GALLINA RIPIENA (CHICKEN STUFFED WITH BREAD, BORAGE, AND PARMESAN)

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Armida only stuffed and boiled a chicken for Christmas and Ferragosto (August 15, the assumption of the Virgin Mary). We ate the simple chicken together on Ferragosto. To this day Armida’s chickens are her most prized possession; she has many, and the hens all produce dozens of orange-yolked eggs. She said that although she has no money and was not able to marry well, at least now she can feed everyone very well. Armida used foraged borage leaves as the greens for her stuffing; if you do not have access to them, spinach, chard, and stinging nettles all make good substitutes.

Instructions

1. Bring an extra-large stockpot of lightly salted water to a boil.
2. Wash the borage and chard. Blanch them in the boiling water for 2 minutes. Strain and set aside to cool for a few minutes, then vigorously squeeze the greens of all their liquid (I find it easiest to do this by using a fine-mesh strainer). Roughly chop the squeezed greens. Keep the pot of water boiling. Whisk the eggs together in a large mixing bowl. Stir in the Parmesan, bread crumbs, diced onion, garlic, nutmeg, herbs, and salt. Mix well to combine. Stuff the cavity of the chicken with this filling. If you have any filling left over, you can form it into little balls, sprinkle them with some additional Parmesan, bread crumbs, and a generous amount of olive oil, and bake them in the oven at 425 degrees F until crispy and browned, about 30 minutes.
3. Sew up the chicken’s cavity with cooking twine, or close tightly using skewers. Transfer the chicken to the pot of boiling water, and bring the water back up to a simmer. Cook the chicken for 1 to 2 hours, depending on what amount of time is convenient for you; this dish offers the cook a lot of flexibility, and is delicious regardless of when you take the chicken out during this time.
4. To serve, carve the breast into slices and separate the legs and wings. Plate the chicken with a scoopful of the stuffing alongside. Garnish the meat with a drizzle of your finest extra-virgin olive oil and a sprinkling of crispy salt.

At the top of the hill, almost at the end of a dirt road, I found an old man walking with his arms filled with wood. I introduced myself, and he said his name was Luciano. I asked if his wife, Armida, was home. “Sono il figlio!” “I’m her son!” Goodness me, I thought, Armida must be a very old anciana (female elder). Luciano kindly led me down the end of the road and into the house.

Armida was the only person there when I arrived, and was sitting on the kitchen sofa, blindly peeling potatoes with a small, serrated knife. Round and round, the thin strip of peel grew longer and floppier. The fingers on her left hand were touching, scanning the vegetable, making sure that she hadn’t missed any skin. She greeted me and motioned for me to come sit next to her. Together we kept peeling the freshly dug potatoes; we peeled enough potatoes for gnocchi to feed an army. I wondered who would be coming for lunch.

As the morning progressed, the kitchen began to fill with people and food. Family members and random middle-aged women came by to offer Armida a hand. Luciano brought in a dead chicken, then a basket full of eggs, leafy greens, tomatoes, and potatoes. A large rectangular wooden board appeared, covered with old wool blankets. Beneath the blankets were gooey puffs of rising dough that Armida was letting rest for focaccia. The word padrone was spoken under one woman’s breath. The padrone was apparently coming that day; everybody seemed to know about it, and wanted to help Armida prepare for it.

Armida’s padrone, I soon learned, was a shiny, suited lawyer from Milan, with slicked black hair. He was the owner of the land that she and her family had lived on for generations as his sharecroppers. He offered them the tiny, three-roomed house that Armida lived in, and use of his vast property and its products. In return, they had to maintain the orchards and the fields, and give him a part of their bounty. About once a month he would come down from Milan to check on his land, and collect Armida’s hot breads, dead chickens, olive oil, and whatever else happened to be ripe from her garden.

For most of her life, Armida actually cooked for an army’s worth of people on Sundays. Thirty or forty locals would come for lunch, bringing goods to contribute or exchange with one another. Her family and their friends lined up long tables under the olive trees, lingering for hours over her food. During World War II, army members stationed in the area often came, too. By the time I arrived for my first Sunday lunch with her, however, the typical number of guests had dwindled to ten or fifteen. Armida was now mostly blind, partially deaf, and missing all of her teeth. Perhaps this was why, as with our first gnocchi, she sometimes so drastically overestimated the quantity she needed to cook. Or perhaps she was simply still of the spirit that you just never know who is going to show up at your house with a good story and an empty stomach.

