warmer than in air

Saturday was that first day that, when you walk out the door, the air is warmer out than in. Not that the air conditioner is on in. Not that we have an air conditioner, at least not if you don’t call fireplaces and chimneys and cellars a natural form of air conditioner, which they are. If those builders in 1809 didn’t know how versatile they were making this house in terms of keeping it cool in summer and warm in winter then they were at least more intuitive than they would need to be now.

From blog warmer than in air

Leo came in as I went out and I mentioned in passing that I had no ideas for supper, and then I continued out to the deck and sat down in the chair that tests my ability anew each year to be able to get up out of it, and picked up my book. Pretty soon, though, it nearing 6pm, I felt a stirring – not of hunger, but of a need to cook.

Cooking gives me space and time to think, to combine, to surprise myself, to get the juices flowing. Cooking and music are a divine combo; add a glass of wine and you’ve got a pretty heady process going on.

In the kitchen was a vase of ramps – I had garlic and shallots, too, but you don’t need them with ramps, which you may know as wild leeks – and a handful of fiddleheads. There was a bit of spinach, too, and some coconut dal I’d made the other night. I had eggs, in more ways than one – which is always a good thing – and good multi-grain bread. Cheese. There was smoked polish sausage from On the Edge Farm, but did I need it? And what else?

Tarragon, basil, & lovage are luxuries of the season, that make me smile every time I cook and walk outside to pick some. Last Sunday I couldn’t resist chopping two stems of tarragon into the filling of a rhubarb pie. There were people who noticed, with questioning and, I think, with real pleasure. Herbs that we think of as savory do indeed go nicely in sweet pies. Rosemary in apple, for instance. Basil would be good except that even a touch of heat reduces its taste to nothing. I decided to make a simple frittata – an omelet of sorts – with ramps and fiddleheads, lovage and tarragon.

Do you know the best way to get those coppery husks off fiddleheads? It's this: Put them in cold water and bring them to the boil and then immediately (almost) tip them into a sieve. The husks have turned into coppery fibers unrelated in any complicated way with each other. Spray the green fiddleheads to take the husks to the bottom and lift the green things out. Dump the husks in the compost. No quicker way to stop up a sink than fiddlehead husks.
I tell you this from experience.

Now, my biggest quandary is – do I use the little hydroponic tomato or stick to the wild, just-grown things? My instinct says no, but my palate says yes.

Instinct is a good thing to follow, especially in spring. A week or so ago I began to think about shad roe. Shad is a river herring, very bony, and its egg sacs are prized by anyone who loves seasonal food and, probably, fish eggs. Its availability works its way north until now we’re getting them from somewhere in Pennsylvania and New York. I stopped into Earth and Sea in Manchester and those expert and friendly people told me they’d call me when they got some in. They called last Thursday, so I did a little carbon footprint thingy and drove down to Manchester and got the roe and, while I was at it, a Branzini, a whole, small European sea bass with white, sweet flesh. Apparently it’s farmed in a very sustainable way, feeding on plants and algae, its waste eaten by microbes instead of by other fish.

Which is quite something to think about – the sustainability of fish – when in the next breath I think of what we are doing to that very strange world that comprises the majority of OUR world, and ALL of theirs – the underwater world and the ocean floor – which is killing great swathes of it completely mindlessly.

I found one of those papery brown moths the other day in the kitchen. They look like tiny, dried-out tea bags when they’re dead. I put him under a jeweler’s cup and saw that he had a monkey face and all kinds of differentiated markings and feelers and little feet not intelligible to the naked eye.

Why do we always look up and go outward when we could find just as many worlds by looking down and within and into the tinier and more and more microscopic levels?

Is that why we haven’t concentrated on exploring that ocean but do concentrate on outer space? And is that why, even while we know next to nothing about that land covered by water, we are content to destroy it in the name of BTUs and so-called progress. Shame.

The Branzini was beautiful to cook and to eat. I zested a lemon over it, diced some preserved lemon, sprinkled salt and pepper and olive oil, stuffed it with chopped ramps, wrapped it in parchment and baked it at 400 ° for about 20 minutes.
In-parchment is a very good way to cook almost any fish. It encloses it to keep the air out and the juices in, and the parchment browns to a coppery mess. It’s always an adventure tearing it away.

