fauren

Right. Let's try this again.

Deerhoof - Frenzied Handsome, Hello! (buy)

Hi. Remember me, Internets? Once upon a time I made a New Year's resolution to be religious about blog upkeep in 2008, but I have failed miserably in recent months. Let's chalk it up to such wonderfulness as trips home to visit my new niece, beautiful weddings in the Catskills, hours and hours of baseball watching (oh, dear Sox, you battled bravely), birthday celebrating, and so much cooking I couldn't even decide what to blog about.

I've spent the last few weeks performing some variation of the Supermarket Sweep at the small Greenmarkets in my neighborhood, squeezing the last goodness from them before they disappear at Thanksgiving for the subsequent six months. My CSA share also ends at the end of this month, and I know I will really miss it. Our refrigerator has been filled to brimming with lettuce, chard, kale, mizuna, spinach, carrots, beets, eggplants, radishes, potatoes, tomatoes, bok choy, herbs, kholrabi, celeriac, squash, broccoli... you get the picture.

I don't anticipate the dreary winter months with much enthusiasm food-wise, but at the same time I kind of relish the challenge of rising early on a Saturday, bundling up, and walking to Grand Army Plaza (our only year-round Greenmarket in these parts) to hunt for exciting and unknown items among those root vegetables and squashes and such that seem to define local winter eating.

Until then, I have some summery recipes that might feel late in coming now that New York City is hovering close to its first frost, but some things are just so good that it feels wrong to wait another eight months before posting them.

Adieu to a beautiful summer.

(Dan and I scarfing some soft serve. Coney Island, August. Photo by Ryan McManus.)

Celebrating Our Independence with Gran Dan's Bar-B-Que Sauce

A.A. Bondy - American Hearts (buy)
Estelle featuring Kanye West - American Boy (buy)

First, a happy belated 4th of July to you all. I hope yours was filled with friends, food, and fireworks. And freedom! Can't forget the freedom.

It rained for the third or fourth year running here in New York, but not before some friends and I got in a solid 7 or so hours of beer drinking and barbecuing at my friend Eric's house (home of the garden, not to mention two grills). Somewhere over the last two summers, it seems we all reached an implicit understanding that each barbecue would have to be better than the last, which means that the food keeps getting better and more elaborate. I couldn't tell you the last time someone dared show up with hot dogs. Or actually, I can, but it involves getting scalded by a core of molten cheese that exploded forth from the cheddar dog belonging to a woman sitting next to me, and I'd really rather not relive the details.

Anyway, this year's 4th of July feast included grilled jalapeños with cheese and grilled tortillas, mesquite smoked baby back ribs; elotes with cotija, chilli, and lime juice; a garden salad with Japanese turnips (I figured out what to do with them), fennel, red onion, and orange-almond dressing; roasted Chioggia beets and lemon thyme; grilled skewers of zucchini, golden zucchini, and summer squash; and what is definitely the best barbecued chicken I have ever eaten.

Dan's mom emailed him a copy of his Gran Dan's barbecue sauce recipe a couple weeks ago, and he had been itching to give it a try ever since. I couldn't wait, either. Growing up in New England, we didn't have much of a barbecue culture -- grilling, sure, but not barbecue -- and I'm still in the process of learning the intricacies. Vinegar, mustard, or tomato base; smoking or grilling; wood, coal, or gas. I had no idea it was so complex.

This particular barbecue sauce is straight from Dan's home base in Raleigh, NC, where vinegary barbecue reigns supreme.

Edible, Audible

It's impossible to count the number of afternoons I spent in my room when I was younger, lying on the floor in front of my stereo with tapes and CDs strewn around me, composing what I swore every time was going to be the perfect mixtape. The first few were rough -- songs taped off the radio caught DJs mid-sentence, the transitions between tracks popped where I'd pressed stop and then record again, the last song on a side got cut off where I'd overestimated how much time was left. I like to think I got better at it over the years.

(On the beach in Westport, MA)

I distinctly remember thinking in early high school that it would be SO COOL if someone invented a thing that let you make your own CDs instead of tapes. Really, what a novel idea. I still have the first CD mix I ever made, composed in the attic computer room of my friend Al's house when we were probably 16. I believe it's called something incredibly lame like "Yummy Tunes" and has a picture of cherries on the cover and a chocolate covered strawberry on the inside. While my musical tastes might have been a little misguided at that age, that CD actually resonates quite a bit for me even now -- it was probably the first time I consciously linked food and music.

The trouble with writing a blog on a single subject is that it doesn't always allow a person to speak to her other interests. This is hard for me, since right up there next to food in the list of Things That Mean A Whole Lot To Lauren is music. The two actually fit nicely together in my non-digital life -- I hardly ever cook without a soundtrack -- but figuring out how to join the two here has been a little tricky.

So today begins an experiment. You could call it my new mixtape project, I guess, and it's based on the intersection of my two most pronounced forms of consumption. Not all these songs have to do with food per se, but I'll try my best to explain what is going on in my head when I share what I do. (Just be forewarned that, a lot of times, there is no explanation for what goes on in my head.)

