I spent last weekend in Maine for an Indian summer last hurrah. It was an unexpectedly balmy 84 degrees and I felt disappointed that I didn’t get to wear the sweaters I’d packed, but I ate some incredible food. 

My first meal was dinner at the venerable Fore Street in Portland, and my first bite of salad exploded with a rich, peppery heat. I had to put my fork down and look at the plate. It was an arugula salad; what was the big deal here? 

The big deal, it turned out, was the farm where the arugula came from: Laughing Stock Farm in Freeport, about 20 miles north of Portland. I sent the farmer, Lisa Turner, an e-mail to arrange a visit.

I found her packing a shipment of fall veggies in her barn. Lisa is an all-season farmer in a part of the country where farming in all seasons is a practical impossibility, or so you would think. The ground is frozen rock-hard for four months. Temperatures dip below -20! There’s a good reason no one wants to visit Maine anytime after November 1 (except to ski): It’s God-awful cold. 


Lisa Turner heads Laughing Stock Farms, where she grows some of the most delicious arugula I’ve ever tasted.
 
But while Lisa’s farm consists of about 10 acres of land, it’s also home to a small village of translucent greenhouses. And because of them, Lisa and her husband, Ralph, have been growing vegetables through the depths of harsh, unforgiving winters for the past 15 years. The couple harvest mesclun and mustard greens and that incredible arugula year-round for restaurants like Fore Street, Local Sprouts Cooperative, Street and Company, and many more, as well as their 140 CSA members.

As I walked into one of their greenhouses, I was hit with a wall of intense heat and moisture—even my camera fogged up. Each greenhouse is equipped with a tank of used restaurant fry oil that Lisa burns to keep her greens sprouting all winter. She harvests the arugula only once (instead of trimming the plant as it grows), and that technique, combined with its slow growing, must be the secret to its incredibly intense and fresh flavor. 

There are other all-season farmers in Maine, too, and each has his own method. Eliot Coleman—who literally wrote the book on deep-winter farming—uses frost blankets  (they’re like comforters for lettuce) instead of bio-fuel, for instance.

But regardless of the technique, the lesson here is that with enough ingenuity and willpower, you can eat the freshest, local-est arugula all year long, no matter where you live.

I plan to build myself a mini greenhouse, inspired by Lisa’s hearty-weather farming. With any luck, I’ll be growing my own all-season greens in no time.





All-Season Arugula Salad
adapted from Fore Street Restaurant, Portland, ME
4 servings

INGREDIENTS
1 cup port
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. kosher salt, divided
3/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper, divided
1 medium onion
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
4 oz. goat cheese
2 Tbsp. heavy cream
1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
5 oz. arugula
1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted, skins removed
6 fresh figs, quartered

PREPARATION
Bring port, sugar, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper to a boil in a small heavy skillet and cook until liquid is reduced to 1/2 cup. Remove from heat and set aside to let port reduction cool.

Cut onion in half, then cut each half into thin wedges. Bring apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp. salt, and 2/3 cup water to a simmer in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in onion. Let sit at room temperature until ready to use.

In a small bowl, stir together goat cheese and cream with a fork until fluffy.

Whisk 1 Tbsp. port reduction, balsamic vinegar, and oil in a large bowl. Whisk in 1/2 tsp. each salt and pepper. Toss arugula with dressing, then plate with drained onions, hazelnuts, goat cheese, and figs. Drizzle with additional port reduction.

Every gardener has a muse—the inspiration that compels him or her to break out the shovel. It could be a childhood memory of a cherry tomato, warm from the sun. Maybe it’s the seedy pop of a deep-ruby strawberry, or the taste of a cucumber right off the vine. Whatever it is, it’s enough to make him dig up his lawn, start saving kitchen scraps for compost, and spend all his free time bent over, pulling weeds.

My muse is the chile pepper.

I save pepper seeds all winter, like some sort of fanatical collector, in little wax envelopes. I have some that a friend smuggled back from Jamaica and some from a pepper that blew smoke out of my ears when I ate it on a dare. I have Chocolate Habaneros and Louisiana cayennes and Indian ghost chiles. They all sit patiently until early spring, when I plant them in starter containers and set them on the windowsill, where they stretch their first leaves out of the dirt. Then, for the next six to seven months, nothing much happens. The plants grow at a frustratingly slow pace. It’s not until late September that the fiery fruits are ripe and ready.



