The Morel of the Story

It occurs to me that I didn't mention how I know my friend is addicted to the foraging for morels, as opposed to the outcome.

Here's how.

1. She is infinitely fair dividing them up at the end. Even if everyone keeps their own bucket, they all go in a pot and are divided at the end of the day.

2. Past scarfing that first batch, she doesn't down them. A great many are still strung on thread and hanging from her mantle to dry as I type.

3. She sings to the morels as she roams, eyes to the forest floor,  and believes they have superpowers.

I am starting to believe she is right. Nutritionists certainly do.

In clinical studies in which subjects were randomly assigned diets of  either mushrooms or beef, participants eating the mushroom meals consumed 430 calories and 30 grams of fat LESS per day. Most astonishingly, they didn't report any difference in satiety than did the beef eaters, nor did they compensate for their mushroom meals by pigging out later. Another study suggests that if the average American male substituted a 4-ounce Portobella mushroom for a 4-ounce grilled hamburger every time they ate a burger for one year, and changed nothing else, they could save more than 18,000 calories and nearly 3,000 grams of fat. That's roughly equal to 30 sticks of butter.

Magic? Perhaps. The magnificent mushroom is also the bearer of vitamin D -- scientists say a serving of mushrooms, with 20 calories and no fat, provides 100 % of our D goal after just five minutes of contact with sunlight. And they're packed with nutrients like selenium and niacin, which provide antioxidants to boost immune systems, combat cancer and break down fats and carbohydrates.

It's starting to sound as if we can't afford not to eat them. With eggs from the neighbors and spring greens and asparagus from my garden, they are as beautiful and tasty as they are healthy.

Morels on Asparagus

2 handfuls arugula
sprig of mint
four stalks of asparagus
2 eggs, fried in coconut oil

Rinse arugula and mint and shred on a plate. Bring water with a pinch of salt to a boil in a flat skillet, add asparagus (pinch off the rough ends) and cook until tender. Add a spray of coconut oil to the skillet and quickly fry two eggs. Top the greens with asparagus and egg, then flash fry morels (I cut large ones in half -- and remember, they aren't the biggest fan of water, wipe any dirt away gently with a damp towel) with a few more grains coarse salt, just until warm.

Voila.

The Mother Load

I have a friend who is as addicted to hunting morels as I am.

The first batch she got this spring she sauteed up when she got home and ate before her husband returned. After all, we rationalized, it was only 9 mushrooms. Hardly enough to share. And just the beginning of the season.

A week later, we walked up a hillside staccato with poplars, on an East facing slope, scattered with May apples and Jack in the pulpit underfoot. If you know the terrain morels like, you'd know this was perfect.

Except it wasn't. Oh, there was one here, and after a great long while maybe another, but nothing to write a blog about. And to top it off, we went with our children, one of them dramatically and actively unhappy. The kind of reticence that gets expressed like: "This is the worst day of my life."

For a mother who ranks these few morel-gathering weeks in Spring among the best of the year, this is bad news. The dilemma -- to press on and risk turning the poor tired thing against mushroom scavenging for the rest of her natural life, or give in, potentially leaving the elusive morels to shrivel without being found, or worse, snuffled by a passing bear? (This last is my imagination. I have no idea if bears eat mushrooms.)

We tried cajoling, creating a scavenger hunt in the woods, flat out bribery. We tempted with snacks, and let the tykes rest on a log while we foraged in circles around them. We crooned, "c'mon sweetie, Mommy only gets to do this once a year,"  and when that didn't work, "buck up, it's just an hour of your life." (Face it, if you're a mom you've been there.)

In the meantime, up we walked, over fallen logs, scanning the thick carpet of dead leaves covering the forest floor for the honeycomb caps, camouflagued by the matching downed foliage. They gave us only enough to keep us from quitting -- just as we decided we'd leave, another would show itself, teasing us, daring us, taunting us to find the next. On we went, led by the morels, from one slope to the next, prodding the exhausted tyke to hang in just another moment.

When it seemed we had come up blank, the day a bust (plus, we were late for soccer practice) we headed back to our car.

"Over here," yelled a kid, running down the wooded slope ahead.

"I found one," screamed another kid, the one who just a minute ago had been seemingly near extinction. I looked down to make sure I wasn't going to trip on my way to see, and spotted a big black morel, just by my foot. As I reached for my pocketknife to cut it neatly at the dirt, I saw there were -- 6. Right in a row.