From blog warmer than in air

I served the Branzini with a coconut dal, the recipe for which I’d found in a big, beautiful, expensive cookbook at the Northshire that very same day. I did not buy the book but, while flipping through its pages, spied the recipe and memorized the ingredients – it was easy, they were mostly c words. Except for garlic and shallot, for which I substituted ramps, it has coriander, curry leaves, chile, and coconut milk. Along with those little orange lentils that cook so quickly. (I did buy David Chang’s Momofuku, which I will give to Jesse when I’ve had my way with it.)

For the Coconut Dal, simmer a cup of the lentils in 2 cups of water for 20 minutes or so, until tender. Meanwhile, sauté the garlic and shallot, or ramps, then add in the ground coriander, the curry leaves and the crushed hot chile until browned and amalgamated. Add a cup of the coconut milk (I used the whole can) and stir in the lentils. It was delicious but it needed cilantro, which I added to the leftovers. Those are good dipped up with corn chips.

The shad roe were two pretty pink crescents that I prepared Friday night after looking up Jasper White’s technique, which is to braise them in enough butter to almost cover in a slow oven – 350° for about 10 minutes a side. Handle them very carefully so that the sac doesn’t split. I used some of the leftover butter in the mashed potatoes that sided it, and still have some left, and I had the leftover roe the next morning for breakfast.

Which was interesting, because the skin on the cold cooked sacs is thin and brownish pink and veined all over with a web of what looks like black silk thread, and reminds you of other thin-skinned sacs you’ve seen, of a deeply personal nature, though those are not usually cooked. Inside, the eggs are grainy and briny and solid and healthy as surely all eggs are that hold the beginnings of life. Mineral and fascinating.

The frittata was not nearly as fascinating, but it was good, made out of what was on hand, and filling, and Leo liked it.

By the way, I went with my palate instead of instinct – which is just another kind of instinct, I guess – and used the little tomato. I’m glad I did. But when choosing which kind of cheese to top it with – that took me awhile. I thought Swiss, but once I opened the cheese drawer the choice was easy – all I had was cheddar ends, so cheddar ends won out.

So this is quite a bit about eggs and fishes, and sacs and other gelid things, and I’m reminded of what Oscar Wilde said one time, and that was "An egg is always an adventure; the next one may be different." I believe he could be talking about any kind of egg, but especially fish eggs.

***

My little brown moth lay under the jeweler’s cup all day, and when I lifted him up when I was ready to make the frittata, preparatory to sweeping him into the trash, he came alive, teetered on my finger, flew into my hair, and when I ducked outside he flew away into that warmer than in air.

From blog warmer than in air

Farm to Plate Initiative

being a report/review of the recent Farm to Plate Statewide Food Summit held in Rutland. Thank you to India Burnett Farmer for allowing me to publish it.
Below, Greg Cox is about to nibble on one of his luscious greens. Greg and India are a big part of RAFFL (Rutland Area Farm and Food Link), which sponsored the summit.

From Farmers' Market Farmers

The auditorium of the Rutland Middle School was packed with at least 300 people this Saturday to hear Kenneth Meter’s keynote address at the Farm to Plate Statewide Food Summit. Meter, an experienced food system analyst, presented the findings of his study of the farm and food economy of Southeast Minnesota, Finding Food in Farm Country. Meter’s study identified disturbing trends that mimic the Vermont farm situation. Most dispiriting perhaps was the loss of independence and autonomy farms are facing – decades of diminishing farm profits directly related to commodity prices and expenses that are out of the control of farm operators, the increasing rate of money flowing out of farm communities in the form of interest payments as farmers become more dependent on non-local financial institutions and the decreasing share of the retail dollar farmers realize for their product.
Meter was quick to note that even though the economic hardships plaguing the nation’s farm families are also hitting home in Vermont, he also sees a lot of promise for farms to thrive here. Meter noted the significance of the Farm to Plate planning process to strategically guide agriculture at a statewide level. This, coupled with the grassroots groundswell of support for local food and the presence of so many innovative farmers, bodes well for our agricultural future.
The short of it: the current food system takes wealth out of local communities, while community based food systems provide a path towards economic recovery.
The Farm to Plate Initiative, and the work of the numerous farm and food organizations like the Rutland Area Farm and Food Link, supports the strengthening of community-based food systems here in Vermont.

