The glory of leeks

by June

Fortunately, goats don't eat leeks. They do eat kale—bite, gulp, gone. Chewing as they went, Buttercup and Clover explored the garden one day this spring. Oh, the girls and I flapped along behind them, waving and yelping and shooing them toward the gate. But still they managed to munch through blueberry shoots and raspberry leaves and the lovely ruffled Beedy's Camden kale that survived our  harsh winter.

2010, when the leeks were at their headiest

Friends joke that goats will eat anything. We reply glumly that mostly they just want to eat what we want to eat. But they eat faster.

Somehow they spared the Bleu de Solaize leeks that stood through the snow. Lucky for us! (Shhhh....don't tell the goats what they missed.)

Leeks are one of my favorite things to grow. It's hard to purchase them the way I love them—the size of a pencil. And it is even harder to find something that is so gorgeous in all its incarnations and so friendly to the bees. I always let some go to flower.

We are late with our garden this year because the snows were slow to melt, and we had already determined to dismantle the old raised beds and build them higher and stronger. We're also enhancing the fence to dissuade woodchucks and, ahem, certain members of the family who can't control their appetites when they come nose-to-leaf with a goody. Ours has been the ugliest garden on the planet, swathed in chicken wire and crowded and... Out with all that. But this transformation has meant that some things are behind sprouting schedule (and the blog and our blog friends have been sorrowfully neglected).

Fern and I finally got the leek seedlings and some seeds planted this week. We always put out seedling King Richard or Lincoln leeks for summer eating. But we also plant Fedco's Bleu de Solaize seeds. They grow all summer, then overwinter with nothing but snow as a blanket. In the spring, they are always one of our first meals from the garden (even this frigid year and despite the goats).

One of the simplest ways we prepare them is that old French favorite: Leeks Vinaigrette. My new favorite recipe is from my new favorite cookbook, Around My French Table. It calls for walnut oil in the vinaigrette, and...swoon.

We ease a double fistful of slender leeks out of the garden, then trim their roots, strip their outer leaves and soak them in water. I don't tie them in bundles (as most recipes suggest) but just lay them into salted, boiling water (often in a shallow skillet).

While they cook, I shake up a jar containing:

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar (or champagne)
2 tablespoons walnut oil (this is Dorie Greenspan's inspired variation)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
ground pepper

When they are absolutely tender (less than ten minutes when they are so fresh and thin), I fish them out of the water and douse them in the vinaigrette. They soak it up as they cool.

Eating leeks in vinaigrette is almost as much a celebration of spring as planting the seeds that will be next spring's feast.

Happy gardening and cooking, dear friends! We'll be back soon with more on the goats and the little...waddlers we are expecting! And we'll be skipping over your way for more news and to catch up on your gardens and kitchens and families, but please sing out here too. Happy spring at last!

Savoring the harvest: Leek-and-potato comfort, two ways

by June

Autumn has deepened. It all but rattles our bones. What wind! At night, we hear it roaring from a great distance before it hurtles against the house. Our sleep is fitful. Some of us have the sniffles. And, worst of all, we've lost a hen, one of the originals, our Dottie. She got her name from speckles on her fluffy chick forehead, and then she grew into a beauty with a full breast of scalloped white. She was famous for nuzzling up to the cat when he took a sun soak. This past year, she's been a ragged mess of tattered feathers; the other chickens pecked at her. Blossom and Fern gave her extra free-ranging privileges, but she didn't range so much as nestle down outside my office window. I'd hear her out there clucking contentedly to herself.

We miss Dottie. She was just a chicken. But she was part of what made our home seem like home.

So it's high season for comfort food.

That means Leek-and-Potato Soup.  The one we make is light and simple. I learned it from Patricia Wells's book that explores the cuisine of Joel Robuchon: Simply French. Before making this soup, when I thought of a potato and Robuchon at the same time, I went into a swoon about his silken potato puree, which I once had the privilege of eating in Paris. That puree is sheer artistry. It is ballet on a fork. It could hang in the Louvre.

