Eats 1.4

shake and bake

NOTE: I wrote most of this before news of the the latest tragedy in Minnesota began to saturate our national consciousness. If you are not in the mood for light blather, just stop reading after the soda bread. But maybe then go make some and . . . god i don’t even know, vote? yell? cry? check in on your neighbors? be nice to someone.

---

NOTE 2: editing to say that I’m mad at Substack’s editing of the cover photo for this newsletter because it cut off the best part of Roz Chast’s cartoon which is the caption, so please see footnotes below for the full brilliance.¹

---

Comfort baking sounds all cozy and big sweaters and crackling fires but for me it more about the emotional comfort provided by the process rather than the hygge. So when things get shaky, bring on the brown soda bread. I like to make it in the morning, and there is a particular smell to the baking whole wheat flour² that is a relief. Brown soda bread isn’t hard, but it benefits from a light touch, the lighter the better (hmm, life lessons much?). Also you have to be willing to get your hands dirty (ope, another life lesson!), because in the Ballymaloe way you rub a bit of butter into the flours, soda, and salt, and then you pour in a generous measure of buttermilk and mix it all together with your in a kind of claw shape. It’s wet and messy! Then you dump it out, WASH AND DRY YOUR HANDS, shape it, let the fairies out, and bake. Work it too much and it is tough. Too much liquid and it might be a bit dense. And god knows what happens if you don’t let the fairies out.

you thought I was making it up about the fairies

But none of that really matters as the warm and toasty smell fills your quiet house and soothes your soul. You can make it in a loaf and cut slices for butter or jam or cheese or smoked fish or you can make it in scone-like shapes and do the same. It doesn’t last that long but you can revive it by toasting. Today’s scone-shapes were maybe a bit too patted but lord was that a satisfying lunch.

Elmendorf, source of the good flour, is a regular on my provisioning tour as longtime readers know but I’ve been developing a new Saturday routine that goes along Highland Ave in Somerville before heading to East Cambridge for the Elmendorf/New Deal hotspot. Not only is my adored Highland Butcher up there but it is right next to the Somerville Winter Farmers Market in the Armory, and talk about a hotspot that joint is JUMPING.

First, there are dozens of vendors, way more than I see at most of the FMs I haunt in the summer. Lots of farms unknown to me, many organic, which is really nice. Butchers, bakers, and probably a candlestick maker or two upstairs where the crafty people are. Mushroom men, fish people, smoked fish people, cheese girls, ferments and pickles people and of course the veg, so many root veg you have never seen more turnips under one roof in your life. Somehow a number of vendors have some good leafy greens and even salad greens and everyone has mountains of cabbage. You can put together a very good meal here.

But prepare for chaos - it’s packed! Outside, the Communist Party of America has an info table set up and a young person asks if I’m angry about capitalism and looks annoyed that I don’t stop to engage. There’s a coffeehouse going on in the cafe just inside the entrance with small children jumping up and down, apparently adorably, while some guy plays a harmonica maybe? and in the main hall some Peter Paul and Mary lookalikes sing Angel from Montgomery quite well. Another day it is a guy singing a weirdly acoustic version of Fly Me To The Moon, less successfully, but hey that’s community! This morning, a hapless welcome person tries to direct incomers to go upstairs first and then down the back stairs to control the crowd but everyone just ignores him and surges in. This is a classic slice-of-lib-Mass crowd: sensible old winter clothing, shopping tow-carts clogging the passages, gray haired couples earnestly purchasing bags of greens and wintered-over apples, small ageless Asian women with ginormous bags of roots, attractive hip people on coffee and pastry dates, young parents talking loudly to the children on their shoulders, so we all know how advanced the child is THAT IS BABY BOK CHOI JUNIPER DO YOU WANT TO TRY THE BABY BOK CHOI JUNIPER WE HAVE TO WAIT IN LINE JUNIPER as Juniper rains crumbs from her mangled muffin down on the crowd. More than one person has BO, beanies rule, and the vendors are either wizened old farmer-types who’ve seen it all or dreadlocked young farmer-types looking to change the world one rutabaga at a time.³

I think I hate these scenes but I actually love them and warm right up when the woman behind me in line comments approvingly on my balletic reach for lacinato kale and the guy next to me checking out with his credit card but his hands full tells the vendor that “the number is ONE FIVE THREE TWO SIX but it’s a secret.” Not anymore, I tell him and we all laugh.

