Grammy's View

A Grand Party it Was

grammy — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 13:50:02 +0000

It’s been a hectic and lovely summer (if we don’t count the heat and humidity). Between our granddaughter Leah’s wedding, house guests, two trips to Europe and a big project, there hasn’t been much time for writing.
I mentioned in my last post that we would be traveling to Whitby in North Yorkshire, England for another wedding party. Whitby is a charming town on the sea. We enjoyed sightseeing and visiting with our new grandson-in-law’s family but the highlight of the visit was the party.
About a hundred guests met at the Whitby Museum where we mingled and viewed Whitby historical artifacts. We had champagne, cake, and toasts there.

Seaside Wedding Cake

Top tier

The cake was a sensation, an original masterpiece depicting the seaside where Whitby is located. It was baked by a local bakery and just one of the surprises of the evening.

Leah and William outside the Whitby Museum

Exiting the museum we were awed by the view from the museum hilltop, across the harbor to the 15th century ruins of St Hilda’s Abbey, founded in 657!

Charabanc

1931 Steam Bus

An unusual antique Steam Bus and a Charabanc provided transportation to the party in the hall of a nearby village. There we had a dinner of typical English foods; whole salmon resting on a bed of greens, sausages, meat pies, fish cakes, scones, and much more. Following the dinner were more toasts and then the tables and chairs were cleared away for a Ceilidh, a dance of Irish or Scottish tradition, akin to our square dances. Guests from eight to eighty were soon promenading, spinning and bowing amidst much laughter and gaiety.

The Minter family were wonderful hosts and the party a smashing success. It was a fun way to end the wedding festivities.

Long Pause

grammy — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:24:29 +0000

I’m tired of looking at Green Beans every time I log onto the orchard website but I’ve been focusing on another project. We have been celebrating the marriage of my granddaughter, Leah Russell to a lovely young man from Great Britain. There has been a whirlwind of activities on this side of the Pond and today, I’m leaving for the UK for more wedding festivities.
Leah and her new husband, William Minter live in Brighton where they both teach Chinese but William’s parents live in Whitby. It is a seaside town on the Northeast coast, we are looking forward to seeing that area and attending another party for the newlyweds.
As long as we are there, Max and I will spend some time in Scotland the homeland of my Great-Grandfather. I’m looking forward to trying all sorts of new food, maybe some Haggis or Treacle Pudding.

Green Beans For A Summer Night

grammy — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:18:38 +0000

This hot weather has made cooking a challenge. Last night we celebrated our son Aaron’s birthday with dinner on the terrace. Steaks on the grill were no problem but I wanted to have everything else ready.
The pea pods seem to be finished but there were some beautiful green beans from the vegetable garden, what to do with them? It was too hot in the kitchen to be cooking late in the afternoon. I’d made potato salad and torn greens for a garden salad but didn’t want to be doing the green beans when I could be with everyone else outside.
Googling Green Bean Recipes turned up hundreds, many with sauces or baked with other ingredients. I wanted something simple that could be made ahead and served at room temperature. There wasn’t any single recipe that was just what I wanted but I ended up with an idea. The beans were a success.

Green Beans for a Summer Evening
1/2 pound fresh green beans (I had about 10 ounces)
2 tablespoons chopped, toasted walnuts
2 tablespoons chopped scallions
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon vinegar (I used Purple Basil from the orchard)
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey

1.Cut stem ends from beans and drop into boiling water for about 4 minutes, until tender crisp.
2.Drain and cool quickly in cold water. Drain.
3.Toast walnuts in a wide pan on high heat for about two minutes. Remove from pan immediately to cool and prevent scorching.
4.Whisk oil, vinegar, mustard and honey together and toss with cooled beans.
5.Top with walnuts, scallions and mint just before serving.
(Serves four)
If made far ahead they can be refrigerated but they should be brought to room temperature for serving. These would be good served hot too.

