Last Chance Foods from WNYC

CLASSES & RESOURCES IN NYC GrowNYC’s Farm Beginnings — a comprehensive agricultural training program developed for new farmers by the people who run the Greenmarket. Designed for a people looking to start farm enterprises, including urban farmers looking to scale-up and second career farm entrepreneurs.   Brooklyn Grange hosts a whole range of workshops and classes for rooftop farmers. If a full roof installation process is more than you want to take on, their Design and Installation arm will build you your very own backyard or terrace garden, rooftop farm, or green wall.  Just Food’s Farm School NYC  — urban agriculture training through a certificate program and a wide range of individual courses from social justice to urban farming to grassroots community organizing. Mission: to build self-reliant communities and inspire positive local action around food access and social, economic, and racial justice issues.  Green Roofs for Healthy Cities  — training towards certification in green roof and wall installation. Eagle Street Farm — Greenpoint. This rooftop farm welcomes visitors from second graders to graduate students to learn about sky-high agriculture.  Cornell Cooperative Extension  — free gardening and farming support run by NYS with offices in every single county – including Manhattan. Offering everything from soil testing to 20c processing licenses.  HUDSON VALLEY INTERNSHIPS AND INCUBATORS Stone Barns’ Growing Farmers Initiative  — Westchester. Comprehensive program to help beginning farmers get the training, resources and guidance to create economically and ecologically resilient farm enterprises. Offers apprenticeships, a virtual grange, workshops on everything from beekeeping to seed saving, and an annual Young Farmers Conference which draws hundreds of beginning farmers from across the country and beyond.  Glynwood’s Farm Incubator  — Cold Spring. Provides the tools and resources aspiring agricultural entrepreneurs need to develop and manage viable farm enterprises in the Hudson Valley. Provides access to land, housing, shared equipment, infrastructure, low-interest capital, business mentoring and training in sustainable farming practices. RESOURCES & NON-PROFITS SUPPORTING NEW FARMERS Cornell’s Beginning Farmers Program  — a comprehensive clearing house of resources, internships, job postings and land opportunities. Northeast Organic Farming Association  — This seven-state non-profit teaches, certifies and supports organic farms. Their semi-annual conferences offer sessions on everything from raw milk to fermentation to homesteading, complete with contra dancing and camping.  The Greenhorns  — A unique resource helping young people make the transition into a career of farming. Provides information about everything from where to find an apprenticeship to how to repair a tractor. Complete with mentor matchmaker.   National Young Farmers Coalition  — represents, mobilizes, and engages young farmers. Supports practices and policies to sustain young, independent and prosperous farmers now and in the future. Co-founded by an ex-Manhattanite who now grows organic vegetables in the Hudson.  Richard Wiswall’s The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook  — widely-prized bible on the business end of running a farm. Expert advice on how to make your vegetable production more efficient and how to better manage your employees and finances. The USDA’s (great) new website for new farmers  — Yes, even the USDA is focusing on new farmers. This site offers in-depth information on how to increase access to land and capital, build new market opportunities, participate in conservation opportunities, select and use risk management tools, and access USDA education and technical-support  American Farmland Trust: Transitioning Farmland to a New Generation  — This longtime, stalwart non-profit is bringing its forces to bear for new farmers, offering everything from training to land links as well as targeted offerings for women landowners and conservation.

New Yorkers' interest in where their food comes from and how it is raised has led to a robust farmers' market system, a growing interest in communty gardens and backyard enterprises like raising chickens and keeping bees, and a surprising number of urbanites who are ditching their pots of basil on their fire escape to become farmers. While there’s not what you’d call a mass exodus from New York City, there is a perceptible upward trend in the number of people wanting to learn more about agriculture.  With the number of farmers nationwide in decline, support programs are cropping up to help in that transition: Just Food runs Farm School NYC, the Stone Barns Center in Westchester County runs farmer training programs and hosts an annual sold-out Young Farmers Conference, and a growing number of other non-profits help new farmers find everything they need to take root — from land to capital to customers.  Closer to home, Chris Wayne runs FARMroots, the new farmer development program at GrowNYC, the non-profit that manages New York City's Greenmarkets program. In their offices on Chambers Street in Lower Manhattan, they offer a USDA-funded, 10-week training class that Wayne said begins with a reality check: “Can you spend 16 hours in 95 degree heat, working your tail off, for very little money?  That's the first question.”   The question is intended to knock the stars out of people's eyes and get them to start thinking more realistically about farming.  But Wayne said dreaming is still necessary, and is encouraged. "One of the first things we have [students] do," said Wayne, "is look deep into their own values: Why are they interested in starting a farm business, and what's going to be that core, central piece that they can look back on at Hour 15 on their farm, and say  'This is why I'm doing this, this is why this is important to me.'" Once you figure the why, Wayne said it's time to consider the what, the produce or product sector that you want to get into. What are you interested in growing, or raising? Wayne said people often come to the class already inspired by a vegetable or fruit that they had success with in their community or backyard gardens.   What skills do you already have that you could utilize?  Wayne explained that farming requires "an incredibly wide range of skills," from welding to marketing plans to graphic design work for that perfect label that's going to sell your pickled green beans.  "You may not be coming to agriculture with a production skill, but there's probably a lot of other things that you don't realize, other skills and experiences that you already have, that are going to play into a successful farm business."  Is there a niche you can fill with your farm product?  Wayne said beginning farmers can do their own market research.  "What do you see when you walk through a farmer's market?  Are there some products there that are lacking? What's one of the things that you can't seem to find?" This Farm Beginnings course takes beginning farmers from mission statement to financial plan to marketing plan.  But it’s not all Excel spreadsheets. Wayne said it's also important for aspiring farmers to get out of the classroom and into the field.  He said farmers in the Northeast are increasingly accepting interns and apprentices who can earn a small stipend and learn on the job.  He said he believes that kind of experience, under the tutelage of an experience farmer, is essential in learning the "true art of agriculture." "I always say, if I decided tomorrow that i wanted to be an electrician, would I walk into a house the next day, after reading a couple books, and try to set up a house with electricity? Of course not.  The same is true with agriculture."  Wayne said that at the end of the course, if participants decide they want to keep their office day job after all, he considers that as much of a success as helping to launch a Future Farmer.  "We really want folks who are devoted to this to get out into farms," he said. Check out our Farm School Resources Page for more farming classes, literature about starting a farm and organizations that connect aspiring farmers with internship opportunities.

It’s the high season for cool, slushy drinks. Nina Planck, author of several Real Food cookbooks, says her fermented watermelon basil cooler illustrates one of her key principles: when she processes food, she does it in ways that enhance nutrition, flavor, and shelf life.  Nina Planck / photo by  Katherine Wolkoff Nina's recipe for fermented watermelon basil cooler (Makes two quarts) Ingredients 8–10 lb watermelon 8–10 Meyer lemons small bunch of Genovese basil 1/4 c organic whole cane sugar 1/4 c fresh whey 1 T unrefined sea salt 3 c water Make 3 cups of watermelon juice in a blender or food processor. Don’t strain the pulp. Squeeze 1 cup of lemon juice. Take 1/2 cup of basil leaves and gently bruise them using a mortar and pestle to release the oil. Put all the ingredients in a 2-quart glass jar, cover with water, and close the lid tightly. Stir and leave out at room temperature for 3 days. Allow a little carbonation to escape when necessary and replace the cap firmly. Chill and serve. Keeps up to 2 weeks in the fridge.

SMOKED PICKLED POTATOES WITH ANCHOVY AIOLI RECIPEby David Leite, Leite's Culinaria Serves 4 to 6 INGREDIENTSFor the anchovy aioli 3 garlic cloves, minced 1 tablespoon Kosher salt 6 anchovy fillets, minced 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 2 large egg yolks, room temperature 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil, or 1/2 cup olive oil and 1/2 cup grapeseed oil For the smoked pickled potatoes 2 pounds small red new potatoes, 1 to 1 1/2 in diameter, scrubbed and rinsed Sea salt 4 cups malt vinegar Peanut oil, for frying Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste DIRECTIONS1. Dust the garlic with a bit of salt and, using the flat side of your knife’s blade, rub the salt back and forth into the garlic to make a paste. 2. Add the garlic, anchovies, lemon juice, and egg yolks to a medium bowl. Whisk to combine. 3. Slowly drizzle a few drops of the oil into the bowl while whisking vigorously until the mixture is smooth. Add the rest of the oil in a thin stream, all the while whisking until smooth and light yellow. Season with salt. 4. Add the potatoes to a large pot and add enough cold water to cover by 2 inches. Add the salt, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and cook gently until tender, 10 to 12 minutes. 5. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with ice and water. When the potatoes are cooked, drain them and then add them the the ice water. Let them sit until cooled completely. 6. Drain the potatoes and prick each potato deeply with a toothpick or thin metal skewer numerous times all over. Pour the vinegar into a medium bowl and add in the potatoes. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the potatoes hang out on the counter in their pickling bath overnight or for at least 8 hours. 7. Following manufacturer’s instructions, set up your smoker, smoker box, charcoal grill, or gas grill for cold smoking using sawdust, chips, chunks, or Bradley bisquettes. You make a makeshift smoker by heating a cast iron skillet until very hot, placing it on your turned-off grill, adding wood chips, and closing the cover. 8. Smoke the potatoes, making sure to keep the temperature under 100°F (38°C), for 1 hour. Remove the potatoes from the smoker. You can refrigerate the potatoes for several hours or you can immediately fry them. 9. Pour enough peanut oil into a heavy pot so that it reaches a depth of 2 inches. Heat the oil to 375°F, using a deep-fry or candy thermometer to monitor the temperature. While the oil is heating, place the potatoes on a flat work surface and smash them with the palm of your hand just until they crack and split. 10. Fry the potatoes in batches, making sure the heat never goes below 350°F, until the potatoes are golden brown, 7 to 9 minutes. Transfer the potatoes to paper towels to drain and season with sea salt and pepper. Serve immediately with plenty of the aioli on the side.

Cilantro could very well be the world’s most polarizing herb. Those who vehemently hate it may have the aversion coded in their genes, while others happily add it to everything from salsas to soups. But maybe there’s a middle ground to be found in the cilantro wars. Perhaps cilantro’s cousin culantro is the herb diplomat to please both parties. Culantro, with its long, narrow, slightly serrated leaves, is popularly used in Latin and Caribbean cuisine. “Culantro has kind of the base flavor of cilantro but it’s much earthier,” journalist and food writer Von Diaz explained. “It’s much more tame. It almost tastes like a hybrid of cilantro and parsley."  She described culantro as the cornerstone herb of Puerto Rican food. “We use it extensively in making what’s called ‘racaito,’ which is a component of sofrito, which I’m sure a lot of people have heard of,” Diaz said. “It’s basically a spice paste blend that’s garlic, onions, culantro, and peppers, which you then turn into a paste. You cook it down and it becomes really the base of whatever dish you’re making.” Von Diaz Culantro, which can be grown in containers, has the added benefit of holding up better than cilantro in longer cooking methods. Diaz recommends adding a few leaves to beans and stewed meats, for instance. “It goes really well with things that you can cook for a while,” she said. Diaz also offered a recipe for culantro pesto, which can be used to season chicken salad. Both recipes are below. Any cilantrophobes out there who can report back on their reaction to culantro? Tell us your take on whether culantro is an acceptable substitute. Culantro Pestoby Von Diaz 1 cup culantro leaves, stems removed (packed) 2 T pine nuts 2 cloves garlic 1/3 cup grated parmesan and/or pecorino romano 2 T olive oil salt and pepper Grind garlic, salt, and pine nuts in a food processor. Add olive oil and culantro, and process until smooth. Add cheese and pulse to incorporate. Chicken Salad with Culantro Pestoby Von Diaz 4 cups poached chicken (2 large breasts) 4-6 cups chicken broth or water 2-4 T mayonnaise Juice from 1 small lime Salt and pepper 6-8 T culantro pesto Put chicken breasts in a saucepan and cover with broth or water. Bring pot to a boil, then remove from the burner. Cover and let sit for 17 minutes. Remove from liquid and let cool, then shred with two forks or by hand. Mix in mayonnaise, lime juice, and culantro pesto. Add salt and pepper to taste.

The Bronx has a weight problem, and part of that stems from parents who simply don’t know how to cook. Chef and educator Tania Lopez knows about that situation firsthand. She grew up in the South Bronx and in Puerto Rico, and says that her parents rarely cooked for her as a child. “They were constantly working all the time and they didn’t have time to cook for me,” Lopez explained. “So I didn’t have a chance to really taste food from all over the world. And I always felt like I was left out of something.” She was determined to change that after she had children and moved back to Puerto Rico. Step one: Lopez turned to the community of women around her and started asking questions. “I was very lucky to have moms that love to cook for their children and share their ideas,” she said. Having discovered the passion for home cooking and healthy eating, Lopez started Coqui the Chef, an initiative based in the South Bronx that promotes healthier alternatives to traditional Latino food. A big part of the organization’s mission is to introduce kids to fresh fruits and vegetables. Lopez says that there’s one fruit that is often big hit with the kids she teaches: avocados. (Photo: Tania Lopez/Courtesy of Tania Lopez) “It’s amazing—many of them haven’t tasted avocados,” Lopez said, adding that the fruit grows in abundance in Puerto Rico. “So we decided to add some tomato, cilantro, a little bit of onions, and some whole wheat chips, and they were like ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ They loved it... They love mashing. Who doesn’t doesn’t love mashing?” More to the point: Who doesn’t love guacamole? A crucial part of making delicious guacamole is picking out perfectly ripe avocadoes. Lopez first makes sure the fruit isn’t too bruised and soft. Then she examines the area where the avocado was cut from the tree. “The stem, I flip it off. If I see that it’s... light greenish, then I said this right,” she explained. “But I’m kind of picky with it so I wait for it [to be] light green almost brown. But when it’s very green, I still think it needs half a day.” One way to get the fruit to ripen faster is to put it in a paper bag and store it in a turned-off oven. A day later, she said, the avocado will be ripe. While there are more than 30 different variety of avocados — including the smooth-skinned, light green variety known as “West Indian avocados" — Lopez recommend using the rough-skinned, dark green Hass variety for guacamole. Her kid-friendly recipe is below. Recipe for Kid-Friendly Guacamole Ingredients 2 ripe Hass avocados, peeled and pitted 6 cherry tomatoes, halved juice of ¼ of lime ¼ cup chopped cilantro sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste 1 clove of garlic, peeled and minced (optional) ¼ cup diced red onion (optional) ¼ cup diced jalapeno (optional) Preparation Combine all ingredients in pilon (mortar and pestle) and mash until desired consistency is achieved. Serve immediately or chilled if preferred. Avocado benefits: Avocados are a good source of fiber, potassium, and vitamins C, K, folate, and B6. Half an avocado has 160 calories, 15 grams of heart-healthy unsaturated fat, and only 2 grams saturated fat. One globe contains more than one-third daily value of vitamin C, and more than half the day’s requirements of vitamin K.

Here’s a fun project for kids and apartment dwellers: Plant a radish seed in a pot, care for it, and then 25 to 30 days later, you should be able to harvest a fully grown vegetable. When it comes to farming, a month’s time is as close to instant gratification as you can get, said Edible Manhattan editor Gabrielle Langholtz. She’s the author of The New Greenmarket Cookbook, which includes recipes from New York chefs and profiles of area farmers. “[Radishes in the spring] are much milder and very quick to grow and prepare,” Langholtz explained. “So that’s one of the reasons they’re… one of the very first things we see.” The bright red Cherry Belle and French breakfast radishes in season right now are an ideal complement to the bounty of leafy greens also available at the farmers market. They are crisp and tend to be milder than their fall counterparts. “The varieties that you will buy at the greenmarket in the fall and going into winter are different varieties that have been bred for centuries for different qualities: long growing, cooler growing, better keeping,” said Langholtz. (Photo: Gabrielle Langholtz, Craig Haney, and their daughter/Anita Briggs) The spring radishes add color and crunch to salads and make for a great quick pickle. Langholtz recommends using them in the recipe below for Sugar Snap Pea and Whipped-Ricotta Tartines. “It’s an open-faced sandwich that’s wonderfully light and fresh and delicious,” she said. “And talk about fast food. I mean, you can make it in a few minutes.” Sugar Snap Pea and Whipped-Ricotta Tartinesby Dana Cowin, Editor in Chief, Food & Wine Spring brings three kinds of peas—shell, snow, and snap. The first, as the name implies, must be shelled, but the other two have sweet, crunchy pods which the French call mange tout, meaning “eat it all.” But “eat it all” can have an even broader pea meaning: The plant’s tender shoots are also perfectly edible, raw or cooked, and carry the true flavor of peas. Here the pods and plants are served together, along with radishes, atop a tartine—or French open-faced sandwich—that’s at once creamy and light, rustic and elegant. 1 cup fresh ricotta cheese ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, divided, plus more for brushing Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper Four ½-inch-thick slices of peasant bread 1 peeled garlic clove ½ pound sugar snap peas, ends trimmed and strings discarded 2 ½ tablespoons Champagne vinegar 1 tablespoon minced shallot 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard ½ cup snipped pea shoots 3 large radishes, cut into thin matchsticks About ⅓ cup crushed red pepper, for garnish In a medium bowl, using a whisk, whip the ricotta with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Preheat a grill pan. Brush the bread on both sides with olive oil. Grill over moderate heat, turning once, until toasted but still chewy in the middle, about 2 minutes. Rub the toasts with the garlic clove and season with salt and pepper. Prepare an ice water bath. In a large saucepan of salted boiling water, blanch the snap peas until bright green, about 1 minute. Transfer the snap peas to the ice bath to cool. Drain and pat dry, then thinly slice lengthwise. In a medium bowl, whisk the vinegar with the shallot, mustard, and the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the snap peas, pea shoots, and radishes; season with salt and pepper; and toss to coat. Spread the whipped ricotta on the toasts and top with the snap pea slaw. Garnish with crushed red pepper and serve. MAKES 4 TARTINES From The New Greenmarket Cookbook by Gabrielle Langholtz. Reprinted with permission from Da Capo Lifelong, © 2014

This week, cookbook authors Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, known as the reality television duo “The Fabulous Beekman Boys,” charmingly flaunted two long-standing tenants of Last Chance Foods: Don’t sound like "Delicious Dish," and don’t antagonize the farmers. “If people haven’t had a sweet pea before, freshly picked, then they haven’t experienced the true power of the pea,” said Kilmer-Purcell, who admitted after the taping that Last Chance Foods’ listeners could have heard a double entendre in that statement.  Ridge quickly followed up with this controversial statement: “A frozen pea is often better than a farmers market pea,” he said. Ridge went on to explain that various studies have report that between 20 percent and 80 percent of the sugar in peas and sweetcorn convert to starch within 24 hours. That’s why blanching them right after being picked and freezing them is the best way to preserve freshness. (It’s necessary to blanch the peas in order to kill an enzyme that would continue to break down the vegetable.) “A pea that’s picked and frozen right away is going to be infinitely better than fresh pea that’s sat around for a day before shelling,” explained Ridge. “Farmers are not going to like me for that, but it’s true.” Of course, the caveat is that a fresh pea picked from a kitchen garden and eaten immediately is best of all. That may not be possible at all this year, said Ridge and Kilmer-Purcell, authors of The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook. They grow vegetables at their farm in Sharon Spring, N.Y., and said that everything has come in late this season, given the cool temperatures. (Photo: Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell/Alec Hemer) “The real danger with peas is that they have such a short growing window,” said Kilmer-Purcell. “Because once the... daytime average temperatures get above 70 degrees, they stop growing. They’re done. They stop producing. So if they don’t start growing soon and start flowering, we may not get any.” Even if their pea plants fail to yield any sweet little green gems this season, the leaves will be edible, and the plants will help enrich the soil. “Peas, like beans, they are nitrogen fixers, so they pull nitrogen from the air,” said Kilmer-Purcell. “They have a beneficial bacteria in their roots that grow nitrogen nodules in them.” That means pea plants serve as good companion plants for nitrogen-needing greens like spinach. “If you ever do grow peas, don’t pull them out at the end of the season,” he added. “Just cut them off and leave the roots in the ground, because that’s where all the nitrogen is.” An important part of the garden, peas weren’t always appreciated in their fresh form. They were traditionally dried and used throughout the winter. “In fact fresh peas were kind of a fad in the time of Louis XIV,” Kilmer-Purcell said. “Nobody had eaten fresh peas before that. There’s a famous French diary where [it was written that] women would go home from these huge feasts, and — at the risk of great indigestion — they would eat peas before bedtime.” Shocking! Below is a recipe for spring pea soup, which is a great way to enjoy fresh peas without risking indigestion. Spring Pea Soup From The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook by Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell (Photo: Sugar snap peas at Beekman 1802/Paulette Tavormina) There's still a little chill in the air when the first peas are ready for picking. This soup is perfect in the spring when young lettuces are around. SERVES 4 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 2 leeks, thinly sliced and well washed 6 cups tender green lettuce leaves, well washed and dried 1/3 cup fresh mint leaves 2 cups shelled fresh green peas (see Tidbit) 3/4 teaspoon coarse (kosher) salt 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 2 cups chicken or vegetable broth 1/3 cup heavy cream 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the leeks and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes, or until tender. Add the lettuce and mint and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lettuce is very tender. Stir in the peas, salt, and pepper and stir to combine. Add the broth and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 5 minutes, or until the peas are tender and the flavors have blended. Working in 2 batches, transfer the soup to a blender and puree until smooth. Add the cream and lemon juice and blend. Serve hot. TIDBIT: To get 2 cups of shelled peas, you'll need to start with about 2 pounds of peas in the pod, so feel free to use frozen peas here (we'll never tell). Reprinted from “The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook” by Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell. Copyright (c) 2014 by Beekman 1802, LLC. By permission of Rodale Books. Available wherever books are sold.