Well, here we are in late September, and I am rolling in capsicum. The local farmers’ market is erupting with chiles, too. There are too many to eat raw or even to cook. The chile’s draw is also its force field. They’re spicy little buggers. There’s really only one way to use up mass quantities: hot sauce.

There’s an unfathomable variety of recipes for hot sauce, and finding your favorite might take some doing. But the secret that I hope you’ll take away from this post has to do with aging. The last time I made hot sauce, I put the jar in the back of the fridge and forgot about it. That turned out to be a very happy accident. The sauce mellows as it ages and becomes less spicy, letting the floral notes of the chiles come forward. This isn’t new. Tabasco, possibly the world’s most famous hot sauce company, crafts a Family Reserve sauce that it ages for up to eight years. I don’t suggest that you need to wait that long for your hot sauce to mature. Feel free to use it right away—but if you keep it tucked at the back of your fridge for a couple of months, even a year, the results will be stunning.

Hot Sauce
Makes 1 scant quart

INGREDIENTS
12 oz. fresh hot chiles, stemmed and halved
1 head of garlic, roasted*
2 1/4 cups distilled white vinegar plus more if needed
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. kosher salt

PREPARATION
Pulse chiles and roasted garlic in a food processor until finely chopped. Combine vinegar, sugar, and salt in a small pan and bring to a simmer, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool completely. Place chile mixture in a 1-qt. mason jar, then pour vinegar mixture over. Top off with additional vinegar, if necessary (chiles should be completely covered with liquid). Cover the jar and store in the refrigerator for at least 3 months and up to 1 year. If a more refined sauce is to your liking, strain the hot sauce through a fine-mesh sieve, discarding solids, then pour sauce into a jar and chill.

* Roasting garlic is so easy, it barely requires a recipe. Anytime your oven is heated to 350-425 degrees for an hour, you have a great opportunity to roast a couple of garlic heads. Simply cut off and discard the top 1/2” of one or more heads of garlic and place the remaining heads on a small piece of foil. Drizzle with a little oil and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Wrap the garlic in the foil and place it in a corner of the oven for 45 minutes to an hour. You can use your roasted garlic right away, squeezed out of the bulb, or refrigerate it until you need it, for up to a month.

I’ve been keeping bees since I was a teenager. That was 20-plus years ago, and still they amaze me. Of course the honey is great. I collect several gallons each September, enough to last all year. But it’s the sounds the bees make that I find captivating. There’s no guessing game with bees. If they are happy, you’ll know. If they are upset, you’ll know that, too. They are very good communicators. 

In the beginning, before I learned to listen to the bees, I got stung a lot. Once, I almost died. I should have known better; I should have been listening. The bees “sing” to you or they “scream” at you, and when they scream they sound like banshees. The buzz of 80,000 angry bees’ vigorously vibrating wings sounds, well, just like you’d think it would. Their pitch rises when they’re upset. It sometimes gets to the point where all you can hear is bees, screaming with their wings. This pandemonium is dotted with tiny staccato pops, the punctuated landings of a thousand angry workers dive-bombing your beekeeper’s veil. It can be scary. But it doesn’t have to be.

If you’ve ever met any beekeepers, you’ve probably noticed how calm they tend to be. The bees pick up on a peaceful personality. If I am calm, so are they. Some of us are naturally placid. Not me. I had to learn it. It took years.

The first trick I tried was singing to the bees as you might to a baby, in a calm, soothing tone. I didn’t sing an actual song, just gibberish, but it worked. The bees stayed calm and I didn’t get stung. 

I didn’t know it at the time, but bees don’t have ears so they don’t “hear” in the sense that we do. My singing only calmed me, and the bees felt my tranquility. I still sing to them. I have not been stung in more than 15 years. 

This week I collected honey from the hive, and to celebrate the harvest (and National Honey Month—woot! woot!) I made this simple honey cake. It was a busy day and I had to carve out enough time to bake. With flour all over the kitchen and deadlines looming, I was feeling somewhat stressed. Mixing the ingredients, I caught myself humming a little made-up tune, just to relax. It worked in the kitchen, just as it does at the beehive.


Honey Walnut Cake
8 servings

INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus more for pan
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 cup honey
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup walnut halves or pieces
Creme fraiche and fresh fruit for serving


PREPARATION
Arrange a rack in center of oven and preheat oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 9x9x2” baking pan.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well, then beat in honey and vanilla. Add flour mixture and milk in alternate batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture and mixing until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth the top, then sprinkle with walnuts. Bake until a tester inserted into center of cake comes out clean, 45-55 minutes. Cool cake in pan on a wire rack for 1 hour. Transfer cake to a cake plate. Serve with creme fraiche and fresh fruit.

