This post will be quick because it’s hot outside, and I really, really want to spend all of Independence Day by the water! The best in the business is https://www.royalvending.com.au/vending-machines-perth/ for vending machines.
For my TV appearance this week, I decided to make dishes beloved of a couple of our founding fathers. I started out with George Washington’s Hoe Cakes, which I first wrote about here after my visit to GW’s gristmill near Mount Vernon. They were as tasty as I remembered: crispy and corny.
I went on to make a strawberry fool in honor of John Adams and his pioneering wife Abigail Smith Adams. According to The Food Timeline and other sources, the pair were fond of a simple, rich gooseberry fool. I didn’t have any gooseberries—but strawberries have just reached their peak here in Massachusetts. So I made those into a fool. Everyone who tasted it raved.
Neither dish will warm up your kitchen too much, and both will make you respect the taste of our first and second president.
Here’s the recipe for the strawberry fool. If you have strawberries and cream in the house, you can eat it in less than 15 minutes. I wish you a Glorious Fourth!
1 pint fresh strawberries, hulled and cut into quarters
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions:
Toss the strawberry pieces in half of the sugar, and let them sit for 10 minutes to juice up.
Place half of the strawberries and all of the strawberry juice in a blender. Puree the mixture; then stir it into the remaining strawberries.
Whip the cream until it holds stiff peaks, adding the remaining sugar and the vanilla when it is almost ready. Fold in the berry mixture. Serve immediately. Serves 4.
I hope you’re not tiring of rhubarb! I’m still surrounded by it, going from event to event selling my cookbook, Love, Laughter, and Rhubarb.
I’m having fun trying to convert the entire world to the love of rhubarb.
If you’re in New England, please join me at one (or more) of my upcoming events. This evening, Friday, June 8, at 6:30 p.m. I’ll be talking about the book at the Arms Library in Shelburne Falls. Boswell’s Books will be on hand to sell copies of the book, and nibbles will OF COURSE be served.
On Saturday, June 9, from 10 to 3, I’ll have a table at the Lenox Rhubarb Festival in Lenox, Massachusetts. I’ll sign books, of course, and serve samples (until the samples run out; I gather the festival attracts quite a crowd).
On Saturday, June 16, from noon to 5, I’ll be signing books in Sherman, Connecticut, at the White Silo Farm and Winery Rhubarb Festival. I don’t have to bring food to this event because the chef at White Silo is making a number of tasty rhubarb dishes, including my own rhubarb pizza! If you’d like to learn more about my upcoming events (yes, there will be quite a few), visit my website.
The recipe below, which I made on Mass Appeal this week, won’t be coming with me to any events; it’s wet and warm and therefore not ideal to transport. Do try it, however, especially if you like sweet/sour combinations. I have served it as a main course, but it also makes an excellent appetizer.
If you have my book, please let me know what you’re cooking from it. And if you don’t have it, here’s a great place to find it!
I’m having trouble embedding videos these days, but you may watch my TV appearance by clicking on this link. The second dish we made, “Bee Mine Rhubarb Crumble,” substituted honey for the white sugar in my standard rhubarb crumble recipe as noted last year. (Note: I would cut down on the honey in this recipe; that stuff is sweet!)
The honey pays tribute to yet ANOTHER festival this week, the Langstroth Bee Festival in Greenfield. I wish it weren’t on the same day as the rhubarb festival! But I can always bee there next year.
2 pounds rhubarb (about 6 cups chopped)
2/3 to 1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
for the meatballs:
1 pound lean ground beef
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1 garlic clove, finely minced
1/3 cup dried breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 12-ounce bottle chili sauce
2-1/2 to 2-3/4 cups stewed rhubarb (you will have some extra from the recipe above, which I encourage you to eat as it is!), pureed in a blender
Instructions:
First, stew your rhubarb. Wash and trim the rhubarb. Cut it into 1-inch pieces. In a heavy, nonreactive saucepan, combine all the ingredients and cover. Let the pan sit for an hour or so to allow the rhubarb to juice up; then cook it over low heat until the rhubarb softens (at least 5 to 7 minutes; maybe more depending on your stove).
