Squashing Pumpkins {Sorrel Pesto Recipe}

People seem to give up on pumpkins after Halloween. Not me. While pumpkins don’t always get carved in our home, they do often get baked, split open and seeds removed, drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted at 375 until they are soft and squishy {about 1 1/2 hours, depending on the size}.

It’s the grounding nature of pumpkin, its subtly sweet flavor and long lasting energy that has me hooked. But it could also be a subconscious appreciation for the high doses of potassium {known to control blood pressure} and beta-carotene {a cancer-fighting antioxidant} it delivers that seem to reward with a satisfying sensation that few vegetables give all on their own.

But, in truth, it is probably the fact that it comes together as a beautifully healthful dinner in no time when I pair it with homemade sorrel pesto and serve it on a platter along side a glass of good wine.

Pesto, like pumpkin, could be fairly forgettable in the wrong hands. But not in your hands, my friend. Think of pesto as the little black dress of your culinary wardrobe -- Simple, classic, reliable. Give it a few garnishes and you’ve got a stunner on your hands. That’s what’s sorrel does to pesto.

Sorrel is the little engine that could of our garden, growing upward and onward despite weekly clippings, near frosts, and weeks of gloom and gray. It’s somewhere between a green and an herb, too acidic to become a salad, too leafy to waste simply on the occasional chiffonade but brilliant when blended with pine nuts, parmesan, garlic and olive oil, à la pesto.

Sorrel pesto {or any pesto} can be made on the spot, but it’s the perfect thing to make in advance and tuck into the fridge or freezer for a rainy day. And you’ll be glad you did since this modern pesto makes a quick and elegant accoutrement to almost anything from crudités to skirt steak to roasted veggies. Which brings me back to the pumpkin you were roasting while we were talking here. Put it on a lovely platter, drizzle on your fresh pesto, and presto, it’s dinner.

{click recipe to enlarge}

This simple supper came together so effortlessly last Monday night that I forgot to take a picture, inspiring a repeat performance later in the week with acorn squash, a certifiably successful substitute that earned three stars from my most trusted taster.

By the way, you can use the same method to roast pumpkins {or squash} for fresh puree, which is not only the basis for delicious pumpkin breads and pies, but makes a divine little dinner for your lil’ pumpkin too. After roasting, allow pumpkin to cool enough to handle, scrape the flesh from the skin with a fork and put it through a food mill or food processor.

Homesick Cider Donuts

chelsea, ny

There are two things in life that can assuredly make me homesick— trick-or-treaters and cider donuts. Both remind me of cozy fall days at home, where Halloween was the scariest thing I could imagine and the only tough decision was whether to have one donut or two, hot from the press on an afternoon visit to Edwards Apple Orchard. Edwards is a special place, run by folks that have become family friends, who load up families on their wagons and ride them into their orchard year after year to pick barrels of Macintosh, golden delicious and jonagolds, an apple that’s hard to find out East. It is there that I said one of my first sentences {“look daddy, I found one!” of an apple plucked from a ground littered with them}, there that Dad taught my three siblings and me to jump off the wagon when no one was watching and how to discreetly climb back on before we got caught. It’s there that we learned the smash-the-apple-core-under-the-wagon-wheel trick, how to navigate hay barrels and that a thick slice of sharp Wisconsin cheddar melted on the crust of a home-made apple pie makes it even more irresistible {try my recipe inspired by theirs, here}.

As a girl, I dreamed of my wedding in between the sturdy rows of apple trees far out in Edwards' fields, and when a tornado struck the year András proposed, I cried. But trees were replanted and barns rebuilt and those donuts are still made hot and fresh all day long. They remain one of the things in life that is always as good as I remember.

Right now, there are dozens of darling trick-or-treating tots in the Chelsea Market below the kitchen at work dressed as everything from Frida Kahlo {complete with unibrow} to Frankenstein. They make me miss home, and the little darlings in my own life, Indian Princes Kate, aka Sacagawea, Sir Benjamin Goddard, my knight in a shining costume and Baby Gracie, with her footed PJ’s and freckles painted on with eyeliner and love . The only thing I could think of to ease my suffering just a little was a stack of cider donuts from the Migliorelli Farm stand at the Union Square Farmer’s Market. They were delicious, but not quite the same as a donut straight from hot oil, a donut so fresh it perfumes the air with the scent of cider and melts into the memories of a family day at the orchard.

It’s times like these that I’m grateful for good friends that fill my life with new memories, and for those who happen to be good at conjuring old ones, like my buddy Bob at Food Network, whose recipe for apple cider donuts hits dangerously close to home. For today, my only tough decision is one donut, or two.

Happy Halloween!

P.S. If you make Bob’s donuts, and I highly recommend that you do, be sure to chill the batter for at least 2 hours, or even better, overnight to make the batter easier to work with. Or transfer the batter to a piping bag fitted with a metal tip as I did, and pipe it carefully into rings on the surface of the hot oil.

Let Them Eat Baumkuchen

porva, hungary

It’s gotten cold in New York, and all of the girls are wearing their pretty new boots and cozy sweaters. It’s the kind of weather that makes me want to stay inside and tell stories, like the story of this breakfast, sweet and slow, that I shared with my parents on their last day with us in Hungary this summer.