Green beans are one of our favorite vegetables but I usually just boil to tender-crisp, in salted water, drain and serve. Now I’m inspired to try some different combinations, maybe sesame oil and sesame seeds or melted butter and fresh thyme.

Discovered-Sugar Snap Peas

grammy — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 12:29:38 +0000

I don’t know where sugar snap peas have been all my life but now discovered I can’t get enough of them. I know that I’ve eaten them occasionally in Chinese food but had never cooked them. I’ve mentioned before the paucity of vegetables in my early life. Nearly every vegetable we ate came from a can. In the summer my grandfather had a vegetable garden but everything was allowed to get too big and then boiled to tastelessness. When we started our own garden in Andover we never even thought of growing sugar snap peas. We did grow peas but the task of shelling a mountain of pea pods and ending up with a little bowl full for our family of seven was too much work.
On Wednesday when I returned from my trip I was eager to get to the orchard and see if there were still strawberries. There were not only beautiful strawberries but baskets of sweet cherries, raspberries, and blueberries. And, right next to all the bounteous fruit were boxes of sugar snap peas.
I brought a box home and started checking cookbooks. My cookbooks have been around for a lot of years and I didn’t find many recipes but when I looked on-line, there were dozens. For the last three nights I’ve prepared them in three different ways. The sweet flavor and crunchy texture go perfectly with almost anything.
One night I sautéed them briefly with olive oil and fresh thyme, the next night with julienned carrots in a little sesame oil and a drizzle of honey, last night I used a bit of bacon fat and basil. Delicious in every case.
Tonight I think I’ll use butter and a bit of chopped fresh mint over them. I’m also thinking of other combinations. Maybe cumin seeds and then there are all the different herbs that abound in the summer.
They’re easy to prepare, I remove the stem end and in the bigger peas, I pull off the string along the back. I’ve been boiling them for exactly three minutes and then chilling them quickly with cold water. They’re ready then to be quickly reheated in a little butter or oil or orange juice or stock with herbs, maybe a bit of grated ginger would be good too. So many possibilities.

Update from across the Atlantic

grammy — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:34:01 +0000

I arrived in Helsinki, Finland ten days ago to find the lilacs and lily of the valley in full bloom, but strawberries no where near ready. That was the only disappointment though. The time has been filled with new friends, new experiences, new foods, and history lessons of this part of the world.
With two Massachusetts friends I’m traveling with an English friend and a German friend as we explore common interests and learn together about ancient cultures very different from ours.
An Internet cafe isn’t a very good place to reflect on the trip but I hope to write something about it when I get home. In the meantime, enjoy strawberries.

Strawberries – Hooray!

grammy — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:06:54 +0000

Strawberries here at the orchard usually start ripening about the 10th of June with good picking beginning about the 15th. I’ve mentioned here before my “strawberry rule”; no strawberries that aren’t local or in season. That means that I eagerly await mid-June.
Last Sunday Hunton arrived with a basket of berries that he had just picked, it was May 23rd! Nearly three weeks early. They were fabulous, still warm from the sun, with the sweet, intense strawberry flavor that only the first of the season seem to have.
We will soon have an abundance of berries and I’ll be trying out new recipes and enjoying the old favorites. I just started to use the remaining jar of last summer’s strawberry jam from the freezer. It is so good on toast or mixed with some plain yogurt.
The weather this spring has been unusual. For the first time in the thirty years we’ve had the orchard, the trees blossomed three weeks early. It’s a bit disconcerting and worrisome, a late frost can do major damage to a crop. We can only keep our fingers crossed.
Here’s one of our favorite recipes, especially for these early berries. I like it covered with lightly sweetened whipped cream.

STRAWBERRY GLACE PIE

1 quart fresh strawberries
1 12 ounce package frozen, sliced strawberries
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 9 inch baked pie shell
Make glaze by placing thawed, frozen strawberries in a saucepan with sugar and water which has been mixed with the cornstarch. Cook over low heat until thickened and clear. Cool for 20 minutes.