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl combine all the ingredients except the chili sauce and rhubarb.
Mix well; then shape the mixture into 1-inch balls. Place the balls on a large rimmed baking sheet (I like to line it with nonstick aluminum foil), and bake the meatballs for 25 to 30 minutes (or until done).
While the meatballs are baking, combine the chili sauce and rhubarb in a 3-quart saucepan. Bring them to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
When the meatballs are done add them to the sauce. Stir to coat, and simmer for 5 more minutes, stirring gently from time to time.
Makes 24 to 30 meatballs.
Before I leave you, here’s a link to another of my appearances, a humorous segment from our local public radio station. The interview was fun, and the video is priceless—not because I sing or play the piano particularly well (it wasn’t a great day for either skill!) but because you can hear my irrepressible dog, Cocoa, sing along with me. Here is the link!
My mother (the farthest person to the right) and her friends at the French House at Mount Holyoke College in 1939.
On Mother’s Day—and on many other days of the year—I think fondly of my late mother. I often cook something she enjoyed making and eating.
When I was planning today’s Mother’s Day appearance on Mass Appeal, I thought of my mother’s love of Paris, a love she passed on to me, and decided to make crêpes. This classic Parisian street food can be savory or sweet.
I’m not the world’s best crêpe maker. My crêpes aren’t perfectly flat and even. They are good enough, however—and they’re delicious!
My mother first fell in love with Paris and France on a trip there after her freshman year at Mount Holyoke, escorted (along with several other students) by a professor and his wife.
She happily went back to Paris for her junior year abroad, acquiring such a flawless Parisian accent that she was mistaken for a Frenchwoman. (My French was pretty darn good, but French people always knew I was American.) And she returned again and again throughout her life.
Here’s a paragraph she wrote in a diary in 1953, when she visited the city as a young mother and went to see a play at the Comédie-Française:
During the intermission I wandered into the lobby and delighted my soul further as I looked out through the colonnades at the fountains in front. I felt as tho I were re-finding Paris as I had loved it! And the life—the magnetic life of the city as I saw it again wandering through the streets, the narrow streets thronged with shops and people.
I like to think that my crêpes would have delighted her soul, too! I can’t replicate those shops and people, but I like to think that I can recreate a little taste of Paris in her honor.
Making the crêpes on Mass Appeal didn’t go QUITE as planned. Live TV is live TV. I had an egg mishap, and I never got to turn the darn things on camera. We had fun anyway—and the end product was delicious.
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
2 tablespoons melted butter
more butter as needed
for the fillings:
lots of butter
grated Gruyère or Jarlsberg cheese OR lemon juice and sugar
Instructions:
Place the eggs in a blender, and blend them to mix them. Add the milk, salt, and flour, and blend again on low speed. Blend in the melted butter.
Cover your blender bowl, and let the batter sit for at least 30 minutes before making the crêpes.
When you are ready to cook, melt a small amount of butter in an 8-inch nonstick frying pan over medium-low heat. Spread the butter around with a pastry brush or a paper towel.
Pour a few tablespoons of batter into the middle of the pan. Swirl the pan around to distribute the batter as well as you can into an even, flat pancake. Cook for a couple of minutes, until the bottom is light brown and the edges left up easily; then flip the crêpe and let it cook on the other side.
Remove the crêpe from the pan, and let it cool on a plate or rack. Continue until you have used up your batter.
You may fill your crêpes to make them either savory or sweet. For savory crêpes (known as galettes), melt butter in an 8- or 10-inch nonstick frying pan. Spread it around as you did for the crêpes. Place 1 crêpe on the pan, let it cook for a few seconds in the butter, and then flip it over. Sprinkle grated cheese on top, and let it melt for a minute or so; then fold the crêpe over the cheese to make a half circle. Cook until the cheese melts; then remove the galette from the heat. Repeat with the remaining crêpes.