Meter stressed that the key to strong community-based food systems is the presence of direct relationships between a wide variety of players. This is where I see Vermont excelling - we are a small state, and these relationships are already strong. Examples abound - diversified farms know their customers by name, Vermont Fresh Network introduces farmers to chefs, RAFFL mixers build community between beginning farmers and link farmers and institutions like the local hospital.
As our food systems strengthen and expand, new relationships will develop. As processing and distribution hubs come on-line, farmers will know the face of brokers, distributors and specialty food processors. Brokers and distributors, in turn, will better know the food service directors at our schools and institutions. It is these relationships that stimulate creative partnerships between producers, processors, consumers, and more that increase demand for and value of agricultural products. This web of economic activity, when focused on local, statewide and regional relationships, will capture the dollars running through Vermont’s agricultural economy and help rebuild the wealth of our rural communities.
I found the success stories that Meter shared from across the country most inspiring. Examples that I’m excited to see folks explore here in Vermont include:
• Farms that are pushing the envelope in season extension (12 month greens production), marketing prowess (hydroponic operation capturing majority market share in the Twin Cities) and exceptional sales numbers at intensive scales (CSA with $70,000 sales/acre)
• Restaurants that are truly committed to impacting the farm economy (Cafe that sources 59% of inventory locally from over 50 producers)
• Institutional sales successes (University leadership to buy locally has led to 25 stores & institutions in Northern Iowa buying $1.8 million of local food)
• Regional food processing center (involves community players, stimulates new markets like hospital, food co-op and schools)
• Producer and buyers co-op that includes farmers, hospital food service, distributors and truckers as owners.
• Co-operative marketing models (Poultry business cluster addresses scale issues - co-op allows independent small scale production with larger scale processing)

A slideshow of the Farm to Plate planning process updated us all on the effort thus far. Break out sessions throughout the day allowed for input and discussion on the many sections of the Farm 2 Plate Strategic Plan, including the proposed 20 Goals for 2020. The draft of the plan is set to be competed by the end of June (incorporating everything they’ve heard during this summit and many other focus group sessions around the state).
A fantastic lunch sourced from many local farms was served. Pulled pork from Brown Boar Farm, fresh salad greens from Vermont Herb & Salad Company, Beet Salad from Foggy Meadow Farm and more from Brown’s Farm Stand, Thomas Dairy, Boardman Hill Farm, Perry’s Potatoes, Green Mountain Coffee and Dellveneri Bakery.

by India Burnett Farmer

first rhubarb pie

could almost eat this just like this, with egg on its face

about as good as it gets in piedom

Rhubarb Custard Pie

(from June 2007)

...the crust...

My grandmother’s crust was pale, never golden, even white. She used lard, and sometimes a bit of butter. It was slightly salty, never sweet, so that it was a flaky foil to any filling. Flaky? When your teeth bit into it they slid off each other, then through with a click, as though biting into a scrumptious, slightly salty, richly greasy, layered shaley stone. It was the queen of pie crusts, the one everyone else aspired to. After Grandma died, Aunt made the pies, for her crusts were closest, even though she would grunt, "Humph, not as good as Ma's, but..."

It took me years to learn to make a good crust, and that was only after I realized I had taken too seriously admonishments not to handle it too much and so it all fell apart when I tried to roll it out. I knew this, but could do nothing about it. Every time I tried to squeeze that dough together the bones in my fingers locked up.

This is the way I make it now: Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Into the bowl of a food processor put 2 cups of unbleached flour (8 oz); ½ teaspoon salt; 1/3 cup cold butter cut into small chunks (3 oz); 1/3 cup of lard (3 oz). Pulse until the mixture is the size of coarse meal. Into 1/3 cup of water put two ice cubes, and, holding the ice back with your fingers, add it slowly to the flour mixture as you pulse the machine just until it forms a ball. I seldom use all the water, so go slowly and carefully. It shouldn’t be wet, but neither should it be too dry.

(To do this by hand, whisk together the flour and salt. Cut in the butter and lard until the texture is correct, sprinkle with the water, toss with a fork until the dough comes together in a ball.)

Flour a working surface, scrape the dough onto it, knead it a bit, pat into a smooth ball and divide it in half. Take the slightly larger half (for there will be one) and roll it out and fit it into your pie pan, making sure you have a generous overlap, say about 2 inches. Set aside and roll out the top crust and leave it while you make the filling.

...the filling...