It was a simple meal, but how it got there was not so simple at all. The trouble began last fall, back in the kitchen I share with András in New York, where he first told me that after two years of waiting that we’d finally be able to get into the little stone farmhouse in Porva, Hungary he bought just after we met. It was there that I sat at the counter with dozens of pages torn from Domino, House Beautiful, and Town & Country, dreaming up the haven we would create on the other side of the ocean.

“Look at this fireplace, it’s extraordinary,” I would say holding up a photo from inside a French chateau.  Or, “See how this couple turned a stone-barn into an artist loft? We could do that!”

Andras would look up from where he was invariably tending to more practical details of restoring a 200-year farmhouse, like plumbing, and nod.

“It’s beautiful. Just remember the photos in magazines don’t tell you the whole story.”

“I know.” I’d say. “It’s just for inspiration.”

But I didn’t really believe that.

András was constantly trying to reign in my expectations about this little house that until this year, I’d only seen from the outside, where its crumbling stone barn and fruit-tree-lined yard had charmed my imagination. But I was certain that with a few trips to the flea and a little elbow grease, we could turn whatever awaited us inside into our own version of chateau-chic.

The trouble really began when András handed me the keys to the house when we arrived in Hungary, for our Lakodalom, or wedding party, in July. I walked through the sterile hallway and straight into the kitchen that wore the signs of neglect from the previous owners. The sink was rotting, there was a faux leather couch in the corner and a raw bulb hung from the ceiling. But I saw possibility. It had high ceilings, a walk-in pantry and bright shutter-windows that opened up to a tiny chapel out back where András’ nagymamma {grandmother} attended mass each week, and where we’d repeat our vows in his native tongue in just a few days.

That unsightly gas stove would have to go of course, I thought as I lifted boxes and looked under every pile of cardboard, but….

Alors! A small wood-burning stove sat forgotten, tucked into the corner by the sink. Suddenly, I saw myself standing before the stove with a toe-headed toddler tugging at my antique apron calling me Anya as I baked him sour cherry struedel and pinched noodles above the crackling wood. I clapped my hands with delight.

“This is perfect!” I said. “Let’s take the gas stove out and store it in the barn. I’ll cook on this.”

András translated this to his father, who laughed and shook his head, gathered the little stove up in his arms and carried it out to the stone barn. I followed with the gas tank, enormously proud of my contributions to the restoration. Back in the kitchen, I removed everything that distracted the eye from this little gem, including an ugly rotting wood cabinet that held up the sink.

The ugly things, as it turned out, where quite functional. But the men in András’ family could work wonders with wood, so I was sure we had the tools and talent to replace them. The only trouble was, we also had a wedding to plan, plumbing to restore, a pile of birchwood to turn into four-post beds and a house we’d never lived in to make guest-ready in five days when my parents would arrive.

That week, we spent almost every day at the house, building beds, mopping floors, fixing plumbing, potting plants and arranging every detail of our little nest. I lovingly washed and displayed the old iron stone pottery we’d uncovered in the cellar, washed and arranged the antique Herendi China András’ mother gave us for our wedding, and hung botanical drawings of tomatoes in tattered frames I’d found in the attic. Each night we’d return to his parent’s house 30 kilometers away, where Anya would have a nourishing meal waiting for us. We’d eat, sleep, wake, and begin again.

After five days, almost everything was in place, except the sink. We fashioned a make shift operation out of an old wash basin and a rescued wooden bench that created the kind of romance that made dish-washing seem like a pleasure. I was so proud.

On the sixth day, my parents, my sister Amy, and my nieces Kate and Grace arrived just minutes after the mattresses they’d be sleeping on later that night. Anya and Apa welcomed them with a meal at their home. After dinner, the girls and I climbed the ladders high up into the sour cherry trees out back and picked enough cherries to line our wedding table the next day. Just before dark, we drove to the little house in Porva and tucked everyone into their new beds. András and I slept in the room next door, our first night in our new home.

I could barely sleep, already dreaming up the breakfasts I would cook in the morning. I got up with the first rooster’s crow, shuffled out to the wood pile and recalling everything I’d learned in girl scout camp 20 years earlier, built us a fire. My dad stirred not long after and joined me in the kitchen next to the stove.

“Oh, isn’t that quaint.” Dad said. “You know my mother used to cook on one of those in the old farmhouse. This will be fun!”

We gathered around a table of fresh bread and Anya’s jam, creamy yogurt, and strawberries from the back garden. While we ate, the water I’d put on the stovetop struggled to creep above body temperature. And just about every three minutes dad would ask, “did you get that water to boil yet?” We’d long since finished when the water boiled, so we drank coffee and tea for dessert, and let the fire die.

Over the next two days, mealtime conversations were laced with subtle suggestions from András and Dad that perhaps a gas stove would be more practical. Nonsense, I insisted. Dad offered to buy us one, and when I declined, citing aesthetic principals, he gave me tips on keeping the embers burning and best practices for building fires that start easily and got hot fast.