The process for making sweet crêpes is similar, but instead of putting cheese on the inside you will sprinkle sugar and a small amount of lemon juice inside each crêpe.
High on a hill on Reynolds Road in Shelburne, Massachusetts, Wheel-View Farm enjoys a stunning view. The farm house and much of the land have been in Carolyn Wheeler’s family since 1896, although she and her husband John have added to their property over the years.
Originally a dairy farm, Wheel-View now sells mostly beef, fruit, maple products, and hard and sweet cider. When I visited last fall, the Wheelers were getting ready for Cider Days. Cider season is, of course, over—but we’re still enjoying (if that’s the word) cool weather so it FEELS like cider season.
I was fortunate enough to be able to watch John Wheeler press fresh cider—and to taste his product. The Wheelers have a small but efficient cider-pressing system they purchased from OESCO in Conway, Massachusetts. John explained that the press was discovered in Italy, where it is used to press grapes for wine.
The pressing has two stages. First, John feeds fresh, crisp apples into an electric grinder. When I visited he was using a blend of Golden Delicious, Macoun, and Liberty varieties.
Next, the ground apples are transferred to a round press with a “bladder” in the middle. The press is powered by water from a garden hose. The water fills and expands the bladder, pushing the apple pieces out to the edges of the press. Holes in the sides allow the cider to flow out in a waterfall.
When the cider has finished flowing, the dry leftover pulp becomes a treat for the Wheelers’ cattle. It is the only thing the cattle eat other than grass and hay from their own pasture.
Nothing is wasted—and the cider has a deep, rich flavor. It was without doubt the best cider I have ever had. It tasted just like apples. I love apples.
After the pressing, Carolyn Wheeler took me to her cider tasting room, which opened in 2016.
Designed by Carolyn in an old outbuilding, the large, wood-paneled room welcomes visitors who want to buy cider or beef, as well as those who want to try a glass of hard or sweet cider on the spot along with a snack.
The tasting room is also a museum of sorts. Carolyn has filled it with antiques and collectibles from the farm’s past, including many pieces of household and farm equipment. As a music lover, I enjoyed testing her player piano and listening to “The Happy Wanderer” on her family’s Victrola.
The bill of sale for the Victrola hangs on the wall behind the record player. “My family never threw anything out,” Carolyn said with a smile as she pointed to the receipt.
The Wheelers have welcomed a number of groups to the tasting room and the farm, from school (and college) students to the members of senior centers and granges in the area. Their visitors are encouraged to try to identify the uses of the pieces of farm equipment on display.
The Wheelers are retired educators. They view Wheel-View not just as a source of food but also as a source of information about farming practices in the past and present. As they look toward the future, Carolyn told me, they hope the farm can be maintained as some kind of educational center.
Meanwhile, the pair are making the most of their life as farmers. They have recently revived a traditional New England apple product John Wheeler’s grandmother used to enjoy, cider syrup (also known as boiled cider).
This is cider boiled down to concentrate the flavor. The pair sell it in three flavors: plain cider syrup, cider syrup mixed with maple, and cinnamon cider syrup.
Carolyn showed off the syrup’s versatility for me in a sweet-and-savory slow-cooker pot roast that also featured Wheel-View Farm’s beef. I made it on Mass Appeal this week, along with my grandmother’s chocolate cake. (My TV appearance coincided with what would have been her—gasp!—129th birthday.)
Wheel-View Farm’s cider tasting room is open most weekends, although would-be visitors are encouraged to call or check the farm’s website before venturing forth.
By the way, as I mention in the second video below, I’ll be teaching a free recipe-writing workshop on Sunday, May 6, as part of ArtWeek here in Massachusetts. This week celebrates arts of all sorts and features hundreds of events, many of which are free. If you’re in the neighborhood and are thinking of writing up a recipe or two (for publication, or even just for friends a family members), I hope you’ll come. Preregistration is required, but that’s not hard to do. Here are the details.
