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Parmesan Roasted Asparagus

This is a little late in coming now that asparagus season is pretty much past its peak, but if you're still coming across bunches of it at your farmers market, I highly recommend you snag some and enjoy while you can. Grocery store asparagus has nothing on the fresh stuff. (Read Barbara Kingsolver's thoughts on the matter in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and you'll start to understand the significant difference.)

Because fresh asparagus is so delicious in its simplest state, I'm usually loathe to doctor it up too much. Other times, though, I can't help myself... especially when it involves cheese. I'm a sucker for cheese.

So If you must do something to your asparagus, whether to make it more palatable to your kids or to satisfy a craving for a little something salty and fatty, here's a simple but tasty preparation.

Cheese, Please

Just after getting back from Christmas break, I made a visit to the Union Square Farmer's market -- one of my favorites for its size and variety.  It was about 4 o'clock on that Friday afternoon, though, and I was sad to see only about five stalls still selling at that late hour.  I was almost ready to admit defeat when I came across Bobolink Dairy (42 Meadow Burn Road, Vernon, NJ). 

There are a number of vendors who only go to Union Square one or two days a week (it's held every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday year-round), and aside from a small farm that makes its own goat cheese, I had yet to come across a dairy in my visits that truly specialized in cheese-making.

I should have known I was in for a treat when I stepped up to the Bobolink counter; it was swarming with people, and the two women working there were busy slicing off samples of some incredibly aromatic cheeses for customers to sample.  Sure enough, when I got up to the front, I was treated with tastes of the four cheeses (from grass-fed cows!) they were selling that day: Drumm, Baudolino, Frolic, and cave-ripened cheddar.  The cheddar was delicious and nutty.  The Frolic, another firm cheese, was sweeter and had a nice sort of tangy quality to it.  The Baudolino, a very soft and rich cheese, actually had two entirely separate flavors in my mouth, and the Drumm tasted exactly like the smell of a farm.  I know the latter may not sound too appealing, but I was so amazed at how perfectly the flavor encapsulated my little vision of rolling pastures and happy cows, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face.

In the end, I took home a quarter pound each of the Baudolino and the Frolic.  The cheeses sell for $20 a pound ($5 for a quarter pound) and are well worth it.  Bobolink also makes its own bread, which I did not sample this time around, and I'm excited to see on their website that they sell whey-fed pork at certain times of year. 

For those who may not live near one of the markets at which Bobolink sells, their cheeses, bread, pork, and other items are all available at their online store.

Now THAT'S What I Call a Snack

Yesterday was my dear friend Lis's birthday, and we had an evening out in Carroll Gardens to celebrate.  Carroll Gardens, though only a few stops on the subway from my own neighborhood, is a place I don't visit too often.  It's part of that whole Manhattanites-don't-come-to-Brooklyn-for-anything thing... as a result, I either miraculously convince my friends to come to my own neighborhood, or I end up going in to Manhattan.  It's very rare that something happens in between, so I get extra special excited when I have a chance to explore parts of Brooklyn that I don't get to see much.

The evening began with dinner at Frankies 457 Spuntino (457 Court Street, Brooklyn), a cozy Italian restaurant with brick walls and a nice outdoor patio.  The word "spuntino" means "snack" in Italian, and the menu at Frankies is mostly true to the concept; aside from a list of 7 or 8 main dishes and a number of sandwich choices (served on Sullivan Street Bakery rosemary bread), the rest of the menu has a lot of wiggle room for mixing and matching individual items.  You can have the decision made for you with the traditional antipasto (chef's choice of 2 each from their meats, cheeses, vegetables, and marinated olives), or you can get crazy with your own choices.  Add their crostini, salads, and soups into the mix, and suddenly deciding what to eat is a veritable Sophie's Choice of food.

After our very patient waitress plied us with cocktails (and may I take a moment to recommend the bourbon lemonade...), we managed to make a decision upon her third stop at our table.  We had two antipasti for the table, and I ordered for myself the Frankies greens with a delicious cippolini onion cider vinaigrette, an avocado and pesto crostino, and roasted Brussels sprouts.

Between the two antipasti, we got to sample both spicy and sweet sopressata, prosciutto di Parma, marinated cremini mushrooms, roasted cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, string beans with preserved garlic, green and black olives, and two cheeses -- Villa D'Este, which is a soft and rich sheep's milk cheese otherwise known as a Caciotta; and Castelrosso, a harder mixed milk cheese from the Piemonte region of Italy that's a bit saltier and has a very nice bite.

My love of Brussels sprouts is pretty new but totally intense, so I was more than happy to have another plate of them all to myself.  One thing I love about good Italian food is how simple it can be; the sprouts were halved, very lightly salted, and roasted in olive oil, then served at room temperature.  Perfect. 

The crostino was also quite good.  It could have used a bit more pesto and the avocado was slightly under-ripe, but I would be lying if I said it didn't taste pretty darn good anyway.  I also liked having my greens at the end of this meal.  It was a nice, light way to finish things off.  The greens themselves were straightforward, which was fine because clearly the dressing was meant to be the highlight, and indeed it was.

I couldn't believe how full I was at the end of this meal.  I was perfectly happy to be so, except that it meant not getting to sample any of the desserts.  I can imagine them now, though... red wine prunes with mascarpone... tiramisu... ricotta cheesecake...

(A brief pause, to clean up this drool.)

So after dinner it was off to Abilene (442 Court Street, Brooklyn) for a vodka gimlet.  They were advertising a bar spelling bee, which sounds like a prospective replacement for my favorite, now-defunct trivia night, Dr. Fact's Night of 50 Questions at Buttermilk (577 5th Avenue, Brooklyn).  (In Buttermilk's defense, they may no longer have trivia, but they've got pizza night, a photobooth, and a fantastic jukebox.)

Before I threw back one too many cocktails, it was time to head up to Cobble Hill Cinema to meet my partner in crime for some peanut M&Ms (Come on!  No one's perfect.) and Michel Gondry's quirky and beautiful Science of Sleep.

A lovely evening all around.

Home Sweet (Juicy, Tart, Rich, Fresh) Home

When my parents moved out of my childhood home, I thought the adjustment would be really difficult.  It was a tough summer, but it was made much easier by the place they ended up.  Westport, Massachusetts, is a beautiful town on the southern coast, just east of the Rhode Island border. 

Places it is not:

• Cape Cod
• Westport, Connecticut

Sometimes that confuses people.

Lots of Massachusetts natives know Westport as the home of Horseneck Beach, and while summer is definitely its most popular season, the area around the Westport and Sakonnet Rivers has an active year-round food community that includes wineries, farms (fruit, vegetable, dairy, alpaca...), orchards, seafood markets, bakeries, and more.

This weekend I made a small pilgrimage to my favorite farm stand, Walker's Roadside Stand in Little Compton, RI (261 West Main Road).  As I said earlier, I can't just mention Walker's without explaining how wonderful it is, so this time I made a point of gathering some goodies to share with you all. 

Walker's is primarily a vegetable farm; the fruits it sells are bought elsewhere with the exception of berries and a couple varieties of melons.  They sell a huge variety of heirloom tomatoes, peppers, lettuces, herbs, and root vegetables (their radishes and carrots both looked quite tasty), in addition to local strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. 

Like many local farms, though, Walker's is also known for its sweet corn.