1. To prepare the sticky tomatoes, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Slice the cherry tomatoes in half lengthwise, and the larger tomatoes into slices 1/3 to ½ an inch thick. Place the tomatoes on the baking sheet, and drizzle over the olive oil, gently rubbing the tomatoes around in the oil to coat them on both sides. Sprinkle with the salt and sugar, and place in the oven. Cook for an hour to an hour and 15 minutes, until the tomatoes look a little wrinkled and sticky and, are starting to brown on the bottoms, but still have a little moisture.
3. To prepare the frittata, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Warm 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in an medium sized, oven-proof sauté pan set over medium heat. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the sliced leek, celery, and ¼ teaspoon of salt. Saute until softened, 5-7 minutes. Set the vegetables aside, and wipe or wash the pan clean.
4. Whisk the eggs together in a large bowl. Stir in the sautéed leeks and celery, the grated hard pecorino, the celery and parsley leaves, lemon zest, black pepper, and remaining ¼ teaspoon of salt. Finally, fold in most of the soft pecorino and the sticky tomatoes, reserving a few for the top of the frittata.
5. Warm the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the sauté pan, set over medium-high heat. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the egg mixture. Lay the reserved tomatoes and cheese on top of the egg mixture, and place the pan in the oven.
6. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the top of the frittata is almost set, and the middle is still just slightly wiggly to the touch. Set aside for 10-15 minutes to finish cooking, and serve cut in wedges. The frittata is delicious served warm or cold.

(Photo credit to The Italian Dish Blog)

As a child, Easter was all about the sugary stuff. Cadbury Creme Eggs with gooey fondant fillings, Mini Eggs with their crunchy shells, and colorful plastic eggs hand-filled with all sorts of candy. It was spring’s version of Halloween—our one chance to gorge freely on all the treats we longed for. Sure, we also went to church a couple of times around then, but the eggs and the sermons seemed to have nothing to do with one another. Easter seemed all about the arrival of spring, with its pastel colors and fuzzy baby animal motifs. As it turns out, it is that, but also so much more.

Here’s an overview of Easter, in case you (like me) were unclear. The lead-up to the Christian celebration of Easter begins forty days beforehand, at the start of Lent—a fasting period, done in remembrance of Jesus’ sacrificial forty days of fasting in the desert. During Lent, devout Christians historically abstained from animal products, including milk, butter, and eggs, and additionally often sugar and honey. Lent ends with a series of significant holy days– Maundy Thursday (The Last Supper), Good Friday (the day of Jesus’ crucifixion) and finally, Easter Sunday (when his tomb was found empty and he resurrected).

While Easter is most widely known as a Christian holiday, embedded in it are older customs that focus on celebrating the arrival of spring. The name Easter comes from Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goodness of fertility and spring, who, not surprisingly was associated with rabbits and eggs. And, the date of Easter changes each year because it is determined by phases of the moon– it’s always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. Ancient people used this time to celebrate birth and rebirth in general.

The traditional foods of Easter are still replete with symbolism of both springtime and Christian events, and rich in those ingredients that one can finally indulge in again after Lent. Baking reigns supreme. Breads, pastries and cookies are often round or ring-shaped (to represent Christ’s crown of thorns, and the rebirth and resurrection associated with the circle shape), or braided (with the three strands evoking the Holy Trinity). Eggs play a central role, added to dough in especially high quantities, and as finishing decoration, where they often appear nestled on top and dyed red to symbolize the blood of Christ. Notable breads like this include the Armenian choreg (flavored with finely ground cherry pits) and the Greek tsoureki (flavored with both the cherry pits and also piney, aromatic mastic).