(Adapted from James Beard’s American Cookery)

Whisk 2 large eggs until foamy. Whisk in 1 ½ cups granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, grated rind of ½ lemon or lime, and ¼ teaspoon salt (I do this all in the processor). Pour 4 (generous) cups rhubarb that has been cleaned, trimmed, and cut into 1/3 inch slices (it should be dry) into the bottom crust. Pour the egg mixture over the rhubarb, dot with about 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (don’t forget this step, as I often do: It’s VERY important) and gently position the top crust over the rhubarb. Again, there should be a generous overlap.

At this point I use shears to trim the two crusts evenly. Turn the overlap of the crusts under to seal, and then crimp the edges. They’ll be nice and thick and crispy when you’re done. Vent the top crust with the shears and sprinkle with turbinado sugar if you have it.

Don’t skimp on the sugar in a pie. I use practically no sugar on an everyday basis, but pies are the kind of special occasion on which, even when sugar was valuable and hard to get, it would be used abundantly.

Bake the pie at 450 degrees for fifteen minutes, then lower the heat to 325 degrees and bake for twenty or thirty minutes, or until the top crust is browned, the fruit is fork tender, and the filling is bubbling.

By baking for ten or fifteen minutes at a high heat, the bottom crust has less time to get soggy and the rhubarb gets a jump-start on becoming tender before the filling has time to boil and curdle the eggs. The long low-heat baking then thickens the custard – which will not “set” – while further tenderizing the rhubarb and crisping the crust.

... the topping...

I always serve my pies topped with a dollop of crème fraiche, which is delectably not-sweet, but tangy and unctuous with butterfat. You can buy it ready made, but I usually make mine at home. Because it’s simple.

To a pint of good heavy cream, that has not been ultra-pasteurized (Thomas’s is very good), whisk in 1 tablespoon buttermilk or sour cream just until it’s smooth – you don’t want to whip the cream. Cover loosely and set aside in a warm spot until it thickens, probably for at least six hours. You might want to think about this before you make the pie, as I did not as I wrote this recipe.

Virginia dogwood bloomed profusely this year in our little corner of Vermont

ramps are in

Sorry for my long absence. But a picture is worth a thousand words, isn't that right? I'll be back soon!

how sweet the green spring

How sweet it is, when you have not “had time to cook” in what seems like months, that you are nevertheless certain to make the time to walk into the Farmers’ Market and pick up a dozen eggs all speckled brown perfection in their carton, and some yellow-veined green chard fresh from the field and certainly some spinach; and when you exclaim, as you dig out your last change for a box of blue and yellow and orange carrots, “Oh, I need potatoes, too, but I’m cleaned out,” the farmer says “we have TONS of potatoes. I’m going to give you some” and she dumps a little peck of them in with the carrots. Because that’s just how sweet it is, you remind yourself, when you are among friends and good, earthy food!

And still sweet when you tear yourself away from the conversations and music at the Market and they follow you through the Co-op and out upon the sidewalk, and then you go home to a garden full of sorrel and Egyptian onions, and garlic sprouting greenly up, and nubbins of rhubarb looking like a jigsaw puzzle all brilliant red and black and green – all growing up out of the ground, and it is 82 degrees in Rutland on April third.

Well, that’s pretty sweet, and you must appreciate it NOW, because beautiful weather isn’t free, you know. You’re going to pay for it later...

That’s how I’ve been feeling lately – a life full of hit-the-ground-running mindset interspersed with moments of recognition of what’s really important, as well as the occasional opportunity to really enjoy it.
In that Saturday afternoon lull that I speak of, I decide to make a cup of tea. I open the dishwasher because there are no clean cups hanging under the cupboard. There in that malodorous machine the state of my life is made apparent. The upper level proliferates in dirty glasses and cups and grungy plastic containers and the lower one in forks and soup spoons, and all the tablespoons I own because I use them each day for my dog’s yogurt (he still gets HIS supper), and knives that we use for butter and peanut butter on morning toast. All that while the plate rack remains woefully empty. Not too many sit-down meals have gone on in this house for some time now. Quick short-order is about it.

So I decide to make a quiche. Because I have these lovely fresh ingredients, and because the tools involved in making and eating it will fill up the empty spaces in the dishwasher so it can be guiltlessly run.