The cool weather this spring means that farmers markets may be looking surprisingly bare for late May. Parks and forests, however, are already bursting with life — and tasty, nutritious finds for knowledgeable foragers. One commonly foraged favorite is lambsquarters. The leafy green grows in sunny meadows, college campuses, and even between the sidewalk cracks in Brooklyn. Forager Ava Chin might ogle the hearty specimens shooting up along city streets, but she admitted that she stays away from eating plants growing in high-traffic areas. Lambsquarters leaves taste like spinach, and Chin likes to sauté them with garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. In her new memoir Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal, she describes feeling like Popeye upon trying it for the first time. “Lambsquarters has the distinction of being one of the most nutritious plants in the world,” Chin said. “It is a member of the chenopodium family, which means that it’s related to quinoa, spinach, and beets. It’s high in vitamins A and C. It’s also high in things like riboflavin, niacin, potassium, calcium, and manganese.” The leafy, stalky plant is a sustainable choice for foragers since it is highly adaptable to various climates. “It’s actually not native to the United States,” said Chin. “It’s native to the Mediterranean and Asia, where, by the way, it’s a revered vegetable in Greek, Persian, and Bangladeshi cuisine.” (Photo: Ava Chin/Owen Brunette) Another important advantage of lambsquarters is that there are no poisonous look-alikes. The leaves on the tall stalky plant are triangular and give it the common name of “white goosefoot.” It’s also known as “pigweed,” and those in the U.K. might recognize it from the name “fat hen.” “Another characteristic besides the leaves is that it has this white, powdery coating on the new growth, up at the top of the plant, and also at the bottom of the top leaves,” explained Chin. That coating is naturally produced by lambsquarters and has no effect on its edibility. So the next time you see a tall stalk with triangular leaves and a white powdery coating on the new growth, give it a second look, positively identify it, and then give it a try in the kitchen. “One of the great things about foraging and being in touch with nature in the city is you start to realize that there’s a great abundance of natural things that are growing all around us on every block, on every street, in every borough,” says Chin. “Nature really likes to rub its elbows against the city and, for me, that’s the interesting thing about foraging.” Lambsquarters Ricotta PieAdapted from the "Wild Greens Pie" recipe in Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal  Ingredients Pie pastry, enough for base and latticework topping Filling 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil 1 clove of garlic, crushed 1 medium onion, diced 3 cups of lambsquarters 1 cup of spinach, Swiss chard, or store-bought dandelions, roughly chopped 1 cup mustard greens, roughly chopped ½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon pepper 15-ounce container ricotta cheese ½ cup grated Pecorino Romano (can substitute Parmesan) ½ grated fontina cheese (or any other good melting cheese you prefer) ½ cup grated mozzarella cheese 3 large eggs, beaten 1 egg white, optional 1 teaspoon water, optional 1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Press pastry into a 10-inch diameter springform pan. Build pastry up wall of pan at least 1½ inches tall. 2. In a pan over medium flame, heat 1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil. Add the garlic until lightly browned (3 minutes), and sauté the onions about another 3 minutes. Heat the remaining teaspoon of oil, then mix in the wild and store-bought greens, salt, and pepper. Sauté until all liquid from the greens evaporates, about 3 minutes. 3. Combine the ricotta, romano, fontina, mozzarella, and eggs in a large bowl. Add the wild greens mixture, blending well. 4. Spoon the filling into the pastry-covered pan. Cut the remaining pastry into thin strips and weave into a latticework topping; place over pie, trimming edges. Mix the egg white with water and brush over pastry, if using. Bake until the filling is set in center and browning on top, approximately 40 minutes.

For Rose Wang, it all started with a scorpion street snack in China. She bit into the insect on a dare and was surprised. “[It was] not what I expected,” says Wang, who went on to co-found the insect-based food company Six Foods with her Harvard classmates Laura D’Asaro and Meryl Natow. “It tasted really great and really made me think, ‘Okay, is there another way to eat protein that’s more sustainable?’”  In particular, the entrepreneurs see crickets as a more sustainable source of protein. For one thing, the little chirpers are far less energy-intensive to raise. Here’s how the math breaks down: One pound of beef requires 2,000 gallons of water and 25 bags of feed. By comparison, one pound of cricket protein can be produced with 1 gallon of water and 2 bags of feed.   “What’s so great about crickets is that it’s an animal protein, so it’s all nine essential amino acids,” Wang adds. “It’s also really high in calcium and a lot of other vitamins and minerals.” She says the taste might even be vaguely familiar. “The way I describe it is [that] it tastes like shrimp without a fishy taste, so it is somewhat similar to a lot of the crustaceans that we’re used to eating,” Wang explained. “There is a difference in flavor profile, but it’s not bad.” (Photo: "Chirp" cricket chips/Courtesy of Rose Wang) While most everyone can agree that insects are the more environmentally friendly version of protein, there’s still the inescapable ick factor. The founders of Six Foods found that crickets presented people with the lowest barrier to entry. “When we presented people with different foods at the very beginning… we had mealworms, wax worms, hornworms, and then crickets… crickets were always the least scary,” Wang says. Daniella Martin, the author of Edible: An Adventure Into the World of Eating Insects and the Last Great Hope to Save the Planet, agrees. “Crickets are familiar, they have a reasonably good public image because of characters like Jiminy Cricket,” she says. “People are a lot less grossed out by something like a cricket versus something like a meal worm.” Six Foods has gone one step further to make crickets into a non-scary, recognizable form: chips. The cricket chips, called “Chirps,” are made from cricket flour. (Photo: Rose Wang and Laura D'Asaro) Cute names and novelty aside, crickets could also be the most viable form of edible insects. “Crickets are also the only insect that’s produced at scale within the U.S.,” says Wang. “To us, if we can ease our supply chain and make sure we know where we’re getting our crickets from and we can go visit those farms and know exactly their process, that makes us feel better about the food that we’re using.” What do you think? Have you ever eaten a bug and liked it? Could crickets and other insects be the protein source to save the planet?

The days are getting longer, and that’s welcome news for humans and chickens alike. More daylight means hens have more time to eat bugs. That additional protein makes for richer eggs with deeply orange yolks. Here’s a suggestion on what to do what all that springtime bounty of eggs: Make a frittata. The egg dish is a favorite, fast weeknight meal in Martha Rose Shulman’s household. “[Frittatas] are very forgiving, and they’re a great vehicle for vegetables,” said Shulman, the author of The Simple Art of Vegetarian Cooking and the "Recipes for Health" columnist for The New York Times. She recommends frittatas as a great way to highlight seasonal vegetables or whatever is wilting in your crisper drawer. Even leftover risotto can take a starring role. Shulman does advise blanching greens before adding them into the egg mixture. Otherwise they’ll release water while being cooked and make the dish a watery mess. The template recipe below sketches out the basics and is easily adaptable to whatever ingredients are on hand. Mix together eggs, vegetables, a little milk, and seasoning, and then pour the whole mixture in a hot oiled pan. “You shake it a little bit so that it’s a little bit fluffy,” explained Shulman. “But what you want to be doing is cooking layers — just for the first minute or two. And then you’ve got a couple of layers of egg cooked. And then what I do is I turn the heat down very, very low, and I put a cover over the pan for 10 minutes and just let that cook through.” At that point, she fires up the broiler. Once the frittata is mostly set and there’s still a little runny egg on top, Shulman runs it under the broiler to finish it off. “Usually it doesn’t take more than a minute to set that top layer,” she added. Those who prefer runny eggs can even skip the broiler step. A fully set frittata has the advantage of being portable, though. “Ideally, you will let it sit for at least 10 or 15 minutes before you either slide it out of the pan onto a platter or just cut it into wedges,” explained Shulman, who often slices the frittatas into diamond shapes to serve as appetizers. Frittatas serve as a particularly versatile party food. Not only are they portable and pretty, they’re also best enjoyed at room temperature. “It was a dish that farm workers would take out to the fields and have as their sort of late morning meal in the fields because it’s so portable,” Shulman said. “I do frittatas for entertaining all the time.” Basic Frittataby Martha Rose Shulman from The Simple Art of Vegetarian Cooking  MAKES ONE 2- TO 8-EGG FRITTATA This template gives you instructions for making a range of serving sizes, from the 2-egg frittata for one to an 8-egg frittata for six--or for a crowd if you serve it as an appetizer. The technique for a frittata containing more than 4 eggs is a little different for a 2- or 4-egg frittata, because the smaller frittatas cook more quickly and don't require any slow, covered cooking. I finish larger frittatas under the broiler. 2 to 8 eggs Salt and freshly ground pepper 1 to 2 tablespoons milk (2 percent or whole; I use 1 tablespoon for every 4 eggs) The filling of your choice (see variation recipes, pages 73-77) 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 1. Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Stir in salt and pepper to taste, the milk, and filling. 2. Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a heavy 8-inch nonstick skillet. Hold your hand above it; it should feel hot. Drop a bit of egg into the pan and if it sizzles and seizes at once, the pan is ready. Pour in the egg mixture. Swirl the pan to distribute the eggs and filling evenly over the surface. During the first few minutes of cooking, shake the pan gently and tilt it slightly with one hand while lifting up the edges of the frittata with a wooden or heatproof silicone spatula in your other hand, letting the eggs run underneath. 2- OR 4-EGG FRITTATA: Use an 8-inch skillet. A 2-egg frittata will be done quickly, with just the tilting of the pan and letting the eggs run underneath until it is no longer or only slightly moist on the top (the way the French like them). Once it is set, slide it out of the pan onto a plate. If you do want to brown it on the other side you can flip it over, either with a spatula or by pushing the pan away from you, then with a quick jerk of the wrist quickly pulling it toward you and jerking the pan upward at the same time. Cook for only a few seconds on the other side, then reverse out of the pan. You will probably want to flip a 4-egg frittata and cook it on the other side. (Or you can run it under the broiler briefly, see Step 3). To flip it: Use a wide spatula or the jerking motion I just described. Or, slide it onto a dinner plate or a saucepan lid with a handle (this is handy; in Spain they have a special implement that looks like a lid, just for flipping tortillas), then place the pan--upside down--over the plate or lid. Being careful not to touch the pan, hold the plate (or lid) and pan together, flip the pan back to its upright position, and place on the stove. (I can do this with an 8-inch pan, but not with a larger one.) Cook on the top of the stove for another minute or two to set the eggs. Slide out of the pan onto a plate or platter. Continue with Step 4. 6- OR 8-EGG FRITTATA:For larger frittatas, after the bottom has set, you will cover and cook the frittata over low heat before finishing under the broiler. Use a heavy 10-inch nonstick skillet. Begin cooking as directed in Step 2. Once a few layers of egg have cooked during the first couple of minutes on the stove, turn the heat down to low, cover (use a pizza pan if you don't have a lid that will fit your skillet), and cook for 10 minutes, shaking the pan gently every once in a while. From time to time, remove the lid and loosen the bottom of the frittata by sliding your spatula between the bottom of the frittata and the pan, tilting the pan and allowing egg on the top to run underneath, so that the bottom doesn't burn. It will, however, turn golden. The eggs should be just about set, with a thin wet layer on top; cook a few minutes longer if they're not. 3. Meanwhile, heat the broiler. Uncover the pan and place the frittata under the broiler, not too close to the heat, for 1 to 3 minutes, watching very carefully to make sure the top doesn't burn (it can brown in spots and puff under the broiler, but burnt eggs taste bitter). Remove from the heat, shake the pan to make sure the frittata isn't sticking, and allow it to cool for at least 5 minutes or up to 15. Loosen the edges with your spatula and carefully slide from the pan onto a large round platter. 4. Allow to cool completely if desired. Cut into wedges or into smaller bite-size diamonds. Serve hot, warm, at room temperature, or cold. ADVANCE PREPARATION: In Mediterranean countries, frittatas are served at room temperature, which makes them perfect do-ahead dishes. They'll keep in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 days. They do not reheat well but they're good cold or at room temperature. 8-Egg Frittata with Asparagus, Fresh Peas, Tarragon, and Chivesby Martha Rose Shulman from The Simple Art of Vegetarian Cooking  MAKES ONE 10-INCH FRITTATA, SERVING 4 TO 6 You can get asparagus pretty much year-round in natural foods markets and supermarkets, and in California it's almost always available at farmers' markets. But it's a spring and early summer vegetable in temperate climates, as are peas. Make the Basic Frittata template (above) with the following filling ingredients and specifications: 3/4 pound asparagus, trimmed 3/4 cup shelled fresh peas (1 pound in the pod) 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives 2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan (optional) 1. Steam the asparagus until tender, about 5 minutes. Refresh with cold water, drain, and pat dry. Cut into 1/2-inch slices. Steam the peas for 5 minutes, until tender. 2. In Step 1, use 8 eggs, 2 tablespoons milk, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir in the chives, tarragon, asparagus, peas, and Parmesan (if using). 3. Proceed with Step 2, using a 10-inch skillet, then follow the recipe instructions for a 6- to 8-egg frittata. ADVANCE PREPARATION: The asparagus can be prepared a day ahead and kept in the refrigerator. The frittata can be prepared several hours or even a day ahead, covered, and refrigerated until shortly before serving. It does not reheat well but it's good cold or at room temperature.

Some people like a shot of espresso to get the morning started. How about a quick slug of cactus slime instead? That’s the drink of choice at some juice stands in Mexico. “A lot of people think that the slime is really nutritious,” said Lesley Téllez, a food writer who runs the culinary tourism company Eat Mexico. “I’ve seen some places where… they just sell the slime, you know, on it’s own. You can take it to go, and... have it for a quick morning pick-me-up.” Known as “baba,” or the Spanish word for “drool,” that clear ooze comes from nopales, or prickly pear cactus paddles. That type of cactus is a popular in Mexican cuisine, and tastes slightly acidic, with a raw texture that’s slightly crunchier than green beans. Nopales are available throughout the city in grocery stores and bodegas catering to Mexican communities. Téllez likes to get her nopales and other Mexican staples from Corona’s Farm in Queens. She admits that she prefers to get the ones that have already been cleaned, since getting rid of the cactus spines can be a tricky operation. That’s not to say it can’t be done at home. It just takes a fair degree of caution and patience. First, Téllez wraps her non-dominant hand in dish towels. Then she hangs on to the nopales at the narrow end. “You definitely need to hold onto it, for sure,” Téllez added. “You don’t want to be whacking away at it with a knife while it’s sitting there on the cutting board. That’s a recipe for disaster.” Then with a very sharp knife in her dominant hand, she gingerly begins shaving off the nopales spines. “You want to slice away at the spines as easy as you can without having thorns sort of flying around, so I go very slowly,” Téllez said. Do that until it’s prickle-free — or just buy the nopales that have already been cleaned and save yourself the trouble. (Photo: Lesley Téllez/Courtesy of Lesley Téllez) Once relieved of its spines, there are a number of ways to prepare the cactus. Boil it lightly and put it in taco. “Another really simple way you can cook them is to grill them,” Téllez said. “So you just take a cleaned paddle, and you score it. And you sprinkle it with some salt and pepper and some olive oil, and you grill it in on a really high heat.” If you’re wary of the slimy texture, Téllez has an entertaining, if messy, method of de-oozing the nopales. It involves cutting up the cleaned cactus and rubbing salt into the flesh. “It’s actually really fun to do if you have, like, 10 minutes in your kitchen,” she said. “So you rub the salt into the flesh and what it does is it unleashes all of this slime from the cactus so your hands get really slimy — which is fun, for me.” The result of that salt scrub is a raw vegetable that can be added to salads or as a garnish. “You’re left with this really crunchy, raw, bright green, beautiful vegetable,” Téllez said. For those who enjoy the texture of cooked nopales, check out Téllez’s recipe below for Stuffed Nopales with Black Beans, Cheese, and Roasted Red Pepper. Also, if you’re interested in a drink to serve for Cinco de Mayo on Monday, check out this recipe from Saveur for Prickly Pear Margaritas. Get started now, since you need to find prickly pears (the fruit of the same cactus that produces nopales) and soak them in tequila for two days. Stuffed Nopales with Black Beans, Cheese, and Roasted Red Pepper Recipe By Lesley Téllez, The Mija Chronicles (Photo: Stuffed nopales/Lesley Téllez)  Makes: 4 servings Note: When buying cactus, make sure the paddles are bright green and not brown in spots. Many grocery stores sell them already cleaned, but sometimes upon further inspection, they’ve got a few spines. You’ll want to remove those with a sharp knife — the LA Times has a good tutorial on how to clean nopales. It’s best to use the cactus as soon as you can, and don’t store it in a plastic bag in your refrigerator as that will create moisture and make the paddles go bad. The cactus can be boiled a day ahead of time and stored in an airtight container. If you don’t have bean broth, you can use water or chicken/vegetable broth. Ingredients For the cactus:  Kosher salt Half a red onion, peeled and cut into large chunks 1 garlic clove, peeled and smashed 8 medium cactus paddles For the beans: 2 cups cooked black beans (or a 14 ounce can), with about ¾ cup bean broth 1 teaspoon ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper About 1 tablespoon canola, grapeseed, or peanut oil 1/4 red onion, finely chopped 1 garlic clove, minced 2 teaspoons finely chopped canned chipotle pepper in adobo For the toppings: 1 1/4 cups (about 3 ounces) grated mild white cheese, such as Monterey Jack 1 red, yellow, or orange pepper, roasted, peeled and sliced into thin strips Chopped fresh cilantro, for garnish (optional) Instructions For the cactus: Fill a large bowl halfway with ice water and set aside. Fill a large saucepan about halfway with well salted water and add the onion and garlic. Bring water to a boil over high heat, then add the cactus paddles. (The water should just about cover the cactus.) Cook until the paddles turn a khaki-green color and are slightly soft, about 3 minutes. Remove cactus from boiling water and immediately place in the ice water bath to halt the cooking. While the cactus paddles cool, heat the oven to 425°F (or to broil) and arrange a rack at least 6-inches from the heat source. When cactus is cool, remove from ice water, pat dry, and discard water. For the beans: Stir beans together with cumin, Mexican oregano, salt, and ground black pepper. Heat a medium frying pan over medium heat and add the oil. When oil is shimmering, add the onion and cook, stirring a few times, until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and chopped chipotle, stirring until the oil turns a lovely reddish color and you start to smell a chili-garlic aroma. In one quick pour, add the beans and about half of the broth to the pan. Using a bean masher — in Mexico this is called an aplastador (I use a wooden one just like these Rancho Gordo bean mashers) — or the bottom of a cup, mash the beans into a paste. Add more broth if the beans look too dry and take care not to overheat the beans or they’ll dry out too quickly. Once you have your desired consistency, cook the beans for about 5 minutes, stirring often so they don’t stick, until flavors combine. To assemble nopales, line up cactus paddles on a rimmed baking sheet. Add a thin layer of beans to each cactus paddle and sprinkle evenly with cheese. Bake until cheese is golden-brown and bubbly and cactus is knife tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. Add roasted red peppers in a pretty little mound in the middle to garnish, and top with a sprinkle of chopped cilantro.