Arrange whole fresh berries in the pie shell, pointed end up. Pour glaze over fresh berries and chill for at least 3 hours before serving. Makes 6 servings.

Making the Donuts

grammy — Tue, 04 May 2010 19:41:22 +0000

The Orchard store opened for the season last Saturday. There have been a lot of changes over the winter with Doug and Miranda updating and trying new things. One thing that hasn’t changed is the donut recipe.
Yesterday as I sampled my first donut of the season I thought back to 1980 when Max had the brilliant idea (he was great for ideas) of making donuts to sell. Donuts were one of my grandmother’s specialties and I remembered them fondly. When our children were growing up I had occasionally made them myself.
Making them to sell sounded like a good idea . We bought packaged donut mix from a commercial food distributer, used cider as the liquid and called them cider donuts. I bought a plunger affair from a restaurant supply house. It operated manually, dropping batter into hot oil in ring shapes.
Since this was something untried we bought a small commerical fryolator. It held nine donuts at a time. We set up a donut station in a corner of the barn, near the fireplace (that room was the entire store in those days) and proceeded to fry donuts. One by one I pushed the soft dough through the plunger. Each donut took three minutes to cook, 90 seconds on one side and then another 90 seconds on the other side. I used the handle of a wooden spoon to turn them.
To my dismay, the donuts were an instant hit. Soon people were waiting patiently in line for hot donuts. I dreaded the people who wanted a half dozen, or worse, a dozen donuts. We needed a better system.
In visits to orchards in Michigan we had seen automatic donut makers. We had also tasted rich, dark, spicy donuts. They made ours seem pale and tasteless. I had always hated the idea of using a mix. Mixes were simply flour, sugar, baking powder and some kind of shortening with a lot of chemicals to make them shelf stable. I could do that myself without the chemicals.
I got out my Joy of Cooking and the recipe that I had always used. It called for flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, shortening and milk. The batter had to be soft enough to make a cakelike donut but firm enough to roll out and cut with a donut cutter. I started the task of adapting it to the taste that we were looking for.
Substituting cider for the milk was just the beginning. Molasses added flavor and color. It also helped make the batter softer. Spices were the other key to the kind of donut we wanted. I increased them dramatically. Once the flavor was right, the ingredients had to be adjusted for quantity. It wasn’t just a matter of quadrupling ingredients, the consistency had to be right for the plunger and for the cooking time.
The donut machine frys them in a specific amount of time. If the consistency is not right the donuts will be over cooked or under cooked. A lot of too crisp or raw in the center donuts went into the trash before we got the recipe right.
It occurs to me as I write this that in the past thirty years we have sold millions of donuts. I could never have guessed, when I turned nine donuts at a time in a little fryolator that it would lead to these amazing numbers.

Comfort Food

grammy — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:17:44 +0000

Eating well and good nutrition have been a major focus for most of my life. Well, maybe I should amend that, eating well has been my focus and I’ve tried for good nutrition. Once upon a time, if it tasted good, it was okay. Over the years, as we are reminded continually by the media, our the population has grown more sedentary and fatter. Much of the responsibility falls to the mega food industry. Additives to tantilize the taste buds have addicted us to sugar, salt and fat. Restaurants have up-sized portions and the ease of just opening a package instead of cooking completes the cycle.

I’ve learned to shop the sides of the supermarket for dairy, meat, fresh fruits and vegetables. The aisles get a fast run through for baking supplies, paper products, and a few other staples like olive oil, vinegar, and canned tomatoes. Otherwise, I try not to buy prepared foods.

All this is a preface to telling about our scrumptious pot roast last week. It was sooo good, a recipe that I used frequently when feeding a family of seven but seems almost decadent today. It was an inexpensive beef pot roast. I put it in a heavy dutch oven and sprinkled it with a packet of onion soup mix then covered all with a can of cream of mushroom soup. I added some more chopped onion and some leftover canned tomatoes just because I had them. Covered tightly and baked at 325 degrees for three hours the smells soon coming from the oven were divine.