Wait, it’s a hen. In the woods. No, it’s a hen of the woods mushroom!

Earlier this year, I wrote about foraging for mushrooms and its similarity to searching for love: you’ll never find any if you’re looking too hard. Well, I still believe that. But I also know that you’ll won’t even stand a chance if you don’t put yourself out there. Sometimes you’ve just got to strap on your boots and walk through the woods.

You never know what you might find.

While it may still feel like summer to you and me—September can be so manipulative with its sunny days and piercing blue skies—the forest knows better. I can feel the changes at night. As the sun sets, a cool blanket of air gently rolls down the hill. And that, combined with all the rain we’ve had recently, means we are into the autumn mushroom season.




Yesterday, I tiptoed around hundreds of mushrooms. Some, I knew, were poisonous; others I couldn’t recognize. (As a rule, I steer clear of anything I’m not 100 percent certain about.) Then I saw a scattering of chanterelles so orange they could have been drips from a late-summer sunset. Only one of them was big enough to be picked, so I left the rest to mature for a few days.

As I moved on from the chanterelles I saw a huge hen of the woods. The name is fitting, I guess; if you squint enough the mushroom looks like the full plumage of a roosting bird. Kind of. This particular cluster weighed in at about 6 pounds, but they can grow as heavy as 100. Hen of the woods is an easy mushroom to identify, and you’ve probably seen it and walked right past it in the woods several times. It’s commonly known and sold in grocery stores by its Japanese name, maitake.

The cluster I carried home will feed me (and those who trust me) for several meals. The first will be a simple saute with a shallot and some garlic, served over soft polenta with a spoonful of creme fraiche.

If you’re not an expert forager or don’t have access to one for guidance, pick up a small cluster of maitake mushrooms at the grocery store and embrace the coming season with this super-satisfying dish.



Sauteed Maitake Mushrooms with Soft Polenta and Creme Fraiche
2 servings

Note: Unless you are an experienced mushroom hunter DO NOT forage for any mushrooms without an expert guide. Contact your local mycological society for help. Have we made ourselves perfectly clear on this? Good.

INGREDIENTS
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup polenta or corn grits
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 shallot, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, smashed
8 oz. hen of the woods (maitake) mushrooms
1/2 lemon
2 Tbsp. creme fraiche

PREPARATION
Bring salt and 2 cups water to a boil in a small saucepan; whisk in polenta. Boil, stirring occasionally, until soft, 20-25 minutes. 

Meanwhile, melt butter in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in shallot and garlic and saute until just beginning to brown, about 2 minutes. Tear mushrooms into bite-size pieces and add to skillet, stirring. Cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are golden, 6-8 minutes. Remove skillet from heat and squeeze lemon juice into mushroom mixture. 

Divide polenta between 2 bowls. Dollop creme fraiche over each, then top with mushrooms and serve.

A Custom Knife and a Tasty Slaw on the Knauer Farm

Back in the spring, I ordered 20 chicks with the idea that I’d be eating a lot of eggs. A few died just after they arrived, which seemed normal. (If I were shipped in the mail the day I was born, I might die, too.) Then a dog killed one of them. Now I have 16 left, and for the most part they’ve been a real pain in the ass.

I feed them every day and give them water. I let them run through the barnyard, then lock them up at night to keep the foxes at bay. If I go anywhere, I need to line someone up to chicken-sit. It might all seem worthwhile if I were rolling in eggs, but up through last week there had been exactly zero. The chickens just weren’t old enough to lay. The thought crossed my mind, more than once, to throw in the towel and have a 16-chicken BBQ.



Then, last weekend, I traveled to Germany to attend a friend’s wedding. When I got back to the farm I was feeling slightly jet-lagged and very cranky. I opened the door to the chicken coop to let the birds out. And there, nestled in a handful of wood chips, was an egg. I caught myself smiling as I stared at it. It’s amazing how something so simple can make you feel so good. 

For the life of me, I couldn’t settle on what to do with that first egg. I considered making a custard, maybe an omelet, maybe a souffle, but none of those felt like the right move. I phoned a friend. We talked about the egg for what might seem like a long time to anyone who hadn’t spent all summer waiting for one. You can do a lot with an egg, she told me, but sometimes it’s the simplest thing that’s just so good. 

There is no egg preparation as wonderful as a perfectly fried fresh egg with its crunchy browned edge, just-cooked white, and runny, liquid yolk. And frying an egg perfectly is not all that easy, either.

