rolls of sour Sweetarts that show up at Halloween. I don't eat much candy, but when I do it appears my tastes are decidedly down-market.

STRANGEST FOOD YOU’VE EATEN AND ENJOYED?
Raw horsemeat (basashi) in Nagano Japan, a local specialty.
As a child I was horrified to learn that in France there were people who ate horses (Misty of Chincoteague, anyone?). But when it was served to me, at a banquet in Japan held partially in my honor, I did my duty and ate it. I then ate the serving meant for the other foreigner, who was too squeamish to try it. Imagine the silkiest beef you’ve ever tasted, dipped in soy sauce mixed with fresh grated ginger. Poor Misty, but it was good.

COOKING FAILURES THAT STILL RANKLE?
My first loaf of bread was baked with nutritional yeast instead of baking yeast. I was twelve, the book said yeast, and I didn't know there was more than one kind. The bread was Challah—lovingly braided, glazed in egg, sprinkled with poppyseeds. It was beautiful but each loaf weighed nine freakin' pounds. My dreams of becoming a bread baker crumbled with every rock-hard slice.

While cooking my first meal ever for Molly and Shauna I got a little too carried away with our conversation about mother-daughter drama and angst and I ended up burning the hell out of a huge pot of sabzi polo, a delicious Persian rice dish made with piles of carefully chopped fresh herbs. Proof positive that cooking and friend therapy should not happen at the same time.

I’m still pretty steamed about that vat of ruined strawberry jam.

INGREDIENTS YOU DON’T WANT TO CONSIDER LIVING WITHOUT?
Salt, vinegar, Dijon mustard. Yes, I am a sourpuss. Lemon juice would be next on the list. Chocolate I could give up, just don’t make me hand over the vinegar!

CUISINE YOU’D LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT?
This is a lame question—there really aren’t any cuisines I don’t want to know more about. But top of my list, at the moment, are: Persian, Indian, Korean, Spanish.

FOODS YOU HATED BUT HAVE GROWN TO LOVE?
Eggplant—as a child I claimed to be allergic to avoid eggplant, now I can’t get enough.

Beets—I still can’t believe it, but it is true.

Kale and chard—thank you very much, Miss Molly. Both greens must be destemmed, or all bets are off.

Tobiko—for many years my dislike of fish extended to fish eggs. Now I like the tiny crunchiness of tobiko. I still haven’t worked my way up to the big eggs, though I hope to do so someday; I’m dying to try this pizza with lemon, creme fraiche and salmon roe.

CURRENT KITCHEN CONUNDRUM?
Trying to find the perfect storage and organization system for spices.

Want to play along? Feel free to post your own food secrets in the comments section. Or put them on your blog and, if you let me know, I will link to you. Come on, it's kind of fun.

UPDATE
Wow, a few people jumped onboard—check it out:
Charlotte at Charlotte's Web, go find out what warthog tastes like.
Kit, from Food & Family in Cape Town, doesn't like fish either.
Kerryn, at White Thoughts, likes eel and emu!

Anyone else who wants in, just let me know.

Panforte, with Memories

My first sight of Italy was a disappointment. Arriving in Florence on the overnight train from the cold of an Austrian December, I flung up the shade to my compartment as the train began to slow down. I was twenty years old, an art history student, and could not wait to see the glory and beauty that was Italy. I was in no way prepared for the sight that greeted me.

Dawn was breaking and it revealed, not unspeakable beauty, but laundry hanging from ramshackle buildings and a wide, muddy brown river. Could this really be the Arno I had heard so much about? Wearily wandering around Florence that morning we fled from reckless Vespa drivers, were accosted by a band of gypsy children, and managed to eat bad Italian food (bad Italian food!) in a generic Florentine cafeteria entirely lacking in atmosphere.

Italy was not living up to my expectations.

The trip was not living up to my expectations either. I was traveling with my mother and her new boyfriend, who had come from California to spend the winter holiday with me. I had been living and studying in Vienna, my first time overseas without family, my first heady taste of a grown-up life. I stayed out late in clubs, spent my afternoons in cafes, and had begun to dress entirely in black—which I thought made me sophisticated and European. My life felt romantic and full of advenuture, exactly how I had always wanted it to be.