When I opened the pot, it was a thing of beauty. Meat so tender it was falling apart nestled in rich, brown, delicious gravy. Have I mentioned before that I love gravy? Served over mashed potatoes with fresh asparagus and salad, it was pure bliss.

There were leftovers and I’m not even going to think about all the salt, MSG, and other unspellable ingredients while I enjoy them.

Asparagus

grammy — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 16:02:34 +0000

We had the first asparagus of the season last night. I’m afraid I broke my “strawberry” rule and didn’t wait until it came from our own garden. It was still delicious.
Before moving to Massachusetts in 1960 the only asparagus I had ever eaten had come from a can. A mush green unpleasant vegetable. My grandfather always had a garden but never planted asparagus and I don’t remember ever seeing fresh asparagus in a store.
It wasn’t until I received Julia Child’s first book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, as a Christmas gift in 1961 that I discovered this wonderful veggie. We promptly planted it in our home garden and ever since it has been the much awaited first vegetable of the season.
In Mastering the Art, Julia said that she had tested every asparagus method that she’d heard of and the French method was the best. The asparagus was partially peeled, tied into bundles and placed in a kettle of salted, boiling water until it is just tender, but not limp, then drained and served immediately.
It doesn’t matter whether the stalks are thin or thick but the thick ones are easier to peel. The stalks should be crisp and moist on the end. If it isn’t used immediately, it should be stored upright in a glass with a little water. Peeling is the key to having it perfect every time. I’m frustrated when served asparagus that looks beautiful but has woody ends that turn into stiff strings when chewed.
This is my own variation of Julia’s method. It eliminates the tying but otherwise follows her directions. I agree that it retains its color, texture and flavor best cooked this way.
Fresh Asparagus
6 to 10 spears per person, more if they are very thin
10 or 12 inch frying pan of salted boiling water (I like the wide
flat pan for vegetables)
1. Cut any very woody ends off and then, holding with the butt end up,
use a small, very sharp knife or vegetable peeler to peel the outer skin off the lower part of the stalk leaving the tender center. The upper part of the stalk doesn’t need it.
2. Wash the peeled asparagus quickly in cold water.
3. Drop into boiling water and cook until a fork pierces the butt
end easily. Do not allow to get limp, the stalks should be tender
crisp when served.
4. Drain and serve, either plain or with melted butter, lemon juice or
other sauce.
The stalks can be peeled a few hours in advance and kept refrigerated
wrapped in a damp towel.

Southern California

grammy — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:24:53 +0000

Our wonderful trip to Mexico is a nice memory but life goes on and the latest adventure was a week in Southern California with my granddaughter Claire. I was delighted that she wanted to spend Spring Break with me.
We spent four days in Hollywood. Standing in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater we noticed a stir. An excited family had corraled a young man, a boy really, and were having their pictures taken with him. In answer to their questions he told them that his career is doing well and he’s appeared in three films. He was smiling and gracious and very good looking but neither Claire nor I had any idea who he was. A few days later, Claire saw his picture in People Magazine, his name is Sterling Knight.
Home again, when I was telling the family about seeing him, nine year old Kristen knew him immediately! He’s on the Disney channel apparently.
Claire and I also toured Warner Brother’s Studio. We enjoyed the tour and seeing the sound stages and inner workings of film making. A number of TV shows are filmed there as well as movies. The guide pointed out where different shows were filmed and whose houses we were passing but Claire and I discovered that neither of us knew any of the shows and few of the actors.
One night we had dinner at a restaurant called “uWink”. It was a new concept for us. There are touch screens at every table and at the bar. The menu is displayed there and food and drinks are ordered via the screen. Then there are dozens of games to play singly or against another person. The food wasn’t terrific but we enjoyed playing Geography Trivia for a couple of hours.

Lunch in Santa Monica

Warner Brother's Studio, set of Central Perk

Warner Brother's Studio, car used in Harry Potter film

At the top of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway with Cousin Norma