We're a little late to the game on this, but it still sounds tasty, so we're calling this a "Past Chance Foods" recipe. It comes from copy editor Francine Almash's mother, Victoria. Easter Wheat Pieby Victoria Almash Makes filling for two pies 1 can soaked wheat (one brand is Asti) or use the recipe* below for cooked wheat berries 1.4 cup hot (scalded) milk ¼ tsp. salt ¼ tsp. sugar 1 ½ lbs ricotta 1 cup sugar 6 egg yolks (beaten) 1 tbs. orange water ¼ cup diced citron ¼ cup diced orange peel 4 egg whites (beaten stiff) 1 tsp. vanilla Pie crust enough for two pie shells and lattice work In the scalded milk, mix can of wheat, ¼ tsp salt and ¼ tsp sugar. Remove from heat, add citron and orange peel. Set aside. Meanwhile prepare filling: Beat ricotta and cup of sugar. Then add 6 egg yolks, vanilla and orange water. Blend well. Stir in prepared wheat. Then fold in beaten egg whites. Pour into pie shell. Arrange strips crisscross over filling to the edge. Roll bottom overhand up over the strips at the edge and flute heavily. Bake in preheated oven (350 degrees) for 1 hour or until firm in the center. Let cool with oven door open. Serve sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. *Cooking with Wheat Berriesby Amber Waves Farm Ingredients 1 cup wheat berries (makes approximately 3 cups) 1 tbs salt Cooking: Add 1 cup wheat berries, 3 cups of water and a tablespoon of salt to a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and bring to a simmer, then cook for 50 minutes or until wheat berries are soft and chewy. (For faster cook time and softer wheat berries, soak wheat berries in water overnight prior to cooking). Drain any excess water and transfer to a bowl to cool. Toss with a splash of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Storage: If not using immediately, store the cooked wheat berries in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a week. To reheat, put wheat berries in frying pan with splash of water, stirring over low heat until hot.

The image of rolling wheat fields calls to mind sprawling Midwestern farms, but that may be changing. Just look at Amber Waves Farm in Amagansett, Long Island, where farmers Katie Baldwin and Amanda Merrow are growing wheat on 16 acres. They started their farm in 2009, bucking the then-emerging, now-rampant, gluten-free trend. “For every customer that we sell wheat berries or our whole wheat flour to, there is a customer that is really excited that we’re working to close the gap in the foodshed in the Northeast by bringing grains back from the Midwest,” said Baldwin. In addition, Merrow said, there’s a growing interest in the nutritional benefits of whole grains like wheat berries. “Wheat berries are wheat seeds,” she explained. They are what farmers plant in the fall, and the young sprouted seeds quickly grow into wheat grass. Put wheat berries through a mill and the result is flour. In their complete form, they can be cooked for use in numerous applications — as a breakfast food or in salads and soups. Baldwin and Merrow use an electric table-top stone mill that they’ve named “Milton” to grind wheat berries into flour. Their customers have also used Vitamixes and food processors to tackle the job. There’s a notable benefit to locally grown wheat and freshly milled flour. “You can imagine a tomato being a fresh tomato, an heirloom tomato picked from your garden, and the burst of flavor that that has and its freshness,” said Baldwin. “Grains also have a terroir. We’re by the beach, so it picks up traces of flavor in the soil and elements there. And bread should have a lot of flavor characteristics.” She adds that the wheat grown at Amber Waves Farm has a nutty flavor with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg. (Photo: Katie Baldwin and Amanda Merrow/Courtesy of Amber Waves Farm) New York City farmers markets have been key in creating the demand for locally grown wheat. Bakers who sell at the greenmarkets use as much as 65,000 pounds of local flour each month. Turns out that New Yorkers aren’t the only ones appreciating the local wheat. “Really our primary challenge on the East End, in addition to expensive land, is that there are a lot of deer on the East End who also love wheat berries,” said Merrow. “And so that’s really our greatest challenge, is trying to keep the deer away from the wheat.” What the deer don’t realize is that cooking wheat berries make them even more delicious. Below, check out instructions from Amber Waves Farm on how to cook wheat berries. Then you can use those prepared wheat berries in the spring salad recipe below or in this Easter Wheat Pie recipe. Cooking with Wheat Berries  Ingredients 1 cup wheat berries (makes approximately 3 cups) 1 tbs salt Cooking: Add 1 cup wheat berries, 3 cups of water and a tablespoon of salt to a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and bring to a simmer, then cook for 50 minutes or until wheat berries are soft and chewy. (For faster cook time and softer wheat berries, soak wheat berries in water overnight prior to cooking). Drain any excess water and transfer to a bowl to cool. Toss with a splash of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Storage: If not using immediately, store the cooked wheat berries in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a week. To reheat, put wheat berries in frying pan with splash of water, stirring over low heat until hot. Simple Spring Wheat Berry Saladby Amber Waves Farm  1 cup cooked wheat berries 5 sliced radishes 1 cup chopped arugula or spinach 1 tbs of chopped chives 1/4 cup of chopped parsley 3 tbs extra virgin olive oil 3 tbs lemon juice Salt and pepper to taste Preparation: Add vegetables and herbs to the wheat berries and mix in the olive oil and lemon juice. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve at room temperature.

Ignore the recent chilly blast of weather, spring is here and so are the blooms. Some of those cheerful flowers aren’t just a treat for the eye—they’re tasty, too. Violas are one edible variety. They’re part of the pansy family, and you can find them at farmers markets now. “Fresh flowers are one of the few things that you’ll be hard pressed to find packaged in a store,” says Annie Novak, a rooftop farmer and co-founder of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm. “So really the pleasure of eating a flower garnish is you can almost guarantee it’s coming right out of a garden nearby.” Novak is also the manager of the New York Botanical Garden’s Edible Academy, where she works to teach children about the connection between gardening and healthy eating. She points out that, as a children’s educator, edible flowers like violas are an easy way to get kids interested in food. Even simple tricks like floral ice cubes (directions below) can be an incentive for them to stay hydrated. For the adults, the appeal of eating violas is also simple. “They’re one of the easiest ways to make a very simple dish appear quite fancy,” says Novak. Naturally, not all flowers are edible, so do your research before chomping away. (The New York Botanical Garden has this list for reference.) Novak advises the sensible step of planting only nontoxic flowers if you’re introducing your kids to edible blooms. She recommends avoiding things like angel's trumpet, which reportedly causes hallucinations. Sound advice, that. (Photo: Annie Novak with Julia and Janine Gayenelo at the New York Botanical Garden/Victor Chu) As for the rest of us worried about ingesting unexpected chemicals or pesticides, Novak recommends starting the flowers from seed or asking your plant purveyor if they were treated in any way with chemicals. “And if it was, you can wash it or pick off the flowers before you start to eat them,” Novak adds. “Picking off the flowers will actually encourage more blooms and more growth so it will work out the best.” Violas should be a hit with kids and adults alike, since they’re sweet and have a mild floral taste. “The texture is a really important part of the taste of flowers because the petals themselves are very soft,” adds Novak. “It’s a weird combination but [they have] like a crystalline, velvety, melt-in-your-mouth kind of texture. If you're looking to keep your little ones entertained this weekend, The New York Botanical Garden's Culinary Kids Food Festival has a variety of food and plant focused activities going on through Monday, April 21.  Floral Ice Cubes Ice cube tray: larger sizes work better because the ice will melt less quickly Boiled, distilled water: This makes for the clearest-looking ice cubes Edible flowers (such as violas), enough for each ice cube Fill the trays ⅓ of the way with the boiled, distilled water. Place the flowers face down in the water and freeze. Fill ⅔ of the way with more of the water, freeze. Fill to the top and freeze.

If you’re an apartment-bound urbanite with nary a backyard to plant, here’s a micro-farming solution acceptable for even the smallest spaces: Grow yourself a sourdough starter, also known as a levain. “It’s a little like farming,” said Austin Hall, the head baker at She Wolf Bakery. “You’re trying to grow this organism that is going to help you raise the bread.” So if you’re not cleaning out your kitchen this weekend in preparation for Passover, consider combining some good flour with water, and then letting it sit in a cool spot for a two days. There’s yeast naturally present on the flour, and it just needs nurturing. “What you’re trying to do is cultivate a colony of yeast and bacteria,” Hall said. “It doesn’t sound very appetizing but, trust me [it is].” Since there are only two ingredients that go into making a starter, pay attention to each. First of all, don’t use white flour. Instead, choose a whole wheat or whole rye flour. She Wolf Bakery, which supplies restaurants including Roman’s and Marlow and Sons, gets some of its flour from local purveyors at the Union Square Farmers Market. “All those nutritious things that are good for humans are also good for tiny bacteria,” Hall said. “In about two days, you can get the very beginning of a culture. If you’re starting from nothing, it takes probably a week before… you’ll have a strong enough culture that you can actually bake a loaf of bread from it.” (Photo: Austin Hall/Courtesy of She Wolf Bakery) Ingredient number two for a sourdough starter is water. Hall explained that New York City’s tap water is chlorinated, so it’ll kill microorganisms unless the chlorine is allowed to evaporate. “It’s most important when you’re very first starting out to use either distilled, bottled water,” he explained, “or you can take regular tap water and let it sit on the counter for 8 to 12 hours, and all that chlorine will off gas and you can mix dough with it.” Finally, add a healthy dash of patience. Nothing will happen to the flour and water mixture in the first 24 hours. Even after it begins to double in size, there’s still a few more weeks of tending to do. “Don’t get discouraged in the beginning if it doesn’t taste like sourdough,” Hall said. “It’s far easier to cultivate the yeast colony than it is to cultivate the bacterial colony. It takes probably three weeks of regular of feeding before you’ll get enough of a bacterial colony for it to really taste like sourdough bread.” If all this sounds more like the unnecessary hassle of tending a Tamagotchi pet, rather than watching the fascinating activities of an ant farm, there’s another option. Cozy up to a baker and ask for a piece of starter. Keep it alive by regular feedings, and, boom, you’re ready to go. On the other hand, if you’re ready to get yeast farming, check out Hall’s directions for creating a sourdough starter.

When it comes to vegetables, it must be hard to be a rutabaga. As a cross between a cabbage and a turnip, the humongous, humble-looking root vegetable can easily be overlooked when compared to the delicate fiddlehead ferns available in the early spring. But here at Last Chance Foods, we like the underdog vegetables. That’s one reason WNYC’s Amy Eddings recently bought a huge rutabaga from Conuco Farm’s Hector Tejada at the Fort Greene farmers market. Despite all her good intentions, the poor rutabaga languished in her refrigerator for three weeks, slowly drying out and becoming slightly squishy. A rescue mission was called. The root vegetable was hauled back to the farmers market for a professional consult with Tejada, whose farm is located in New Paltz, N.Y. He explained that the rutabaga was fine to eat, though perhaps better for a cooked application since it was getting a little soft. “You want it crisp and crunchy when they’re raw,” Tejada said, adding that he usually eats the vegetable raw. Eddings’ rutabaga and those at the market now were harvested last year, around Thanksgiving, he added. They take about 120 days to reach their gargantuan size, and usually experience several frosts before being harvested. The cold weather helps make them sweeter. “They can be sitting in the field and they can be in the morning… completely icy and basically frozen,” Tejada said. “And later when the day gets warmer and the sun shines, they just defrost and the same happens with the greens.” (Photo: Rutabagas from Conuco Farm at the Fort Greene farmers market.) The greens are edible, too, and taste like slightly spicier turnip greens. At this point in the year, though, the greens were cut off months ago. For optimal long-term storage, Tejada keeps the rutabagas, still covered in dirt, in closed rubber bins that have holes punched in them for air circulation. The vegetables are washed before arriving at the market, and Tejada said to keep them in the refrigerator at home. “You don’t want to leave it exposed to the air,” he explained. “You want to keep in either a plastic bag or a sealed container.” Tejada, who hails from the Dominican Republic, explained that rutabagas are easy to prepare. He roasts them with butter, olive oil, salt and pepper. He also said that many of his customers like to steam them and mash them with potatoes. “It was not something that I grew up eating at all,” Tejada admitted. “I love them. I have them even, like, caramelized with maple syrup, like a candy.” For that, he mixes chunks of rutabaga with maple syrup or honey and seasons it before covering the dish with aluminum foil and roasting it in the oven. He then broils it uncovered until the rutabaga is crispy. If you want the details of that, you’ll have to visit Tejada at the farmers market. Eddings ended up slicing her rutabaga into strips and using Food52’s recipe for Rutabaga “Cacio e Pepe.” Rutabaga “Cacio e Pepe”by savorthis  Ingredients 1 rather large rutabaga (sliced yielded about 4 cups) 4 tablespoons butter black pepper ¾ cups parmegiano reggiano, grated ¼ cup ricotta salata Get the full recipe at Food52.

Heads up to Mallomars fans out there: The season for the chocolate-covered, marshmallow-and-graham-cracker cookie is nearly over. Yes, this packaged and processed cookie has a season. Mallomars are only made by Nabisco from September through March. The reason for that began when the cookies were invented 100 years ago, at a time that predated refrigeration. The cookies have a thin chocolate shell that would melt during the warmer months. The cool-month schedule continued on track — due to a combination of tradition and, likely, savvy marketing — even after refrigeration came into existence. “I suppose it also creates a cult-like demand for it,” said Wall Street Journal columnist Ralph Gardner Jr., who has an admitted obsession for the confection. Even sticking to the cold-weather delivery does not ensure a perfect cookie every time, apparently. “You’d assume that if it has all these preservatives or whatever that… any box should be pristine or perfect, but that’s not the case,” Gardner said. And that is the key to this oddly seasonal, weirdly delicate cookie. “The difference between a fresh Mallomar and a stale Mallomar is the difference between bliss and despair,” wrote Gardner his “Urban Gardner” column. (Photo: Ralph Gardner Jr.in action/Courtesy of Ralph Gardner Jr.) The chocolate on a “fresh” specimen should snap when being bitten into. On a stale one, it can be chalky or cracked. “If it becomes cracked and air is allowed to enter through the chocolate, then the marshmallow is sort of tough and stale,” he said. The same staleness even permeates the cookie. He explained that, while the boxes emerging from Nabisco are likely uniformly perfect in the way of processed foods, supermarkets may be far less sensitive to the optimal condition under which the cookies need to remain perfectly fresh. In one case, Gardner noticed that a display of the cookies were located under one grocery store’s heat lamp. So, despite digging through boxes to find the one with the most recent sell-by date, the cookies he brought home were less than perfect. So subtle is Gardner’s Mallomar palate, that though the cookies were in the same box, he noted some of them differed from their brethren in freshness. “It sort of introduces connoisseurship to a cookie that really has no right to be open to that,” he admitted. And while NPR reported that some fans hoard Mallomars in their freezers for year-round availability, Gardner is staunchly opposed to doing so. For him, it’s all about enjoying the perfect cookie while its in season. “I just can’t believe that a frozen Mallomar tastes as good as one fresh out of the box,” Gardner said. Gardner’s clearly not the only super-fan out there. Bouchon Bakery has created a $3.95, made-from-scratch version called the “Mallowmore.” By some accounts, it lives up to the original. It’s certain that Gardner is on yet another cookie-related mission to find out.

Consider the onion: It forms the backbone of so many dishes, but rarely serves as a main ingredient. Is it because we’re worried about the stink of onion breath? Dirt Candy chef Amanda Cohen says to grab some toothpaste and just get over it. “That’s why [toothpaste] was invented, right?” she said. “You can’t be afraid of a vegetable. The vegetable’s way more afraid of you.” There are plenty of ways beyond traditional French onion soup to make the humble allium a star ingredient. At Dirt Candy, Cohen began serving a grilled onion salad with red onions and shallots. The side became so popular that it won a spot on the menu as a main salad. Red onions are particularly good in salad and stir-fries because they’re sweeter than white or yellow onions. They also add a welcome pop of color. Vidalia onions are so sweet that Cohen is incorporating them into a dessert. “We’re just actually caramelizing them and mixing them right now into a... fudge kind of chocolate,” she said. “And it’s almost like a chocolate prune tart. That’s what it tastes like, and it’s sort of blowing all of our minds how delicious it is.” (Photo: Amanda Cohen/Courtesy of Dirt Candy) Chefs at Dirt Candy have also made tiny fried onion blossoms with pearl onions. Cohen explained that she uses Spanish onions and white onions interchangeably. “Spanish onions you can always use for soups stocks, flavoring oils, that kind of thing,” she said. “[Use them] when you really want a cooked onion that’s going to disappear.” Unfortunately, those onions are the most tear-inducing to prep, according to the chef. She knows people who chew on the unburnt end of a used match, or a toothpick, to prevent tearing up. “I’m not sure if that really works,” Cohen said. “I like the idea of sunglasses, goggles. You could do that, too, I suppose if you’re chopping copious amounts.” For her, wearing contacts has been a foolproof solution. Try out Dirt Candy's recipe for grilled onion salad with fermented black bean dressing and scallion oil. That’s below. Grilled Onion Salad This salad is really, really easy on purpose. I wanted to make a rustic salad that let the real flavor of onions shine through. The dressing is the tricky part, but it’s worth the effort because of all the layers of taste it adds. Not enough people use fermented black beans, but they add an amazing, deep, complex flavor to everything. 2 cups sliced red onions 2 tablespoons finely diced red onion 3 bunches of scallions 1 cup picked cilantro leaves 1 cup picked parlsey 1 cup picked thai basil leaves 1/2 cup Fermented Black Bean Dressing (see below) Salt to taste 1. Heat a grill until it’s super-hot, almost smoking. In a bowl, toss the whole scallions with olive oil then lay them flat on the grill. Cook until grill marks form, and they’re nice and soft. Remove from the grill and chop them up. 2. Do the exact same thing for the sliced red onions. Toss with oil, put on grill until char marks form, then pull off. 3. Mix everything together in a bowl, and season to taste. Fermented Black Bean Dressing 3 1/2 tablespoons fermented black beans 7 cloves garlic 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons lime juice 1 cup shoyu 1 cup Scallion Oil (see below) salt to taste 1. Soak the black beans in cold water for about 1 hour. Drain. Reserve 1 1/2 tablespoons of the water. 2.In a blender or a Vitamix, blend everything together until smooth. Add the bean water to keep it moving. Scallion Oil 1 cup chopped scallions 1 cup sliced ginger 1 1/2 cup untoasted sesame oil 1 tablespoon salt 1. Mix everything except the oil together in a heat resistant bowl (metal or glass). 2. Heat oil on the stove until almost smoking. 3. Gently pour the oil over the mixture in the bowl. 4. Wait until cool, at least 1 hour, and blend in a VitaMix or blender until smooth.