On the second day, we hosted 50 guests in the backyard to celebrate our wedding around a table András and his friends built in the morning while the girls and I arranged flowers. After the goulash was served and the bonfire put out and the wines from Lake Balaton long gone, Mom and Anya washed every dish by hand in the wash basin. Bless them.

The following day, my Dad’s attempts at subtly waned. While Mom and I set to work prettying the table at mealtime, Dad would breeze in and out of the kitchen with the broom whistling, stop in front of the wood stove and turn to me with a statement like “There’s this new invention called electricity! It’s just wonderful.”

On the third day, András slipped out quietly and returned home with an electric kettle that kept our table ready for tea in an instant. I did most of my cooking in bulk, boiling potatoes for the evening meal with the morning eggs, and creating spreads of Keilbash {cured sausage}, cheeses, long green paprika and other feasts that didn’t require cooking at all. Meanwhile Dad chopped wood and tended the fire, we all did dishes in the wash basin.

We ate beautiful things pulled out of the earth, fresh bread, strawberries grown in our own soil. We sat for long meals and talked for hours. We were content and satisfied. During one of these slow meals, Dad found the beauty and humor in my little wooden stove.

“This is fun Sarah, I haven’t been camping in ages.” He said.

It was fun. It was splendid even.

Until, on the fourth day, we ran out of hot water, and my hair desperately needed washed. Dad, who had turned into an excellent farm wife by then, offered to boil up a pot of water on the stove. When the water was warm, I leaned over the bath and Mom and Dad washed my hair, taking turns pouring hot water and cold, rinsing shampoo and conditioner down our antiquated drain.

While the stove was hot, and my hair clean, I decided to preserve what was left of the sour cherries we’d picked for wedding day. I layered them in a big pot with sugar and set it on the hottest plate on the stove. The pot never came to a boil, but it got hot enough to cook the cherries down, sweet and soft. For our final breakfast, we spooned this still hot from the pan over day-old bread, toasted and slathered in butter, a meal that rewarded us with an endless rush of nostalgia for my grandmother’s cherry cobbler.

As we spent our last day together in Hungary, I apologized over and over for the dishes, the lack of hot water and the stove, promising to fix them all before we invited them back again. But no one really seemed to mind, and Dad kept spooning on the sour cherries, asking for more bread and carrying on about how much it reminded him of his mother.

---

In the magazines I used to create my vision board for our house, they don’t tell you the cute couple standing in their stone-barn-turned-artist loft are actually bankrupt, or that the girl washed her hair in a wash basin because the plumbing shut down. Just like fashion and beauty magazines don’t show you the crease across Scarlett Johansson’s tummy. But these truths likely exist. There’s a journey that sometimes doesn’t make it in to the vision board, a few details that get edited out.

That’s why I’m particularly proud of my little batch of sour cherry preserves and this breakfast. I’m proud of the way it looks, the simple beauty of its flavor and all that it recalls, and the way it comes together so handsomely on film. Most of all, I’m proud of the truth it beguiles sitting there in its Herendi china with a stacked Baumkuchen in the back, looking like a meal fit for a queen, if only the queen of a teeny, tiny castle in the hills far away. I'll take that any day. 

High on the Hog

tomales bay, ca

If ever there were a dreamy place to celebrate a first year of marriage, it is Nick’s Cove in Tomales Bay near the Point Reyes National Seashore, where we ended our trip out West. For an oyster lover, there are few things more exhilarating than eating a Hog Island Kumamoto oyster at sunset overlooking the very bay where they are raised.

This night requires no story, just a few words. Perfect light. Briny oysters. Blazing fire. Cold beer. My best friend.

If you happened to be celebrating your anniversary on a night when your wallet feels fat, stay over in one of their cozy cabins, handsomely decorated, that sit on stilts over the bay. Or, race like mad to San Francisco International Airport for the redeye back to New York and dream of the day you’ll do it all again.

4,000 species, and none of them edible

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul. ” ~John Muir

miranda, ca

It took 6 hours and three rounds of car snacks to get to Humboldt Park from San Francisco, but it was worth every minute to drive 1 mile between the old growth Redwoods that reach over 30 stories high on either side of the Avenue of the Giants. Even more moving was to stand among them in the hush of the late afternoon, when everyone else had disappeared and gone home for dinner, to lie amongst their trunks and strain our necks to see to the top where they reached endlessly toward the light.

But as grand as the tallest trees were standing upright, some reaching over 360 feet {taller than Niagra Falls}, it was the fallen giants that truly inspired awe. Laid out like tunnels and tracks in a giant playground, we ran their lengths and jumped from one to the next, stopping only to admire their impressive root systems yanked from the soil, exposing a massive web of wonder for the life it once lived.

There are a number of things that inspire wonder in a forest of this magnitude, facts worth committing to memory, memories worth making if you’re up for the drive. If you watched Ken Burns' National Parks series on PBS last month, or read the Redwoods issue of National Geographic, you may already know that the oldest recorded redwood, over 2,200 years old, stands in Humboldt Park. And if you’re a lover of cheese, you may also know that this is the county for which Cypress Groove’s illustrious and unforgettable Humboldt Fog cheese is named. But did you know this fact?

There are over 4,000 species that live in or on a fallen giant.