But I chide myself for those thoughts – the making of a quiche is a pleasant enough thing in itself; and the eating of it no less so. Especially when you have not been cooking anything with any like degree of preparation time and planning in recent history.

In that recent history I have met many people who do not have time to cook for themselves, let alone their families, and very little inclination, anyway, because they don’t perhaps KNOW how to cook, at least something the thought of which whets their appetite. KFC anyone? Whenever I find myself in these circumstance I think of the young working families who have children at home, whose lives are hectic and short on time. What happens when they need a meal?

I count myself lucky that I can decide to make a quiche and then simply MAKE it, because I know how to do it without having to look up a recipe that calls for so much Swiss chard and so much this and that. I know to prepare the single crust from a cup of flour, some butter or lard, some salt, and enough ice water to bring it together. I know to shred the cheese and put half of it over the crust, prepare the chard and onions, and the formula for the custard. And to put it into a really HOT oven in order to cook the bottom crust and then to turn the heat down so that the custard doesn’t curdle. I wish I could teach the whole world to cook, to take advantage of real food.

Another blessed evening I am again lucky. I have the time and the garden that I can walk out into and pick a stem of lovage and some chives and take them in and drop them on some Trader Joe’s green beans steaming over a pot of simmering water. Whenever I find a TJs I stock up on olive oil and those great frozen green beans – they are small, like French green beans, les haricots vert, I believe, zydeco for short, and tender and flavorful.

And here is my yearly reminder that lovage is a plant that everyone should have in their garden. Its beauty is not in its appearance, which is large and raw and straggly, but in the flavors of tarragon and celery that it adds to soups and vegetables, even potato salad.

Along with the green beans, which will be dropped into a warm bowl and dressed with butter, salt and pepper before we eat them, I have chicken wings from the Farmers’ Market, that I’ve given a long, SLOW roast with garlic and jalapeno, and the first arugula from a booth at the Farmers’ Market – Singing Cedars, I think.
On the plate the arugula, green beans and chicken wings are all dressed with separate drops of a really good sherry vinegar and some shards of gorgonzola that has aged quite magnificently in the cheese drawer in my fridge for at least two months. What a plate full of different and entirely melodious tastes – a rare treat these days!

After supper I wander through the gardens, the yard, around the house on the corner lot that wants to be a farm, through all the plots, at least three times, noticing and planning, and gathering different specimens of the daffodils that grow there. I wonder what I am doing filling this spring up with so much unspringlike work, that hit-the-ground-running attitude, and then I take the daffs into the house and plop them into a little cream pitcher my grandmother gave me, and then I take a picture of them. One of them is prettier than the others, with a bright orange ruffling out of the center. Bah, I say, I’ll bet that beauty is not the best smelling one. I sniff each of them, from the plainest to the flashiest.

Hah. I was wrong. The prettiest DOES smell the sweetest.

From Blog how sweet the green spring

Sometimes that’s just the way it is!

**

Slow-Roasted Chicken Wings

As some of you know, I buy locally grown, pastured meats, and that includes chicken. Until lately, when the McMurrys at Sunset Farm found a way to sell chicken parts, a meal of chicken wings was a thing of the past. These wings are large and meaty. Find Jeff or Cathy at the Rutland Farmers’ Market on Saturdays.

Preheat the oven to 425°

Smear a large shallow pan –a rimmed pizza pan works well – with butter. Take 3 pounds of chicken wings, dry them with paper towels if necessary, lock the wing tip over the drumstick, place each on the pan, sunny side up, grind salt and pepper over them, sprinkle with finely chopped jalapeno and garlic, drizzle with olive oil, and place in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour, or until golden and crispy.

anger and a sandwich... or two

Last Saturday was the Vernal Equinox – the first day of spring – in Culebra as well as in Vermont, and on Equinox Eve my Culebran/Wallingford friends called me from there: “We’re just sitting out on the deck, having just come back from Susie’s, and while we were there another couple came in and sat down near us. We chatted. They told us they had found Susie’s through a column in the Rutland Herald, and just had to try it.”

I love those little synchronistic happenings in life, don’t you? Those little ‘6 degrees’ events? Here are these people – from Brattleboro, I think – who just happened to read my last column and end up 3,000 miles away, meeting the very friends I wrote of, while checking out my suggestions for good eats. Happy plantain mash to them, and a tip of my pina colada!