If it can be considered as such, the honor of the first song posted here at Fauren goes to Elvis Perkins, who I had the incredible pleasure of seeing (in the form of Elvis Perkins in Dearland) live in Prospect Park this past Friday evening. I couldn't possibly do their set justice in words, but suffice it to say that it moved me to make music a part of this blog.

Happy listening. Happy cooking.

Elvis Perkins - While You Were Sleeping (buy)

Looking Forward: PF1, Outstanding in the Field and Added Value

Tomorrow is the opening of PF1, the architecture-cum-farming project at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. I will be out of town this weekend, visiting my folks and newly-into-her-third-trimester sister (yay!), but I hope to make it out there next weekend to snoop around and see what's growing.

I also just ordered my copy of Outstanding in the Field: A Farm to Table Cookbook, which Sam Sifton called one of the summer's "most interesting new cookbooks" in the New York Times. I've been a long-distance admirer of Outstanding in the Field for quite a while now, and I'm doubly excited to get this cookbook -- not only will I get to try out some new recipes in the kitchen, but it'll also give me a guaranteed topic of conversation at their dinner in Brooklyn this September. Yes, despite not yet having been economically stimulated by the IRS I managed to shell out for a ticket, which I am sure will be more than worth it.

The dinner was scheduled to take place at Added Value (recently profiled in Edible Brooklyn), which I'm hoping will still end up being the case. I've biked by the farm several times, on my trips to the Red Hook Ball Fields for huaraches the size of my face and ceviche out of paper cups, but I've never gone to take a look. After seeing their new office space on Van Brunt Street shape up on my trips to Fairway and meeting someone who worked for them (my vegetable tour guide at Stone Barns), though, it would be great to spend some time there. But if not dinner, there's always the chance to join in on one of their volunteer days this summer.

Generally speaking, some of my favorites foods are now cropping up at the Greenmarkets. Yesterday, the little market near my apartment in Bartel-Pritchard Square was overflowing with pints of strawberries, and this week's pickup from our CSA yielded some beautiful garlic scape. It's going to be a delicious summer!

I'm Back, Almost

To any concerned parties: I am alive. I've just been in the throes of event-planning hell at work, which combined with personal events has left me with no choice but to neglect this blog. My apologies.

As I work to catch up on the many things I've had to report in the last two weeks, here is a brief recap in pictures to tide you over:

That's the garden in Eric's back yard, nearly three weeks ago (and Ricky, way in the back, wrestling with the Japanese Knotweed). I spent a very productive afternoon over there, planting things. It was wonderful, and it took three days for my hamstrings to recover.

And here is Dan Barber, petting a pig. On a recent visit to Stone Barns, Dan kindly invited my friend Chelle and I to tag along for a stroll around the farm's livestock with him and his meat guy from Blue Hill here in the city. Top it off with some treats at the Blue Hill bar, and that's a good day.

Having now bought my first official asparagus of the spring, I also spent some quality time saying goodbye to hearty winter greens. I love them, but I am ready for PEAS.

And finally, as I continue to be a neurotic mother to my plant babies, I have to proudly share the current state of my basil sprouts. They've come up so successfully, I'm now in the process of thinning them by occasionally plucking a couple delicious, spicy sprouts from the pot and eating them like candy.

More to come this week, as I wrangle my ducks back into a row.

Thinking Little For Big Change

This week's New York Times Sunday Magazine, its Green Issue, features an essay by Michael Pollan that speaks powerfully about the climate crisis and the seeming disparity between its scale and what we are told we can do as individuals to help mitigate it. Change our lightbulbs? What good does that do to eliminate the hypoxia zone at the mouth of the Mississippi or slow the rate of melting at our Poles?

I am terrified. I know this is not a unique sentiment to throw out there - many of us are - but one thing that essays like Pollan's and the work of individuals and organizations both in New York City and beyond have helped me realize is that, in a twisted sense, we are lucky. We are at a point in time where our agency as individuals can effect massive change in a way I certainly haven't felt in my lifetime.

Sure, it's easy to feel defeated at times. We try to do good by recycling our junk mail, but what about the diesel-fueled truck that comes to haul away that puny pile of envelopes (or, in the burbs, the fuel you use to drive your recyclables to the dump)? We turn the light off in the kitchen when we're not in there cooking, but who do we talk to about turning off the lights at the top of the Empire State Building? Well, if we pose our questions like that, it certainly does become easy to think our actions are futile.

What we really need to do is, as Wendell Berry so brilliantly put it, Think Little. Don't measure your actions as an individual against the cumulative actions of a corporation, municipality, or society; measure your actions today against your own actions from yesterday, last year, or five years ago. Think about it.

Five years ago:

• I did not have recycling bins in my apartment.
• I had never been to a Greenmarket
• I brought all of my groceries home in double-bagged plastic
• I bought and drank from a different paper coffee cup every morning

Now add those things up. A year of using my beloved OXO coffee mug has probably saved about 250 paper cups from entering the waste stream. If I was coming home with twelve plastic bags from each grocery and bodega trip, I've likewise probably kept from using about 300 bags a year. This is not insignificant. And certainly if you combine my 250 cups with those of my coworkers, my friends, and my family - a tiny microcosm of this hugely populated world - our thousands of paper cups are nothing to sneeze at.

