fauren

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)

Hearty Roots Braised Bok Choy

This spring, my roommate Emily and I signed up for a vegetable share from the Greenwood Heights CSA, which gets its produce from Hearty Roots Community Farm in Tivoli, NY (yes, it's the farm that got the hipster treatment in that New York Times piece a few months back). Apart from feeling particularly good about local veggies in light of yet more food safety trouble -- we're now at 36 states reporting salmonella illness from tomatoes -- I am loving the element of surprise. We don't know what we'll get until the morning we pick it up; it's just whatever is ready for harvesting at the end of a given week.

The bonus is that the newsletter Hearty Roots sends along each week includes a recipe for one of the vegetables they're harvesting, and since some of what we've gotten so far is completely foreign to me (sweet Japanese turnips, anyone?) it's a very helpful thing. That's where this recipe for braised bok choy comes from. Braising makes the bok choy very tender and brings out the sweetness of the red onions, which is subtly offset by the acid of the rice vinegar. Easy and delicious, which was just what this lady needed after a wonderfully tiring weekend.

Eric Ripert Loves His Toaster Oven

I know I'm prone to making declarations of love on this blog, but please allow me to put my Fan Girl hat on for just one second.

You know Eric Ripert? Yeah, he runs that restaurant... what's it called? Le Bernardin? It has, like, three Michelin stars or something. Well, he's got a new site called Avec Eric, devoted largely to dispelling the complexities of cooking and making it accessible to bums like you and me.

I got my first glimpse of Chef Ripert when he served as a guest judge on Top Chef and was immediately enamored. Is it inappropriate to insert the term "Silver Fox" here? Well, he is once again bringing his velvety French accent to the masses on this site, which, charmingly enough, features only recipes you can cook in your toaster oven. Between that and an introduction like this, sign me up:

Great cooking doesn’t have to be complicated. High-quality ingredients and simple methods are all you need. Mix in some good friends and great locations and you’ve got a truly transcendent experience...

I have many such adventures planned for us. Over the next few months, we’re going to visit new places, meet new people and cook foods—some new, some familiar–together. I know we’ll inspire and learn from each other as we go.

I’ll share recipes and techniques and tell you my stories. And I hope to hear from you too. Come along with me. We’ll have fun, I promise.

Blanched Sugar Snap Peas with Shallots and Thyme

As much as I might gripe that working in my neighborhood has stunted my experience of New York City over the last year (I hardly ever even ride the subway any more... it's just not right), there are distinct advantages to it. One of them is my weekly lunch break stop at the Bartel-Pritchard Greenmarket. I go right by it on my walk home, and it offers just enough to tide me over until the weekend.

Yesterday I not only got my paws on yet another pint of strawberries, but it was also the first week for sugar snap peas there. Sugar snap peas! They're like candy! Only with more fiber.

I figured I'd just leave them at the front of the fridge for easy grabbing by the handful whenever I wanted a snack, but when I got home from work last night and realized I hadn't thought at all about what I'd make for dinner, it was time to get a little more creative. This preparation calls for blanching the peas -- which both brightens them and crisps them up -- and then serving them cold. Very refreshing on yet another humid Brooklyn evening.

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!

Delicious and Funny-Sounding, It's Rhubarb!

I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but I lived the first 27 and a half years of my life without ever knowingly consuming rhubarb. What?!

Happily, that changed yesterday. I'd gone up to the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket this past Saturday and rhubarb seemed to be everywhere, its red and green stalks poking out of crates at more than a couple stands. They were a hard sight to resist, so I went ahead and bought myself a bunch despite having no idea what I would do with it.

Remembering that I had some boneless pork chops in my freezer, I thought I might try out a sauce for them. I love sweet and savory combinations like pork chops and apple sauce, so maybe something similar could be done with rhubarb, which is so tart on its own it almost always needs to be sweetened.

The result of this experiment was a simple compote. Combining the rhubarb with shallots and fresh thyme yielded a dish that's indicative of this time of year for me - somewhere between winter and spring, at once hearty, fresh, and crisp. Needless to say, I was pleased. And, by the end of it, quite full.

Of Seeds, Weeds, Concrete, and Compost

So I already owe an update on what I'm about to post since this happened nearly three weeks ago, but I can't let it go unmentioned that Eric's backyard garden has officially been planted with the first of lots of delicious things, which promise to make this summer's barbecues all the better.

I took the day off on Friday a few weeks back and headed over to help do some planting, not realizing at all that the list of things a person can plant in one afternoon is actually quite long. After maybe 3 hours, during which Eric took on the unenviable task of digging out foot-long rhizomes of Japanese Knotweed from the end of his yard, I'd planted oregano, dill, three kinds of basil, Chioggia beets, Forellenschluss lettuce, Amish snap peas, black beauty and golden zucchini squash, and swiss chard.

The bonus was seeing all the sprouts from the seeds Eric had planted a couple weeks before that; they were springing up all over the place.

Briefly, Dan Barber's Op-Ed in the Sunday NYT

Having gone home for Mother's Day to the land of the Boston Globe, I missed Dan Barber's insightful op-ed piece in Sunday's New York Times. Check it out here.

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.