The trick is to start with a very hot pan to get the crisp edge on the white, then to reduce the heat and cover the skillet to cook the rest of the white through. Covering the skillet traps the heat inside and gently cooks the top of the egg while the bottom stays crisp. The beauty of this technique is that there’s no need to flip the egg over, which is the point where I usually screw things up by breaking the yolk. Instead it stays perfectly runny.



Sliced Tomato Salad with a Perfectly Fried Egg

1 ripe tomato
1 small shallot, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil plus more for drizzling
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 large egg

Thickly slice the tomato and put it on a plate. Sprinkle tomato with shallot, vinegar, 1 Tbsp. oil, and a pinch each of salt and pepper.

Heat remaining 1 Tbsp. oil in a cast-iron or nonstick skillet over high heat until very hot and just starting to smoke. Crack the egg into the skillet and cook until the edge is crispy, about 1 minute. Reduce heat to very low and cover skillet. Continue to cook the egg until the white is set but the yolk is still runny, about 2 minutes. Top the tomato slices with the egg and drizzle with oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Heinz is the undisputed queen of all ketchups. If the virtues that you seek in a queen are perfectly balanced delectability and a color that mirrors the reddest of supermodel lips, then she’s your go-to girl. She’s beautiful, efficient, tasty—and available. I’ll be the first to admit that at times, she’s been my go-to girl, too.

But, like many beauties, Heinz can be shallow, even a little trashy. When you ask a bottle of Heinz to describe herself and the third thing she tells you is “high fructose corn syrup,” she seems a little cheap. And that’s because she is.

Here’s the lesson: Appreciate the appeal of Heinz Tomato Ketchup—even fool around with her once in a while—but know that for life, the ketchup you really need is one with substance and depth. You need a ketchup you’ll want to see every morning over breakfast and every night at dinner. You need a ketchup you can raise your kids on.




Ok, enough of that metaphor. 
Heinz not only dominates the retail ketchup market with 60 percent of sales, it also has a strong hold on the ketchup-tomato seed market. Last spring I planted Heinz 1350 VF tomatoes in my garden, and now they are ripe and ready for picking. I spent a few hours this week restocking my pantry with enough tomato ketchup to get me through the rest of the year. Over time, I’ve tweaked my ketchup recipe. Its rich tomato flavor and subtle heat are lightly sweetened with brown sugar. Spices add comfort, and roasted garlic depth. 
I don’t need to choose just one ketchup for the rest of my days. But if I did, Heinz would find itself alone, sitting on the grocery store shelf.



Homemade Ketchup
Makes about 1 quart

This recipe is just the sort of inspired D.I.Y. project that promotes a good home cook to a legendary home cook. One caution: The ketchup splatters a bit as it boils and reduces, but, as you’ll see, the outcome is well worth the mess and the time involved. This ketchup is one you can feel really good about eating. It is wholesome, substantial, and (most important) delicious.

INGREDIENTS
1 tsp. coriander seed
1 tsp. cumin seed
1 tsp. mustard seed
1 bay leaf, broken into pieces
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
5 lb. ripe sauce tomatoes; such as Roma, San Marzano, Heinz 1350 VF
1 cup red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 head of garlic, roasted 
1/4 cup capers with brine
1/4 cup hot sauce
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. allspice
2 tsp. kosher salt 
1/2 tsp. black pepper

PREPARATION
Toast the coriander, cumin, and mustard seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat until they are several shades darker and very fragrant. Finely grind the seeds with the bay leaf in a spice mill.

Heat the oil in a large heavy pot over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the onion and cook until well browned; this will take about 10 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients, including the ground, toasted spices. Bring to a simmer and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables have broken down. This will take about 45 minutes. Puree the ketchup in a blender or food processor, then return it to the pot. Return ketchup to a simmer and continue to cook until it reaches a pastelike consistency. This will take 1 1/2-2 more hours. Toward the end of cooking, stir the ketchup more frequently to prevent scorching. Season the ketchup with salt to taste.

Place ketchup in sterilized canning jars while still hot, then cap jars and process in boiling water for 10 minutes. Let the jars cool at room temperature until they seal.

My cousin Makaila is a girl of action. She has two speeds: fast and fierce. If she’s not steering her little car at top speed down the steep drive of the farm lane or sprinting after chickens, then she’s up to her elbows in dirt. Makaila is two years old, and by the time she’s 22 she’ll be a force of nature. It almost frightens me to think about it.