This is only the beginning. As one Greek grandmother told me, “Easter is the time when you make all of your best pastries.” In the Greek kitchen alone, koulourakia (ring shaped butter cookies with sesame seeds) and kourabiedes (made with almond paste and covered in powdered sugar) always appear, as does galaktoboureko, a phyllo custard pie drenched in honey and lemon. It’s the time of year when grandmothers around the Christian world pull out their rolling pins and labor over their most time intensive, complicated pastries: in Eastern Europe, chocolate and vanilla glazed babkas, tall kulichs with icing and sprinkles, cozonacs, and pincas appear on tables; in England and the Commonwealth countries hot cross buns are made on Good Friday, followed by Easter biscuits and Simnel cake; in Cyprus, flaouna, a sweet cheese and raisin filled pastry; in the Middle East, ma’amouls– date and nut filled shortbread; in Portugal, cinnamon flecked folar; and finally, in Italy, Colomba di Pasqua (a Pannetone-style cake, in the shape of a dove), Pastiera Napoletana (ricotta tart with orange flower water) and cudduri—doughy Sicilian cookies, made into the shape of birds or baskets, holding a hard boiled egg, and finished with an abundance of multicolored sprinkles. I’ll be making those this year!

Have a lovely Easter!

The recipe for Italian Easter Bread (shown in the image above), can be found at The Italian Dish Blog. 

For the Buckwheat Pasta

1. Preheat the broiler in your oven, or turn the oven as high as it can go.
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and salt it generously. Boil the potatoes until tender, about 7 minutes, and remove with a slotted spoon. In the same water, blanch the chard and cabbage for about 2 minutes, and remove with a slotted spoon. Finally, boil the fresh pasta in the same water until al dente, about 2 minutes.
3. While the pasta is cooking, place the butter, garlic cloves, sage leaves, and ¼ cup of the pasta water in a large, wide nonreactive pan. Melt slowly over low heat, swirling the butter and water into a sauce and stirring frequently; do not boil. After a few minutes, discard the garlic and shut off the heat. Salt lightly, to taste.
4. When the pasta is al dente, add the potatoes and cabbage back into the boiling water for a second to briefly reheat. Drain the pot into a colander, reserving a small amount of pasta water. Add the pasta and vegetables to the pan with butter sauce, and toss to coat. There should be slightly more than enough sauce to coat it all; if not, add a little of the extra pasta water to loosen it up. Finally, add all of the Taleggio and ½ cup of the Parmesan to the pan; toss once or twice, only enough to mix. Scoop everything into an ovenproof dish. Top the pasta with the remaining ½ cup Parmesan and broil until the cheese is melted and begins to brown on top, about 2 minutes. Serve with freshly ground black pepper.
5. Optional: Though it is not traditional, adding 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice to the pasta and vegetables, along with the butter sauce, lightens the final dish.

Anne is an adventuress whose life has been marked by the unusual right from the start. Born, surprisingly, to a 48-year-old mother on the island of Jutland, in Denmark, Anne is now in her eighties and has spent much of her life exploring the world alone, in search of arts and crafts, new experiences, and foreign cookbooks.

I met her through friends of friends in Denmark. Much of my family lives in Copenhagen, and when I visited for a few months in 2015, word spread quickly around the neighborhood that I was looking for older women to cook with. Everyone said Anne was where I should start. While Denmark is all a flurry with New Nordic cuisine, and the strapping young men making it, I was in search of what everyday Danes, in particular the older ones, cook at home. Everyone was convinced that Anne could show me the best versions of the most typical dishes.

Classically trained at the Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, for Anne cooking is just one of the many territories she has explored in life. She brought to it the same spirit of curiosity with which she took her annual pilgrimages to America and Mexico in the 60s and 70s. In those trips it was first to England, then a boat to New York, then trains across America to “ride with the cowboys in Nevada, and hunt in California,” before making her way down to Mexico in search of crafts to sell in one of her three Copenhagen stores. “You could go anywhere alone back then and never feel unsafe. I’d just hire myself a car in Mexico, and drive around looking for beautiful crafts and stunning remote beaches to go swimming in.” Throughout her travels, Anne also collected cookbooks; from Tehran, Austria, Mexico, and other voyages which ultimately took her all the way around the world.