You accuse me of hyperbole? Really? Okay. Maybe. But I'm trying to get at the difference between the puree, which would be out of place in our kitchen and the soup.... Ah, the soup... The soup is at its best when I walk out into the wind and wrench a few leeks out of the soil and then root around for some nice potatoes. This soup is right at home in a bubbling pot on the stove—even as we're trying to wash the leek roots and all the clinging soil out of the sink. This soup is earthy. It fits the way we live.

We suspect it'll fit the way you live too, whatever way that is. It's very accommodating, this soup. It wants to please.

Peel, quarter, rinse and drain one and a half pounds of small boiling potatoes, such as Red Bliss.

Trim two leeks at the root. Split the lengthwise and sluice water down into all their little leek crannies. Rinse under cold water, then let them soak in a bowl for about five minutes—or until the grit settles to the bottom. Dry them and chop coarsely.

In a stockpot, melt two tablespoons of butter over low heat. Add the leeks and stir until tender but not browned. Add one and a half quarts of water and sea salt to taste. Add the potatoes, cover, and simmer gently for 35 minutes.

Take the pot off the heat. With an immersion mixer, process the soup until smooth. Return the soup to high heat and bring to a boil. Skim if anything icky floats to the top. Add one tablespoon of cream and stir. A few seconds later, add one tablespoon butter. Ladle into warm soup bowls and sprinkle with chervil or flat-leave parsley snipped with scissors. Season with ground pepper to taste.

That is a bowl of solace.

But the other evening we had a pizza dough rising. We happened that day to dig out a few fingerling potatoes and also some leeks that never sized up. And, well, why couldn't we put leek-and-potato yumminess on a crust? Maybe Leek-and-Potato Pizza would combine the goodness of the soup with another favorite...the potato gratin.

The handful of fingerling potatoes went into a pot of boiling water. When they were tender, I sliced them in half lengthwise.

We did a simple, fast leek gravy: I cooked a strip of bacon in a skillet and removed it to drain. Then I sauteed several small leeks in the bacon drippings until they were sweet and a little caramelized. Then I whisked in a spoonful of flour until it smelled toasty. Then I whisked in some milk...just enough to make a sinuous roux.

The leek gravy went onto the pizza crust first. Then the fingerlings got scattered around. Then we added some grated gruyere cheese and then bacon crumbles.

When it came out of the pizza oven, we fell upon that pizza as though it could ease all the pain in the world. And for a few minutes, it almost did.

Beautiful spring at last: All in one salad

by June

The days are longer. The light pours down from the sky (when rain doesn't). And the grass is coming up green. So it's time for us to push past the dark season and into the sunshine ourselves.

To those of you who missed us, we thank you for your kind patience. We missed you. We'll be skipping right over to visit your way too.

Winter and its darkness we consign now to winter. Be done. We are grateful this moment for spring of the year and its seed packets arriving by mail. We are grateful for birdsong when we wake each morning and also for falling asleep at night to the sound of rain tapping against the window glass. We are grateful that the hens are laying bountiful eggs, and that Fern and Blossom's egg-money savings has now mounted up to $171.35 cents, which is maybe half-way to their dream of welcoming home a goat (or, dare I say it, twin goats). We are grateful that it is the season of matzah ball soup and bright eggs hidden on the garden gate (and soon enough in nests along the honeysuckle hedge).

To celebrate this season, we're sharing a couple of recipes that make the most of early spring's delights. Here is Lidia Bastianich's Scallion and Asparagus Salad, paired with some Pennsylvania Pickled Beets. (Please note that my eggs were only dipped in the marinade for an hour or so because I wanted a pink color rather than a red.) Garnished with fragrant dill, this dual-salad makes any table feel as though family and friends are gathered.

Enjoy! And please do tell us what you love most about this spring. We're so happy to be back in our nest here, catching up with you. So what's new?