4,000 species, and none of them edible, at least by my standards, which is why we were grateful to find at the Avenue Café after sundown, right on Avenue of the Giants across from the cabins in Miranda where we stayed. Avenue could be classified as a diner, but a decidedly west of the Colorado River diner; the kind of place where wispy Teva-clad blondes from Oregon aren’t afraid to order sausage and eggs, where kids layered in colors and wools look like they’ve been styled for the outdoor issue of GQ toddler {this doesn’t actually exist} and where grilled cheese, made with artisan cheeses on a locally baked 7-grain bread, is a far cry from the American cheese laden sandwich {really, it’s not even cheese} most of us grew up on. It’s the kind of place where the only beer on tap is the local Eel River organic Blonde Ale, which is the perfect thing to get one in the mood for the obligatory tick-check, fireside in a cabin, that follows any good romp in the woods.

Ferry Building Fantasia

san francisco, ca

I know, I promised you recipes. I promise, they’re coming. But András and I just returned from 72 delicious hours in Northern California in honor of our one-year anniversary, and I wouldn't dare keep such delicious discoveries from you.

A trip to see the California redwoods was a childhood dream for András, and since I’m happy to be included on the grown-up version of his dreams, we decided it was the perfect place to celebrate our first year as husband and wife. As we flew over Grand Canyon, playing footsie under our tray tables, András read about our national parks in National Geographic Adventure, and I flipped open the American Way. I tried to imagine us frolicking among the giant trees of Humbolt Park, when an advertisement of a young couple glistening beachside at a Sandals interrupted me.

Spend your first anniversary in luxury

I suddenly wondered if we shouldn't be heading to relax on a beach, get a massage, sleep in a big bed with fluffy duvets. I squeezed András hand.

He set down his magazine and kissed me. “We should make it a tradition to spend every anniversary at a National Park,” he said.

“Every anniversary?” I said. “I was just thinking maybe we should be going somewhere a little more, I don’t know, luxurious. Somewhere with feather duvets.”

“Luxury make people soft.” He said.

“I’m a girl, I like soft.” I said.

Being soft isn't such a bad thing, particularly because it also includes eating stinky cheeses and cupcakes, both of which can be found in abundance at the legendary Ferry Building and its epic farmer's market in San Francisco, our first stop when we landed. András found us a parking spot a few blocks away with a 1-hour limit, giving my enthusiastic appreciation for the culinary potpourri of the marketplace an unrealistic deadline. I tried to explain that this was like telling Carrie Bradshaw she has only 15 minutes at Manolo Blahnik. It didn’t register.

Undeterred, I clicked my heels on over to the market by which time we had 49 minutes, exactly enough time to discover homemade pop tarts with fruits grown on Frog Hollow Farm, chocolate persimmons, black mission figs, tasty, salted pig parts from Boccalone Artisan Meats, Vanilla Tomboy Cake from Miette Patisserie and Harvest Whoopee Pies from Recchiuti chocolates. The foods of the Ferry Building are poetic, charmingly arranged and packaged to perfection, rendering decision-making harder than the aged Mimolette at the Cowgirl Creamy stand. So we tasted and took photos, juggling between our cameras and wallets in rapid succession.

And then, like clock work, András signaled our time was up. He ran to get the car, while I snuck in a final stop at the stunning Boulette's Larder, a labyrinthine of delights where tiny fresh eggs and delicate pastries were displayed on pedestals like jewels. Every detail was so thoughtfully arranged, and each and every person standing in the eternal line was the picture of Northern Californian prosperity. I took my place behind the elegant mammas feeding their rosy wee ones concord grapes and fresh figs, and breathed in the bliss.

Just as I approached the front of the line and reached for one of the handsome pastries pictured here, my phone rang. András was waiting outside in the car and I had to come, immediately. I took their card, letterpress on recycled paper {naturally}, and plugged their details into my iphone as we whizzed north toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Online, I found out the namesake of their restaurant is their beloved Puli, or Hungarian Sheepdog, called Boulette {which in French, means little meatball}, making their stylish sensibilities all the more lovable. I met my first Puli on the night András proposed to me in Hungary, and it sat at our feet as I ate a plate of goose and saurkraut in a local Csarda {inn}. The pup, and Boulette's Larder, will forever hold a special place in my soft little heart.

Pickle Your Fancy

south boston, va

Do you ever wake up wishing for pickles? I admit it’s a funny craving for the morning, but it’s exactly what I wanted when I woke up today. Not just any pickles, the pickles from my wedding, almost 1 year ago. The pickled apricots, watermelon rind, okra, green tomatoes and bread and butter pickles in this picture were made by the local ladies down in South Boston, Virginia, where we wed last October at Berry Hill. We served them the night before we walked down the aisle along side ham biscuits and barbecue chicken and tomato pie and watermelon, watercress and feta salad. We topped it all off with a cobbler of blackberries picked on the Berry Hill grounds, and served ala mode in cast iron skillets. Then we all settled in on cozy blankets and pillows with peanuts and popcorn to watch A Knights Tale on the lawn on a big screen under the stars. These pickles were shot by our friend and photographer James Bowman, and it serves as a beautiful reminder of one of the most memorable meals and nights of my life.