I laughed and chortled at this news, and perhaps even more heartily because I’d received an angry email about that column from someone who resented my being ‘snarky’ about their precious little Culebra. I guess they didn’t get that Culebra is precious to me, too. People must think in order to show admiration for some place, person, or restaurant, etcetera, that one must ooze adulation all over it and find nothing to improve.

Well. Not me!

Take the Farmers’ Market, for instance. Everyone knows I totally adore/admire the Market and I loves my Farmers! But don’t I admit that they can be cantankerous prigs sometimes? Oh yes, I do. Insensitive to other peoples’ accomplishments? Yes! Full of themselves? Oh my goodness! But better friends and quality food you cannot find!
I do not brag when I tell you that I receive my share of appreciative messages from you, my readers, about my columns. I so appreciate those messages and want to thank you for them, but once in awhile a really angry one knocks me from my comfortable little roost.

I received one from a ‘nutritionist’ (you’ve probably noticed that I usually bracket that word) a while back when I wrote about canola oil vs the lovely Lard. Meh, I blew that one off. I also got a lot of flak from my editor, my dear Randal, which followed down to the fact that the beautiful yellow drifts of rapeseed (Canola) blossoms in his grandparents’ fields made a big impression on him as a little buzzer. Ah, I appreciate that. Much of my food sense stems from the same kind of thing – rosy memories of familial pig-killings, for instance. But the memory of long tight rows of corn with the DeKalb 791 sign in the corners of them, or of my dad kvetching that the blankety blank government was paying him to keep fields fallow did not inculcate me with any respect for the so-called ‘green’ revolution, government subsidies, or GMO crops.

But really – do people need to be so blasted angry at me for something I wrote? I mean, I’m angry, too, but my anger is at big banks, big insurance, big pharm. Etcetera.

On the other hand, if you remain open, something good almost always comes out of such encounters. For the Culebra column it was a link to this blog http://islandwomanculebra.blogspot.com/ . If you go to Culebra, you will meet this woman. She runs a little stand on the corner of the bridge, and when it’s closed the words Open Some Days, Closed Others appear on the doors, in true island time!

The most vicious attack happened a couple of years ago by a friend of a friend for a column about a grass-fed burger and a plug for a restaurant, as I remember. Oh well, who cares! Because you’d best try not to let that kind of misplaced anger cramp your style – it’s the penalty for being a public object for people to see and take umbrage at if they happen to be in a bad mood and don’t have a dog to kick. Honestly? That’s what makes people mean – down deep thinking that everyone else is bigger and more powerful than they are, which gives them the right to blast ‘em!

Still, it DOES put a crimp in your style. I seldom write about restaurants anymore because there are few I can recommend with unremitting adoration – I’m sure I could nitpick with Thomas Keller’s French Laundry for heavens’ sake. My farmers, now, they just grin and bear both my praise and my plaints. There’s hardly anything bad I can say about them anyway, even the Republicans, and the single one I do not favor with my currency or words is so popular he doesn’t need them.

Another crimp is that I don’t have the heart to do those long, fully researched stories that I used to offer you. They’re lots of work and time, and then Whap! Back o’the knees with a 2X4. Still, that’s a doubtful loss, at best – just means you spend less time reading!

But you know what? Three years of writing these Twice Bittens, countless wonderful letters, comments, and even several friendships, and only 3 nastinesses. I guess I can take it.

***

That said, I have discovered two new comparatively hidden places that might or might not be new to you. I’ve been out and about – frenetically so, for me – these last couple of weeks, and I spent many hours driving to and from Vergennes on the bucolic 22A.

On the Vergennes main street there is a little rustic place called 3 Squares Café, and on their blackboard they do have a Boyden Farms grass-fed beef burger! They also have good coffee and bagels and scones and muffins for starting out your day. Lunch is handwritten on said boards, with lots of Mexican shadings and very nice all-American sandwiches with good breads and fillings. The owner, Matt Birong, cooks in a tiny kitchen in almost plain view, with some added help on busy days. It’s a bustling place, with wood floors and tables, even some community ones, and, the first day I walked in, there was Patrick Leahy scarfing down a sandwich with some cohorts.

So, my final word is – excuse me if I don’t gush – If you find yourself in Vergennes (perhaps you’ve driven up to Dead Creek to check out the spring bird migration) around breakfast, lunch, or dinner (although I haven’t had dinner there) give it a try. I like it. A lot.