Cooking live lobster at home is not a task for the faint of heart. But here’s one thing seafood eaters don’t have to worry about. “Lobsters don’t have vocal cords, alright? They do not exist in a lobster. They don’t scream,” said Susan Povich, who owns Red Hook Lobster Pound with her husband Ralph Gorham. “What you’re hearing is steam escaping from the carapace — from the hard shell of the body — if you hear anything. You might be hearing your child scream when you put the lobster in the water.”  If you’re feeling up for the task, lobster is in season year round. During the winter months, lobster have hard shells and a fuller, more briny, flavor, Povich explained. That’s because adult lobsters generally molt once or twice a year, and molting usually occurs in conjunction with the spring or fall change in water temperatures. “After the lobster molts and the shells form up, I believe, is when you get that sort of sweet, summery, Maine lobster taste that everyone associates with lobster,” she added. So expect that to be in about a month, after the weather starts warming up. At the Red Hook Lobster Pound, she serves two versions of lobster rolls: one with mayonnaise and another with butter. Povich, whose family hails from Bar Harbor, Maine, said that mayonnaise is how it’s traditionally served (with the exception of the famous Red’s Eats in Wiscasett, Maine). She coined the term “Connecticut lobster roll” to describe the butter version after reading about a salesman who requested the variation at a Connecticut restaurant. When choosing a lobster to cook at home, Povich advised looking for one that’s lively. That means it should curve its tail and arch its torso like Superman when picked up. (Photo: Susan Povich/Courtesy of Red Hook Lobster Pound) For those feeling squeamish about cooking the lobster live but determined to press forward, Povich offered this tip. “If you want to kind of put the lobsters to sleep, you can put the lobsters in the freezer in a bag for 20 minutes before you put them in the water,” she said. “They do tend to go a bit dormant.” At home, Povich combines boiling and steaming methods. She starts with a few inches of water in the bottom of the pot — about four fingers of water for four lobsters. She adds a varying combination of fennel, onion, carrots, bay leaf, beer, and peppercorns. “I bring that to a … rolling boil,” Povich said. “I let those ingredients... season the water a little bit and then I put my lobsters in head first and put the lid on.” She said that method is faster than just steaming the lobsters, and recommends leaving hard-shell lobsters in for 15 to 20 minutes after the water returns to a rolling boil. A soft-shell lobster is done in about 12 minutes. Here recipe for that method of cooking lobster is below. Lobster in a Pot  by Red Hook Lobster Pound 4 lobsters (1.5 lbs each) 1 cup white wine or beer 1 onion, peeled and quartered 4 stalks celery — cut in thirds ¼ cup sea salt 4 bay leaves fennel tops (if you have some) 1 Tbs. Old Bay seasoning (optional) Place all ingredients (except lobsters) in a tall pot. Fill with water so that water is 4 fingers tall (around 2.5 inches). Cover tightly and bring to a rolling boil. Turn heat down and simmer for 5 minutes. Place each lobster, head down, tail curled under, in the pot. Cover, and bring back to a rolling boil. After 5 minutes, uncover and rotate lobsters (bottom to top, top to bottom). Cover again, raise heat to high and steam/boil an additional 3-4 minutes for soft-shell lobsters or 6-7 minutes for hard-shell lobsters. Remove and let lobsters sit and drain for 5 minutes. (Add 2 minutes additional cooking time per additional lobster, though we don’t recommend cooking more than 4 at a time).

We’ve all seen that iconic image of a straw sticking out of a picture-perfect orange. Turns out, making mass marketed orange juice is not nearly so simple or even natural. “Not from concentrate” juice actually goes through extensive processing. “It’s really in the storage that a lot of the processing goes on,” said Alissa Hamilton, the author of Squeezed: What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice. “They strip the juice of oxygen so that the juice doesn’t go bad in these tanks where they keep it. And the juice can actually sit in the tanks for upwards of a year.” That’s all before it even arrives on your grocery store shelves.  Eliminating oxygen from the juice also gets rid of essential flavor-providing chemicals. The solution to fix that? “They actually hire flavor and fragrance companies to manufacture flavor packs to add back to the juice to make it taste fresh,” Hamilton explained. The flavorists use the chemicals naturally found in oranges and tweak them to consumer preferences. She cited ethyl butyrate as one example. “It’s one of the chemicals… that North Americans associate most with the flavor of a fresh squeezed juice,” Hamilton said. “So they emphasize that chemical. They’re up to maybe 600 chemicals that make up the flavor of an orange.” In Europe or Asia, food engineers might amp up other chemicals depending on flavor trends. This is the process used in creating “not from concentrate” juice that’s advertised as “fresh” and “all natural.” That branding helps justify juice that’s more expensive than its “from concentrate” counterparts. As a result, and based on research from Squeezed, eight people have banded together to file a class action lawsuit charging orange juice manufacturers with deceptive marketing practices. (Photo: Alissa Hamilton/Courtesy of the author) That lawsuit is only one of the challenges currently facing the orange juice industry. Orange juice consumption in the U.S. is at a 15-year low owing to a combination of economic factors and health trends. On the economic side, orange prices have skyrocketed because much of Florida’s crop is being threatened by greening, a fast-spreading disease that ruins fruit. So far there’s no cure for the problem. Consumers are also becoming more health-conscious about sugar intake. “A small glass of orange juice contains 20 grams of sugar, that’s five teaspoons in one glass,” Hamilton said. In contrast, an orange contains 13 grams of sugar, as well as fiber. There’s even cause to call into question orange juice’s reputation as a high-in-vitamin-C cold buster. Orange juice loses vitamins and nutrients the longer it's stored. Hamilton explained that the quantity of each vitamin listed on orange juice cartons indicates how much was present when it was packaged. For every day it sits in your refrigerator, that amount goes down. Fresh squeezed is the better choice if you're looking for vitamins. All this news appears to be in direct contrast to the early boom days of the orange juice industry, when Bing Crosby crooned about the convenience of frozen juice and touted its health benefits. At this rate, it might take far more than a catchy song, or even an adorable animated bird, to reignite American’s love for OJ.

If you’ve ever flipped over packaged food and checked for high fructose corn syrup in the ingredient list, there’s something you should know: “Experts… say that when it comes to calories and nutrition, sugar is sugar is sugar,” says Michael Moss, author of Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. “And it even gets worse, because they’ll throw in fruit juice, as well."  That’s right: While evaporated cane juice may sound like a more healthful alternative to high fructose corn syrup, it’s not. “Basically, it’s that neither is worse for you than the other,” he explains. “That’s the way nutritionists would look at it.” The reason high fructose corn syrup has become notorious in recent years could be a result of competing forces from sugar lobbies, as well as a stroke of bad luck in marketing “[There] has been this behind-the-scenes battle between table sugar... from cane and beets, versus high fructose corn syrup from corn,” Moss says. “You can almost feel sorry for [the corn industry] because they’re the ones who came up with the words ‘high fructose corn syrup’ way back when it started to get popular.” In reality, the amount of fructose in the corn product is about the same as in table sugar.  The topic is notoriously sticky, though, and it's often hard to distinguish good science from bad. That's in part because various lobbies have reportedly funded various scientists and groups arguing for their products or against competing products.  To complicate matters, food nutrition labels do not include a recommended daily amount of sugar. “The reason for that? Lobbying by the industry,” Moss says, “and the really startling fact is that most of us are getting way more sugar than health advocates urge us to be eating." In his book, he notes that many foods that traditionally did not require added sugar have been engineered to include it. That’s because food scientists discovered a “bliss point,” or an optimum amount of sweetness that appeals to the average palate. In order to achieve that bliss point, packaged foods like bread and tomato sauce now sometimes include surprising amounts of sugar. Some flavored yogurts even have as much sugar in them as ice cream, Moss says. (Nutrition labels currently don’t distinguish between added and natural sugar, but that’s set to change soon.) “The American Heart Association says look, we’re eating on average 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day per person,” Moss says. “We should be getting as little as six teaspoons, depending on your gender and your age and you can work forward from that.” Eating too much sugar on a regular basis could lead to fatal heart disease. Health concerns aside, though, there are plenty of other issues to consider when it comes to high fructose corn syrup. “You can look at high fructose corn syrup from other vantage points,” says Moss. “You can ask the question: Do we really want American agriculture devoting so many acres — almost a hundred million acres — to growing field-type corn that goes to ethanol and also high fructose corn syrup?”

Millet is a gluten-free whole grain that tastes sort of like a cross between vanilla and corn. It certainly has a flavor that birds enjoy — much of the millet in this country is used for bird seed. But what’s good for Tweety has long been considered tasty by humans, too. “If you’ve ever seen those yellow, tiny, mustard-seedy grains in birdseed and parrot food, that’s millet,” said Mark Scarbrough, co-author of the book Grain Mains: 101 Surprising and Satisfying Whole Grain Recipes for Every Meal of the Day. “That [association with bird food] gives it a bad rep, which is really unfortunate because it is probably the oldest harvested grain on the planet.” While he pointed out that archaeological research indicates millet was grown in China even before rice, Last Chance Foods host Amy Eddings offered a word of caution on eating too much of the grain, which has been linked in some reports to thyroid problems. Consumed in moderation, however, millet is a healthy, gluten-free alternative to wheat. “It’s also an incredibly high source of calcium, of zinc, of potassium, and B vitamins,” added Scarbrough. “It’s probably got the highest profile of B vitamins of any whole grain.” (Photo: Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough/Jon Fisher) The grain can also make for a savory, satisfying vegetarian burger. Scarbrough and Grain Mains co-author Bruce Weinstein developed a recipe for a millet burger that incorporates olives, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, and pecorino cheese. “We give it an Italian antipasto bar flavor profile,” Scarbrough said. The first step in enjoying millet, though, is proper selection and storage. He advised smelling millet before buying it — even if it’s in a plastic bag. “Any whole grain you buy, even millet, you should always try to take a whiff, a smell, at the grocery store,” Scarbrough said. “You’re smelling the grains in the grocery store because you don’t want that... rancid, musky, mushroomy, earthy, wangy smell.” Once home, maintain freshness by keeping it in your freezer. “That is the best place to keep millet and teff and some of the ones that go rancid really fast,” he added. Try and Weinstein and Scarbrough’s recipe for Millet Burgers with Olives, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, and Pecorino. That’s below. A millet field in Germany (Armin Vogel/flickr) Millet Burgers with Olives, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, and PecorinoServes 6Active time: 15 minutes Total time: 55 minutes  3 cups water 1 cup millet 10 chopped dry-pack sun-dried tomatoes 1 garlic clove 1/4 cup pine nuts 1/3 cup pitted green olives, chopped 1/4 cup packed grated Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano 4 large jarred caper berries, minced 2 teaspoons minced fresh oregano leaves or 1 teaspoon dried oregano 2 teaspoons minced fresh marjoram leaves or 1 teaspoon dried marjoram 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 2 tablespoons olive oil 1. Combine the 3 cups water and the millet in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer slowly until it's like a thick, coarse, hot breakfast cereal, about 30 minutes. Uncover and stir well to incorporate any last bits of water. Scrape the millet into a large bowl and cool for 10 minutes. 2. Meanwhile, put the sun-dried tomatoes and garlic in a small heatproof bowl. Cover with boiling water and steep for 10 minutes. 3. Place the pine nuts in a dry medium skillet set over medium-low heat. Toast until lightly browned and fragrant, about 5 minutes, stirring often. Pour them into the bowl with the millet. 4. Drain the sun-dried tomatoes and garlic in a fine-mesh sieve and add them to the bowl with the millet. Add the olives, cheese, caper berries, oregano, and marjoram. Stir well, mashing the ingredients together. You want texture here, bits of this and that scattered throughout the burgers, not a baby-food puree. Use dampened hands to form the mixture into 6 round, even patties. 5. Melt the butter in the olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet, preferably nonstick. Slip the patties into the skillet and cook until mottled brown and somewhat crisp, about 4 minutes. Flip them and continue cooking until set throughout, mottled brown on the other side, and now nicely crisp, about 4 more minutes. If your skillet isn't large enough to hold all 6 patties at once, work in two batches, using 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon unsalted butter for each batch. TESTERS' NOTES • Here, we've used an Italian palette to balance the aromatic millet. Note that the recipe calls for the larger, oblong caper berries, not capers. • The timing for cooked millet is a bit dodgy since the grains are notorious for picking up and holding ambient humidity--as well as releasing it in a dry environment. Don't stand on ceremony: Lift the lid and check the millet as it cooks, adding more water as necessary. You're looking for a crunchy texture that's nonetheless tender to the bite. • These patties would be a treat on whole wheat buns with a little purchased caponata as well as thinly sliced red onion and crunchy lettuce. You could also slice the cooked patties into bite-sized bits and toss them in a large, Italian-style, chopped salad, dressed with a creamy vinaigrette. • These patties don't reheat as well as some of the others, although they do make great late-night snacks right from the fridge, cut into small pieces and dipped in deli mustard. Reprinted from Grain Mains by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. Copyright (c) 2012 by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. By permission of Rodale Books. Available wherever books are sold.

Today is Valentine’s Day, so we’re going to talk about chocolate. That’s the easy explanation. The more complicated version of how Last Chance Foods choose to approach the topic of such a beloved confection involves a former aerospace engineer turned farmer, a vertically integrated beans-to-bar company, and a three-year-old factory in Red Hook, Brooklyn Those are the bones of the story behind Cacao Prieto. Founder and CEO Daniel Prieto Preston started his career as an aerospace engineer, and after selling his defense company and signing a strict five-year non-compete agreement, he decided to turn his attention to his family farm in the Dominican Republic. The farm had been growing organic cacao for more than 100 years. (Preston said most farming on the island is organic because of strict regulations to prevent deforestation like that seen in neighboring Haiti.) The cacao pods that are harvested twice a year bear little resemblance to chocolate. “You have these strange football-shaped pods in all different colors that grow anywhere on the tree, not just at the end of the branches,” Preston explained. “They can come right out of the trunk. It looks like something that would be in a children’s coloring book.” The fruit has a gooey white pulp with about 40 seeds inside each pod. “It’s not a bean,” Preston said. “That’s just another misnomer. You’re actually eating the seeds of the cocoa fruit.” Even the word “cocoa” is a misnomer. “Cocoa is actually a misprint in an English dictionary from the mid-1850s, which became just sort of universally used,” he said. “So you can use it synonymously with cacao. Generally speaking, you’ll refer to cocoa as something that’s been processed, but people use it for everything.” (Photo: Amy Eddings and Daniel Prieto Preston at Cacao Prieto in Red Hook, Brooklyn/Joy Y. Wang) In most chocolate production processes, the cacao pods are hacked off the tree and then left to rot in 5-feet-high piles in tropical weather. “Most people don’t realize that chocolate is a fermented food,” Preston said. “The average fermentation pile probably has 400 different microorganisms and a least a dozen pathogens. That’s one of the reasons why it’s actually not good to eat raw chocolate. It needs to be sterilized first.” Preston, who is also an inventor, felt like he could do better than that. Cacao Prieto created a controlled fermentation process that keeps out contaminants, and they inoculate the cacao seeds with lab-grown strains of yeast. He also created and patented a vortex winnower that uses a vacuum and centrifugal force to separate cacao nibs from the shells. “There’s a saying in chocolate that every step of the process is the most important step,” he said, adding that the controlling fermentation helps Cacao Prieto control the flavor and bitterness of the finished chocolate. “Sophisticated palates, I think, prefer bitter flavors to begin with,” said Preston. “I like a little bit of sugar, so my preference is something around 72 percent. Never milk. Milk chocolate’s not real chocolate to me.” To see more about how cacao is processed at Cacao Prieto, check out this video. Amy Eddings and Daniel Prieto Preston in front of his vortex winnower at Cacao Prieto in Red Hook, Brooklyn.  Cacao nibs at the Cacao Prieto factory in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

From 2012 to 2013, Americans consumed an estimated 294,000 metric tons of olive oil, most of which was imported from Italy. But how do you know if Italian olive oil is really Italian? A New York Times report recently claimed that a lot of Italian olive oil actually comes from countries including Spain, Morocco and Tunisia. What’s a home cook to do when looking for an authentic Italian olive oil? Restaurateur Lidia Bastianich offered some characteristically sensible advice for choosing an olive oil: Trust your sense of taste. “We have an apparatus, which is our mouth, which is quite telling,” said the Emmy-winning television host. “To each of us, it tells a different story because we have a different story. So I think it’s pretty safe to say that everybody should sit down, and taste the olive oil, and look for the aroma, the intensity in the mouth, the viscosity in the mouth, and what they love." While Bastianich admitted to having a veritable apothecary of Italian olive oils in her own pantry, she said that the average home cook only needs about three types — one from each region of Italy. “I would take one from the north of Italy — from Liguria, the lake regions, Friuli, where I come from — and because of the climate, the olive oil tends to be buttery and lighter in that area,” she explained. Central Italy, around Tuscany, is known for producing olive oils with robust, peppery flavors. “Unless it burns the back of their throat, those Tuscans don’t like it,” she said. “And what that oil is really good for is for tomatoes, grilled stuff — kind of on the grill, off the grill steak, chicken.” (Photo: Lidia Bastianich/Diane DeLucia) Then in Southern Italy, near Sicily, olive oils tend to be grassy, herbal, and intense. Bastianich, the author of Lidia’s Commonsense Italian Cooking, recommends those for soups. In addition to region, the grade of olive oil also matters. She explained that extra virgin olive oil has the lowest amount of oleic acidity, making it more aromatic and smooth. “It means the tannins are less, there’s less residue, the acidity is less because of the tannins, and it just tastes better,” Bastianich said. And because heat breaks down the flavonoids that give extra virgin olive oil its delicate, balanced flavor, “you should alter it as little as possible,” she said. “You should really use it as raw.” That’s also why cold-pressed olive oils are always better. If you’re purchasing lower grades of olive oil, which are marked “virgin” or “regular,” save those for high-heat applications like braising. Bastianich said that she sometimes uses lower-grade olive oils to sear or saute meat initially. Then she removes the food from the used olive oil and finishes the dish with extra virgin oil. That’s also a more judicious application of the more expensive, high-grade oil. Once you’ve selected the olive oils that you like the best, be sure to store it in a way to maximize freshness. “Olive oil is molecularly unstable so therefore it oxidizes very quickly," Bastianich explained. "That’s why it’s good for us — because it has a hydrogen that looks for oxygen." That quality also means that it will also go rancid if stored improperly. “Even if you buy [olive oil] in a big bottle, put it in smaller bottles, where the bottles are full,” she advised. “[Put it] in a green bottle or dark bottle or keep it in a dark place... and in a cool place.” Once you’ve selected the flavor of olive oil that you like the best, try it out in Bastianich’s recipe for olive oil and rosemary spaghettini, which is below. OLIVE OIL AND ROSEMARY SPAGHETTINISpaghettini all’Olio e Rosmarino This is a perfect example of a minimal- ingredient recipe that is delicious and easy. It’s based on one of the primary flavors in Italian cuisine: rosemary. You will often see rosemary used in flavoring meats and roasts, because it has such an intense and rich fl avor. But in this recipe, cooked in some butter to release its aroma, it makes a perfect sauce for spaghetti. Be sure to top it with some grated cheese. This is a great dish! Serves 6 Kosher salt 1 pound spaghettini 2 tablespoons extra- virgin olive oil 3 tablespoons unsalted butter 2 bushy rosemary sprigs, needles stripped from the stems (about 3 tablespoons) 6 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley 1 cup grated Grana Padano or Parmigiano- Reggiano Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. When you begin preparing the sauce, begin cooking the pasta. In a large skillet, over medium- high heat, melt the butter in the olive oil. When the butter is melted, add the rosemary, and cook until the needles are sizzling and the rosemary is fragrant. Ladle in 1 cup of pasta water, and simmer to reduce by half. Stir in the parsley. When the pasta is al dente, remove with tongs directly to the skillet. Toss to coat the pasta with the sauce. Remove the skillet from the heat, toss with the grated cheese, and serve. Excerpted from LIDIA’S COMMONSENSE ITALIAN COOKING by Lidia Bastianich. Copyright © 2013 by Tutti a Tavola, LLC. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Americans now eat 150 percent more hot sauce today than they did in 2000. WNYC host Amy Eddings thinks that’s because our palates are bored and jaded. “We call ourselves foodies by just sprinkling some hot sauce over pancakes and saying, ‘I invented something new,’” she said. “What we’re doing is just blazing a hole through our tongue, and we’re not really settling in and increasing our knowledge about the complexity of taste.” That’s likely not a popular opinion to espouse two days before the Super Bowl, an event famous for hot sauce-garnished foods like buffalo wings and nachos. The Sporkful podcast host Dan Pashman countered Eddings’ point by saying we should use hot sauce more often, but less of it when we do. Pashman’s favorite hot sauce is sriracha, the California-made, Asian-inspired chili sauce. He explained that, rather than just being spicy, it has flavors of garlic, salt, and sugar. “I think that food is supposed to be about pleasure and not feats of strength,” said Pashman, who's also the host of the new Cooking Channel web series "You're Eating It Wrong." Nonetheless, he did recently sample “death wings” for a recent episode of The Sporkful. He was with Matt Reynolds, the director of the new documentary comedy The Great Chicken Wing Hunt. Reynolds explained why he’s against pain-inducing hot sauce. “You’re not getting the flavors of the peppers, all you’re getting is the heat,” he said. “And you know you create these wings where, you know, you have to sign a waver to eat them, and you have a contest and if you eat six they’re free. And I mean, I think all that is pretty silly. You know, it’s like, why not just have a contest where you let someone punch you in the face.” (Photo: Dan Pashman) Eating super spicy hot sauce and getting punched in the face do have one thing in common: Both cause pain that then triggers the body to release endorphins. That’s why hot sauce sometimes produces a feeling of being high. “Hillary Clinton attributes her high levels of energy to the fact that she eats hot peppers,” said Pashman. If you’re looking to get amped for the Super Bowl, he suggested strategically dosing snacks with hot sauce. To achieve maximum heat plus flavor, Pashman recommends taking a lesson from buffalo wings, the hugely successful bar food that celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. “Everyone puts so much focus on the heat and the spice and the hot sauce of buffalo wings,” he said, “but I think it’s important to recognize that the genius of the buffalo wing recipe is that it combines the hot sauce with a dairy, a base ingredient that cuts the heat and complements the flavor.” To that end, Pashman recommended splashing a bit of hot sauce into your mayonnaise-based dips. “Just a little squirt of hot sauce in there — just a little kick — will make a huge difference in your dips,” he said. Give that tip a try this weekend, or find your own heat-butter balance with Reynolds’ award-winning buffalo wings recipe. That’s below. In the meantime, tell us what you think. What's the best hot sauce on the market? What's the most unexpected food that you've improved with the addition of hot sauce? Is Dan Pashman insane for claiming hot sauce is not good on eggs?  Director’s Recipeas seen in The Great Chicken Wing Huntby Matt Reynolds 23 oz bottle of Frank’s Red Hot (don’t use generics) 1-2 sticks butter 1/2 bell pepper 4-8 hot peppers (habaneros, serrano, jalapeno, etc. — grab an assortment of what’s available at your local supermarket) 1/2-2 tablespoon honey-mustard 10-20 cloves of fresh garlic, pressed or chopped Celery salt Assorted hot sauces (Tabasco, Cholula, etc) SAUTE garlic in one stick of butter for 1-2 minutes on low/medium heat, being careful not to burn it. Add HALF of the peppers, both bell and hot, finely chopped. Saute mixture 1-2 minutes. Pour in Frank’s. Simmer and stir for 5-10 minutes, adding mustard and dashes of celery salt and assorted hot sauces to taste. If sauce tastes bitter (caused by some peppers) add honey-mustard (or just plain honey) until bitterness disappears. Keep simmering. For a milder sauce, add more butter; for hotter sauce, add more peppers. Let simmer for another 5-15 min, until sauce thickens and reduces by 5-10 pct; Adjust ingredients to taste. FRYING is a world unto itself. Know your deep frier. ALWAYS use fresh wings (never frozen). Always naked (never breaded). Take wings out of refrigerator at least an hour before frying and let sit at room temperature. If using frozen wings, thaw completely before frying. 375 is a good temperature for more friers, but test yours because each frier is different. Frying should take 8-12 minutes. Aim to hit the sweet spot where the wings come out crispy on the outside but still tender and juicy (but not undercooked) on the inside.