"JACKPOT," I heard a scream, and it wasn't me. From then on it was a frenzy, everywhere we turned, and sometimes where we stepped, a virtual dell of morels. We collected 2 pounds in the last half hour alone.

This is how morels operate.

It was a very good day. We div'ied them up, (this was our share, above) and left. We were late to soccer. And later, over a large glass of red wine (or lemonade) and morels sauteed in butter, as we replayed the last half hour, and plotted our return to the woods, no one cared at all.

This is how morels get you. Reel you in. To be fair, though it may be a lot of effort to find them, once you find them you need do nothing to them, indeed, they are best that way. Morels, like cats, do not like water, and keep themselves extremely clean. Cut them clean off at the bottom, and brush off any dirt before you put them in the paper bag or coffee can you collect them in and they will stay that way.

Melt a little oil and butter in the pan with some coarse salt and stir in the morels. Slice the big ones in half and leave the littles, add some shaved parsley if you have some in your garden. Stir them just until they soften, then serve.

Over a rare veal chop:

 

And if you have enough, the next morning, over eggs and toast:

It was after all, first batch of the spring. And to our neighbors, thanks for the woods. Sorry you were Ghana.

Eat British

I lived in London in my teens, and don't remember much about what I ate those five years but Cadbury Creme Eggs, oh, and  kebabs cut from big hanks of spitted meat from shops in Gloucester Road. This last was much to my father's dismay; he'd lecture on dangers of street food to the point where I no longer copped to my transgressions.

 Much of the food was actually inedible. A burger from the chain Wimpy was just that, with soft bread mixed in the meat, chickens that tasted of the fish meal they ate, orange "juice" like flavored water.  Visitors from the States were requested to bring boxes of Captain Crunch cereal.

Clearly, I was no epicure. I thought tea at Brown's  Hotel divine -- way before it's chic reno -- we sunk into the shabby floral couches, with plates of cucumber sandwiches (white bread, thin sliced cucumber, butter, no crusts, cut on the diagonal), stirring brown crawly sugar and milk into the fine china cups. For tea at home I favored Bakewell Tarts, individual pie shells filled with jam and gooey almond-flavored fondant. Many of my teeth were also filled in this period, no surprise.

But the UK has had a food revolution. It's one trying to happen here, though they are light years ahead on this one.

It's organics, local food, grown, raised and procured by folks with passion that comes through in every bite. It's a thriving restaurant scene, pubs being refurbished and adding menus taking advantage of seasonal treats -- a welcome change, one cabbie told me, from drinking establishments that might just have the odd Scotch egg (a hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage) to coat your tummy. 

The impetus for this State-supported revelation was Mad Cow, the bovine disease that decimated England's food chain in the '90s. Since then, with establishment of the Department of Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and their popular "Buy British" movement, farmers, producers and purveyors have gotten grants and education to strengthen the local food chain.

While it's become stylish, as here, to eat organic, it's even chicer to be involved.  D’Aylesford Organic, the brainchild of Lady Carole Bamford, sets the standard for farm-to-fork in the UK, with 7 shops and restaurants throughout the country selling the bounty of their Gloustershire estate. Emma Holman-West, steward of her 4,000-acre family estate near Stratford-upon-Avon, has reinvigorated the local 18th-century coaching inn, The Bell, with groovy decor and sophisticated local food.  Charlie Luxton, a former suit with Soho House (he was aboard for the luxury hotel's debut in NY's Meatpacking District) has turned the Beckford Arms, on the Fonthill Estate in Wiltshire, into a destination for those wanting the idyll of the country, the laid back comfort of a pub, but the style of boutique hotel.

The drive to the Beckford Arms, a scant 2 hours from London, is open motorway until a veer left at Stonehenge, just 15 miles away. Entering the magnificent Fonthill Estate through a graceful stone gateway, past a manicured swan lake, feels noble. We arrived in time for a walk before dinner -- the area is crisscrossed with public footpaths that take you off road through fields and over dams, where only sheep tread.


Before dinner, we chose to have a champagne in front of a vast stone fireplace on cushy sofas  -- but the inn is riddled with charming niches, from the bay window in the pub to the bar itself, a dining room that opens onto the garden, or the cozy sitting room, set with tables before wavy glass windows that reflect the candle's light. Our son, age 7, instantly felt comfortable rambling his way to the bar for a lemonade, where Colin the barkeep threw in a few magic tricks and friendly locals encouraged his imitation.