I was excited to see my mother and share my new life with her, but when she and George descended from the train in Vienna I couldn’t hide my disappointment. They were dressed all wrong—he in a parka that might have done duty on a polar expedition, she in an old sheepskin coat I had begged her to get rid of for years. Armed with their backpacks and guidebooks they were inescapably American. In about three seconds flat I went from sophisticated young woman in Europe back to being an American daughter.

Not only were my traveling companions a disappointment, now Italy was letting me down.


That is not a smile—it's a look that says I'm only being civil because you have a camera, just leave me alone and let me sulk in peace!

At one point, in that long morning of wandering around Florence, I plopped myself down on a street corner in exasperation. Nothing was working out the way I had imagined it would and I wanted to cry. As I sat there I glanced to my side and saw a carving of St. George slaying the dragon. Here, on a street corner, for anyone to see and touch, was an early work by Donatello, a precursor to the grand developments of the Renaissance. I couldn’t believe that art was out in the open in this way, for people to live their lives around.

And later, as we drove into the Tuscan countryside to visit friends who lived in the Chianti, I was amazed to see the landscape I had studied come to life. Here were the trees I recognized from Leonardo’s paintings, the ones that looked like popsicles. Here too were rows of grape vines and silvery grey olive trees, old homes built of a warm ocher stone that seemed knit into the landscape.

Our friends Tina and Roberto lived in one of these homes, ancient with arching doorways. In the exterior walls there were slits originally used as bow and arrow slots during the Roman era (the Roman era!). The watchtower had collapsed long ago, but the view down the sloping fields and across to hill villages on the other side remained unchanged. There was a cantina filled with wine and oil made from the grapes and olives that grew on the property, and a fireplace in the kitchen large enough to roast one of the wild boars that roamed the hills and fields. It was December, hunting season, and we occasionally heard gunshots echoing out in the valley.



Despite our discomfort with each other, we settled into Tuscany and she began to have her way with us.

It's a cliche but the food was amazing. I had never had such lush olive oil—thick, like juice. I had never known a simple dish of sautéed spinach could taste so good. I had never had pasta so tender or cheese so full of flavor. And one afternoon, in a small restaurant near the town of Mercatale, I ate ravioli stuffed with mushrooms that dissolved in my mouth with such layered flavors of the woods that I thought I would never again taste anything that amazing.

And yet things were still difficult within my family. I was in that awkward place of not fully being an adult, yet not wanting to still be a child. I had not previously met George and wasn’t used to having my mother’s attention divided—yet I didn’t want her to be my mother the way she had always been. I desperately wanted her to see me for the adult I imagined I had become, something she didn't seem able to do. Failing to have any perspective on the situation and my emotions, I became bratty—proving that I wasn’t nearly the grown up I fancied myself to be, not to mention, shockingly ungrateful for what I realize now was an extraordinary experience.

Perhaps the worst day was the day we went to Siena. Tina and Roberto remained at home, leaving the three of us without buffer from each other. We wandered around the central square, site of the famous Palio horse race, and I lagged behind, hoping no one would connect me with the unfashionable pair who were clearly tourists. I often notice this of teenagers these days, how they stand apart, desperately wanting not to be associated with the adults they are bound too. Seeing this now both breaks my heart and makes me smile; I too have been that child.



But there in Siena we discovered something extraordinary, something we could all agree on. In the shops that lined the small alleys and streets there were round discs wrapped in paper. It was panforte, a dense confection of dried fruit, nuts, and spices unlike anything I had ever tasted before. Though I am not a huge fan of dried fruit and hate fruitcake of all kinds, the sparkling flavors of orange and lemon peel in the panforte made me happy—happier than I had been that entire difficult day.

I hadn’t thought about panforte in years, until one day this spring when I noticed that my favorite bakery, Della Fattoria, had begun to sell panforte at the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. I couldn’t help but buy some, for panforte is not easy to find. When I got it home and took off the wrapper, the scent alone brought all my memories back—that day in Siena, the painful and graceless struggle of trying to grow into who I would be. When I cut into the panforte and tasted that tangle of citrus and spice I felt as if I were twenty all over again, caught between childhood and the urge for my own independence.