Chicken coops may be sprouting up on rooftops and backyards around the city, but don’t expect domesticated geese to be taking up urban residence anytime soon. “The biggest reason I don’t think you’ll ever see geese in an urban setting, or even a suburban setting, is they’re very loud,” said Hank Shaw, the author of Duck, Duck, Goose. “They honk at everything.” Their vociferousness even saved ancient Rome from invasion, according to legend. A flock of sacred geese dedicated to the goddess Juno* woke up Roman guards when Gallic enemies tried to invade. “If you’ve ever been to a goose farm, and you walk up to the geese and they don’t know you, they’ll all stand at the edge of the fence and yell at you,” explained Shaw, whose website Hunter Angler Gardener Cook won a James Beard award last year. Another characteristic of geese is that they don’t survive well when penned up. That means keeping them in battery cages, which are often used in a factory-farm settings, is out of the question. “Geese are one of oldest domesticated animals that we know of, but they have thus far resisted our ability to mess with them, which I think is kind of cool,” added Shaw. That means that the goose you find at farmers markets and even in supermarkets has probably had the ability to run around in a normal, goose-like manner. The need for space is tied to their diet, which is comprised largely of grasses. Shaw compares geese to grass-fed beef. “You can’t really do a good goose farm unless you have access to pasture and grass,” he said. “So it’s sort of a natural feedback system that works really well, and it creates a really nice product.” So for those of us who are looking for a sustainable, responsible source of meat, goose is a good choice. It’s also in season right now, and fresh geese will likely only be available for a few more weeks. (Photo: Hank Shaw/Photography (c) 2013 by Holly A. Heyser) “When you can start seeing spring in your mind’s eye, the goose season is pretty much over,” said Shaw. That’s because geese typically lay eggs around April, then spend most of the year growing to maturity. The market season for geese traditionally starts on September 29, or Michaelmas. The birds generally only lay eggs once a year, and the goslings are more delicate than chicks or ducklings. Those factors, combined with the need for space, mean goose is expensive compared to other types of meat. In order to make the most of that pricey bird, Shaw recommends breaking it down into pieces. He cautions against roasting the bird whole, since different parts cook at very different temperatures. Instead, for the goose breast, he said to score the skin, pan sear it, and then finish it in the oven. And don’t be scared of the layer of fat you find under the skin. “That goose fat is one of the big benefits of getting a goose,” said Shaw. “Goose fat has the lowest level of saturated fat of any animal fat, and that includes duck fat. It’s the closest thing you can get to an oil in animal fat. I mean, it is totally liquid at room temperature.” Try a recipe from Shaw’s Duck, Duck, Goose for Pan-Seared Goose Breast With Orange and Ouzo.  *Whoops, not Minerva as Hank guessed. 

Ginger adds zing to hot Indian tea, provides a warming holiday flavor to crisp cookies, and serves as a palate-cleansing pickle next to sushi. Considering its versatility, ginger could be considered a culinary ninja — it sneaks into various foods and makes them way tastier. “It’s probably the most untrendy spice, considering almost everybody on earth’s used it,” said Bruce Cost, the founder of Bruce Cost Ginger Ale and the author of Ginger East to West. People around the world have long valued ginger for its stomach-settling properties. Drinking ginger ale on the plane or chewing a ginger candy on a long car ride can help combat nausea. It’s also a digestive aid, and, like shiso leaf, it has antiseptic properties. That’s why it became a common accompaniment to sushi. Pickled sushi is usually made from young ginger, which is a less mature form of regular ginger root. “[That type of ginger] actually has a narrow range of uses,” said Cost, whose ginger ale is made with fresh mature ginger. “For people cooking Asian food, they wouldn’t necessarily go buy [young] ginger… anybody that cooks Chinese food would need a more mature ginger because of its spiciness.” Cost works with a farm in China to source larger ginger for a better peel-to-flesh ratio for making ginger ale, but he explained that many cooks prefer to use smaller knobs of ginger, because they find it to be more flavorful. (Photo: Young ginger/shanta/flickr) While Cost prefers to use fresh ginger, he said that powdered ginger used to be the go-to form in certain part of the world. It even graced tabletops, right next to pepper shakers, up until World War II. “[Powdered] ginger was on the bars in pubs in England until the ‘40s and ‘50s,” he said. Fortunately, we now have ready access to fresh ginger imported from China and specialty ginger grown in Hawaii. If you’re looking for an East Asian application of the popular root, try Cost’s recipe for hot and sour Napa cabbage, below. Hot and Sour Napa Cabbagewith fresh chilies and gingerby Bruce Cost ½ head of Napa cabbage (about 1 ¾ lbs) 1 tablespoon + ½ teaspoon of salt 1 tablespoon julienne of fresh ginger 1 tablespoon fine julienne fresh red chili pepper (preferably not jalapeño) 1/3 cup vinegar (mixture of half unseasoned Japanese rice vinegar and half red wine vinegar) 6 tablespoons sugar 3 tablespoons peanut oil 4 small dried chili peppers ½ teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns 1 teaspoon sesame oil Remove core from cabbage and cut across the leaves into a thin julienne. Toss with the tablespoon of salt and let sit for at least 45 minutes. Meanwhile, heat and combine the vinegars, sugar and remaining half teaspoon of salt in a small saucepan. Turn off the heat and let sit. Heat another saucepan over medium-high heat and add the peanut oil, dried chilies and Sichuan peppercorns. When the peppercorns begin to blacken and smoke, turn off the heat and stir in the fresh ginger and chilies. After a few minutes of cooling, add the vinegar/sugar mixture to the pan with the oil/peppercorn. Stir briefly to combine all. Drain cabbage and wring all possible moisture from the leaves using your hands or putting in a clean cloth and writing out. Place the cabbage in a mixing bowl and add about ¼ cup of the sauce. Then add the sesame oil, mix and serve. (This may sit for awhile before serving.)

From the Hooter’s in Anaheim, California, to the Le Bernardin in Midtown — squid in the form of calamari can be found on menus across America. That’s good news since squid from the Atlantic is some of the most sustainable seafood out there. “I like to think of squid as the kale of the sea,” said Brian Halweil, the editor of Edible East End and the publisher of Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan. “It’s hardy, it’s economical, it’s versatile, it’s sustainable. It’s what all good eaters... should be seeking out.” And it shouldn’t be hard to find for New Yorkers, in particular. The waters around the northeast are home to some of the best squid in the world. “Big schools of squid have always existed off the coast of New York and part of the Eastern seaboard,” said Halweil, “but American fishers were never interested in it because there was no domestic market for squid. So up until the 1970s, fleets from Japan, and Portugal, and Italy would come and scoop up our fish.” In 1976, the Magnuson-Stevens Act established American territorial waters and made it illegal for foreign vessels to fish in our seas. Suddenly, Long Island fishmongers were hauling up squid, which they would sometimes immediately sell to foreign ships. Soon enough, restaurateurs realized that squid was inexpensive, easy to freeze and fry, and held mass appeal. With the rise in concerns about sustainable eating, squid comes out on top again. Halweil explained that there are two reasons squid ranks as a “best choice” according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium seafood watch chart. While trawling for squid does involve using a net that’s as long as a city block, it doesn’t require scraping the bottom of the ocean floor. Squid live a few feet off the seafloor so the net skims, rather than drags. Also, squid “swims in these massive, dense schools, which means there’s not a lot of other fish in those schools with the squid,” added Halweil. “So when they scoop up a big school of squid, they might get a few big lobsters and they might get some butterfish, but they’re mostly getting squid." (Photo: Calamari salad served at Almond restaurant/Lindsay Morris) There’s a lot to love about this strange, bug-eyed creature. “When I talk to chefs and fishers about why squid is so great, they say, one it’s sustainable,” Halweil said. “Two, it’s local. We have one of the largest squid fisheries in the world off the coast of New York. Three, [it’s] intensely economical. I mean, really inexpensive — $6 to $8 a pound if you’re willing to clean your own squid. And it’s very flexible in the kitchen.” It can top a food as humble as pizza or be elevated to grace the menu of Esca. “Squid is nice because you can cook it just a little bit or you can cook it a lot,” he said. “Everywhere in between it does get rubbery and that’s where squid and calamari gets a bad reputation.” In particular, Halweil likes to quickly sear it on a super hot grill. Once it chars on one side, he flips it, does the other side, and it’s done in a matter of minutes and ready to be served. Halweil also like to use it in soups and stews for long, slow preparations. Here’s a bonus: While squid is ubiquitous as a food stuff, it is also a creature of the sea that maintains the power to fascinate and delight. I mean, just look at this international team of grown adult scientists freak out over this giant squid sighting. And, yes, we are cautiously ignoring that recent, horrifying episode of This American Life. Take it away, Ira. Wait, before you listen to that, here are some recipes for your eating pleasure. Carrot and Calamari Salad by Chef Michael Anthony from The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook  Squid a la Plancha with Romesco and Sea Beans by Chef Jason Weiner of Almond

A snowy winter storm is a daunting way to start off a new year — particularly if your resolutions for 2014 include eating better, saving money, and being healthier. One way to help meet all three of those lofty goals is to make sure you have a pantry that’s well-stocked. Late nights at the office won’t have to end in take-out, and unexpected snow days won’t lead to miserable treks to the grocery store. “One of my favorite staples is couscous,” said Gabrielle Langholtz, the editor of Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn. “It’s a granular pasta from North Africa that is so fast. This is my version of fast food. It is literally as fast as making tea.” Couscous can serve as a complement to meat or vegetables, and it can be quickly jazzed up with other pantry staples to be a main course. Langholtz also enjoys having whole grains like emmer, barley, wheat berries, and freekeh on hand, but she notes that those can take 45 minutes to an hour to cook. “[That] is fantastic on a day like today when you just want to stay in and cook and not go out and brave the slushy sidewalk,” she said. “But couscous is something that I like to have on hand for when you get home, you’re starving, you want to eat in, like, 2 minutes.” Langholtz keeps bags of dried beans from inexpensive brands like Goya in her cupboards, but she said that, for those who are able, it’s worthwhile to spend more on quality ingredients, as well. “I used to stand there in the aisle at Whole Foods and say, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m not going to spend $8 on this bag of imported French lentils,’” she admitted. “But then, I’d find myself spending $12 or $14 on a salad or a cocktail out… Obviously, if you’re on a fixed income, you’re not going to buy and $8 little bag of lentils, but if you do the math, it’s really 15 cents a serving.” In particular, Langholtz splurges on lentils du puy, which are less starchy than other types of lentils so they don’t get mushy when cooked. “They are like that little black dress when something unexpected comes up and you just need something great,” she said. “Lentils du puy grow in this volcanic soil. They have this incredible nutty flavor, they cook in 20 or 25 minutes.” When it comes to flavor boosters, Langholtz relies on shelf-stable ingredients like anchovies and dijon mustard.  “I find most people think they don’t like anchovies and then they love the result when you cook with anchovies,” she said. “They’re like a stealth ingredient… If you mince it up, you can deploy this umami bomb in everything from Cesar salad or kale salad to pasta puttanesca.” Langholtz also points out that mustard can be used on more than sandwiches. She emulsifies it in vinaigrettes or uses it to top celery root or salmon. Here’s a list of pantry-ingredient combinations that we like. Fresh herbs are always preferable, but dried herbs can do in a pinch. We’re listing only shelf-stable ingredients, but if you have vegetables or proteins on hand, even better.  Couscous + almonds + dried apricots (chopped) Couscous + toasted pine nuts + craisins Lentils du puy + vinaigrette Lentils du puy + parsley + thyme + lemon juice Anchovies + garlic + olives + canned tomatoes + red pepper flakes = pasta sauce Soy sauce + lemon juice = sauce for dried Asian noodles Peanut butter + soy sauce + sugar + water = peanut sauce for dried Asian noodles What do you always have in your cabinet? What did you whip up during the snowstorm? Tell us in the comments below.

Christmas is over and the presents are put away, but for many of us, the holiday season isn’t quite finished yet. There’s still New Year’s and a spate of winter parties to attend. If you happen to be hosting a celebration, we’ve got a time-tested, easy mid-winter fix for your bar: Hot, mulled, alcoholic drinks.  Not only do beverages like gløgg, glühwein, and wassail warm you up, they also make your entire home smell wonderful, said Rosie Schaap, the “Drink” columnist for The New York Times Magazine and the author of Drinking With Men. She added that hot drinks can’t be quaffed as quickly as cool cocktails. “So it kind of, you know, keeps people a little steadier, takes a little longer,” she said. “You can luxuriate over your glass of wassail or gløgg or gluhwein.” These traditional beverages are so popular that they can also be the source of contention. “I’ve heard many a bar argument between a Norwegian American and a Swedish American over [the origins of gløgg],” Scaap said. “Like most of these kinds of warm winter beverages, it’s essentially a folk tradition, so anyone who claims to have the authoritative gløgg recipe is loaded with hubris, I would say.” Whether your family recipe insists on dried bitter orange peel over the addition of fresh orange, there are three constants when it comes to gløgg — red wine, orange, and cardamom. “To me, it’s that spice that really distinguishes gløgg from other mulled drinks,” Schaap said. “And then there are countless variables. You can make it stronger with vodka or aquavit or brandy. You could add cloves, cinnamon, allspice, other kinds of spices. You could garnish with raisins and almonds.” The recipe Schaap received from her Swedish friend Annika originated with a handful of this or a small handful of that. (Find it here in a more precise form.) She cautions to start small and then add more as needed. Gluhwein — which could easily be called German or Austrian — does not generally include cardamom. Schaap also noted that she’d once seen glühwein made with white wine, which is never the case with gløgg. Otherwise, both follow the same principles of mulled wine: heat wine and add spices. The application of heat may lead some of the alcohol to evaporate, but not much. Slow cookers make handy, safe vessels for keeping drinks hot. After all, an open flame at a raucous party could equal trouble. English wassail is a hot, boozy beverage of a different nature. Instead of wine, it uses cider — either hard cider or the nonalcoholic variety. Again, spices and heat lend it a holiday flair. Schaap explained that its likely wassail originated in the Southwest of England, around Dorset or Somerset, in orchard country. Villagers would go “wassailing” to the orchards to try and invoke a good harvest. Schaap said the first time she tried wassail was at The Drink in Williamsburg, and she recommend this recipe from Jenn Dowds of The Churchill. Also, here’s her recipes for gløgg and glühwein. Annika’s gløgg Glühwein by chef Kurt Gutenbrunner of Blaue Gans and Café Sabarsky WassailFrom Jenn Dowds, The ChurchillBy Rosie Schaap Yield: About 12 servings 5 to 6 small to medium honey crisp (or Fuji or McIntosh) apples, cored 1/2 cup light brown sugar 1/2 cup dark brown sugar 2 cups Madeira 2 bottles (22.4 ounces) London Pride Ale 4 bottles (48 ounces) Strongbow English Cider 1 cup apple cider 12 whole cloves 12 whole allspice berries 2 cinnamon sticks, 2 inches long 2 strips orange peel, 2 inches long 1 teaspoon ground ginger 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place apples in a 9-by-9-inch glass baking dish. Spoon light and dark brown sugar into center of each apple, dividing sugar evenly among them. Pour 1 cup water into bottom of dish and bake until tender, about 1 hour. 2. Meanwhile, pour Madeira, ale and English and apple ciders into a large slow cooker or heavy pot. Place cloves, allspice, cinnamon and orange peel into cheesecloth, tie shut with kitchen twine and add to slow cooker or pot along with ginger and nutmeg. Set slow cooker to medium, or place pot over low heat. Gently simmer for about 1 hour, while apples bake, or longer if desired. 3. Add liquid from the baking dish and stir to combine. Using tongs, transfer apples into slow cooker or pot to garnish. Reduce heat. Ladle hot wassail into heatproof cups to serve.