As the pull quote from Pollan's essay highlights, "For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we’re living our lives suggests we’re not really serious about changing — something our politicians cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do." So, while I have this platform from which to speak, I ask you (yes you!) to consider the moves you can make today that you did not make yesterday. No matter how small, no matter what you did yesterday that was better than the day before. Be selfish in the best way possible and concern yourself only with yourself, as an agent of change. We may be terrified, but we are not helpless.

For my part, I am taking a day out of the office tomorrow to dig in Eric's back yard, spreading compost and planting summer vegetables. Feels little, right? Maybe a little luxurious? Well sure, but it feels good, too. And that's nothing to underestimate.

New York Times: Why Bother?

Windowsill Herb Garden: Opal Basil

I've never grown anything from seed in my life. Well, I do have a vague recollection of growing something in a single-serving milk carton when I was little, but I don't even remember what it was or what I did with it when the science project was over. So it doesn't count.

That fact makes it all the more exciting that the opal basil seeds I planted last week have started poking their tiny purple heads out of their pot on my windowsill. Gardeners talk about how rewarding it feels to nurture something from seed, watch it grow, and reap the fruits of one's labor (whether literally or spiritually), but it's another thing entirely to experience it first hand.

I planted a palmful of seeds last week and placed them by my sunniest window. This worked out well, because it also happens to be on top of a heater; it's essential that soil be fairly warm for the seeds to germinate. It's also important not to over water, but between the four or five hours of sunlight and the heat at night, this little guy has still needed a little watering every two days or so.

In my typical impatience, I started checking for sprouts the day after starting the seedlings. Finally, on Monday, victory was mine. Observe:

What, you can't see it?

Dinner at Blue Hill, or: How I Learned What It Must Be Like To Be A Famous Person

It used to be I was just a glutton and that was that, but now I'm a glutton with a web site. Writing a food blog is a funny thing... all is well and good when I've got my foodie hat on, but when I'm wearing my "it's 10pm, I haven't eaten dinner, and all I have in my kitchen is some coffee ice cream, a packet of garam masala spices, and that jar of sugar-free candies my dentist gave me for my birthday" hat, I can't help but feel like a bit of a fraud when I get on the phone to the local Chinese place and order up some of those pork dumplings drenched in sesame sauce. Especially because that sesame sauce is probably just melted Skippy peanut butter.

Blogging about food also breeds the compulsion to photograph whatever I eat - if people can't taste what I'm talking about, they should at least be able to look at it, right? But this can be problematic, too. For one, most of my family and friends think it's weird. Also, there's no way to be subtle about taking photographs of my plate in the middle of a restaurant (and consequently, strangers also think it's weird).

Deciding to leave the camera at home can be hard sometimes, especially when it means that it'll take me more than a week to find just the right words to describe a particularly stellar meal, but that's exactly what's happened since Dan and I were lucky enough to enjoy a seven-course tasting menu at Blue Hill last Tuesday night.

Sprout Love

I have no purpose whatsoever in writing this post beyond making a proclamation of love for the Brussels sprout. I realize I haven't done my duty as a locavore to eat these in March, but as someone who came to them late in life, I can't seem to get my fill just yet. They're like candy!

Delicious Brussels sprouts, I just adore your tightly wound bundles of bite-size cabbage joy.

Starve A Fever. Then Get Better and Stuff Your Face.

After being laid up last week with the flu and then having my parents in town for the weekend, I have lots of catching up to do. First up: restaurants.

This was a weekend of trying new (or new to me) places. After my parents' arrival on Friday night, I planned to take them to dinner at my neighborhood favorite, Bar Toto (411 11th Street, Brooklyn). When the host informed us of the 30-minute wait, he suggested checking out Bar Tano (457 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn), a new place that the creators of Bar Toto opened in Gowanus at the beginning of February.

I'd been by Bar Tano's space several times over the course of its renovation but never knew what it was going to be. Once I saw the beautiful pressed tin ceiling (a surefire way to my heart), I set my hopes high for a new place in what is pretty much a dead zone for eateries. Learning that it was related to Bar Toto was even better.

The menu is lighter than Bar Toto's, evidently to focus less on food and more on drink. We shared some antipasti, and because I'd already gorged on a delicious triple-creme cheese that had ridden down from MA with my folks, I kept it light for dinner. The lentils and sausage appetizer was great; the saltiness of the sausage could have been overpowering, but the lentils were full of fresh herbs and so lightly salted that they cut it perfectly. The roasted cauliflower, despite being very tasty, was much too oily. Tastes of my mom's salad with herbed chicken and my dad's house-made potato chips were both quite good, though.

I don't know that I'd go out of my way just to eat here again, but the ambiance is great and my experience definitely speaks to its focus - this would be a great place to go for a glass of wine and perhaps a bite to eat, rather than the other way around.

Saturday was farm day, with brunch at The Farm on Adderley and dinner at Flatbush Farm.