Anna Blume

Something Eco-Friendly calls finoccio [missing the "h" of "finocchio"?] which appears to be a hybrid sort of like what Ben Stiller might have been had Ann Meara had married Dino instead of Jerry: pork shoulder rubbed with crushed fennel and juniper and corned. Cut into a thin slabs and cooked until fat translucent and ruddy flesh speckled and browned. A little broth. A little cream. Squeeze of lemon just to scrap up bits stuck to pan and make a little sauce. Bedded a trio on a beautiful bunch Hakurai turnips, sliced and quickly braised with green garlic and their own greens. Chives. Good when nights cool down, but now that leaves replace blossoms on dogwood trees, the season of pork is drawing to a close.

I can't get the taste of two horribly cooked slices of really incredible bacon out of my mouth. Cooking over fire is elemental. Cooking over coils is unnatural. Anyone else out there accustomed to a stove powered by electricity with how-to advice for someone who has spent most of her life turning knobs to left and right, controlling the heat under pots and pans with speed, ease and judgments based on visual experience? I need to become okay with cooking on an electric stove. Thanks.

Ebert, indeed. Funny, I always felt for Siskel when the two critics disagreed; Ebert seemed a bit of a dismissive bully and I tended to side with Siskel anyway. But then, I ordered the DVD of Ozu's "Floating Weeds", listened to Ebert's commentary afterwards and was impressed. What really did it for me, though, was his recommendation of The Decalogue by Polish film director Krzysztof Kieslowski which I never would have heard about or rented were it not for Ebert's praise. Haunted by those films, still, years later. Started to read him more frequently. Literate. Compassionate. Courageous. Fond of Anna Thomas. Fun to read. Never thought I would miss anybody's tweets, but I do.

A little bird told me that one of the market's newbies, Border Springs, will have lamb for Easter this afternoon, 3-7 pm. The only reason I have a Twitter account is to keep up on news like this. Last-minute information always gets tweeted by FRESHFARM Marketeers, or retweeted when one of the farms or producers shares news. It's worth signing up for a Twitter account even on your computer if you're not into smartphones. Looking for asparagus? Not likely to find local stalks for a while due to this lingering cold weather, unfortunately. However, if someone hasn't tweeted its imminent arrival, be a twerp yourself and shoot a question to: @FRESHFARMPennQ in the meantime!

Fake Tandoori Chicken thighs Brown basmati rice Leftover braised greens w onions and paprika Gold Rush apple I had forgotten Fake Tandoori Chicken was something I used to make thanks to Laurie Colwin--raise a glass! So rummaging through the cookbooks, I found a different version in Molly O'Neill's New York Cookbook that is delicious, especially when you use Greek-style yogurt and ignore advice to wipe off marinade completely. Made with lemon, fresh ginger, garlic & subtler spices though I added powdered Arbel chilies.

(Dear Seasonal Police, I know it's March. Mr. lperry came with me to the store, and, well, what can you do?) Dear Mrs. Mr. lperry: No biggie. In a year when Spring sprung cold and I am guessing the local growing season will be held back at least 3 weeks if not a month when it comes to crops planted out in fields, even the most vigilant among us bought a bundle of on-sale asparagus from California at the supermarket on Monday.--Seasonal Police

James, James, Morrison, Morrison... Happy Birthday to the other babe! If it's any consolation, I missed the first market, too. Given how hot it was last year and cold this, there was no asparagus to be had, nor orchids. However, I miss Garner's and hope to drop by one of these days. Rumor has it that Clear Spring Creamery, just back to Dupont with its milk last week, should be returning to Penn Quarter in May.

Martha Graham is a major force in modern dance, recognized for "primal" urgency in works often based on Ancient Greek myth and drama which she plumbed not so much for rarified, classical elements, but viewed in ways similar to the so-called "primitive" art and artifacts that left her contemporaries in the visual arts enthralled. Choreographers such as Balanchine are credited for extracting the narrative impulse from many of their works in a desire to foreground dance itself, in many ways a more challenging endeavor in light of tradition-bound ballet than in modern dance which deliberately set itself up as rebellious and new (bare feet vs. toe shoes, etc.). You could argue that works assuming the titles of classical music are more referential than self-referential, but the idea is to embrace the purity of both arts: the dancer's art about the composer's art; movement about sound and the sensations they inspire. In Florence, I rented an apartment in a working class neighborhood on the other side of the Arno and one of my major challenges was hiring a plumber to deal with a rather horrifying emergency. Hard to do with a very limited, specialized vocabulary that had little to do with contemporary life other than shopping and gaining entry into forbidden places. Boy, was I glad when neighbors and my landlady helped and the guy fixed the pipes and so on. Why are plumbers admired as professionals who do plumbing solely about plumbing and artists have to fulfill some expectation of high-falauting profundity that reaches across time and culture to speak to everyone in a deeply meaningful way? Why does a work of art have to be instantly accessible to everyone yet we don't expect a presentation at an academic conference of chemical engineers to make any sense unless we've also been trained in both the vocabulary and field(s) of specialization? Since when is food about food a bad thing?