At Last Chance Foods, our cup runneth over with cookbooks. It’s a large cup, admittedly. And with Christmas less than a week away, these beautiful tomes come in handy as last minute gifts. Here are our picks for some of our favorite cookbooks of the year. We even snagged a few recipes from them for your cooking pleasure. The A.O.C. Cookbookby Suzanne Goin “The recipes are organized by different course — salads, fish, meat, and vegetables — and by season, so it appeals to my producerly sense of order. And while I’m not vegetarian, I like that it has a strong focus on vegetables.” —JYW Recipe: Spiced "Pumpkin" Fritters with Chocolate Sauce and Candied Pepitas    The Grilling Book: The Definitive Guide from Bon Appétitby Adam Rapoport “It made me want to buy a grill. And I haven’t done it yet. I’m going to — I got as close as buying a spatula for the grill… I love the design of this book. There’s a lot of little how-to sidebars, and Rapoport offers the pros and cons of different methods, like the case for charcoal grilling versus gas grilling… There are a lot of It’s so instructive without being condescending.” —AE Recipe: Hickory Rib-Eye Steaks with Bacon-Molasses Butter Recipe: Grilled Avocados and Chiles Japanese Soul Cooking: Ramen, Tonkatsu, Tempura, and More from the Streets and Kitchens of Tokyo and Beyond by Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat “So much of Japanese cooking tends to be very precise and pristine. But you know regular families probably aren’t eating these elaborate sushi or sashimi presentations at home every night. I feel like Japanese Soul Cooking shows a different side of that culture’s cuisine, and has chapters devoted to food like gyoza dumplings and tonkatsu, which is a panko-breaded fried pork cutlets.” —JYW Recipe: Retro Curry Recipe: Sapporo Soup Curry Recipe: Classic Tonkatsu Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession, and Recipes From Tokyo’s Most Unlikely Noodle Jointby Ivan Orkin and Chris Ying “It’s the memoir portion of the book I enjoy. His writing is like Ivan was in our interview: Fast and sharp and bracing and irreverent. Here’s how he writes about realizing that he wanted to move back to Japan and stay there. He was living with a woman in Maine at the time. Then I had an epiphany. I looked up and said, ‘You know what? I don’t like Maine and I love Japan. I don’t know what the f*** you’re talking about, but that’s the place I want to be.’ No offense to Maine, but it took being there for me to realize how much I wanted to be somewhere else. It’s a great story, one that inspires you to throw all your self-imposed caution to the wind.” —AE Recipe: Toasted Rye Noodles   Honorable mentions: The Art of French Pastry by Jacquy Pfeiffer and Martha Rose Schulman Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook by Sharon Kramis and Julie Kramis Hearne Cherry Bombe, a new biannual magazine celebrating women and food Keepers: Two Home Cooks Share Their Tried-and-True Weeknight Recipes and the Secrets to Happiness in the Kitchen by Kathy Brennan and Caroline Campion

In the past few years, ramen shops seem to be popping up everywhere from Harlem to Flushing. Chef Ivan Orkin, who just opened Ivan Ramen Slurp Shop at Gotham West Market and published the memoir/cookbook Ivan Ramen, says that the reason ramen has gotten so popular is because it’s the ultimate comfort food. “It’s all in one bowl — it all gets eaten together,” he says. “There’s a lot of different flavors. There’s fat and salt. And I think it just hits all those different points we need to make us feel good. And it’s simple.” Orkin opened his first ramen shop in 2007 in Tokyo, and went on to launch his own instant ramen brand. Not bad — for a Jew from Long Island. Orkin says being an outsider in Japan had its advantages. “You have.. the obvious hook,” he said. “You slide open my little aluminum doors and there’s a white guy standing behind the counter, which certainly didn’t hurt. I won’t lie.” One of his specialties, noodles made with rye flour, had less to do with all the rye bread he ate growing up and more with the simple stuff that inspires him. “The flour is very different in the United States than in Japan,” Orkin explained. “It’s milled a lot more finely there. And here, you know, I ended up using rye. I do use rye in Japan but not in every one of my noodles. In some of my noodles I use toasted corn, in some I use whole wheat.” (Photo: Ivan Orkin and Amy Eddings at WNYC/Ivan Orkin) He only uses a small percentage of rye flour, though, because it doesn’t bind well. “It’s just enough to give a little bit of an aromatic punch,” he said. Orkin, a self-described geek who makes up noodle recipes in his head, confessed that he doesn’t remember his own cooking instructions line for line. So when it came time to take photos for the cookbook, he had to go about it like any home cook. “I opened up the book, and I read the recipe,” Orkin said. “I didn’t have any kansui on hand [so] I made it with Harold McGee’s recipe. And the [noodle] recipe really, really works. I mean, it’s dauntingly long and yet if you read it slowly and carefully, you can do each component one at a time.” Some parts can be made ahead of time and refrigerated. As for where to source the various Japanese ingredients, Orkin recommended heading out to the Japanese supermarket Mitsuwa in Edgewater, New Jersey. There’s a food court there with ramen and rice bowls to make the trip particularly worthwhile. Mitsuwa also holds seasonal ramen events with guest chefs flown in from Japan. Orkin may just be distracting the hungry masses by sending them to Mitsuwa for the moment. In addition to the 20-seat Slurp Shop, his storefront restaurant at 25 Clinton Street is set to open early next year, though he wouldn't specify a date. “I’ve given up giving dates because I’ve been getting chastised,” he said. “Apparently, one person Tweeted that I’ve redefined the word ‘soon’... Touche, touche.” If you’re not willing to wait, try your hand at reproducing Orkin’s ramen noodles at home. Here’s the recipe.

Gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free, vegan and vegetarian — has your Thanksgiving menu being undermined by food allergies and ethical objections? Tell us about what you don’t eat in the comments below. Or share the extraordinary lengths you’ve gone to in catering to the dietary restrictions of your friends and family. Here’s what three chefs and one caterer had to say about the subject. “I grew up in Maryland and on our way to the beach every year, we would see the poultry farms, or some of them, and they just really disgusted me,” confessed Jacques Gautier, the chef and owner of the Brooklyn restaurants Palo Santo and Fort Reno. “That was the one thing that led me as a teenager to become a vegetarian.” He’s no longer a vegetarian, but he still makes it a point to stay away from brands like Perdue or Tyson — all because of that childhood memory. This year, he’s hosting Thanksgiving at his restaurants, where he’ll serve heritage turkeys raised on small farms. When it comes to the sweet stuff, Chef Peter Berley, the author of The Flexitarian Table, draws the line at refined sugar. “I avoid white sugar because it has disastrous effects on the body,” he said. “Really — it’s something that I’m pretty adamant about. And so I replace it with natural sweeteners that are loaded with minerals and also are whole foods, such as maple syrup. I like maple syrup a lot and one of the reasons I why love it is because of the Maillard reaction, which creates a synergized form of umami, which is the fifth taste, which is the experience of something yummy.” Berley added that sweet potatoes are one of the few vegetables that have naturally occurring umami, so adding maple syrup to your sweet potato casserole will make it doubly delicious. For those who avoid dairy, Aliya Leekong, a chef at the restaurant Junoon and author of the cookbook Exotic Table, has several suggestions on how to replace the flavor of butter with other vegan ingredients. “I think you could easily replace flavors like butter in your cooking using just great market vegetables, aromatics like shallots and garlic,” she said. “Nuts add depth of flavor and fat to a dish. And just bright herbs like parsley and mint and cilantro can really sort of round out a dish, and you don’t really need a butter.” Leekong says the only thing she tries to avoid are processed foods. Liz Neumark, the CEO of the catering company Great Performances, has a longer list of foods she doesn’t eat. Neumark stays away from dairy, meat, and octopus. She took the octopus off of all of the menus at Great Performances after reading articles about how smart and sentient they are. This Thanksgiving, Neumark will be in Israel, where she’ll celebrate Hanukkah, too. The rare overlap of the two holidays won’t happen again until 2070. But there’s one vegan and vegetarian Hanukkah food that Neumark would like to see every Thanksgiving. “There’s no reason to think that latke couldn’t be a part of Thanksgiving tradition in general because it’s a great seasonal vegetable that really complements everything else that you’re eating,’ she said. “And you can really have fun with them because you can make them out of potatoes, you can make them out of sweet potatoes, you can make them with carrots, zucchini. You can do them so many different ways.” So sometimes it just takes a little creativity and merging of cultures to find foods that everyone can enjoy this Thanksgiving. And remember, if you have dietary restrictions, one great way to work around that is to bring a dish that everyone can eat. Who knows? You might just make a dairy-free, nut-free, gluten-free convert out of your friends. If you’re still scouting for a side dish for Thanksgiving, try chef Einat Admony’s award-winning latke recipe below. Or check out chef Peter Berley’s recipe for Roasted Pumpkin with Quinoa Stuffing. Potato, Yam & Carrot Latke with Honey, Preserved Lemons & Yogurt Sauceby Einat Admony, chef and owner of Balaboosta and Taïm 1 cup grated potato 1 cup grated yams 1 cup grated carrot 1 1/2 cup grated onion (after having the liquid squeezed out) 1/2 cup grated peeled granny smith apple 1 egg 1 tbs chopped thyme 4 tbs AP flour 1 tbs salt Pinch black pepper Pinch sugar Canola oil Method: Mix all in a mixing bowl. Heat up sauté pan with 1/2" oil. When the oil is hot, around 370 degrees, create a 2-inch patties and fried them on both sides until they are golden brown. For the yogurt sauce: Simply mix chopped preserved lemons with enough honey to balance out the bitterness. Gently fold in plain yogurt until you have a homogeneous mixture. You can add turmeric for color if you wish. Season with salt and pepper. Dollop on your lovely little latkes and let the holiday feasting begin!

Master pastry chef Jacques Torres has a word of advice for anyone making pies for Thanksgiving. He says to keep it simple. “When you start to put too many [flavors together], you don’t know what you eat anymore,” he said. Instead, pick one main flavor and then use another ingredient or two to complement it. “If you eat chocolate, add a tiny bit of salt. That salt [is] going to enhance the flavor of the chocolate,” Torres said. “If you put pear, pear and chocolate, or orange and chocolate, marry very well together. But make one of the two the star.” Torres, who recently stopped by to judge the annual WNYC employee pie contest, also said to be sure to make test pies before the big day. That gives you a chance to get reactions and suggestions from friends and family, and allows for an opportunity to perfect a crust or filling. Speaking to us from the site of a new Jacques Torres Chocolate factory in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, the chocolatier said that he particularly loves the American tradition of holiday cookie swaps. “What a beautiful gift when someone spends time in the kitchen for you, and puts all his love, attention, time into a box of cookies,” he said. Torres told WNYC’s Amy Eddings that he plans on hosting Thanksgiving. He’ll make a turkey, which he always makes sure to soak in brine the night before. He said that the brine helps keep the turkey moist. Hear what French and American sides he’ll be making in the clip below. And as for dessert, Torres says he has two plans in mind, one of which is a upside down apple tart. He describes how he makes the dessert, which is also known as a “tarte tatin,” in the clip below. Here are two recipes for tarte tatin. Smitten Kitchen: Molly's Apple Tarte Tatin Los Angeles Times' Recipe: Tarte Tatin (upside-down caramelized apple tart) If you’re looking to bring dessert to a Thanksgiving feast, try out the recipe for Jacques Torres’ Chocolate Chip Cookies. They have the advantage of being particularly portable. Chocolate Chip Cookies from Jacques TorresTime: 45 minutes (for 1 6-cookie batch), plus at least 24 hours’ chillingYield: 1 ½ dozen 5-inch cookies. 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 ½ ounces) cake flour 1 2/3 cups (8 ½ ounces) bread flour 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder 1 ½ teaspoons coarse salt 2 ½ sticks (1 ¼ cups) unsalted butter 1 ¼ cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar 2 large eggs 2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract 1 ¼ pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (see note) Sea salt 1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside. 2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours. 3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside. 4. Scoop 6 3 ½ -ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin. Note: Disks are sold at Jacques Torres Chocolate; Valrhona fèves, oval-shaped chocolate pieces, are at Whole Foods.

Mid-November may feel too early to be bopping along to Christmas tunes, but there’s one Christmas tradition that requires a long head start. English Christmas cake, according to Out magazine editor Aaron Hicklin, needs at least five weeks to mature, a process that calls for the cake being regularly soaked in booze. (If only human maturity was developed the same way.) Hicklin, who moved to New York from the U.K. in 1998, explained that Christmas cake is primarily made up of dried fruit such as raisins, cherries, orange and lemon peel, as well as almonds. After being baked at a low temperature for several hours, the cake is kept in an air-tight metal cannister. Then every few days, holes are poked in it and brandy, rum, or port is added in spoonfuls. Since the dried fruit already has a long shelf life, keeping it in a cake for weeks on end has no effect on the quality. Instead, the regular addition of liquor or wine allows the fruit to really soak in the liquid. “That makes that cake rich and really kind of gives it depth and kind of almost a chocolaty, velvety quality,” Hicklin said. He also recently started adding dried blueberries as a nod to American traditions. Hicklin also stressed the importance of using quality dried fruit, since that is the cake’s main component. “People who dislike fruitcake may not have had homemade fruit cake,” said Hicklin, who adds that store-bought versions can be off-putting. “And homemade fruitcake is… on a whole other level.” Hicklin, who is the partner of WNYC’s Ilya Marritz, said that the traditional dessert has a long history in the U.K., where it originated as a means of preserving fruit through the winter. Thanks to Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria and a man credited with popularizing Christmas trees and cards, there’s even a day dedicated to making the cake. (Photo: Aaron Hicklin) “He instituted Stir-Up Sunday, which is actually a Protestant day,” Hicklin said. “It’s the last Sunday before Advent, which typically falls in late November… it’s really a day when the whole family gets together, and they stir up the fruit for the Christmas pudding and the Christmas cake... I never knew any family that celebrated Stir-Up Sunday, but I kind of want to institute it.” This year, Stir-Up Sunday falls on November 24. While that may still be several weeks before Christmas, Hicklin explained that the cake has the advantage of lasting several weeks past the holiday, as well. “In the nuclear winter, the only thing left standing would be… scorpions and Christmas cake,” he joked. “Typically, you would eat it… from Christmas day through to the 12th day of Christmas. And I mean, I defy anyone to still have any cake left after 12 days. It’s delicious.” If you’re interested in starting a Stir-Up Sunday tradition in your house, Hicklin recommends this Christmas cake recipe from the English cook Delia Smith.

If you’re out wandering the woods this weekend, you might want to keep an eye out for a ruffled mass of mushrooms stuck to the bottom of a hardwood tree. It could well be a maitake, or hen of the wood, mushroom. The fungi is delicious and has a meatier, more assertive flavor than average button mushrooms. “Their English name ‘hen of the woods’ is as such because they look a little like a slightly ruffled mother hen sitting at the base of a tree with her feathers all fluffed out,” explained Marie Viljoen, the author of the new book 66 Square Feet: A Delicious Life, One Woman, One Terrace, 92 Recipes. “So those ‘feathers’ are the part that you eat. Those are the caps of the mushroom.” Plucking the mushroom off of the base of an oak or beech is helpful for the tree, since the fungi is parasitic. For those interested in foraging for maitake, a few necessary words of caution: Never eat a mushroom you can’t identify with 100 percent certainty, and always thoroughly cook wild mushrooms. (In fact, you should probably always cook all mushrooms, regardless of the source. That’s because they’re not very digestible raw, explained Mycophilia author Eugenia Bone in a past Last Chance Foods episode.) One advantage of maitake is that you can also find them in gourmet grocery stores or at farmers markets. Viljoen pointed out that the commercially grown specimens require less work to clean. “If you buy them, they really come pretty clean because they were grown in very sterile conditions,” she said. “The store-bought mushroom is also slightly more delicate than the enormous, slightly tougher foraged version.” (Photo: Marie Viljoen/Vincent Mounier) Viljoen also quickly debunked two mushroom myths: First, you don’t have to carefully wipe mushrooms. Go ahead and wash them. “I find that if you wash them well, submerge them in slightly salty water, and then take them out and pat them super dry between really clean kitchen towels, your mushroom is just fine,” she said. Second, contrary to rumors, mushrooms are nutritious. “Maitake are quite high in potassium,” Viljoen said. “They contain niacin. They’re full of folates. They’re filled with antioxidants, so this is a mushroom you want to be eating. They’re good for you.” To break down maitake, she recommended snapping off the caps and using them as you would a regular button variety. The base, which is woodier, can be saved for low-heat drying over the course of many hours. “I tend to use the base cut up, sliced and dried,” she added. “The dried mushroom is delicious to make the base for a broth or a risotto.” Another way to use the entire mushroom is to make it into a soup, which Viljoen did and then brought into the WNYC studio to share. “The soup is very simple,” she said. “You start off with an onion base, sauté that, add the hen of the woods…. When they’re caramelized and brown, add whatever broth you prefer… and then puree the soup, and then that’s it.” Tune into the full audio above for her quick explanations for making maitake paté, as well as maitake butter. Also, check out a recipe from Viljoen’s new book for wild mushroom pizza. (Photo: Wild hen of the woods/Marie Viljoen)

For the past few weeks here at WNYC, The Leonard Lopate Show and Last Chance Foods have combined to bring you the latest breaking news in the worlds of seasonal vegetables, new cookbooks, and pickling. Today, Leonard Lopate launched the 3-ingredient challenge with the help of chef Rozanne Gold. In recognition of that contest and to present a united Food Fridays front, Last Chance Foods host Amy Eddings put a series of questions to Lopate for a change. Lopate gently dodged the question of what he would submit as his 3-ingredient recipe by claiming host privileges. He pointed out that this year’s challenge differs from a previous James Beard award-winning iteration in which listeners challenged Gold to devise recipes based on certain ingredients. “In this case, we’re asking our listeners to come up with the recipes, and then we’re going to decide which one works best,” Lopate said. “We’re also inviting celebrity chefs to take part in the challenge.” The primary ingredient of this year’s 3-ingredient challenge is chicken, which could be a limiting proposition for vegetarians. The second ingredient can be allium like onions, leeks, or garlic. Then the listener chooses the third ingredient and preparation method. Seasonings, spices, herbs, oil, and butter can be used in any quantities. When asked which food segments have proved the most controversial, Lopate pointing to hunting and meat as a consistent source of contention. (Photo: Leonard Lopate/Casey De Pont) “I think that anytime you talk about game, people get upset,” he said. “ And then there are vegetarians who just get upset that you ever say anything nice about meat, which seems to me to be a little shortsighted because a lot of people still eat meat. But I do try to address the issues of vegetarians, because we all should be eating a lot of vegetables and we should probably all be eating a lot less meat.” Lopate’s favorite kitchen tool is one that can brook little argument, except possibly from those trying to go gluten-free. “I have a bagel slicer,” he said with a chuckle, “and it works great.” See Amy Eddings grill Leonard Lopate in the 60-Second Stir-Fry lightning round of questions.

Step into any of the city’s nouveau Southern restaurants, and you’ll likely see a menu full of regional staples like biscuits, fried green tomatoes, and cheesy grits. While foods like boiled peanuts grow increasingly popular, a few Southern staples still remain a bit of a mystery. Take chow-chow, for instance. Even the name sounds fictitious. But Kevin West, the author of Saving the Season, explains that chow-chow is a relish traditionally made from end-of-season produce. “I call it a catchall relish because, although somebody might tell you that your grandmother made the one and only ‘right’ kind of chow-chow there is, in fact, there is no such thing as an objective standard,” West said. “You basically take whatever’s in the garden right before the last frost, and you grind it up.” Then salt, vinegar, and spices like mustard seed, mustard powder, celery seed are added for flavor. The concoction is then sealed up in a jar and left to age. “Chow-chow is one of those preserved products that is somewhere between a condiment and a side dish,” he explained. “If you think about a regular relish... you might put a little dab of that on your hot dog. With chow-chow, you can make yourself a big plate of pinto beans and cornbread, and then you get a big spoonful of chow-chow to go on the plate.” West has also seen very sweet versions of the relish served on cheese boards, but he’s quick to add that the presentation is decidedly nontraditional.  “I would say the basic [ingredients] are the things you would find in a fall garden, so cabbage, probably green tomatoes, perhaps cauliflower,” West said. “Those are the three fundamentals.” His recipe also calls for mustard powder, which helps thicken the final product, and apples, which cuts down on the amount of added sugar. (Photo: Kevin West/Josh Norris) At home, West uses an old fashioned sausage grinder to process the vegetables, but he admits that a food processor would work, too. It would also make the process much faster. He cautions in his book not to over-process and liquify the vegetables, though. As for the origins of the term “chow-chow,” West said the nonsensical sounding name likely hails from more distant origins. “According to pickling guru Linda Ziedrich, the name probably derives from the Hindi word for pickle, which is achar,” he explained. When it comes to “putting food up,” as his grandmother referred to the canning process, West says that you don’t need a high degree of skill or specialized equipment. “Home canning is really just home cooking by another name,” he said. “If you can make a cake, or make brownies, or even make cookies — if you can undertake a little homemade project like that —then you’ve got all the kitchen skill that you need to can.” Below, try West’s recipe for chow-chow from Saving the Season. If the quantity of vegetables seems daunting, he said to go ahead and just reduce everything by half. The song played at the end of today’s Last Chance Foods episode is “Don’t It Make You Wanna Go Home” as performed by the acappella group The Persuasions. Hear it used in the promotional video for Saving the Season. Chow-Chow Yields: 8 pints 1 head cabbage, 2½ pounds (6 cups ground) 1 head cauliflower, 2 pounds (6 cups ground) 2 pounds green tomatoes (3 cups ground) 1 pound onions (1½ cups ground) 1 pound red or green peppers, roasted, seeded, and peeled (1 cup ground) 1 pound apples (1 cup ground) 2 jalapeño or Serrano chilies, seeded, or to taste 1⁄3 cup kosher salt 4 cups apple-cider vinegar 3 cups water ¾ cup brown sugar 2 teaspoons celery seeds 2 teaspoons mustard seeds 3 tablespoons mustard powder 3 tablespoons all- purpose flour 1. Grind all the vegetables and fruit, and toss them with the salt. Pour into a colander, and set aside to drain for 4 hours. 2. Working with one handful at a time, squeeze the liquids from the vegetable mixture. You should have 16 cups of vegetables. In a large pot, combine the vinegar, water, sugar, celery seeds, and mustard seeds. Mix a few tablespoons of the vinegar syrup with the mustard powder and flour to make a paste, then stir the paste into the pot. Bring the liquids to a boil, and add the vegetables. Bring everything back to a boil, and cook for 5 minutes longer. 3. Using a slotted spoon, pack the vegetables into eight prepared pint jars, leaving a generous 1 inch headspace. Ladle the liquids into the jars, leaving ½ inch headspace. Run a skewer or other thin implement around the inside edge of the jars to release any air pockets, then seal. Process the jars in a boiling- water bath for 10 minutes. To reduce venting, leave the jars in the water for 5 minutes before removing. Allow to cure for 2 weeks before opening. Excerpted from Saving the Season by Kevin West. Copyright © 2013 by Kevin West. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