Since the sun is going down on summer, it’s high time you and I start thinking about putting up some pickles for our next memorable meal, which is fortuitous, since today is Farmer’s Market Day in my neighborhood and there are still plenty of okra, peaches and cukes to be had. I’d be quite happy to stay home today and pour spicy, vinegary broth into jars packed with my favorite summer flavors. There’s only one problem. We’ve got the March issue of Food Network Magazine to finish up, and our readers are counting on me. That puts me in quite a pickle.

Let’s make a deal—I’ll give you the recipes, and you make the pickles. Over the next two weeks as we approach my one-year anniversary, I’ll give you these and all the recipes our friends and guests have been asking for from our wedding menu so you can celebrate all the big events in your life.

In the meantime, the test kitchen calls.

The Language of Fireflies

l.i.c., ny

Summer officially ended this week, but don’t tell that to my garden, or the kids on my block who are still outside on the sidewalk catching fireflies well past dinnertime. It is during that hour, the just past dinner hour, that you’ll find me in the garden tempting the sun to dare to go down on me before I’ve pruned the tomato plants that hang heavy with fruit, or picked the last of our lively beans that creep where they will.

One such night this week, András came to the garden with me, and pulled up a perky bunch of bright orange carrots with one golden misfit. Like almost everything that comes out of our garden or goes on to our plates, I wanted to take their picture, particularly when he dangled them by their tops in front of his vibrant orange shirt. But he wasn’t having it, sticking out his tongue and making funny faces. Luckily, our Hameeda came to his rescue.

Hameeda is the spirited four year old who lives next door with her two brothers, her older sister Fahmeda, her parents, two cousins and her aunt and uncle. The family, but in particular the kids, have become our constant companions on summer nights at home. At first, I was the garden lady, always passing in front of their gate with haphazard bundle of something green, which all six children would gather around to touch or taste.

But Hameeda isn’t satisfied with casual encounters. Ever since I met her last summer, she almost seems to wait for me to come home, leaping into my arms as soon as she sees me, grabbing onto any part of me until she is up close to my face staring into my eyes where I stare back, loving her happy eyes, her baby skin, her childish mixture of Bangla and English that makes perfect sense to me. If ever my arms are too full of vegetables to lift her up, she’ll accept a taste of what I’ve picked as a love offering instead.

“What’s that?” she asked reaching for the carrots in András’ hands. And before long they were hers, András was inside in his Lazy boy and I was in heaven shooting pictures of my little friends.

Although the kids are no stranger to my camera, Hameeda stood stiff against the brick wall, trying to pose pretty and perfect with her carrots. Fahmeda, always quick to leap to her role as big sister, called out instructions in Bangla, after which Hameeda would turn her head or smile bigger or lift the carrots a certain way. I snapped a few photos, then I pulled her into my arms and whispered in her ear “go wild,” after which she handed out the carrots one by one to her playmates and raced down the street, panting and laughing with the unabashed joy and wonder of a four year old for whom a summer night on a sidewalk is a magical and mysterious thing, full of endless possibilities.

These were the moments just before grown-up-dinner hour, before the carrots softened into the subtleties of butter, shallots and garlic in a sauté pan, before they were married with the pot of simmering summer beans and served in return for the unabashed joy and gratitude of a hungry city farmer.

Toadstools A Plenty

jamaica, vermont

On Sunday, after the wedding, we woke up in the Three Mountain Inn in Jamaica New York, an inn I picked not only for their plush featherbeds, but for its proximity to Jamaica State Park, one of Vermont’s finest. After breakfast, we took a little walk down to the park for some exercise before hitting the road for home, and within minutes inside the park, we found a path lined with plump, fresh mushrooms. Fat white ones with conical caps, brown speckled ones, and lots of LBMs {little brown mushrooms}.

Normally, one has to hunt for mushrooms. They must have a nose for these things, uncovering blankets of pine needles and rotting logs to discover their treasures. I couldn’t believe how easy this was!

But we had just begun our hike, so I left our loot behind as we hiked along the riverbed with a promise of plenty of fungi waiting for us on the way out. When we circled back, I found our stash and gave them a deeper look. I had never seen this variety on a plate before, but the fat stems and meaty caps promised something rare and scrumptious.

“We could make a fortune in this forest!” I announced. I bent down to take another look, and a local whizzed past on a bike.

“Don’t eat those!” she called out.

“See, I told you,” András said. “We can come back and pick when we know more. I’ll get you a little mushroom book for our anniversary.”

A mushroom book was not what I had in mind for our first anniversary, but I appreciated his appreciation for my interest in foraging.

“But, who knows when we’ll get back up here.” I said. “Let’s just take these, and we can get them examined by an expert. It’s not like they are purple or oozing poisonous puss!”

To my surprise and delight, András gave me the hat off his head to use as a basket. “You’re right. Let’s take a chance.”

We picked heaps of mushrooms, carried them back and drove straight to the Three Clock Inn to find Serge, who I knew from our conversation the night before to be an avid forager. We found him in the kitchen with young Francoise next to him, perched on the countertop, decapitating haricot vert.

I placed the hat full of mushrooms under his nose.

“Aha, excellent!” He exclaimed passionately through this thick moustache.