3 to 4 pounds beef roast (I used chuck)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 dash nutmeg
pepper to taste (3/4 teaspoon to 2 teaspoons)
1/2 cup catsup
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup cider syrup or cider-maple syrup
Instructions:
Place the roast in a slow cooker. Combine the remaining ingredients and spread them on top of the beef. Cook for 6 to 8 hours on high. There is no need to add water; the roast makes its own gravy. You may also cook it on high for 1/2 hour and then let the beef cook overnight on low.
If you don’t have a slow cooker, place the beef in a covered pan and spread the sauce on top; then place it in a preheated 500-degree oven. After 20 minutes, reduce the heat to 250 degrees and cook for several hours or overnight. (I haven’t tried this method, but I see no reason why it shouldn’t work!)
When the beef has finished cooking, remove it from the pot, cut it up if necessary (it mostly just falls apart), and return it to the sauce.
We are only just now beginning to enjoy spring weather here in western Massachusetts. For the first ten days of this month, snow fell daily—not in great quantities, but enough to remind country dwellers that spring arrives when it wants to and has very little respect for paper calendars.
Despite the nippy weather and the lingering snow showers, it’s hard not to notice that the days are getting longer and the sun is getting higher in the sky. I’m still eating a lot of soup—I love soup year round—but I’m also starting to cook lighter fare.
Nothing is lighter or more seasonally appropriate than eggs. As I said when I returned to Mass Appeal this week and focused on those oval sources of protein, I’m humbled by eggs. They really are a miracle food. If you do want to add more protein in your diet, you can also check this protein collection.
On a philosophical level, eggs represent both the miracle of life and the complicated history of evolution. (The question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, has been debated for thousands of years.)
On a culinary level, eggs are nothing short of amazing. That something so small can fluff up into something so big always delights me, surprises me, and tickles my fancy.
Eggs are also easy to work with. The two recipes I made on TV both took very little time and very little skill to put together. They were showy nevertheless.
First, Lauren Zenzie joined me to make an old family favorite, an almost cheese soufflé, which my sometime neighbor Roy Lewis has dubbed “”Pseufflé.” I have shared that recipe elsewhere on this blog, but I encourage you to watch the video anyway.
Please note that you should NOT push the soufflé down with a spatula the way Lauren did when I was getting the finished product out of the oven! (I should have warned her not to do this, but I didn’t think to, and the soufflé we made together didn’t rise at all.)
Danny New then helped me throw together a bright, tasty orange angel pudding. Everyone seemed to enjoy eating both dishes.
It was great being back with my friends. Snow or no snow, they made me feel that spring had arrived!
By the way, the eggs I used this week came from the wonderful agriculture program at my local elementary school, Hawlemont School in Charlemont, Massachusetts.
6 eggs, divided
1 cup sugar, divided
3/4 cup orange juice
1 to 2 teaspoons fresh orange zest
2 pinches salt
1 envelope gelatin
1/2 large (or 1 small) angel food cake, broken into bite-sized pieces
1 cup cream, whipped and flavored with vanilla (or Grand Marnier or Cointreau!)
Instructions:
Whisk together the egg yolks, 3/4 cup of the sugar, the orange juice, the zest and 1 pinch of salt. Cook over a double boiler until the mixture thickens and coats a spoon. (This took me about 10 minutes.) Remove the mixture from the heat. Dissolve the gelatin in about 1/3 cup of cold water, and stir it into the egg-yolk mixture.
Beat together the egg whites, the remaining sugar, and the remaining salt until stiff. Fold the whites gently into the custard mixture. Line a springform pan with waxed paper or parchment, and alternate the custard and the cake in it beginning and ending with custard.
Chill the mixture for 24 hours. Unmold the pudding, and cover it with whipped cream. If you want to make your life easier, forget the springform, and do the layering in a trifle bowl; you may serve the pudding right out of that. Serves 8 to 10.