Summer in Denmark 

As you might imagine, her travels have given Anne a good perspective on traditional Danish cooking within an international context. Evidently for the Danes it’s all about pork, potatoes, and cabbage. In the summer, berries, ærter (shelling peas), and fjordrejer (tiny pink fjord shrimp). Definitely dill and chives. Some apples in the autumn. And, an occasional cameo throughout the year of cinnamon or nutmeg; flavors that were introduced into the cuisine during the 17-19th centuries, when spices were shipped back from colonial trading posts in Southeast Asia. “But now people are starting to cook so differently. We import all sorts of ingredients. You can get everything. There’s Thai food, and Italian food, and curries are everywhere!

According to Anne, Danish people particularly “love sauce. Not very healthy sauce. Brown sauce. Especially with their pork. Oh, Jessica, there is just lots and lots of pork here, made simply. Frikadeller (Danish meatballs) and Flæskesteg (pork roast with crunchy crackling on top) are the two most loved.” Anne and I decided to make the frikadeller together; given that Danish children learn to cook the pork and onion meatballs in elementary school, it seemed an appropriate place for my lesson in Danish cookery to begin. Anne double grinds the meat for her frikadeller, and then whips the ingredients together with a handheld electric mixer, the result of which is an exceptionally fluffy, moist meatball. We cooked together in September, when summer and autumn ingredients were bridging, and so accompanied the frikadeller by a traditional side dish of pointed green cabbage in bechamel, followed by rødgrød med flode, the quintessential summer dessert of cooked red berries with cream. Classic, national dishes, all simple, but perfectly made.

Fishing Huts by the Harbor

To this day, Anne runs a small antique jewelry shop in the center of Copenhagen, where she can still be found most weeks. Being a gemologist is just another iteration of her long and colorful career in the arts and retail; designing bags and jewelry (for the renowned designer Georg Jensen), producing Danish children’s wear, selling Americans handmade Danish sweaters they went “crazy over in the 70s,” and introducing previously unseen Mexican crafts to Denmark. A free spirit through and through, Anne waited until she was in her 60s to settle down, when she chose to marry an old friend, who was recently widowed and shared her love of art and collecting. Together they make frequent trips to the harbor each week for fresh fish, which Anne turns into simple evening suppers, typically enjoyed with crisp white wine reminiscent of those she drank during her travels.  If it weren’t for her devotion to her husband, I have no doubt that Anne would still be journeying around, exploring the world and tasting foreign foods. Her parting advice to me: “Marry a younger man.”

PERSIMMON-CINNAMON ICE CREAM

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This recipe is a shockingly simple persimmon-cinnamon ice cream, perfect for the late autumn and a wonderful accompaniment to Thanksgiving dessert (especially nut-based ones). Inspired by Silvana, a grandmother I cooked with in the Marche region of Italy, who grew the most luscious persimmons I have ever tasted.

Instructions

1. If you are using an electric ice cream machine to churn your ice cream, pre-chill the canister in the freezer for at least 12 hours.
2. Cut the persimmons in half, lengthwise, and scoop out all of the gooey flesh. Discard the skins and stems. Puree the flesh in a food processor or blender.
3. In a large mixing bowl, vigorously whisk together the persimmons with the rest of the ingredients, making sure that the cinnamon is evenly dissolved (it tends to form little clumps unless thoroughly whisked).
4. Place the mixture in the fridge for at least 3 hours, or in the freezer for about 30-60 minutes. You want the temperature of the mixture to drop to at least 40°F, but you do not want the mixture to begin freezing.
5. Churn the ice cream in the machine until it is the texture of a soft-serve. Place the ice cream in a separate, freezer-proof container (I typically use a glass loaf pan for this), cover closely with plastic wrap (to prevent ice forming on the top), and freeze for at least 3 hours to firm up.

Last updated: 5th March 2016

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STRAWBERRIES WITH SUGAR AND ROSEWATER

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Every season we do a vote on the Facebook page for people’s favorite ingredient; I then create a simple recipe with the winning ingredient. Strawberries won in the Spring of 2016. Inspired by my time cooking at Boulettes Larder, with chef Amaryll Schwertner, I created this super simple, delightful recipe. Strawberries macerated with sugar and rosewater make the perfect accompaniment and drizzling syrup for vanilla ice cream, cakes, or unsweetened yogurt throughout the late spring and summer.