“Come, come, you must sit,” he said. He shooed us out of the kitchen and to the nearest table set for two out in the yard under a tree. A half an hour later, Serge presented us with a local trout topped with creamed mushrooms with a meaty flesh that gave between our eager teeth. This followed with sirloin and crispy roasted mushroom caps more woodsy than anything I’d experiences before. It was a magical little slice of life, an experience our curiosity had unearthed, rewarding us ten-fold. We ate like Louis XVI, proud and headless, before…

----

“Sarah, are you listening to me?” András said, snapping me out of my mushroom high. “I said, we can come back and pick when we know more. For now, let’s live another day.”

“Awe, you’re no fun,” I said. “You never let me take mushrooms from the woods!”

And that’s how it really happened. We didn’t pick those mushrooms.

We spoke to the local ranger who assured us that there were delicious mushrooms in these woods, along with hundreds of dangerous ones, but unfortunately, she couldn’t tell them apart.

On the way out, we munched on handfuls of sour-sweet green apples we found hanging off a wild trees. Then we drove ourselves to Manchester and ate ourselves silly on Mrs. Murphy’s Donuts and Stewarts insanely delicious Peanut Butter Pandemonium ice cream and Vermont Grafton Cheddar cheese. After our feast, we headed south, stopping at every farm stand in hopes of satisfying my agrarian urges.

Just past the Vermont border, we hit the town of Hoosick, NY where across from the local country deli, I spied a house hidden by overgrown shrubs and a sign on the barn behind it that read “Dog Ear Book Barn.”

The barn belongs to a crotchety gentleman who sat buried beneath hundreds of dusty rare and out-of-print books. He virtually ignored me while I made myself at home among cookbooks, children’s books, and storybooks, piling my arms with a first printing {1906} of Heroes Every Child Should Know, and the 1960’s cookbook Cooking with Love and Paprika. As the stack in my arms outgrew my budget, I tempted my wallet with one request.

“Do you happen to have any mushroom books?” I asked.

“Eh, I can’t hear a darn thing. Did you say Mushrooms?” The gentleman said. “I have hundreds upstairs, but down here I just have one.”

That one book, a 1970 copy of Blandford’s Mushrooms and Toadstools In Color appeared before me, a tiny 5 X 7 guide with the loveliest illustrations inside and out. I would have bought the book for the illustrations alone, especially considering its $3 pricetag, but what the illustrations told me were far more valuable. I flipped through, page by page, noting the hundreds of colors, textures and shapes, until I found them, on page 59 listed under, Lactarius Vellereus.

205 Lactarius Vellereus

cap 4- 8 in. across, convex at first, then depressed and funnel-shaped, downy-woolly, margin inrolled at first. Gillis distant, uniting to form a network, slightly decurrent. Stem white wooly, short, thick. Milk white, later reddish, taste burning sharp. Grows in beech-woods. August-November. Fairly common. Poisonous.

I suppose I learned quite a bit from this little experience, but mostly I learned that I loved old books, and that I may enjoy writing fiction. After all, the fictional version of this story was quite delicious.

P.S. I’m rather proud of my little $3 mushroom book, and I thought you might like to see it too, because it has such pretty little illustrations.

A Vermont Country Wedding

south londonderry, vt

On Saturday, András and I were invited to a country wedding in Vermont. The betrothed were our friend and my colleague at Food Network, Morgan Bennison, and her dearest, Jim Hass. Since Morgan joined us at the Food Network, first as our intern in the text kitchen, and now as one of our talented food stylist, she’s been talking about Serge Roche, the chef owner of Three Clock Inn where she used to work, in her native Vermont. When Morgan got engaged, about the same time I did, she knew Serge would be the man behind her wedding meal. She also knew that the tiny Chapel of the Snows in Stratton, VT, where she took her first communion, would be where she would say her vows.

My own wedding wasn’t so easy to plan. We thought about a sophisticated city affair right here in New York, or an orchard wedding at Edward’s Apple Orchard where I picked apples every fall of my childhood or a tiny ceremony in Hungary in the chapel where András spent his boyhood summers with his nagymamma {Grandmother}. We even considered celebrating at a vineyard in Illinois {yes, they exist}. We landed on a quiet affair on a 600-acre estate called Berry Hill in Southern Virginia, which was perfectly us.

What was easy about planning my wedding, was deciding what to wear on my head when I said I do. It just so happens that Morgan is not only a talented culinarian, she is also a gifted milliner, and came to her delicate touch with food through studied hat-making for the Victor Osborne label. And it just so happened that our wedding fell on the year of my parent’s 40^th anniversary, and that my mother so graciously saved a tidbit of the lace she had made her own veil with, which Morgan used to make me a delicate little French bird-cage veil for my wedding day. But that’s another story for another day.