Dinner, after all this splendor, was hardly the point. We could have had a burger and chips, then crawled under the thick duvet and watched the inn's DVD of Dr. Doolittle with a cocoa -- but chef Pravin Nayar is having none of that. Recently proclaimed one of the finest gastropub chefs in the UK, his menu is nothing short of mouthwatering, a showcase of local bounty and simple, elegant technique.

I started with pigeon, served with a divine black pudding and roasted hazelnuts. Next, a local Brixham hake, pan-sauteed and served with salt-roasted beetroots from South Petherton and a poached egg, all drizzled in brown butter. Nayar was only too happy to give the recipe -- so easy, he came out and explained it himself instead of sending out a written page as many other chefs do. You may not be able to get Brixham hake (or hake at all for that matter, I substituted wild halibut  -- any thick white fish will suffice. )

Do try this at home.

Pan fried Brixham hake with beetroots from South Petherton, brown butter and poached egg

 courtesy of Pravin Nayar, The Beckford Arms

Thick fillets of white fish, 1 lb will serve about 4
8 beets, medium sized
coarse salt
4 good fresh eggs
1 teaspoon vinegar
butter, half a packet
fresh horseradish root
rapeseed oil

First, salt roast the beets. Pack the beets in salt and roast, about 40 minutes for medium size beets. Pierce and peel. Cut in quarters.

Pan fry the fish, skin side down, in rapeseed oil (the fields here are full of rapeseed, (a name we change to grapeseed) and he uses local oil-- do what you can) and butter, until the flesh starts to separate and is no longer opaque.

Boil water in a small pan with steep sides and about a teaspoon of vinegar. (To keep the shape of the egg.) Pull the pan off when it begins to boil and let sit on the edge of the flame. You want the water to be about 90 degrees, for if you poach it too high the egg "goes all sloppy." Add the eggs and poach about 3-4 minutes depending on the size of the egg. (Nayar's tip: "If you can lift it and it wants to stay on the spoon it's ready, but if it wants to fall off the spoon, not ready.")

For the brown butter,  heat it over a low flame in a small skillet until it is copper in color, the hue of a nice ale. Strain through a cheesecloth to get the brown bits out, if you like. (You can do this up to a week in advance, if you like, then reheat.)

Plate the fish and surround with beets. Top with egg and drizzle with butter.

For my version:

grapeseed oil
coarse salt
large bunch parsley
two cloves garlic
one lemon
one pound wild Alaskan halibut
1/2 cup butter plus two teaspoons
4 eggs

Heat a tablespoon of grapeseed oil in a small skillet and add a pinch of coarse salt after a few minutes. Let salt emulsify. With a scissor, cut parsley in about 1 inch widths over hot pan. With a microplane or grater, grate about a teaspoon of lemon zest over. When crisp, set aside.

Melt a tablespoon butter and a tablespoon of oil in a skillet big enough to hold the fish. When the oil is hot, swirl it around in the skillet, return to heat and add a pinch of salt. When the salt emulsifies, add the fish. Cook until the flesh separates and is no longer opague -- but not too long, or it will go tough.

Cook the butter and the eggs as above.

Plate: Spread a spoonful of parsley and top with fish; layer on the egg and drizzle brown butter.

Sante.

Donuts for Peace

The favorite mornings at my mother's house are those she makes donuts. Little bits of fried dough, shaken in a bag of cinnamon sugar, seem to make everyone's day. Grandad walks by and snags the holes, not so subtly.

Doughnuts have been around since the dawn of time, and have always brought such joy. When my son learned from a friend  they served doughnuts at Hannukah, he requested to be Jewish.

Let's be clear, these are neither healthy nor gluten-free, but as they bring so much happiness there has to be room for them at the table. In reading up on donuts -- also known as doughnuts -- I found a reference to the Civil War, an incident where the Ladies Auxilliary of Augusta, Me., literally smothered their troops in donuts of every ilk. "Never before was seen such an aggregate of doughnuts since the world began," reported the Baltimore American of the "doughnation". "It was emphatically a feast of doughnuts, if not a flow of soul."

That is what it is like on doughnut morning, a flow of soul, on a river of cinnamon sugar. Try it.