Another day I was driving through Chester, on my way to Andover (don’t ask) and went by an almost hidden fairyland with a sign out front announcing The Phoenix Café. I screeched to a halt and backed up. The lettering on a large building half-hidden behind some trees gave me to know that I had found the latest home of Baba a Louis bakery, the original one, I mean, which shares a common birth but is now under separate ownership from our own excellent Baba down on the notorious south end of Wales Street.

Entering the shrubby wooden arch and following the curving shallow steps and path to the entrance was indeed like entering a fairyland. Inside, big wooden, high-ceilinged rooms with lots of bakery equipment at one end, and chairs and tables at the other. Again, good sandwiches, soups, and salads, as well as the bakery’s famous rolls and pastries. And of course your choice of breads and crackers. I chose a ham and Swiss on rye for my sandwich, and a loaf of seriously whole-grain bread and some latticework crackers to take home. All were delicious. Note: the café and the bakery are separate businesses, so you will also pay separately. See if you can find it right at the end of Main Street in Chester before the wilds begin.

... Catching up ...

Peter McGann will do another, long-awaited workshop on authentic Mexican Cooking, with all new recipes from diverse regions of Mexico. They will take place on three Wednesdays, April 14, 28, and Cinco de Mayo, from 5 to 7PM in the Rutland Area Food Co-op kitchen at 77 Wales Street. $30 per class or $90 for the whole series. Sign up at the Co-op, or call 773-0737.

Peter will also be providing the food for the Co-op’s annual meeting on Sunday, April 25th at 5PM at the Unitarian Church on West Street. You should attend, why? Well, to become a member ($10 a month); because you ARE a member; to voice your vote on new Co-op Board members; see the new RAFC video; mingle with friends, and, of course, to enjoy Peter’s food. Catch up on the Co-op, come and enjoy!

Rutland is the host of the statewide Farm to Plate local food summit on Saturday, April 10 from 9:30am to 4pm at the Rutland Middle School Complex on Library Avenue. This is a big deal, because the purpose is to bring together people from the whole state to review the goals and provide feedback to guide final drafting of the Farm to Plate strategic plan – what is our farming and food future? How does the Rutland area fit in? Registration is required. Contact Heather Pipino, heather@vsjf.org if you would like to attend. $10 registration fee to cover lunch cost - scholarships available. Send check to: Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, ATTN: Farm to Plate Summit, 3 Pitkin Court, Suite 301E, Montpelier, VT 05602.

And lastly but not leastly, Maya Zelkin has been holding food workshops at Pierce’s store in Shrewsbury. I’ve been out of town for most of them, but am determined to attend the last one on March 28 to celebrate spring foods – making butter, yogurt, and soft cheese from local jersey cow milk, and then an assortment of maple confections and candies. Call (802) 492-3326.

when in Culebra, eat as Culebrians do

Typical lunch -- chicharrones my addition

“When in Rome...,” quoth I the other day when my companion complained that his pre-plane Bloody Mary was rather watery. We weren’t in Rome, but believe me when I tell you that the choice of a Piña Colada couldn’t have been more apt in this instance.

We'd fled Vermont just on the leading edge of that nasty spell a week or so ago, when it was still deep winter, and came back to balmy, sunny skies filled with the steam of maple sap and signs of spring. Since when have I been so lucky? Well, “Lucky is as lucky does,” as Grandma used to say, and we did skedaddle ahead of plan, nevertheless finding ourselves in the Dartmouth Coach (what a great deal) grinding sideways up (or down) 89 in a foot of snow on the way to Boston; but better that than standing in grounded Rutland APO missing our Boston/San Juan flight.

Because, yes, we were on our way to the little island I wrote about last year, where the flock of wild chickens that roams it wakes you at 4:30AM crowing raucously PUERto RIco, PUERto RIco! They scratch and scavenge up and down the island, making a mess of your gardens and planters, meanwhile providing a certain amount of protein for hardened islanders. “Makes wonderful soup,” one of them told Leo, and indeed they are all handsome, feathers glowing, living the good life under that hot hot sun.

Culebra, with the creamy white sands, the long white rollers on the edge of the turquoise sea, the thorny acacia, the rutted roads, and the house of friends high above the bay.

