Down On Curly's Farm

I was invited this past weekend to cook in the kitchen of a semi-dilapidated old house in the middle of woods of Western Massachusetts, where my nutritionist Ilsa is attempting to start up a working farm on a small piece of dirt owned by our friend Curly, who inherited a huge tract of land along with a house.

Curly's (not her real name) farm is a small plot of cleared land next to a 40's era house on a small road at the edge of a 200 acre forested piece of land. She grew up there, when her dad owned 4,000 acres and sold timber. The land behind the property is now owned by the government, never to be developed, and the land behind that is state-protected watershed.

I arrived on Friday night and scoped the kitchen -- not clean, not orderly, water damage ravaged the floor and walls, and just piles of odd non-functional equipment. The basement is haunted with rotting classic bicycles in the root cellar. Eight different kinds of juicers, various uni-taskers, and the fabulous Pot-O-Plenty. This 70s device was some sort of pressure-cooker/deep-fryer, with dishes listed on its front with the appropriate setting. Meat fondue, Swiss steak, chop suey, steamed pudding, it's all at your fingertips with the pot-o-plenty!!

After the first night of a deliciously quiet and dark sleep, the first thing I noticed in the kitchen was the window in front of the sink and work space the overlooked into....deep forest. At home in my apartment on the Lower East Side, I face a stone back splash and cabinets, and need a radio to keep me focused. Here, the silence in kitchen work was balanced by a majestic window, what a fine accompaniment.

Curly and I hopped in the car and made the hour trip to Amherst, where we hit up a great farmers market (fresh local ginger! sexy butternut squash!) and a Wholefoods. After riding in a car for an hour to get groceries, it dawned on me that this was it -- whatever we picked up now was going to have to last us through Monday, no quick walks to the local marts, no Freshdirect.com for next day delivery. At the same time, whatever I chose to purchase was being paid for by all of us -- I can't just go buy stuff just to have it on hand: buy it, use it, don't leave anything over that can't sit on a shelf for a few months.

Here is a run down of the menu that emerged over the weekend.

Saturday:
Lunch: simple Asian vegetable stir fry with rice noodles. We picked up a wok, and I brought mirin and sesame oil up with me. Got amazing bok choy from the farmer's market, and the local ginger flavored the oil marvelously. The flavors came out pleasingly balanced, just like in class.

Dinner: Seared chicken breasts and seared sea scallops, butternut squash risotto, green salad with mustard vinaigrette. Excellent old cast iron skillet, perfect for browning chicken boobs (which I dissembled off a chicken rib cage for better freshness and cheaper food cost). Risotto was a bit of work (recipe at end of this entry for those who want it!), but it was a nice, rich show-offy dish.

Sunday:
Brunch: buttermilk pancakes from scratch, buckwheat pancakes from mix, oven-fried bacon, cider, fruit. Minimally stirring, leaving the lumps in, made the buttermilk pancakes surprisingly soft and pillowy, was really happy with that.

Afternoon snack: Quinoa salad. Using the grain that was on hand, used up some random veg and chicken stock. Easy to make a large quantity with minimal effort.

Dinner: Pizza & Apple Pie. The pizza was a bit of a challenge. The dough I made Saturday, with double 00 flour I brought up with me. The electric oven got to around 500, but I had no cookie sheets, so I improvised with various upside down pans coated in foil. The first pizzas I made how I made at home, but they had a hard time being so thin with so little heat, and were quite pale and flibbidy-flobbidy despite the top browning. The second round I made tall & thicker and greased the foil with olive oil. The oil crisped the bottom of the pie, and the additional thickness held the snap better -- not great but not embarrassing. Like sex & chocolate, even when it's not that great, homemade pizza ain't that bad.

The apple pie, the apple pie, not sure where to begin. A real pie is a tedious thing to make, a frustratingly elusive thing to make well. The few pies I've attempted in the past have been soggy, leaden affairs, causing the ghosts of plenty of county fair pie-competitors to weep. Despite finding more than 30 pie and muffin tins, 20 bundt and loaf pans, multiple rolling pins and various tarte shapes and cookie cutters, according to Curly her mom was not a woman into the whole county fair competitive scene -- she just really liked to bake. Wandering the detritus of her baking life, I couldn't help but feel like a guest in this deceased woman's home -- a home made warm and personable and loved by her love of this tricky and very American art. And nothing is more American (or New England) than Apple Pie.