Ossabaw pork blade steak, brined for several days (Zuni's formula), then pan-fried, topped with cress Roasted Gold Rush apple slices Buttermilk mashed potatoes Barely cooked baby spinach Meyer lemon to squeeze over steak and greens Pretty fantastic.

Keep in mind some of the folks accused of being MGists dislike the rubric ascribed to their cooking as well. One could argue that "tastes good" is a rather simplistic criterion for evaluating food when it is the sole criterion for assessing quality. While I know a farmer who would argue for nutrition, I cannot imagine anything more immediate and central than flavor, but look at me: the context in which I eat is decidedly Western and late 20th- to early 21st-century. Quibble about the term "MG" aside, to its credit, it elevates texture as an essential component of a dish, a criterion that, from what I understand, has long been more important in many Asian cultures than W. European/American ones. We've got "Snap, crackle, POP!", true, and perhaps that's why culinary professionals who view their work as art like to play with Rice Krispies. Sounds, aroma, feeling of food upon the tongue (touch) and its transformation as it melts (temporal factors), architectural place settings, color, shape, composition (sight), and temperature as DR notes all create an interplay of senses that complement flavor, ideally. Results may not be your cup of tea, but we ought to give practitioners some credit for sincere engagement in their work, a respect for their materials and a desire to please guests as much as themselves and their staffs. "If we push the boundaries of craftsmanship and artisanship, we see that they are not just mechanical skills but are actually an exploration of the very nature of the materials they employ, a challenging, a questioning of wood or stone materials. This changes our perspective." --Ai Weiweii At the recent exhibition of the artist's works at The Hirshhorn, the first independent, free-standing sculpture on display in galleries upstairs was a towering, blocky wooden rectangle with metal bars on top and framing sides. Platform below. Planes on all four visible sides relatively flat. The work was a clearly a composite as opposed to a seamless block, almost resembling a miraculously compact wood pile with all its irregular planks and beams stacked as if pieces of a 3-dimensional puzzle; they seemed to have been designed to fit together from the beginning. Nonetheless, this work was assembled from demolished Chinese temples. Clear respect of materials places the artist at the nexus of his place of birth and the art movements he encountered in NYC as a student in the 80s. Amazing craftsmanship. Profound, non-verbal response to his country, history and his position in a chain (or chains) of tradition. Can't similar things be said of Wylie, Grant, RJ et al whether you are into small plates and minibars or not? [Copyright]

I understand that this is meant to be more restaurant than deli, but last weekend I was very disappointed when, ravenous, I headed to DGS after market only to discover it closes in between its lunch and dinner shifts. Since I usually eat lunch/dinner some time between 2 and 3 PM on weekends, I missed my chance and ended up at Taylor's Gourmet, instead. Someday....

Hi, welcome to Donrockwell.com! I enjoyed looking at your blog. The linked entry is really interesting and after browsing the list on the right-hand margin, I found exactly what I ought to do with the celery root, leeks and carrots I brought home from the market since I have bacon in the freezer and a jar of cranberry beans in the cupboard that I have been meaning to use. So, thanks for the pinto bean soup recipe, too! P.S. as of this morning the link you provide needs tweaking. Please revise to eliminate the extra "http://" or "http".

I am very tired, so please forgive me if I am misinterpreting comments that I merely skimmed vs. gave a close, critical reading. I am not sure how the term "abstract art" is being used, first of all; it's a term that should be distinguished from nonrepresentational art. A work "abstracted" from nature or the world of human experience (including music) is usually one way the former is defined, for example, one of Whistler's Nocturnes or one of Kandinsky's paintings with discernible horses midst the colorful planes--as opposed to his famous nonrepresentational watercolor of 1913. Picasso's handlebars from a bicycle re-imagined as a bull's skull as opposed to one of Robert Morris's plywood boxes. Many of the artists you're grouping together couldn't care a tiddly-wat what you ericblueboy think or feel when you stand in front of them, though Klee would suggest you need a chair to sit and contemplate rather than stand. For one thing, they're dead. But were you to defy those leftist frogs, Chicago Schools and degenerate Yalies of lit crit and not reconfigure visual works of art into readerly texts, I do not believe you were ever meant to be Polonius looking up at clouds and seeing whatever you choose to see. Same with Sol LeWitt, Rothko and others who explore(d) what it means to create works of art devoid of representational content. (Malevich: If you want to see a cow, go to a field, not an art gallery. In other words, art is supposed to be art and not about something other than itself and its unique "vocabulary" of form.) Pollock may have called a canvas Blue Poles, say, suggesting abstraction (and thus an art-historical category coined by a critic), but in fact, his works were more about the process and a way of initiating white guys from the United States into the Western European cult of the Artist, fashioning the brushstroke as relic. He wasn't asking you to tie those poles to his Jungian philosophy and totems, nor would he agree that you'd be just as right to see the Blue Boy's gleaming satin in them wiggly lines...unless you really plied him with a whole lot of booze and gave him a bunch of commissions. In other words, you can be wrong, you can be very, wrong, in your characterization of an abstract or nonrepresentational work of visual art, especially if you assume it is meant to be interpreted.