Around the farm, we all do our part to keep her out of trouble. That’s the job I was engaged in back in April when she and I planted Yukon and red bliss potatoes. It was fun at first; we cut eyes from old potatoes and placed them in the dirt. Each chunk of spud would become its own plant. Eventually, however, Makaila got bored and focused on convincing her father, Leif, to take her on a tractor ride. A few minutes later Leif was firing up the old Ford 8N. Makaila can be very persuasive.




The potatoes we planted sprouted, green and enthusiastic, up and out of the earth over the past few months. Then, a few weeks ago, the greens started to yellow and brown in the heat of summer. Now they’ve all but died away. That means it’s time to dig up what’s below. Potatoes are one of the most rewarding harvests in the garden. In fact, digging them up feels a little like Christmas. There’s no telling exactly how many potatoes will emerge from the ground as you heave soil with a spade, each shovelful of dirt bringing more spuds to light.

Freshly harvested potatoes need one to two weeks to dry and form their skin or “cure”. It’s important to keep them in a dark place as this happens. If you don’t, they will absorb the sunlight and create chlorophyll, which is what has happened to potatoes that have green skin.

Makaila is due for a farm visit soon, and I want her potatoes to be ready when she gets here. I’ll dig up some Yukons and place them in the cool cellar of the farmhouse for at least a week. Then, just before we’re ready to grill our hot dogs for lunch, I’ll slice them paper thin and fry them into chips. Whether you’re two, 32, or 92, the absolute best topping for any grilled dog is crumbled potato chips. 




Potato Chips
Makes about 8 cups

4-6 Yukon or russet potatoes (about 2 lb.)
4 cups (approx.) vegetable oil (for frying)
Fine sea salt

Wash the potatoes and put them in a bowl of cold water to cover. Pat 1 potato dry. Using a V-slicer or mandoline, cut the potato into paper-thin slices (about 1/16” thick) and let the slices stand 5 minutes in another bowl of cold water to cover.

Drain the potato slices and spread them without overlapping on layers of paper towels. Blot the slices completely dry with another layer of paper towels.

Heat the oil in a 3- 4-quart pot until a deep-fry thermometer registers 375 degrees F. Working in batches of 8 to 10 slices, fry the potatoes, turning once or twice, until golden, 1 1/2-2 minutes, making sure the oil returns to 375 degrees F before adding the next batch. As chips are fried, transfer with a large slotted spoon to paper towels to drain; sprinkle with salt. Cut and fry remaining potatoes in the same manner.

If you haven’t brewed your own beer, I bet you know someone who has. Thanks to the craft-brewing boom of the past 20 years, just about everyone has access to great microbrews—even people who have no interest in making them. But I’m the kind of guy who likes making things, so a few years ago I ordered some hop plants to use in my home brew.

The hops grew so quickly and vigorously that I could barely keep up with the trimming and training they require (like ivy, they are climbers and are usually grown on twine or wire). The literature I received with the cuttings warned me not to expect any hops the first year. I ended up with about a gallon of them anyway. 




If you’ve got rich soil and lots of sun, you will find that hops are incredibly easy to grow, and if you have a few square feet of dirt in your backyard I recommend you plant some next spring—even if you don’t plan on making beer (more on that later). Here are some tips: 

* You’ll need to plant rhizomes instead of seeds because the plants are either male or female. Only the female plant produces the flowers, which are the actual hops. (If this sounds familiar to some of you, it may be because hops are part of the botanical family Cannabaceae; so is marijuana.) Like the other members of that family, hops contain complex (and volatile) chemical compounds. Some of these, like dimethylvinyl carbinol, may have a calming effect on the human nervous system. They may relax you. Of course, alcohol also has this effect. That’s why when you drink too much beer, you get sleepy. 

* Order your hops so they’ll arrive in the spring, after the chance of frost has gone. Form a small hill for each rhizome. Plant with the buds pointing up, and cover with an inch of loose soil. The hills should be spaced at least three feet apart if the hops are of the same variety and five feet apart if they are different. Mulch well. Within two to four weeks you’ll start to see hop shoots rise up out of the ground.

* Stake a length of twine on each hill, securing the top to a building, fence, or pole, and when young vines are about a foot long, wrap them around the twine in a clockwise direction. They will grow. And grow. And if you’re lucky, you’ll get some hops that first year. Cut them down to nothing in the fall. Prune the weaker vines after they sprout again the following spring.