I also felt lucky, for this is the exact panforte that I remember and love. The flavors are perfect. It is perhaps—dare I say it—even better than some of the Sienese panforte I have tasted. It is certainly fresher, for I've not found another domestic version. This is the first panforte I've had that wasn't made in Italy and shipped here (yay for local eating).



Panforte has been a bit of an obsession for me. While most people know of the Italian panettone, that fluffy fruit studded cake/bread, few people outside of Italy recognize panforte, a mixture of dried fruit, nuts, honey, and spices, bound together with just the smallest amount of flour. The history of panforte is murky, though everyone seems to agree that it is an old recipe, dating back to the Middle Ages. It is said that panforte was carried by soldiers on the crusades (soldiers, on the crusades!).

There seems to be two stories about the origin of panforte—one that it was made by residents as a tithe to the local monastery, and indeed there are records that show the confection used in this manner in the 13th century. The other story is that, following a siege of Siena, a nun named Sister Berta became concerned with the health of the local residents and began making a concoction of dried fruit and nuts that would help people regain their energy (the world’s first energy bar, perhaps?). There are some outlandish sounding stories about the origins of the dessert—talking cats from the devil, the transformation of a crust of bread offered to Jesus. It seems as though there is a definite connection to the church, for panforte is traditionally made in pans lined with what were originally leftover communion wafers. Over the years panforte began to be made by the pharmacists in Siena, each one carefully guarding their own recipe.



There is also debate over the name. Most people saying it means strong bread, but a few believe the forte actually means bitter. What is certain is that panforte is one of those foods of a specific era. Venetian merchants brought back the spices used in panforte when the trade routes were established, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves. At one point it was believed that panforte had aphrodisiac qualities, due to the “hot” spices used in the mixture. It was said to keep families together and prevent spouses from fighting.

There are two different kinds of panforte—nero (black) and bianco (white), also called Panforte Margherita. The second version was invented in 1879, when Queen Margherita of Savoy came to Siena to attend the Palio horse race held in the central plaza. It is a lighter flavor, often topped with powdered sugar, and has become more popular than the darker, spicer version.

Della Fattoria is making two kinds of panforte—plain and chocolate. I couldn’t resist getting one of each to try. While they are both good, I prefer the plain fruit version as it lets the citrus notes shine. Though the Della Fattoria panforte bianco is not topped with powdered sugar or baked with a wafer bottom, I have to say I like it better this way. The purity of the flavors take center stage, that intoxicating mix of fruit and spice I have not tasted since that time in Siena.



I’ve since poked around and found a few recipes for panforte online (this one seems the most promising to me). There's one in the Tartine Cookbook as well (a nontraditional version using figs, Meyer lemons, and other local ingredients), and David Lebovitz has a chocolate panforte recipe in Room for Dessert. While panforte is now available year round, it does have strong connections to Christmas. It’s even said that panforte inspired the British holiday fruitcake, though I much prefer the original.

I’m not in San Francisco much these days, so unless I want to make panforte on my own I’ll be bringing it to Seattle with me. While I’m curious to try my hand, I fear I would never come up with anything as perfect as the Della Fattoria version (and why bother, when they’ve done all the hard work for me?). If the knights of the crusade were able to carry panforte with them on horseback to the holy lands, mine should have no problem surviving the trip to Seattle. And carry it with me I will, for one taste of this sweet and spicy confection brings back so many memories.



Sometimes special flavors and foods are like a time capsule, taking us back to a certain place in our history, showing us a mirror of who we used to be. I've changed since that December in Italy. I’ve given up the urge to be sophisticated, which never really suited me. I’ve come to accept that the instant my mother walks in the room I am her daughter, regardless of whatever else I may be. I continue to love Europe and art—and my friends will tell you that I still wear a distressing amount of black, but it’s more from ease than affectation. Best of all, I can look back at my history and laugh at my young silliness, at the angst that felt so difficult at the time, so urgent.

Yet I still love panforte. I don’t think that’s going to change, no matter what life wisdom I might pick up along the way. Now, happily, I know where to find it.

Della Fattoria
at the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers' Market or in Petaluma, at their cafe
141 Petaluma Boulevard North
Petaluma, CA 94952
Phone: 707-763-0161
Tues-Thurs and Saturday, 7am-3pm
Fridays, 7am-9pm
Closed Monday