The sizzle of onions, the clicking of toasted rice, the whoosh of wine added to a hot pan, and the viscous burble rice cooking in stock — these are the sounds of making risotto. Cookbook author Lidia Bastianich listens for these audial cues when making the creamy rice dish, and lets her five senses guide her through each step. “Cooking is about the ingredients and responding, but risotto specifically is about the technique,” said Bastianich, whose most recent cookbook, Lidia’s Commonsense Italian Cooking, is out this week. Instead of being intimidated by a long list of instructions or ingredients, the Emmy-award winning television host said that the key to mastering risotto is understanding and perfecting the basics. First, be sure to use a wide, heavy-bottomed pan to ensure even distribution of heat. Then begin building a flavor base by sauteing onions, scallions, or leeks, softening them with a little stock. Once the liquid is evaporated, toast the short-grain rice so that the kernels form a protective casing. This prevents the short-chained starches found in risotto rice (Arboria, Carneroli, and Vialone Nano) from leaking out too quickly and becoming mush. “It doesn’t get toasted like toast, that color… you just hear that clickity sound,” Bastianich said. “You’re stirring it almost like a dry stir-fry with onions and the oil.” Then splash in good white wine — the rule of thumb is to never cook with something you wouldn’t drink. “You let that sort of fizz and dehydrate and then you begin the… periodical addition of this flavored stock,” she added. The stock (or even water) should be hot so that it doesn’t impede the cooking of the rice. Risotto has a reputation for being notoriously time- and labor-intensive because the stock must be added a few cups at a time. Added all at once, the rice breaks down too quickly and becomes mush. Lidia estimated that the addition and cooking-down process should take between 8 to 10 minutes. (Photo: Lidia Bastianich/Diana DeLucia) “When the rice is done to your [liking], taste it,” advised Bastianich. “You take it off the heat and you — mantecare is the process — you whip in some room temperature butter. Whisk it in vigorously. Then you add the grated grana padano and then you whisk it again and you serve it immediately.” The heat from cooking breaks down the flavinoids in the butter and cheese, so adding those fats at the beginning of the cooking process is less effective. It may flavor the rice a little and create a delicious aroma, but the rich taste will be mostly lost. Instead, as a finishing step, mantecare maximizes the flavor, possibly even allowing you to use less butter and cheese. Once you get the hang of those steps, adding ingredients to star in your risotto is simple. Just incorporate them in depending on how long they take to cook. “Shrimp take two minutes to cook,” said Bastianich. “You add them toward the end… You like a venison risotto? You need to cook that about an hour before, make a good venison sauce, and then add it into risotto as it is cooking.” Feel free to use whatever happens to be in your pantry or refrigerator. Bastianich said the only rule might be to stay away from sweet concoctions. Otherwise, go for it. “That’s the beauty of risotto,” she said. “You can make it any flavor you want. It’s a great carrier.” Below, try a recipe for Lettuce Risotto from Lidia’s Commonsense Italian Cooking, which Bastianich wrote with her daughter, Tanya Bastianich Manuali.   LETTUCE RISOTTORisotto alla Lattuga  Risotto is always a delicious option for dinner, but for those times when you have nothing to flavor your risotto with, look in the salad bin of your refrigerator and make a great risotto with your salad greens. Lettuce is recommended in this recipe, but another great, economical version is with the tougher outer leaves of any salad green you have in the refrigerator. Use the tender, heart part of the greens to toss a green salad that you can serve alongside the risotto. You will have a balanced and delicious meal, and you will have found a use for everything, wasting nothing. I feel a great sense of accomplishment when I use every morsel of food. I hate waste. Serves 6 7 cups or more hot Chicken Stock, preferably homemade (page 55) Kosher salt ¼ cup extra- virgin olive oil 1 cup chopped onion 1 cup chopped leek, white and light- green parts only 2 cups Arborio rice 1 cup white wine 8 ounces outer lettuce leaves (romaine, Bibb, etc.), shredded 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces ½ cup grated Grana Padano or Parmigiano- Reggiano Bring the chicken stock to a simmer in a medium saucepan, and season with salt. Heat the olive oil in a large, shallow, straight- sided pot over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the onion and leek, sauté for 1 minute, then ladle in ½ cup hot stock to soften the vegetables. Cook until the vegetables are tender and stock has evaporated, about 5 minutes. Raise the heat to medium- high. Add the rice all at once, and stir continuously until the grains are toasted but not colored, about 2 minutes. Add the wine, and cook until the liquid is almost absorbed. Add the shredded lettuce, and cook until wilted, about 2 to 3 minutes. Ladle in about 2 cups of the stock, stir, and cook until almost absorbed, about 5 minutes. Ladle in 1 more cup of the stock, and again simmer until the liquid is almost absorbed. Continue cooking and adding stock in this manner until the rice is cooked al dente but still with texture, about 15 to 20 minutes in all. When the risotto is creamy, turn off the heat. Beat in the butter, stir in the cheese, season with salt if necessary, and serve. Excerpted from LIDIA’S COMMONSENSE ITALIAN COOKING by Lidia Bastianich. Copyright © 2013 by Tutti a Tavola, LLC. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

For the rest of the year, we’ll be revisiting previous episodes of Last Chance Foods.  When Great Performances CEO Liz Neumark started a farm seven years ago, she asked her farmer not to grow kale. Even back then, she’d grown tired of the all-reigning queen of superfoods. While farmer Bob Walker ignored her request and planted kale anyway, Neumark notes that there are plenty of other greens in the fields that are both fascinating and worthy of the spotlight — tatsoi and mizuna are two prime examples.  Tatsoi is a deep green color with shiny round or oval-shaped leaves.The stems are long and tender, with a snap similar to bok choy. Mizuna, which is related to mustard greens, has leaves that are lighter green with jagged edges. They’re both in season right now and serve as a perfect transition from the tender lettuces of early fall to the hearty brassicas of winter. Neumark, who recently published the cookbook Sylvia’s Table: Fresh, Seasonal Recipes from Our Farm to Your Family, said there’s plenty of ways to eat tatsoi and mizuna. They’re primarily used in salads, but can also be stir-fried quickly. “[You can add them] in a great vegetable soup at the end,” she said. “You don’t have to cook them as long as everything else. If you cut them into strips and mix them in, they give great color, great texture, and a wonderful fresh flavor.” The greens also pair well with other fruit and vegetables currently in season. “The tatsoi is a great foil to other flavors such as a citrus, combining it with orange segments or roasted butternut squash,” Neumark said. As for getting kids to eat the unusual-sounding greens, she joked that the most effective way might be to just dip them in chocolate. Barring that, Neumark reflected that getting children involved in harvesting or cooking with vegetables seems to be effective, as well. “The first thing we do is have them do the harvesting, and while they’re there picking, they’re nibbling,” she said. “The second thing is if they cook it. Whether they’re slicing it, chopping it for salad, or cooking it up in an omelet or a pasta dish, whatever it is that they’re doing, they’re more likely to eat it. So the tip is: get them involved.” Try recipes from Sylvia’s Table for Great Greens and Farmers’ Market Salad. Both are below. Neumark wondered whether a tatsoi pesto would make for a tasty sauce. Have you tried it? If so, how’d it turn out? Let us know in the comments. Sylvia’s Table Great Greens 1 large bunch tatsoi 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 small garlic clove Pinch of red chile flakes 1 teaspoon butter Salt and freshly ground pepper 1. Rinse the leaves thoroughly. Remove the tough bottom third or so of the stalk and discard or reserve it for soup or broth. 2. Roughly chop the leaves into 1-inch-wide strips. Heat a medium saucepan over medium heat and pour in the olive oil. Smash the garlic with the red chile flakes, add to the pan, and sauté for about a minute. Scatter in the chopped leaves and cover the pan. 3. Check after about 5 minutes to see if the pot seems dry and add a couple tablespoons of water if needed. With tongs or a spatula, flip the leaves over and cook, uncovered, until they are just tender. Stir in the butter, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.   Sylvia’s Table Farmers’ Market Salad 2 large or 3 medium cucumbers 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice or red or white wine vinegar 6 tablespoons olive oil salt and freshly ground pepper 2 tablespoons roughly chopped assorted herbs, such as chervil, basil, cilantro 2 cups assorted heirloom cherry tomatoes, cut into halves or quarters ½ cup thinly sliced scallions, green and white parts ¼ cup diced red onion ½ cup diced radishes ½ cup sliced snap peas ½ cup fresh peas 2 cups mizuna Scrub the cucumbers, but do not peel them unless their skins are waxed, or peel them in strips. Cut the cucumbers in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Slice the cucumbers crosswise about ¼ inch thick, into half moons. Whisk together the lemon juice and olive oil in a salad bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the cucumbers and the remaining ingredients, and toss gently; taste and adjust the seasoning.

Look, let’s be honest: Some of us are not ready to get into canning. We might live in Brooklyn, obsess about pickles, and splurge on artisanal cheese, but the prospect of mason jars and hot water baths is just too much, okay? Great. Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about a method of preserving that’s easier than canning. Garden writer Margaret Roach suggests making tomato junk. Basically, tomato junk involves sauteing up a base of tomatoes with onions and garlic, and then adding any other vegetables that are on their way out. Stick the end result into your freezer, and it’s ready to go as a base for soups, stews, and more. “It’s very, very easy,” said Roach, author of the book Backyard Parables and the website A Way to Garden. “You take from one teaspoon to one ton of anything edible left in your garden… including herbs.” Unlike the vegetables used in canning, tomato junk can be comprised of any “last chance” produce that’s weathered, soft in spots, battered or bruised. “It’s literally the last ditch effort to harvest the garden — even some things that maybe are a little not perfect, maybe you have to cut out a little bit here and there,” Roach said. “[You can make] these wonderful, colorful blocks of frozen goodness that you’re going to be so happy to have in February and March… to pull down and make a minestrone or use to be the base for your vegetarian chili, or you name it.” (Photo: Margaret Roach/Erica Berger) Roach hosts a gardening show, which airs Monday and Saturday mornings at 8:30, on the nation’s smallest NPR affiliate, Robin Hood Radio, in Sharon, Conn. She explained that she likes to save the best of her garden for canning purposes, since anything not perfect may deteriorate faster in a self-stable situation. For tomato junk, Roach just cuts vegetables up into roughly equal sizes and adds them in depending on how long they take to cook. Carrots go in before zucchini or greens, for instance. Almost anything goes. She just advises to take it easy on things like chard, beet greens, or strongly flavored root vegetables like turnips. “Those can have strong flavors that can not work well in certain kinds of recipes, but if you stick to the basics, you’re okay,” Roach said. Stack blocks of frozen tomato junk in the freezer and use within about three months. “I like to have a batch [of tomato junk] every year that’s sort of the base for minestrone,” Roach said. “So into that, I want to make sure that I have some green beans, plenty of onion and garlic, some summer squash… and some other greens. I love some of the leaf broccolis and kales and so forth.” She also has batches that include chili peppers that she uses to make chili. The trick, of course, is to label them clearly. Below, find her directions for assembling tomato junk. And, if that seems too involved, here’s some last-minute, end-of-season advice from Roach: “Is even this informal recipe too much to manage, and the last tomatoes coming at you much too fast? Simply freeze whole ones in tightly sealed freezer bags with the air expressed for later use.” Tomato Junkby Margaret Roach Transform the mad-stash last haul from garden or farmer’s market into colorful bricks of frozen goodness. Use them in the off-season as a base for soups (such as minestrone); chili; stews, or in any other recipe that calls for the usual can of tomatoes, assorted vegetables and water. I’ve even made curries and an improvised tikka masala-style dish with Tomato Junk as the starter. olive oil garlic onion 1 teaspoon to 1 ton anything edible left in your garden or at the farmer’s market, including herbs such as parsley and basil tomatoes, equal to at least one-third the total volume of ingredients water salt and pepper to taste Especially good vegetable choices include: summer squash such as zucchini; green beans; brassicas such as kale or broccoli; chard. Celery and carrots work well in batches that will become soup. Include spicier peppers in one batch and label its container with a Sharpie as such, for use in Mexican or Indian recipes later. Trickier choices: cabbage, or beet or mustard greens, and other distinctive-tasting vegetables, including roots such as turnip; hot peppers; or eggplant, that might overtake the flavor or texture of the Junk. Note: As with wine, each vintage is a little different. In a soup pot, sauté plenty of chopped garlic and onion in olive oil. When the pieces are soft and the onions clear, dump in cut-up tomatoes, either halved (for average plum types) or in wedges. Start chopping again while those simmer, covered. When you have cut everything else you’ve scavenged into bite-sized pieces, and the tomatoes have begun to go moist and bubbly, start adding the vegetables in the order of their cooking requirements — so leafy greens would go last, for instance. Cover. Juice released from the tomatoes should provide moisture to get other things softening. Add water, between one-third the total volume and just enough to cover the mix. (Remember: If freezer space is at a premium, you can always dilute more later, when defrosting for use, plus some recipes are better with a more concentrated Junk.) Cool and freeze in containers that are roughly the size of large cans of tomatoes, or about a quart.

For those of us unaccustomed to cooking with tomatillos, they can be a bit of a mystery. The obvious facts are these: They kind of look like tomatoes, but are not, and they’re a key ingredient in salsa verde. Riverpark chef Sisha Ortúzar grew up in Santiago, Chile, and admits that he only had passing familiarity with tomatillos until farmer Zach Pickens starting growing them for the restaurant. Pickens chose to plant purple tomatillos from seeds he’d saved with his farmer friends at Brooklyn Grange. “I don’t see them too much elsewhere at the market," he said. “You’ll see maybe a couple people at Union Square that will have them, but they’re pretty rare and they’re hard to find, so that’s why we were growing them at the farm.” Ortúzar explained that the purple tomatillos also have an advantage over the more common green variety. “[Purple tomatillos] are kind of sweet,” he said. “It reminds me a lot of a plum, so something between a tomato and a plum. And because the acidity level is a lot lower, you can eat them raw and they work really well.” Purple tomatillos taste a little more like sweet and nutty ground cherries, which are small, yellow, similarly husked relatives. “They’re actually in the same genus and species so I guess you could call them cousins,” Pickens explained. “Both grow the same way: You get the husk first and the fruit will fill it out as it matures. Ground cherries just happen to grow faster and, like, more abundantly.” (Photo: Zach Pickens and Sisha Ortúzar/Courtesy Becca PR) Both purple tomatillos and ground cherries are sweet enough to be eaten raw. Ortúzar even pairs the two in seasonal twist on the classic tomato, basil and mozzarella combo. The recipe for his version, Purple Tomatillos and Ground Cherries with Burrata, is below. He added that tomatillos do have a tendency to get a little slimy when subject to heat, but that quality also makes them ideal for salsa verde. “They’re really good for that application because of the really high pectin content,” Ortúzar explained. “So when you cook them and you make a salsa, it kind of thickens itself a little bit.” Tomatillos, tomatoes, and ground cherries are all considered nightshade plants. And while Ortúzar said he has served cooked tomato leaves, it bears warning: they might be poisonous raw or in great quantities. Public service warning aside, tomatillo plants are fairly hardy, and the pair said that Riverpark’s tomatillos fared even better than their tomatoes. “I think that [purple tomatillos] are rare just because people don’t know [about] them, and there’s not that demand for them,” Ortúzar mused. “They’re not any harder to grow than anything else. Actually, I think they grow really well.” Purple Tomatillos and Ground Cherries with Burrataby Riverpark  Towards the end of summer, after the peak of the heat and humidity, we start harvesting purple tomatillos. Unlike the green ones (which are delicious, but tart when raw) purple ones are sweet, so we use them raw, along with ground cherries and lemon verbena that are still in season. This dish is a unique and delicious alternative to tomatoes and burrata—and just as simple to prepare. Serves 4 as an appetizer ¼ cup grapeseed oil ¼ cup lemon verbena (loosely packed), thinly sliced into a chiffonade 1 teaspoon finely diced shallot 1 tablespoon lemon juice Lemon and lime zest 9 small-medium purple tomatillos (about 15 oz), removed from their husks and cleaned 1 pint ground cherries (about 5 oz), removed from their husks and cleaned 2 burrata (about 8 oz) Kosher salt Coarsely ground black pepper  At least 15 minutes before serving, make the vinaigrette by combining the oil, lemon verbena, shallot, lemon juice, and citrus zests and kosher salt to taste. Slice the tomatillos into quarters, and arrange the pieces onto a serving platter. Slice the ground cherries in half and scatter them onto the same platter. Slice the burrata into quarters and place the cheese on top. Spoon over the vinaigrette, and finish with coarsely ground black pepper.  