Today I want to tell you about Morgan’s very delicious Vermont country wedding. On Saturday morning, András and I drove north toward Vermont, munching on garden veggies, stopping at farm stands and driving deeper into an idyllic land of town halls and handsome homes built in the late 1700s. When we finally arrived at the chapel, five hours later, we were famished. After a sweet and simple ceremony, we gathered at the Three Clock Inn in South Londenderry, where the Southern French borne chef-owner, Serge, gloriously lived up to the praise Morgan had given him over the years. He and Morgan's Papa had prepared duck rillettes and roasted rabbit legs, escargots and port-poached pears, roasted artichokes and mini lobster roll sandwiches. The tables were laid with farmstead Vermont cheeses and salami and homemade grissini and marinated olives and enough flavor to ignore the delicate drizzle that fell all around us. The cast-iron fire pit and Viognier gave warmth as we waited for the bride and groom to arrive for toasting and tucking into a meal of braised short ribs and chicken with chanterelles and roasted beets and green beans and rabbit with preserved lemons, served family style around long tables lined with fresh breads baked in tiny terra cotta pots.

Everything about the meal was superb, and the atmosphere, French auberge meets small town America, was charming. And, as if perfectly cast, Serge’s beautiful young daughters, Charlotte and Sophie would flit to and from the kitchen, restocking crackers and sampling cheeses and smiling in that sweet, sophisticated French girl way, already mastered at the young ages of 9 and 12. And then there was Francois, his youngest, who toddled always near his mother with his petit juane cheveux pulled into a coiled ponytail at the nape of his neck.

If there were a story I’d like to insert myself firmly into, it would be this one. A young boy is born in Alau, France, one of twelve children. He gathers food in the fields with his siblings, and cooks alongside his mother. He becomes a chef, working in Geneva, France, England. One day, he’s working diligently in Marseille, when he gets a call from a restaurateur in midtown Manhattan. Come to New York, the caller says. Yes, the young man replies. He comes, he works his way around a grand big city, and falls in love with a lovely American girl. She’s not only beautiful, but also brilliant, and begs him to run away with her to the countryside where she can attend medical school. He finds a spacious white clapboard house in Vermont that reminds him of the auberges of France. He buys it, and begins the business of creating beautiful menus that highlight ingredients grown in Vermont’s fertile soil, and they live happily ever after with their four perfect children.

I’m not sure exactly where András and I would fit into this story, except as we did that night, as guests on the lawn of Serge’s auberge, eating fine food and drinking fine wine, toasting to another story beginning around us, and feeling very lucky to be a part of it.

Out Of Order

l.i.c., ny

People who find time to cook and write and take photos and post on their blogs regularly inspire me. Actually, they annoy me. How do they get it all done? I’m good with the cooking, the writing, and the photos, but then I often find myself in front of a pair of empty plates, deliriously satisfied and utterly uninterested in my computer. Thus, here I am, shamefully behind.

Many of these moments happened on the road on big and little trips that filled me with stories that I’m dying to share. Notice, if you’re a regular reader, that there is a gaping hole in my July Archives. Those are the weeks I was in Hungary, getting married again {to the same guy}, restoring a 200-year-old farmhouse and hosting my family. It was no time for posting blogs, but a lot of delicious things happened then that I’d still like to tell you about.

And there were two incredible weekends in Vermont, with mushroom hunting and duck confit and pretty little pastries that I can’t forgo sharing with you simply because time ran out.

There were dozens of harvests and simple suppers and meals with people we love that I hope might inspire a more delicious life for some of you. So, you’re going to have to forgive me. I’m going to begin posting my stories and photos all out of order.

If you’re a subscriber, this may cause some confusion. Don’t worry. You’re not going crazy, or going back in time. I am. If you don’t subscribe, you’ll probably never notice, since I feel compelled to back post them on the date they actually happened lest I be accused of lying or misleading my readers or worse, cooking out of season. Never.

I know this is not the point of blogs, but really, this is a collection of stories, essays and images that I hope transcend our cultural fascination with instant information. And besides, I needed time to digest lest I get the hiccups.

So, forgive me. Pretty please?

Say....

...cheese.

Glorious Dutchess Sara Cheese. Lovely name.

Buttery, nutty, golden goodness. You may even find yourself having a nibble on the subway, on the way to a picnic.

The Odyssey {and a Jar of Jam}

veszprem, hungary

I arrived Saturday in Hungary on a 48-hour solo mission to collect my residency papers, a process András and I started on our last visit back in July. It was my first trip to my husband’s homeland alone, two and a half days poised purely for a 1 hour Monday  meeting on which my future citizenship resides.

My trip began at András’ parents house, where I am greeted by his mother's traditional welcome meal, and a backyard brimming with the fruits that were only promises back in July—füge {fig}, alma {apple}, dios {walnuts}, birsalma {quince}. My head spins with possibility. There are purple grapes to turn into pies,  figs to jam, quince to preserve and elderberries to make into deep, black syrups.

But that’s not why I’m here. So, I rest and let Anya, his mother, spoil me in the love language we both speak— thick kokoa {cocoa} and fresh kenyer {bread} and warm palicinta {crepes} smothered a summer’s work of preserved apricot and plums. Anya’s jam, or lekvar, tastes more like fresh fruit than anything we get back home, the luscious whole pieces of fruit just sweet enough to melt on the tongue and remind me why András can make a whole meal of nothing else.