Gram's Donuts

I package Pillsbury Buttermilk Biscuits
Oil for frying, about 4 cups (I like vegetable oil, or grapeseed oil. I do not recommend canola.)
Sugar and cinnamon, for dusting

Heat oil in a deep frying pan. Take a melon baller and take the hole out of the biscuit, making a donut. Reserve holes. Fry donuts and holes in the hot oil, turning once, until golden, about 3 minutes a side when oil is hot.

Put sugar and cinnamon in a plastic bag or a bowl. Coat hot donuts with sugar and serve.

Enjoy!

Artichokes, Baby

Our honeymoon was the most organized I have ever been. I read guidebooks, picked people's brains, even read classics set in Italy to decide where to visit. From afar, I booked hotels and restaurants.

Once there, the day's sightseeing was plotted based on where our eating was occurring. In Amalfi, we hung out at the hotel on the water all day, sightseeing in the early evening, when the heat of the day was easing and -- did you guess? -- we traveled into town or nearby villages for dinner.

We had a lot of fabulous meals, though perhaps predictably the most memorable were the unscripted. A late supper on arrival in Umbria, so steeped in truffles -- neither of us had had them in that magnitude before -- that we looked at each other wondering what that delicious aura was. For the rest of our time in the region we hunted foods containing them -- truffle oil, truffle cheese, even truffle gelato -- like junkies. The picnic we bought on the way back from Pompeii, at a little store on the side of a mountain so steep one of stayed in the car with his foot on the pedal while the other dashed in and bought fresh red tomatoes, mozzarella and wine in jars, vintage yesterday, to eat on the balcony of our cottage overlooking the Mediterranean. Our last night in Rome, when we left a mediocre restaurant after the appetizers and wandered the cobblestone streets from wine bar to wine bar, ending up at a pizzaria with the locals with my high heels kicked off under the table, so far from our intended path I could probably not find it again.

We slept in, drank wine with lunch and had coffee late in the day. We ate fried foods willy-nilly. I even ate bread and pasta, without worry or even retribution.

One lunch we stopped in the shadow of the coliseum, in an ordinary-looking restaurant, Da Giggetto, in the Jewish ghetto near the ruins of the palace built by Augustus for his sister, Ottavia. It was unassuming enough, but the carciofi alla giudia --   literally artichokes smushed by a brick and deep-fried, were like bits of heaven. The earthy artichokes, in a light batter, fried in oil so hot it didn't even get to the artichoke. Zucchini blossoms, stuffed with ricotta and garlic and fried. Squid, fresh from the sea, with a batter so light it might have been tempura. We polished off everything on our plates, licking grease from our fingers and washing it down with fruity white wine.

I've never forgotten that meal. One summer, with visions of this lunch in my head, I grew zucchini just to stuff the blossoms. But I've never attempted the artichokes, though I've been hankering for them these ten years. After all, but the one time, my husband not only will not taste them but visibly recoils in their presence. Then I saw baby artichokes in the grocery store, shopping for a small dinner with a friend who also loves artichokes.  Dare I?

I did. I didn't smush them (no clean bricks), and I didn't deep fry them (not enough oil), but I did saute them in an inch of good olive oil, and finished with pressed garlic, mint, parsley and a pinch of coarse salt.

And we ate them all up.

Ghetto Artichokes

1 flat of baby artichokes, 3 lbs.
1/2 cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons minced parsley
2 Tablespoons minced mint
3 cloves garlic, minced

Peel off the tough outer leaves of each artichoke, until you get to the tender greenish yellow leaves inside, and cut about 1/2 inch from the top. Half the artichokes. They will brown if you do not put them in a bowl with water into which you have squeezed lemon juice, but it doesn't matter in the end -- I wasn't particular about it.

Mince herbs and garlic, set aside. Heat oil in medium skillet over medium heat and melt 1 teaspoon coarse salt. Add artichokes and saute, turning once to brown on both sides.

Remove from oil with slotted spatula to a bowl. Toss with herbs and garlic, a little lemon zest would rock too. Serve warm with drinks and olives. Would be divine with roast red peppers as well.

Enjoy!

Rice Krispy Fun

It all started because one of the boys in my son's class can't eat eggs. I don't know what happens to him, but as one who avoids a major food group, I knew it couldn't be fun to be vigilant at every unsuspecting snack time.