Savoring the harvest: Cranberry chutney with homegrown shallots

by June

Since we eat from scratch, I love simple preparations that accentuate the flavor of the ingredients (and go together fast enough to satisfy our hungry children). But on special occasions, the work of a dish can intensify my pleasure in preparing it. This is especially true at Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving revolves around food and tradition and family and thankfulness, and through years of holidays, these strands have become entwined for me. When I cook for my family, memories tiptoe in from other days, other years.

This morning, I spent time alone in the kitchen making our favorite cranberry chutney. I'm rarely alone when I cook. Blossom and Fern share the family passion for cooking, and we are often all there together, talking and laughing. But today, the girls had chickens to tend. Birch was out and about. So I found myself cooking and going wherever my mind wandered. Fortunately, making the chutney requires blanching and peeling a half-pound of shallots. So my mind had a lot of time to wander.

It wandered from the May day I planted the shallots in my garden to the first Thanksgiving I spent in New York City, a day when a friend and I roasted our first turkey and watched the Macy's parade across from the Museum of Natural History. The sky was so blue it seemed like a Missouri sky to me; I ached for the only family I'd ever known. But that was also the Thanksgiving I realized the joy and importance of the family one finds in the world.

As I trimmed shallots for tomorrow's feast, I thought of waking on Thanksgiving day to hear my mother in the kitchen, to smell the celery and sage, to feel the deepest sense of well-being I have ever known in my life...because it happened every year and I imagined it always would. I thought of the long walks my father and I took every Thanksgiving along the railroad tracks: I would be eager to get home to the fireside, and he would distract me with the same joke he seemed to fish out of his back pocket every year, "You may think this is an icicle on my nose, but it'ssss not."

As I blanched and peeled the shallots this morning, I thought of how lucky we are that my grandfather will be at my mother's Thanksgiving table this year. He'll tell 92-years of great stories. Even though I won't be there to hear them, I love knowing that he'll be telling them. I thought too of how my great-aunt Ella was always at our Thanksgiving table when I was growing up and how her homemade noodles are still on our every holiday table and how the great-great-nieces she never knew nevertheless know her...and know how to make her noodles and will be making them for Thanksgivings beyond the stretch of even my imagination.

I was filled with thankfulness as I cooked this morning...for the children chasing chickens outside the kitchen window, for the husband who will bake our bread, for the people who love us and show us they do. I felt such deep gratitude for the kindness shown to us this year.

For me, cooking is an act of deep thoughtfulness and thankfulness. It's the perfect start for our celebration. It is itself an act of thanksgiving.

"Best" Cranberry, Shallot and Dried-Cherry Chutney

1/2 pound shallots (about 16)

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup white-wine vinegar (tarragon is very good)

1 cup dry white wine

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup dried, unsweetened sour cherries

2 cups fresh or unthawed frozen cranberries, picked over

1/2 cup water

• In a saucepan of boiling water, blanch shallots for one minute. Drain. Peel shallots and separate into cloves.

• In a heavy saucepan, cook shallots in butter over moderate heat, stirring until coated. Add sugar and 1 tablespoon vinegar and cook until the sugar mixture turns a golden caramel. (The texture will be very grainy, dry, and weird-seeming; don't be discouraged.)

• Add remaining vinegar, wine, and salt and boil one minute. (Don't panic if the sugar caramel hardens; it will melt.)

• Add cherries and simmer, covered, 45 minutes, or until shallots are tender.

• Add cranberries and water and boil gently, uncovered, stirring occasionally, ten minutes, or until cranberries burst. Transfer to bowl and cool. Serve at room temperature.

• Makes about three cups and can be cooked five days ahead and chilled, covered.

In my kitchen memory book, I did not note where I found this recipe. The first time I made it, in 1996, I spent part of the same day re-reading Jane Austen's Persuasion and listening to Ella Fitzgerald by the fire. I've been making it for Thanksgivings ever since.