As I said, hops aren’t just for beer. The shoots that corkscrew up out of the ground in the spring are quite tender and can be sauteed like asparagus. And the hop flowers themselves add a sharp, bitter herbal punch to anything they touch. Some forward-thinking chefs, like Pat Combs at the Paws Up resort in Montana, have even been cooking with hops. Combs stuffs hop leaves with hop flower petals, cheeses, and aromatics before tempura-frying them to make a cheesy-herbal beggar’s purse. In a review of the dish, one writer claimed they were so delicious that she would have forgone all other food that evening in exchange for more of the crisp-fried hop purses.

The recent heat waves have left me feeling a little lazy compared with Chef Combs. I’ll keep his recipe tucked away for some cooler weather. Instead, this week I’m folding my plant’s flowers into a hopped-up bruschetta made with the garden’s first tomatoes. 



Hopped-Up Bruschetta
3-4 servings

If you have trouble finding fresh hops, basil flowers make a worthy substitute. Once the basil plant has gone to flower, its pungency increases and its herbaceousness becomes slightly bitter and hoplike.

INGREDIENTS
1/2 small garlic clove 
Kosher salt
1 large tomato, chopped
1/2 small onion, sliced
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2-3 fresh hop flowers (not pellets) or basil flowers, torn
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
6-8 pieces toasted country bread

PREPARATION
Mince and mash the garlic to a paste with a pinch of salt. Combine garlic paste with 1/2 tsp. salt, the tomato, onion, oil, hop flowers, and pepper. Top the toasts with the tomato mixture and serve.

Wild sorrel spreading like…wild sorrel

It’s almost August, and I find it hard to believe how quickly the summer is passing. By now, there have been some resounding successes in the garden. The radishes bubbled up out of the ground like Champagne fizz; the zucchini continues to reproduce like rabbits. 

But there have been some utter failures, too. 

The rabbits have also been reproducing like rabbits. Every time I walk into the beet and Swiss chard patch, two of them scamper out through the fence. Now that no beets are left, I thought they’d have moved on to the lettuce. For obvious reasons, it is my great hope to bring you a rabbit recipe in the coming weeks.

Luckily, there’s one section of the garden that the rabbits steer clear of: the herbs. None of them munch on the rosemary; it’s the size of a small bush by now. There’s a basil plant that thinks it’s an oak tree. The sage and thyme have tripled in size since I placed them, toddler-size, in the ground.

Many of my herbs are grown from the same plants year to year, even though it gets too cold in the winter for them to stay in the ground. Each fall, I dig them up, cut them into smaller versions of themselves, and replant them in an indoor window box; they live there until the following spring, when I move them back to the garden to spread their roots.

And I use herbs a lot in my cooking. I blend them with salad greens, I call on them to accent sauces, I use them to flavor just about everything. This is where I could give you a recipe for pesto using, like, four different kinds of basil. Or for a Martini infused with rosemary and thyme. But you’ve already seen something like that, I’m sure. Instead, let’s talk about sorrel. No one knows what to do with sorrel, and it has been creeping its way into American food one farmers’ market at a time.

I planted sorrel once, years ago, and have never had to since. By now, it has moved beyond the garden fence and into the yard. When the grass is mowed, the air is filled with a fresh, citrusy scent. The herb has a subtle lemony flavor, and because it’s a green, it often shows up in salads. But I like to use it the way you might use citrus fruit in a bright dessert. 

There’s just enough gelatin in these panna cottas to hold their shape; the result is a creamy, lemony-herbal pudding that just melts away when you eat it. I serve the panna cottas topped with berries or lightly sweetened whipped cream.



Sorrel-Buttermilk Panna Cottas
8 servings
 
Vegetable oil (for ramekins)
2 1/4 tsp. unflavored gelatin
6 cups sorrel 
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup sugar
Pinch of kosher salt 

Lightly oil eight 3- to 4-oz. ramekins.

Sprinkle gelatin over 2 Tbsp. cold water in a small bowl and let stand 1 minute to soften.

Puree sorrel and buttermilk in a blender until very smooth, about 1 minute. Pour mixture through a fine-mesh strainer set over a medium bowl, pressing on solids. Discard the solids.

Heat cream, sugar, and a pinch of kosher salt in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Add gelatin mixture; stir until it dissolves. Pour cream mixture into buttermilk mixture, stir to combine, and divide equally among ramekins. Let cool completely, then cover ramekins with plastic wrap and refrigerate the panna cottas until they are set, at least 4 hours. Serve with lightly sweetened whipped cream, if desired.