And so a very nice meal of pork braised in milk and some swiss chard is hatched to combat the coming snowpocalypse.

I’ve made Marcella’s pork in milk any number of times but am trying an Alison Roman version this time because I enjoyed reading her take on it in the new Gourmet reboot. Yes you read that correctly - Conde Nast didn’t renew their trademark on the iconic food mag’s name, and some youngsters have used it to start an newsletter that’s a little cheeky and a lot socialist⁴ and so far quite enjoyable. They are interested in stories about authentic food, the people who make authentic food, and project cooking - down with one-pot/sheetpan/five-minute-mains, in with four-hour braises! Viva la revolución! I’m on board and I hope you subscribe too.

I am very delighted to report that the sourdough reboot is also making a statement. After discovering the uber-nerd Sourdough Journey and digging through the absolute mountain of information on that site, I realized that my starter was too acidic, and that maintaining the volume I was keeping was not doing me any favors. Nor was my strict fridge-proofing (at least in these temps) letting the yeasty boys get anything going on. Now there is a streamlined jar in the fridge, a bucket of dough on the counter overnight, and hel-LO BABY PEEP THESE BEAUTIES.

The takeaway here is that it turns out I didn’t learn everything at Ballymaloe, there is more than one way to skin a cat, as Izzy teaches us⁵, and we can always learn a new trick or two. The SJ is a great resource, don’t be intimated by the volume of info, the FAQ will do you a solid if you are struggling.

When Izzy goes back to school (this year, stuffed full of tartiflette⁶ which is a most wondrous concoction of potatoes, bacon, onions, cream, and a good fragrant cheese and just about perfection after a wintery day), our weekly menu looks something like this:

Mon: piteous poached chicken

Tues: sad sausages

Wed: sorrowful soup

Thurs: morose meatloaf

- eaten in gray near-silence with just the two of us at the table under a weak light bulb and Newton nearby looking confused but ever-vigilant for treats. Cue a Chopin nocturne for max pity-party vibes.

OK not really. There were actually some incredibly fragrant lamb shanks with a very 1990s treatment of chianti and balsamic from Chris Schlesinger, and an absolutely delicious ham and bean soup based on this recipe but made never-again-to-be-repeated by using the goose braising liquid from Christmas.⁷ Nancy Harmon Jenkins provided a Paulie Walnuts spaghetti (not actually called that but it is more fun to say than spaghetti with walnuts), crock-potted black-eyed peas and pork and collards (so healthy!), a cabbage and sausage and cream and mozza bake from The Silver Spoon, a kung pao shrimp to break in the new wok that nearly incinerated my lungs when the chilies and szechuan peppercorns hit the pan sent up clouds of nearly toxic spice-fumes, and an embarrassingly obvious creamed spinach with eggs that hit the ol’ spot-erooni.

honestly it wasn't all this yellow and brown

We’ve continued to fight the good fight with the cookies and chocos from Christmas, but have just about broken through so stay tuned for the return of dessert.

Bonus dog ate a pistachio and then felt shame.

Next up: that pork!

1

2. Red Fife, from Gianforte Farm in Cazenovia New York acquired through Elmendorf of course.

3. The only license I took with this description was the name Juniper but apparently that is a VERY popular name for children these days according to Kuma’s owner’s sister-in-law’s lactation consultant. Kuma is a dog at our local dog park, and this is how conversations there go.

4. Apparently there are five owners all sharing the work and contributors are the paid and it is all very power to the people. Ruth Reichl approves!

5. an Izzy original ↑

6. tartiflette 😋

7. Have I ever mentioned never-again-to-be-repeated? That’s a my-mom-ism, from when she’d make something incredibly delicious out of a random combination of things from the fridge, the combination of which may never appear again.