There are a few straightforward rules to follow when hanging out with celebrity chefs, according to the fictional character Ruth Bourdain. For instance, “Do: Rub Tom Colicchio’s head with the finest extra virgin olive oil. Don’t: Put barrettes in his soul patch.” Such sage advice comes from the Twitter-born parody mash-up of former Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl and frequently profane television host Anthony Bourdain. The result is a brash, drug- and sex-fueled voice that sharply parodies the most ludicrous of food trends. For three years, the person behind the voice was a mystery. Then earlier this year, The New York Times revealed that she was actually a he — Josh Friedland, a food and travel writer and creator of the site The Food Section. He recently published the book Comfort Me with Offal under the Ruth Bourdain byline. “I was starting to get a little burnout with the whole food discourse and [things were] maybe getting a little ridiculous in terms of some of the pretentiousness and the language about food,” said Friedland. “And then, it’s just gotten so complicated, and I think there was a need for satire.” The idea for Ruth Bourdain came from a combination of real events: Ruth Riechl was tweeting sensitive musing about her breakfast (“Spectacular late summer morning. Sun shining. Birds singing. The last of the peaches baked into cobbler. Warm. Cold splash of cream. Coffee.) and Anthony Bourdain was reading them on his Sirius radio show. Friedland admits that the instantaneousness of the social media age contributed to the creation of the character, which now has more than 230,000 followers on Twitter. “I don’t think you could have done it without Twitter,” he said. “Because on the one hand, there was no barrier for me just to say, ‘Ok, I had this idea, I’m going to go and, within five minutes, create the character and start doing it.’ You know, I didn’t have to… pitch it to WNYC.” More than three years and 3,000 tweets later, Ruth Bourdain is a James Beard Award–winning author. In 2011, the revered food organization awarded the character a prize in the then newly created category of humor. The real Bourdain’s reaction to the parody was that he was “flattered and disturbed in equal measure.” Along with chef Eric Ripert, Bourdain and Reichl speculate hilariously about the identity or Ruth Bourdain in this clip from Bourdain’s radio show. With the recognition piling up, Friedland decided that, after three years, it was time to ‘fess up to being the author. “That’s the underlying theme in, obviously, Anthony Bourdain, but also in Ruth [that food is] very sexual,” he said. “You know, [Bourdain’s] whole thing is as if you’re experiencing something narcotic.” Now, in Comfort Me with Offal, Ruth Bourdain runs amok on recent food trends and doles out advice like “how to survive a vegan apocalypse.” (Ruth’s rule for that: “Never look a vegan in the eyes. They will trick you with their immortality and take your soul.”) When it comes to “the art of getting gastrostoned,” the author instructs: “When serving cocaine at a formal dinner, always place the coke spoon to the outside of the soupspoon.” Friedland says that the book also offers useful advice, but, as expected, he doesn’t take it too seriously. “I expect people to have fun with it,” he said. “It’s bathroom reading.” — Ruth Bourdain (@RuthBourdain) June 6, 2013

The next time you see a leaf of shiso sitting under your sashimi, wrap it around the fish, and put it in your mouth. It’s not there just for aesthetics. “Shiso has an antiseptic property so it is safe to eat with raw fish,” said Hiroko Shimbo, the author of Hiroko’s American Kitchen and a well-known expert on Japanese cuisine. She explained that shiso has been cultivated in Japan since the 8th century, and it has long been paired with raw fish. “Most of the times I find here, in America, when the shiso is served with fish, they are just left untouched,” Shimbo said. “I advise that you will eat it and enjoy the very refreshing flavor after the fish.” The spade-shaped leaf is currently in season. Also known as perilla leaf or ooba, it’s related to mint, though Shimbo said it tastes nothing like that herb or basil. She added that green shiso has a stronger, fresh herbal flavor, than the purple variety, which is used to make pickled and dried plums known as umeboshi. “[It’s] always used fresh, as a whole leaf... or chopped fine, or julienned, and then [used to] garnish the dish,” Shimbo said, adding that Japanese cuisine also uses tiny shiso flowers for both aesthetics and flavor. She recommends getting shiso at farmers markets when possible, rather than Japanese grocery stores, where the shiso sometimes seems more industrially produced and less flavorful as a result. “I get amazing, fantastic quality of shiso [at farmers markets],” Shimbo said. “And there are several vendors [that] carry the shiso in Union Square and the one that I love the most is… Two Guys From Woodbridge.” (Photo: Hiroko Shimbo/Courtesy of Hiroko Shimbo) Tomorrow, Saturday, September 14, Shimbo will be at the Union Square farmers market for a book signing from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. She will also be sharing samples of shiso juice, which she explained is currently popular in Japan. Don’t be shocked if the color of the shiso juice reminds you of the pink slime that took over New York City in Ghostbusters II. The color is a caused by anthocyanin, a water-soluble pigment in shiso that reacts with acid. So, not evil at all. “I first… infused water with the shiso, then add lime juice,” Shimbo said. “The acid just quickly turns crystal clear–colored juice to this color.” Try making it yourself as a fun home science experiment. Shimbo’s recipe is below, and the resulting juice tastes like lemonade with a slight herbal kick. Shiso Juice 1 bunch shiso from the Green Market, pick all of the leaves 3 cups water 6-8 tablespoons lime juice 1 to 1 1/2 cups simple syrup (You can use citric acid, as well.) Rinse the shiso leaves under running water. Bring the water in a pot to a boil. Turn the heat to low-medium, add the shiso leaves to the pot and infuse the water for about 5 to 8 minutes. Strain the shiso-infused water into a clean jar, discarding or preserving the leaves. Add the lime juice to the jar. The shiso leaves infused water turns to beautiful purple color. Add the simple syrup to the jar to your taste and keep the jar in the refrigerator, or freeze it if you are not consuming it within 3 days. When serving add 1/5 of the sweetened shiso juice to a glass cup. Fill the glass with flat or carbonated ice cold water.

Put away those pink, blue, and yellow packets of artificial sweeteners. You can now get a sugar substitute that wasn’t born in a lab: stevia. It is a leafy green plant, and it’s 20 times sweeter than sugar, says farmer Ron Binaghi III, who grows it at Stokes Farm in Old Tappan, N.J. Bingahi, a sixth-generation farmer, said that the appeal of using stevia is simple. “One of the great things about stevia is it is all natural,” he said. “It is a living plant that we grow on our farm in Old Tappan. It’s not something that comes in a packet.” Binaghi started growing stevia a few years ago, at the request of a pastry chef who wanted to make sweet, sugar-free cakes. “It’s not a perennial around here. It’s only an annual, so in the wintertime it does die,” he said. It's easy to grow, though, and it might be possible to overwinter the plant in a greenhouse. The best bet for having a homemade source of stevia year-round would be to dry it or make an extract. Bingahi explained that the pastry chef who initially asked him to grow stevia used the first method.  “She actually laid it out on baking sheets, and she just put it in her oven at a really low temperature to dry it rather quickly,” he said. “[Then she] chopped it up really fine, almost crumbled it just with her hands into a jar, and then it was easier for her to measure and get more exact amounts for her batter.” While stevia does tend to have a slightly bitter aftertaste, Binaghi said combining it with other flavors can mask that quality. In particular, he recommends making an herbal tea with lemon verbena and mint. “When you brew the tea, you actually don’t get the aftertaste… because there [are] so many other flavors involved with the tea,” Bingahi said. (Photo: Ron Bingahi III/Stokes Farm) He added that the recipe (below) is also particularly popular with his customers who have families. Kids like the sweetness and parents feel comfortable because it’s caffeine- and sugar-free. Binaghi just had one word of caution when it comes to using the leafy green: “Stevia is really sweet… so when you make a tea with it, you only need to use a very small amount.” He explained that too much stevia can ruin a tea or a recipe. In the ingredients list below for the Stokes Farm tea, for instance, there’s only one sprig of stevia but four times as much spearmint and lemon verbena. The Stokes Farm Summer Special(Farmer Ron’s secret drink recipe!) 4 sprigs spearmint 4 sprigs lemon verbena 1 sprig stevia (alter amounts to taste) 6 cups water Wash your herbs. Strip all leaves off the herbs and put leaves into a medium sized saucepan. Discard herb stems. Add water to the pot, heat, and bring to a low simmer for about 20 minutes. Remove pot from heat and allow to cool for 20 minutes. Strain the liquid through a coffee filter and into a glass pitcher. Allow the drink to cool in the refrigerator. Serve over a glass of ice for a stronger herb flavor. Enjoy!

Clear skies, full bellies, can’t lose — maybe that should be the Friday Night Lights–inspired motto for panther edamame, a variety of soybean that’s currently growing at the Hudson Valley Seed Library in Ulster County, N.Y. The plant isn't named after the fictional high school football mascot of Dillon, Texas, sadly. “The soybean, when it’s actually fully mature to harvest for seed, is black,” explained Seed Library founder Ken Greene. (So much for wishing for a hard-hitting Riggins runner bean.) Panther-like in color when mature, the soybean in its fresh, edible stage is a more typical pale green color, added Greene. That stage comes earlier. Only later, when it’s dried on the plant and ready for seed, or for use in making tofu or soy milk, does it turn pitch black. Greene remembers the first time he tasted it in that early appetizer-green stage. “We were kind of amazed, because we thought, it’s edamame, it’s just going to taste like all other edamame,” he said. “But the richness and the nuttiness of this particular variety — it’s a more intense flavor, and it has a little more diversity within the flavor.” In addition to being tasty, the soybeans also fit with the Hudson Valley Seed Library’s mission to popularize and preserve heirloom and open-pollinated seeds from this region. The panther edamame seeds were originally donated to the library from farmer Jack Algiere of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. “He’d been growing them for 10 or 12 years before he told us about them and donated some seeds to us,” Greene said. Photo: Panther edamame seed pack with artwork by Jessica Pollak/Hudson Valley Seed Library Knowing the provenance of the seed is particularly important to the Seed Library. Greene explained that panther edamame in not quite an heirloom variety because he can’t trace its history back 60 to 100 years, even though it may have been around for that long. “We do know that it’s open pollinated, which means that it hasn’t been hybridized and that it’s not genetically engineered seed,” Greene said. “And, of course, soy is one of the most genetically engineered crops in the world, and we think that makes it even more important for us to preserving this variety and making sure that we can pass this on to other gardeners and other farmers.” The good news for those on the receiving end of panther edamame seeds is that they are very easy to grow. The seeds (mature beans in this case) are also easy to save for the next season and pass on to a friend or family member. “You can direct sow it,” Greene said. “You don’t have to start it early. It’s not fussy. And they’re also really easy to harvest because [with] bush beans, unlike pole or runner beans, the pods ripen all around the same time. The means the plants will have fresh, edible edamame ready for harvest about 100 days after being planted. Greene explained that the harvest window, which is right now for this year’s crop, is about two weeks. He advised steaming and serving them with salt, the way many restaurants do, or freezing them for later use. Greene, who is a no-recipes type of cook, likes to make a concoction he calls “edamamus.” It’s a riff off of hummus, and the approximate recipe is below. Edamamusby Ken Greene, Hudson Valley Seed Library 1 1/2 cups shelled edamame (still green and tender) 1/4 cup tahini 1 lemon (about 3 tablespoons), juiced 3/4 teaspooon salt 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley and/or cilantro or papalo 2 carrots in chunks 1. Boil the beans in salted water for 4 to 5 minutes. 2. In a food processor, puree the edamame, tahini, lemon juice, carrot, salt, until smooth while drizzling in 4 tablespoons oil. If this it thicker than you want it drizzle in water slowly until you reach the consistency you like. 3. In a mixing bowl stir in the parsley and add remaining oil. Note: If you're using edamame that you froze, steam for 5 minutes, then shell the beans.

The phrase “miracle food” smacks of low-budget internet ads that promise easy solutions to diabetes and belly fat. Recently, though, it’s been used to describe moringa oleifera, a tropical plant that native to the Himalayas. While individual definitions of “miracle” may vary, one thing is for certain: Moringa is now available at the Fort Greene farmers market thanks to farmer Hector Tejada of Conuco Farm in New Paltz, N.Y. The reason Tejada and many other hold moringa in such high esteem is because it is nutrient-dense and easy to grow. Moringa is high in vitamin A, C, and B, says Christopher Wayne, the beginning farmer coordinator for GrowNYC’s FARMroots program. It has a sharp earthy flavor reminiscent of radishes or arugula. He added that doctors throughout the world are recommending the iron-rich plant for patients suffering from anemia and investigating its benefits for nursing mothers. “It has a higher nutrient value in certain cases than things like spinach and carrots, and has incredible usage as a potential poverty aversion nutrient piece,” Wayne said. “It grows in marginal soils, in very arid, dry, sandy soils. So in places like Africa and other developing countries, it’s really valuable and important to… anti-poverty and nutrition-based exercises going on there.” The moringa growing in upstate New York is notably different than the stuff that grows wild in places like the Dominican Republic. Since the growing season for the plant is much shorter here, it must be replanted every year and only produces small leaves. Tejada says he’s going to try and move some plants indoors this year during the colder months, but isn’t sure whether they will survive. “[In New York,] it’ll never produce the kind of large seed pod that it’s most famous for,” Wayne explained. “[It’s] a long spindly kind of horror movie finger-looking seed pod that’s really popular in soups.” Instead, he said that Tejada decided to adapt and just grow the leaves. It’s been well-received among Fort Greene residents, and Tejada often sells out fairly early in the day. The leaves can be used fresh or dried. The dried leaves are used in tea or ground up and put in capsules. “The fresh leaf itself, which you guys still have a chance to go out and get right now... is really nice,” Wayne said. “It’s confetti-sized, so it can kind of be sprinkled on top of a salad. It can be added to a fresh soup as a garnish. We mix it up in a raw fava bean recipe and mixed in some… cilantro with it.” Tejada says he adds some of the leaves to his morning smoothies. Another idea he shared is to use the leaves with sauteed corn. Get the recipe for that below.

A wilted sprig of curly parsley often feels like the worst insult to a plate of food. Instead of being treated like a sad garnish, parsley at its best has the ability to enhance a wide variety of dishes. “I think it adds this wonderful, sort of bright, kind of like pleasantly grassy flavor,” said L.V. Anderson, who edits Slate’s food and drink sections. “It also plays well with other herbs. You can mix it with basil or mint, or with stronger herbs like oregano or thyme. And you can use so much of it.” Anderson explain that, unlike many other fresh herbs, a bunch of parsley used in its entirety won’t overpower the flavor of a dish. She also shared her preferred method for cleaning and preparing a large amount of parsley all at once. “If you have a salad spinner, I think that’s a really good way of doing it,” Anderson said. If not, grab the stems of the bunch of parsley and plunge the leaves into a bowl of water. Repeat, changing the water a few times, and you’re ready to go. See Anderson’s method and her recommendation on how to chop parsley in this video. “If you’re in a hurry, I think that this is the best way to deal with parsley,” she said. In the video, Anderson uses with flat-leaf, Italian parsley, and she admitted a distinct preference for that variety, rather than curly leaf parsley. When chopped up, curly leaf tends to have an airy quality that she finds unpleasant. Anderson discussed her opinions about parsley and more in her Slate column called, “You’re Doing It Wrong.” She notes that many readers take umbrage with the inflammatory title. “It’s just a place where people can write about their very strong opinions about the right way to do a dish, even though, obviously, food is a matter of taste and everyone has different opinions about it,” Anderson explained. Surprisingly, one of the most comment-generating topics was chili. She provided a vegetarian chili recipe and was so inundated with readers’ objections that she felt compelled to offer a non-vegetarian recipe, as well. As for parsley, Anderson offered an herb-heavy tabbouleh recipe. “I feel that it should be a lot of parsley, and just the tiniest amount of bulgar for a little bit of textural contrast,” she said. “But I also think that tabbouleh should have a lot of lemon juice in it, which makes it really refreshing and I feel like kind of offsets the parsley flavor pretty nicely.” If you agree with Anderson’s take, try out her recipe for tabbouleh. That’s below. Tabboulehby L.V. Anderson  Yield: 4 to 6 servingsTime: About 1¼ hours, partially unattended ⅓ cup bulgur Salt 1½ pounds tomatoes (about 3 medium) 2 bunches fresh parsley, thick stems discarded 1 small bunch fresh mint, thick stems discarded 4 scallions, green parts discarded Juice of 2 lemons ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil Black pepper 1. Bring a kettle of water to a boil. Put the bulgur and a pinch of salt in a small bowl, then add ⅔ cup boiling water. Cover the bowl and steep until the bulgur is tender, about 1 hour. 2. Meanwhile, roughly chop the tomatoes, parsley, mint, and scallions, and combine them in a salad bowl. Drain the bulgur and add it to the salad bowl along with the lemon juice and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and toss. Taste and adjust the seasoning, and serve immediately.

Step into any hot sauce emporium, and you’ll likely be surrounded by labels bearing words like “pain,” “death,” and any number of expletives. But the world of hot sauce goes far beyond mere Scoville units, and plenty of hot sauces focus instead on flavor, rather than pure capsaicin. Take Sonya Samuel’s Bacchanal Sauce, for instance. Inspired by the pepper sauces of the Caribbean, it includes tropical ingredients like papaya, pineapple, and tamarind. Samuel is based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and her family hails from Antigua, where pepper sauce is ubiquitous. “Across the Caribbean, it’s used in everything,” she said. “Locally... families make their own pepper sauce so if you go to someone’s home, if you have a meal with them, they’re going to offer you some pepper sauce. That’s just sort of the way it is.” Spicy and aromatic Scotch bonnet peppers make up the primary ingredient in most Caribbean-style hot sauces, said Samuel, who also uses habanero peppers. “If you’re looking for flavor, it’s good to look for hot sauces or pepper sauces that have something besides pepper in it, she added. “ If you have some wonderful fruits and herbs and sometimes people even put vegetables in their pepper sauce.” Samuel pointed out pepper sauces from the Caribbean also tend to differ from more popular American-style hot sauces in both taste and texture. “You don’t get that really vinegary taste right up front,” she said. “The more Americanized hot sauce is, I would say, watery. The Caribbean hot sauce has some texture to it, has some body in it. Usually, the peppers are in there.” (Photo: Sonya Samuel) Those peppers can be dangerous in large quantities, though. Samuel advised only making small batches at home, wearing gloves, and being careful to keep your fingers away from your face. For larger batches, she recommends going all out and donning protective eyewear, too. Pepper sauces usually also include a good amount of vinegar, which means the condiment will keep for several months in the refrigerator. The long shelf life is a good thing for pepper sauce devotees. “All those wonderful Caribbean flavors really sort of give you that flavor that you might be looking for, so that you’re not just getting heat,” said Samuel, who has garnished everything, including waffles, with Bacchanal Sauce. “ It really enhances your food. It’s really something that you can use to complement whatever meal that you’re having.” Below, try Samuel’s easy recipe for Bacchanal Pepper Sauce Spiked Guacamole. Bacchanal Pepper Sauce Spiked Guacamole 5 small, ripe avocados 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice Bacchanal Pepper Sauce (12 drops or to your own taste) ½ cup diced white onion 1 large garlic clove, chopped finely 1 teaspoon sea salt ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1 medium tomato, seeded and diced Cut the avocados in half, remove the seed, and scoop the flesh out of the shells into a large bowl. Quickly add the lemon juice, Bacchanal Pepper Sauce, onion, garlic, salt and pepper, and mix well. Using a mortar, or rounded spoon, smash through the avocados in the bowl until they are to your liking. (I like it a little chunky.) Add the tomatoes and mix all the ingredients together. Enjoy!

It’s known as roquette, salad rocket, or, more scientifically, eruca sativa, but whatever you call it, arugula is a flavorful green beloved all over the world. Arugula was so important to musician Nick Palumbo’s grandfather, that he brought the seeds with him to America from his hometown of Manfredonia in Italy’s Puglia region. Fast forward several decades, and that arugula is the source of the greens growing in chef Paul Gerard’s backyard at Exchange Alley, a New Orleans–inspired restaurant in the East Village. “It just seems kind of strange that, you know, when you’re a 16-year-old kid and you’re going to a new country that that would be one of the things you would say I need to take with me... like your lucky rabbit’s foot and your arugula seeds,” Gerard said with a laugh. The seventh-generation Brooklynite admitted that he initially had doubts about his ability to keep the plant alive—or whether it was alive at all. “[Nick] showed up one day with a small pot and it had some dried sticks coming out it,” Gerard recalls. “And he said, ‘Here you go, put it in the ground.’ And I said, ‘What is this? It’s like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. You know, it’s dead.’ He said, ‘Put it in the ground.’” After watering it for about three weeks, the arugula started growing and hasn’t stopped. Gerard said it even made it through the heat wave a few weeks ago, and he has a regular supply to use in his restaurant. “The arugula that I use, I always tell my cooks not to pepper it, because it’s already got enough,” he added. “It’s all about balance and texture and depth, you know, so I’ll go for things that are a little more vinegary, a little more salty.” Gerard, who spent 15 years living in New Orleans, said that his misses a lot about his old stomping grounds, including the hot weather. While he often forgets to eat during the hotter days of the year, Gerard did offer some advice on combating the heat: Stay hydrated—preferably with water, as opposed to his old go-to, bourbon. As for fighting hunger on warmer days, try Gerard’s arugula salad recipe below. Garden Greens, “Bread & butter” Pickled Rhubarb & Cows Milk Cheeseby Paul Gerard, Exchange Alley  For 4  1 pound of your favorite local market greens. Here at Exchange Alley, we use a mix of arugula, spicy micro’s, and a touch of fresh herbs from our garden. 3-4 tsps of a big, fruity extra virgin olive oil Salt and fresh pepper 4 ounces (1 oz per salad, or generous shavings with a vegetable peeler) of your favorite local cheese. At Exchange Alley, we use “Rupert” from Consider Bardwell farm in Vermont. An aged, raw Jersey cow milk cheese inspired by great European Alpine cheeses like Gruyère and Comté around 12 pieces of pickled rhubarb (recipe below) 2-3 tsp pickling juice Put greens and rhubarb in a large mixing bowl, add a touch of the pickling liquid and a touch of olive oil. Greens should never be weighed down by the dressing. It should be just enough “to shine” the leaves. You don’t want a wet salad, so always add half of what the recipe may call for, toss season, taste, and add more if necessary. Crucial cooking tip: You can always add more, you can never take away.  Divide the salad into 4 chilled plates or bowls, and top with shaved cheese. Rhubarb Bread and Butter Pickles Rhubarb- peeled and sliced on bias approx 2” long onions sliced 4 cups sugar 3 cups vinegar 1 cup water 1/3 cup plain salt 1 1/2 tsp each turmeric, mustard seed and celery seed Combine sugar and vinegar in small saucepan over low heat to dissolve sugar. Add spices. Pack sliced rhubarb and onions in quart container very tight, add liquid and spices, seal and refrigerate. It’s very important to make [these pickles] in mason jars. Rhubarb should not be floating in vinegar.