I first tried substituting apple sauce for the eggs, but the cake was more a muffin, though delicious with cream cheese icing.

Then I remembered the humble rice krispy treat. So versatile!

I bought several boxes of cereal (one large box makes two batches), along with bags of marshmallows, and prepared to bake. Then the snow came, postponing the party and bringing some opportune friends instead for a little impromptu celebration. I cracked open the boxes and made some monster treats.

The next weekend, when the sun shone, the party was on. Starting Friday, I made 7 more batches of rice krispy treats, and left them to harden slightly in the pan. We cut them into bricks and assembled, using marshmallow fluff as the mortar, marshmallows for the turrets, fruit leather cut into flags for the decor. Small knights fought on the ramparts. Swedish fish swam in a blue icing moat, around gumdrop stepping stones.

When the time came for cake, the kids crowded around as I broke bits off and put them on plates. It was gone in a jiffy, and not one kid had to worry whether they could eat it. Seconds were had, even thirds, by big and small alike.

Rice Crispy Treats

6 cups rice crispies
1 bag of marshmallows
3 T butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt butter in a pan on the stove and add the marshmallows, stirring until they are all melted. Pour over rice crispies in a large bowl and add vanilla. Stir to combine.

Pat out in lasagna pans and let harden. Cut with knife.

For the monsters, make one batch. Decorate with icing and M&Ms.

For the cake, make 7 or 8 batches. Decorate with icing, marshmallows, gumdrpos and fruit leathers.

Enjoy.

Kitchen Reform tip 18/College cooking 101: Crack Protein

I haven't done anything to reform my kitchen all summer. After all, who needs it, just open the windows and let in the sunshine and fresh air -- grill a simple steak, serve up some local produce.

But now we're back in the swing, days end earlier, littles must be in bed sooner. And that means dinner on the table, before pronto. Here's a little trick: eggs. (Also great -- see below for effects on memory and learning -- for cash-strapped college students, who I hope are reading this blog!)

Eggs from the happy chickens at Hummingbird Hill are divine, but studies show even experts can't tell the difference in taste between free range and store bought eggs.

There's many ways to cook an egg. My favorite: over easy, yolks so runny they will sauce whatever else is on your plate (salmon hash, if you have a can of good wild salmon). But they are versatile for the whole family -- my 6-year-old will always eat a cheesy omelet, which does double duty by using up the leftover cheese ends too small to be useful for anything else in the cheese drawer.

Protein contains amino acids, the essential building blocks of the body. And get this: we lose protein every day when we shed skin, hair and nails. So re-upping our supply is crucial, especially if active. Animal proteins -- lean poultry, meat and fish, and low-fat dairy -- contain a complete array of amino acids, but those more inclined to a plant-based diet needn't worry. Plants too contain amino acids, though not the entire spectrum, making them suppliers of incomplete protein.

There's much to be said for protein, especially in highly bioavailable forms like protein powders and shakes, which go directly to the muscle rather than being digested and disseminated via the stomach. A recent study from Brescia University in Milan showed that protein powders containing three amino acids that we are unable to make on our own -- in particular leucine, which is the only amino acid capable of synthesizing protein in muscle -- can lengthen lifespan by up to 12% by activating the mitochondria in cells, which then slow the aging process. That's ten years for the average adult.

And egg yolks also contain choline, essential for regulating metabolic pathways and maintaining cell membranes that allow cells to get rid of toxins, as well as development of cells in the hippocampus crucial for mental acuity and development. Pregnant women, in particular, can benefit from increased choline as it can aid in developing these brain functions in the fetus and, according to research published in the journal Brain Research, can have aftereffects on brain development leaving an afterglow that helps resist age-related memory decline.

So go ahead, eat your eggs.

Easy Anytime Crepes

 1 cup milk

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons sugar

2 extra large eggs

4 tablespoons butter

Melt 2 Tablespoons of butter and cool. Put milk, flour, eggs, sugar and pinch of salt in blender and whiz together. Add butter and blend.

In an 8-inch nonstick skillet, melt 1 teaspoon butter. Pour a thin layer of batter into skillet and swirl to coat the bottom. Cook over medium heat until little air bubbles appear then turn over and cook 30 seconds more. 

Remove crepe from skillet and hold on a warm plate with a dish towel to cover, or in the oven. Serve filled with anything -- we like brown sugar, or thick preserves.

Enjoy!