Pantry Before

Pantry Before

Image by ex.libris
My pantry is not looking so beautiful these days. I figured I'd feel compelled to clean it if I posted a before picture on the internet.

IMG_8729

Image by foghornleg90
Once upon a Time, I saw shapes in the clouds... Banana's and other chimps... I saw a future with free medical care, better food, warmth in the winter, air conditioning in the summer, and a companion to share this boring life with. Oh, I think the Democrats must have captured me, because I have all those things now. Yep, now I just dream of freedom and capitalism. LOL

Cardoons!

Image by laurelfactorial
Allow me to relate to you a tale of obsession and
thwarted yearning, of loss and redemption.

I am a lover of the weird, the ancient, the difficult to find. I
believe that my pestering was directly responsible for New Seasons
selling citrons this year (I have asked about them every single winter
for the past 6 years). So for some time now, I have been harboring a
yen for cardoons. Yes, cardoons, the ancestor of today's artichoke,
and also a favorite vegetable of my favorite chef in all the world
(Clarissa Dickson Wright of Two Fat Ladies fame, who labored so
industriously to raise the popularity of the cardoon in Britain that
she was known as "the cardoon lady"). But I have been thwarted at
every turn! Never have I found anyone actually selling cardoons! Oh,
I've heard rumors, but they never seemed to pan out.

Until yesterday.

A booth at the farmers market had them, great big scary stalks with
little tiny artichoke-like flowers on them. Not quite what I was
expecting, but when I get it into my head to eat something there is
very little that can stop me. Maybe that's not such a good thing.

Here are some things that I have learned since this fateful moment at
the market: 1) If the person working at the booth says "Well, mostly
people buy them for decoration" when you ask them if the proffered
item is edible, that is a bad sign; 2) If an item is exuding a sap so
bitter that when you inadvertently get a tiny bit on your lips you
spend the next 15 minutes frantically trying to clean it off, that is
a bad sign; and 3) If all of the pictures you have ever seen of the
food you want to eat look nothing like the food you have in your hand,
that is a bad sign. But I have also learned that if you are really
committed to eating something in the face of all of the preceding and
the very good advice of your significant other, lessons learned from
historical cooking will come to your aid, and often the results are
worth the struggle.

I spent a long time on the internet reading all about cardoons, and
the everything I found stated that they are actually a winter
vegetable, and that they are best to eat after they have been blanched
by being kept out of the sun for some time. Otherwise, they are
horrifically bitter. Whoops. But then I wondered, did the ancient
Romans do this to their cardoons? And how could the first person to
eat a cardoon have done so? So I decided to try my big scary cardoon
anyway.

When I brought it home yesterday, I cut it into pieces and soaked them
in acidulated water while I figured out what to do with the thing.
Today I broke the stem up further, removed all of the leaves, and
carefully peeled all of the tough fibers away from the tender core.
The food to waste ratio put even fresh fava beans to shame! One thing
that I have learned from reading medieval recipes is great technique
for removing bitterness from greens: parboiling. So I put my tiny
cardoon bits into boiling salted water, cooked them for ten minutes,
drained them and tasted them: hey, they're actually pretty good! There
was still a little bit of bitterness, so I boiled them in new water
for a few more minutes, then drained them. Apicius says that boiled
cardoons should be served with "pepper, cumin, broth, and oil"
(http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/3*.html),
so I dressed mine with olive oil, pepper, and a little flake salt.

And you know what? They turned out pretty dang good. They taste much
of artichokes, and sweet more than bitter. I don't know if I would do
this again, but it was a fun adventure.

Orange Marmalade Rolls

Image by devildollmail
Good, but I stuffed them too full. I neglected to take a picture after I iced them, dammit.

Delicious, though.

The Maximus

Image by Chris Blakeley
Maximus pork sandwich with Minimus slaw (honey mustard vinaigrette with cabbage, radish and cranberries) and a side of their chips (potato, beet, carrot, string bean and jalapeno).

I'm really not one for posting pictures of every meal I eat, but I'm making an exception for exceptional food, especially from a place that I can't go to regularly.

Seattle's enjoying a sudden growth in really good street food that, unfortunately for my schedule, is typically only available during the lunch hour. But with a couple days off to myself, well... I guess I'll have some fun and some nibbles along the way.

This dish? Divine!