In two short days, we plant cherry trees and visit my favorite winery in Csopask and eat ice cream on Lake Balaton. And every few hours we return to the kitchen where I dip back into her jars, spooning decadent portions of preserves over her homemade bread and the kefir she has curing on top of the fridge. With each bite I regret first that András is not here with me, and second, that I can’t eat enough for us both. I regret most that I can’t possibly bring back enough flavors from home to take the place of actually being here. But I can try. I clasp my hands in front of me and say his name, a gesture Anya rewards with two giant jars of jam, wrapped tightly in paper for travel home.

Monday arrives too quickly, and Anya wakes me at 6 AM for reggeli {breakfast}, a cup full of her kefir with apricot lekvar and a bowl of peeled kurta {pears} from Porva. I pack, tucking my treasured lekvar into my little bag, and head to the office of immigration with Apa, András dad. I’m greeted by a friend of András who works there; she triple warns me what to and what not to say. If I am asked why I didn’t come sooner, I am not to say it’s because I live in America. I am to say I was on holiday. I’m not so say why András wasn’t there with me. I am to say he's off playing sport on the other side of the country. I’m not to say I’m leaving on a plane bound for New York within the day. I am to say the address of our little house in Porva, which I know, but practice saying in Hungarian over and over again in my head as the gravitas of my accuracy sinks in.

At the desk, alone, I’m greeted by curt words I don’t understand. “Angol?” I ask. Another agent steps in, half smiles and offers me broken English and a thick file with documents all baring my name or András’; banking slips, our marriage license, proof of property ownership. I recognize all of these from our first meeting here. She asks me to write and sign several declarations, and then, after much breath holding, she produces a passport-sized document with the Hungarian emblem and a photo of me in coiled buns taken back in June, looking decidedly Hungarian. She presses it into in the back of my passport and marks it with a final authoritative stamp, granting me resident status until 2014.

I beam. “Szep,” I say. Beautiful. She smiles. 


I meet Apa in the waiting room and convince him to help me celebrate with a quick trip through the piac {market} to get my last fill of local favorites. I fill up on barack {Peaches}, muskotaj {muscadet} grapes and rétes {strudel}. We polish them off during the two-hour journey to the Budapest airport where he drops me with a hug and a smile that matches the one that will greet me on the other side. I promise to give András their hugs, and feed him well.

Inside, I proudly display my resident’s sticker to the passport control, who flips past to the front page where a blonde and blue-eyed American girl smiles back at him. I ignore his disinterest in my pending countrymanship. I’m buoyant, thinking only of returning home to share my good news with András. I slide my bag through the security belt and glide through the metal detector.

“Open your bag, please,” an examiner asks. He hands me my bag.

I confess immediately. “I have lekvar.” 

“Do you know the rules about liquids?” he asks. “No liquids.”

“Yes, I know the rules. Lekvar is fruit and sugar, it’s not liquid.”

“No liquids.”

I proceed to explain that this is the only bit of home I can bring back to my husband, that it’s harmless, that it’s impossible for me to hurt anyone on the airplane with lekvar. Bombs have never been created from lekvar. He is unmoved. I begin to doubt the authenticity of his Hungarian accent. Certainly a Hungarian would know that I could not, would not, throw one’s mother’s jam away. I consider asking him to see his residency card, but instead I ask to see his supervisor. I tell my story again. I cannot throw it away. I will not throw it away. And besides, it’s not liquid, it’s lekvar.

“No liquids, no lotions, no lekvar.”

“Show me where it says no lekvar!” I demand. I recognize the desperation in my voice, and the fact that I’m treading on thin ground with a man who could make sure neither my lekvar nor me return to New York, but I’m unable to stop myself. He pulls the sign, points to lotion.

“But this is jam. It’s fruit and sugar. Fruit and sugar.” I repeat. My voice cracks.

“I’m sorry.”

Tears flood from my eyes as I lay the two jars of jam on the top of the pile of discarded water bottles and lotions, and pass out of security toward the gates.

On the other side, I stop, dropping my bags with my resolve, and cry. When I wipe my eyes, I see my gate directly in front of me with a flashing sign “oversold,” and in my hand a boarding pass that reads seat 35 E, the last row of the plane. It was more than I could bear.

I found a pair of soft eyes at the gate, and my tears come again. I’m not feeling well, I explain, asking to be moved up to bulkhead.

“Are you well enough to fly?” He asks.

“Yes. It’s just, I’m upset. They gave me a hard time at security.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. What did they do?”

“They took my grandmother’s jam.” I said, embellishing the facts beyond my control. “It was just lekvar, just fruit and sugar. It wasn’t going to hurt anyone. ”

“No. No, of course not. That’s terrible,” said the man with the soft eyes. Finally, a real Hungarian, I thought. “How about we put you in first class, seat 6A.”

“Yes, that would be fine.” I say.

On the plane, I recline my seat (before take off), snuggle into my duvet and fall into a deep sleep on my feather pillow. I wake up to wine in a real glass, filet mignon and a cheese plate, which I pick at before reaching for the cheese and piros paprika {red pepper} sandwich on fresh bread Anya packed me. I admit, I enjoy the endless stream of movies and service, the infinite legroom and 9 hours in a fully reclined position. I admit this is the better way to travel. But I’m still not convinced that all the free mimosas in the world can make up for being robbed of a whole month of Anya’s jam. Luckily, Mr. tough guy missed a jar.