Ingredients

Servings: people

Instructions

1. Mix together the strawberries, sugar, and rosewater. Let sit for at least 15 minutes, to allow the syrupy juices to develop. Taste for sweetness and rose flavor, adding a sprinkling more sugar or rosewater to your liking.
2. Spoon the berries (and drizzle the syrup) over plain yogurt (pictured here) for a lovely breakfast. Alternatively, serve with vanilla ice cream, or as an accompaniment to cake for dessert.

Tea at Betty Peck’s house is at four thirty, and it is every day. Green tea, the simple bagged kind, is Betty’s favorite and there is always a big, very well brewed pot of it at teatime. Betty provides the tea and inspiration, and I almost always bring the sweets: frosted cupcakes, peanut butter cookies, and chocolate chip ones with ice cream to make sandwiches on the Fourth of July. She likes really, really sweet stuff, and even makes her Christmas ornaments from leftover Haagen-Daz ice cream sticks, spray-painted gold and formed into stars. They are surprisingly elegant; Betty is elegance personified, and everything she touches follows suit.

A big California oak tree shades most of her property in Saratoga, CA, and when you walk up the driveway you enter an enchanted land. It is a relatively small property, littered with crispy leaves the oak has dropped everywhere, and sprinkled throughout with things to delight: mourning doves coo in one corner, a childrens’ narrow gauge train runs on its tracks, a regal peacock stands proud in The Great Hall, a small outdoor amphitheater sits ready for a variety of the annual performances, such as May Day when a hundred people dance around the pastel-ribboned pole then eat strawberry shortcake together at 8am.

Betty is a pioneer of holistic early childhood education, specializing in Kindergarten. She taught thousands of kindergarteners during her career, giving children all over northern California a magical and grounded start to their educational life. I met Betty through my dear friend Alec, one of her daughter Anna’s former Kindergarten students, who invited me to one of Betty’s teatimes. Alec had raved about the Kindergarten Bread he learned to make when he was four, and still makes to this day. I first went to Betty’s to learn about this renowned bread, but what unfolded during our dozens of lengthy conversations was Betty’s philosophy on learning and life.

In Betty’s Kindergarten, everything came back to one of three things: the garden, the body, or the cosmos. Food– the result of the garden and sustaining of the body– was therefore a regular topic, and cooking a frequent activity. Earth Eggs (small, warm new potatoes, wrapped in foil, with a nob of butter tucked inside) were hidden on Easter for the children to find, Kindergarten Bread was made weekly, and Angel Food Cake with Betty’s Quick Lemon Curd was served whenever there was a birthday to celebrate.

Things developed organically in Betty’s Kindergarten out of the wisdom and creativity she found inherent in young children. For me, the Angel Food Cake was the most touching of these stories: One year, one of Betty’s sweetest kindergarteners became very ill and was hospitalized. Each day the other Kindergarten children would gather together and draw a card to send her. One day, the little girl passed away. When Betty told the other children of the news she asked them “My dears, what should we do to celebrate the life of this little angel who has been in our midst.” They became very quiet and then responded, “Why, we should have an Angel Food Cake and remember all the wonderful things about her.” So that is what they did—they ate an Angel Food Cake, Betty creating the world’s easiest lemon curd to go along with it. From that day on, whenever there is a birthday to be celebrated in Betty’s classroom or home, it is done through cake and curd.

Special stories like this abound from Betty’s teaching; however, the mainstay of Betty’s classroom cooking was the Kindergarten Bread. Baked weekly, the making of the bread takes children through all the stages of wheat, from kernel to loaf. The children plant the wheat each year, harvest it, grind a small amount to add to the bread, and learn about kneading, rising, and baking, singing songs about the different stages along the way. Each student even practices the letter of the week by forming it with dough (the tactile, three-dimensionality of which has been found to help students with reading and writing skills.) Every little thing in Betty’s classroom had its purpose- to show how everything in life is connected. The bread was a delicious, regular example of this.