(According to the Yankee Magazine Cookbook laying around the house, the definition of a 'Yankee' from a Southerner's perspective is a Northerner. The Northerner's definition of a Yankee is a New Englander. A New Englander's definition of a Yankee is a Vermonter. And a Vermonter's definition of a Yankee is a Vermonter who eats apple pie for breakfast. But I digress...)

So I chose what I would think would of been one of Curlymom's favorite pie tins, and first thing was making the dough. Flour, salt, rub in the cold butter till it's like corn meal with pea-sized pebbles. Add some egg and water till it comes together, ball, flatten into two discs, chill for a few hours. Cook down sliced apples with sugar and spices and butter, chill that too. Roll out dough, place delicately into pan. Fill with innards, top with second round, brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Polk holes. Chill the whole thing for another 30 minutes. Bake for an hour, turning down the heat gradually as it browns. Hope for the best.

I can't say if this was the best tasting pie, but it certainly was a sturdy, attractive example of pie-kind:

I think the kitchen really helped me in this case: it was a bit cold, and it helped the butter against my warm hands, ended in a much more tender, flaky crust. The apples (Jonah Golds) from the farmer's market held up and kept their shape despite being soft and pillowy, and the bottom crust was like pizza -- crisp on the bottom, doughy in the middle and melding just so into the syrup on top. The top layer was a golden dome of crunchy, browned deliciousness that just kissed the apples beneath. Curlymom was looking over my shoulder, helping me out making a proper pie for the first time, happy to get some fresh pie to daughter and friends.

MONDAY: Lunch: Pasta with roasted garlic tomato sauce, sauteed string beans and mushrooms with garlic. Dry pasta laying around, most of a can of crushed tomatoes from last night's pizza, I peeled a spare tomato and added it in. Since there was bags and bags of garlic lying around (spare from what was being planted), I roasted a bunch and added it to a simple tomato sauce.

Dinner: TVP, left over Quinoa Salad, left over risotto. Textured vegetable protein laying about, so I made vegetable stock with all the remainders and scraps of veg in the fridge to give some flavor to this rather drab 1970s hippy protein substitute.

It was nice running away in a kitchen with and without recipes, looking in the fridge and pantry and figuring out what I could produce. It was fun on the ride back, scarfing crapalicous donuts with my nutritionist (I guess this is my equivalent of smoking a joint with your drug counselor). Now that I did it once, I want to go back with a more solid idea of what I'm going to cook, then just improvise like a jazz saxophonist when I only have some of puzzle pieces.

ADDENDA:
On some of my spare time, when I wasn't sweating over pie, I took a wander into the woods behind the house. Yes, it was peaceful.

To the reader who requested the recipe for the butternut squash risotto, here goes:

First step, take yer squash, cut off the skin with a knife. Cut into long quarters, scoop out all the seeds and strings from the center of the gourd. Lay on some foil, douse with olive oil and salt so it's covered, wrap in foil, stick in 350 degree oven for an hour or so till it's fragrant and soft. Cool, then process to a smooth mush, either by hand, a masher or a food processor.

Soften some finely diced onion in olive oil till translucent, then throw in the arborio rice. Once rice is translucent, toss in 1/4 cup or so of wine/vermouth/flavorful booze, cook off the alcohol till the pan is dry. Low flame. Now ladle in one ladle of simmering chicken stock (or any other kind of stock), adding more when it's almost absorbed. CONSTANTLY STIR, this brings out the starch and makes it creamy. 1 cup o' rice to 8 cups of stock -- when it's toothsome and tender, yer done. If you run out of liquid, soldier on with hot water. Once it's tender enough, add your mix-ins. Grated parm, marscapone rocks, go crazy. This is where you add the mushed butternut. Mix so it's even, taste, add more cheeses or salt to taste. Rock on. Serve quickly, it turns from creamy to gluey pretty quickly.

To bring back to life. Mix in more stock or water, heat on stove while stirring till the consistency and temp is right. Don't stop stirring!