Too late for feedback? Bake the meringue on silpat or parchment and top the chilled pie.

The cookbook was up for a Piglet at Food52 this year. I just returned the copy I borrowed to the library since it's much in demand. I have to say I have problems similar to those I experienced with Plenty, though I admit tweaking. For example, the method for cooking the medjara just didn't work for me. Ratio of lentils to rice seemed way off since I ended up having a little rice stuck to my lentils. It would have been better to cook the grains separately. Also, the flour sprinkled on mandoline-sliced onions really did not lead to crispy wisps even though I threw far fewer than recommended into a wide pan with preheated oil. Matter of domestic vs. professional stove? I have to say the lavish amount of onions was spot-on great and unlike many recipes in Plenty, the spice combination was just right and delicious, especially given the fact that I was feeding a diehard vegan. Pictures beautiful. The unusual combinations of vegetables and fruits that characterize so many of Ottolenghi's recipes also deserve praise. Jerusalem works as a source of inspiration for an experienced cook who just needs help in finding something different to do with what's in the fridge.

Tuesday we took a large, wide metal bowl out to the third high tunnel where I received instructions on which leaves of lacinato kale were big enough to pluck and how. Little girls who hate broccoli and spinach for some reason really go for the dark green bumpy leaves, so the bowl was piled high by the time we were through. No need to wash the organic kale. Just cut off the stems to reserve for eggs or rice. Sliver and chop the leaves and toss into a bowl. Olive oil from Lucca. A little salt. Pepper. Ume plum vinegar and a thick paste of blitzed cashews, dried heirloom tomatoes, a few pine nuts, some water and the very last clove of cured garlic from last year's crop, weeks before tender shoots of green garlic begin to coil out of the earth. Meanwhile, two huge, sautéed leeks went into a pot of boiling water with handfuls of lentils. So much paprika that the broth turned red. Loaves of bread baked with flour ground right next to the stove from rye berries and Alice wheat. You could see the fields where the grains grew just outside the window.

Duh! I meant in terms of quivering, crustless, knife-around-the-edges of the pan or sweet little ramkin, invert-onto-plate variety. There are cheese budini, too, so why not blue cheese panna cotta? Dinner last night: braised lamb shank w gremalata, polenta and tender, young, brilliant magenta beet greens courtesy of Tree & Leaf **** Ta da! Notice success with abbreviated quote!

Savory panna cotta? I have made a number of sformati, Italian savory baked custards w white sauce and eggs. I didn't care for them, in part, because of the set bechamel which is not to my taste. There must be savory flans, that is, incorporating eggs and milk to firm the custard. I don't see why you can't do something similar, but based on panna cotta.

I really think they work best in this role, that is, enhancing flavors. I threw very large crumbles of thin tomato slices into a braise that already contained a tomato sauce and a bit of tomato paste. Convinced the dried fruit made a difference; simply reconstituted slices of various peppers worked along the lines of "meh" when sautéed in a quickly cooked dish.

Oven-braising lamb shanks which I found challenging to brown evenly, given shape and thickness of protrusions at both ends of the tapered bones. Online recipes that I consulted advise me to ask my butcher to cut them in two, but photograph whole shanks as they are served at restaurants. At any rate, I stuck to a rather ordinary braising combo but added a few dehydrated heirloom tomatoes and a few crushed Juniper berries.

Sorry for disappointments. I did make a blood orange syrup (see post above) to pour through, though I was aiming for drama rather than adjusting for reported flaws. Braising some lamb shanks tomorrow. Potential companions: Leftover red wine. New batch of stock. Tomato sauce. Pomegranate, mint and yogurt in house, too. Suggestions welcome.

So much blood! I hope the Tunisian cake was worth baking and the combination of oranges, blueberries and cream sounds delicious! Leftovers? Given today's warmth and sunshine, panna cotta would be perfect!

You're welcome! But do try this and see what I posted in response to DanielK recently in Dinner thread where I recommended an extra step that streaks insides fuchsia. I misattributed the recipe to Claudia Roden, but I gotta say the drama and ease of a cake w oranges processed whole, peel, pith and all is worth the comparison. I happened to use a very fruity olive oil last time I made it and the cake assumed colors of both fruits. P.S. Ricotta tart looks smashing!

Half a bison Delmonico on pile of watercress and arugula Pan-seared mushrooms; lemon Potatoes roasted British-style (boiled first; finished on floor of oven) Unusual string of carnivorous postings is a response to colder weather, though a French lentil soup prepared earlier in the week will be followed by another vegetarian soup with red lentils and some of my stash of dehydrated vegetables. Separate batches of crisp, caramelized onions and sweet-and-sour carrots on the side to add in at whim, or mix into rice.

Goat banger (Many Rocks Farm) and buttermilk mash Baby spinach