View from the deck. Bougainvillea is rooting. Book? Fortress of Solitude

The drill? Wake and wander through the breezy, bright kitchen to get coffee then out to the deck to observe the sun’s progress up over the end of the bay. Walk. Breakfast. Read. Lunch. Desultory conversation. Read. Beach. Showers. Cocktails. Conversation. Dinner. Discussion. Bed. To be repeated next day. Lovely way of alleviating the sense of existential loneliness caused by residing in one separate body and mind.

Zoni Beach, inaccessible, with a shrouded St. Thomas in the distance

The only decisions needing to be made were which beach, the secluded and lovely Zoni or the more accessible and world-class Flamenco; and what and where is dinner. Oh, and whether or not it’s worth it to break the unspoken agreement to agree to disagree. Diverse opinions there!

Breakfast consisted of eggs (each marked “U.S.” in blocky red-inked letters), bacon, English muffins, and fruit – grapefruit, bananas, mango, pineapple, and papaya, most from local trees. Lunch was usually sandwiches made of the only bread that could be had, which was tan and square with the consistency of Wonder, along with coldcuts – mostly ham and swiss cheese, and whatever salad was left over from dinner the night before. Chips and bottles of pickles and green olives usually accompanied the sandwiches. Some of us eschewed sandwiches and resorted to the gigantic local avocados, drizzled with olive oil and chopped garlic, salt and pepper, or else tucking slices of them into sandwiches.

But dinner was a different story; that was where we shone. At home, grilled tuna, red snapper, pork loin. Potato salad, lentil salad, pineapple and yellow peppers brushed with garlic and olive oil and then grilled. Man, that was good. The pork was marinated in the spicy fish sauce Nuac Cham we’d made the night before as an accompaniment to the tuna.

It was a whole different way of eating, of course – I hadn’t had sandwiches like those since I was there the last time. The fruit and the avocados were local, but nothing else – even the fish had been imported from Boston, I imagine. There you are, surrounded by fishy seas but the fish are... unavailable, though we did see one sign on top of an insulated picnic cooler advertising fresh fish but didn’t have the opportunity to investigate. The pork was very good, so it may have come from the main island. Puerto Rican cuisine is known for its pork, as well as its use of dried cod (bacala).

“But not for its beans,” chided a restaurant owner in Old San Juan, where we spent a few days before taking the small plane to Culebra. “You have us confused with Mexicans,” she spat. In Old San Juan we explored and ate tapas, which were invariably small regularly shaped items, like bacala, coated in that tan granulated cornmeal that makes everything look industrial and pre-formed whether it is or not. Much to my chagrin, time after time these tasted like they were. Our last morning, after the early morning flight from Culebra, we took a cab to El Convento, a fabulous 400 year old Carmelite convent-cum-hotel, for breakfast. I spent the morning within its thick walls and shaded courtyards just wandering around inspecting the original art and tapestries or sitting in a cool corner reading. I heartily recommend it.

In Culebra, we did go back to visit the fabulous Jennifer at Juanita Bananas, the hilltop restaurant I wrote about last year that is owned by the young couple who grew much of their produce hydroponically just outside the restaurant, and set up a system to obtain much of their fish from local fishermen. But no more. Our visit to their full-moon tapas celebration was disappointing, no fresh produce in sight, the little dishes too few and uninspired. Apparently a new baby is taking up their time these days.

Another night we had a superb dinner at the new Susie’s, right by the bay in an old fish house in the small – and only – town of Dewey. In the open air, accompanied by the cats that also roam the island (I’ve seen them lazing about surrounded by baby chicks), we ate our plantain mash, fresh fish, and nice sauces with gusto.

We were back in Vermont by last Saturday’s Winter Farmers’ Market, and I burst in there, too, with lots of gusto! Local food! My friends, the farmers! You’d think I’d been gone a month!

I’m not complaining about the food in Culebra – not a bit! We make our own good times and good food. But how much better to be able to rave about it.

I wonder. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to help make the wonderful little island sustainable again? People growing their own pork, catching their own fish, planting their own gardens and small farms? Hmmm. Six months here, six months there. Doesn’t sound too shabby!

In the meantime I bought those Boardman Hill pork chops and a small pineapple from the Co-op, and that’s what we’ll be having for dinner! And maybe a Piña Colada.
You know, made out of pure Vermont rum, coconut, and pineapple! How local can you get?

Published as Twice Bitten column, Rutland Herald, 09 March, 2010