A (Culinary) Salute to Fall

Fall has officially arrived, and I'm doing a little dance of glee even as my coworkers bemoan the sudden downturn in temperature. I'm a fall baby, so maybe that's why I love it so much, or maybe it's the fact that I live in an area that wears fall so beautifully. Either way, the second that crisp edge enters the air, the leaves start changing, and the markets start showing mums, apples, and pumpkins, I get all warm and fuzzy.

The farm's gotten into the swing of things by putting out the first batch of pumpkins, and I gleefully picked one up, thinking: Pumpkin White Bean Stew!

This stew is one of my mother's specialties, and she used to make it for me on Halloween. Believe me, there's nothing quite like coming in from trick or treating, chilled and tired, and being served up a nice bowl of festively orange stew with a side of roasted pumpkin seeds. Bliss!

Pumpkin-White-Bean Stew
1 medium-size pumpkin (try to get one from a farm or farmers' market. They have more flavor than the ones at the grocery store)
5-6 sage leaves
5 stems of thyme
Olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
3/4 tsp cumin seeds
1 clove garlic, diced
1 cup white beans, soaked overnight, or two cans, rinsed
3 1/2 + 1 1/4 cup chicken or vegetable stock, separated 
2 tsp brown sugar
3/4-1 tsp chili powder

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Cut the pumpkin into fourths and scrape out all the seeds and guts. Rinse the seeds well and set them aside. Arrange the pumpkin on a baking sheet

Drizzle a tablespoon or two of olive oil over the pumpkin. Cut up the sage leaves and remove the thyme from the stems. Sprinkle both over the pumpkin quarters and season.

Roast the pumpkin 20-25 minutes, until the herbs become fragrant and the flesh just starts to roast. Let cool until you can handle it without burning yourself.

Separate the flesh from the skin of the pumpkin and cut into large dice. Put a quarter of the dice in a saucepan with the 1 1/4 cups of stock and boil until the pumpkin is tender. Puree in a blender and set aside.

Saute the onion, cumin seeds, and garlic in olive oil in a large pot for 3-5 minutes, until the onion starts to get translucent. Add the remaining pumpkin and stock, the brown sugar, and the chili powder. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, cover, and simmer about 15 minutes. Add the soaked beans, recover, and simmer another 10-15 minutes, until beans and pumpkin are tender.

Add in the pureed pumpkin. Taste and adjust seasonings. If you like it sweeter, add more brown sugar or a bit of honey. If you like heat, more chili powder. You get the idea.

**Cook's note: one of the nice things about this recipe is its adaptability. It's great with classic herbs, like sage and thyme, or curry spices, which is what my mother used a lot. Feel free to experiment--chances are, you'll be glad you did.

Blighted

Well, the organic farm has thrown in the towel with the tomatoes this year.

When I went yesterday, I was told that sauce and cherry tomatoes were now "gleaning" crops, meaning I could help myself to as many usable ones as I could find. Quality was poor because they'd been hit by late blight.

Boy, had they ever. Under a gray, drippy sky I wandered the rows of dessicated plants sporting rotted out fruit that somehow still clung to the vine, although it dropped off the second you touched it, splotching the ground beneath it. The few baby tomatoes somehow still managing to sprout don't stand a chance.

Someone told me that this is the same strain of blight that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840's. We still haven't figured out what causes it or what to do about it. And walking the fields yesterday, I could get a very, very tiny measure of what it must have been like to go out to your farm in the morning and see your previously healthy plants reduced to this. Very disheartening.

Still, there is a bit of a silver lining. At least tomatoes can be eaten underripe, unlike potatoes. Circumstances like this tend to make you think differently about how you use your produce. Serendipitously, the New York Times ran a recipe yesterday for Green Tomato Soup. Keeping that in mind, I pulled some good-sized green tomatoes off the vines so I can give it a try. The weather's turned rainy and chilly very suddenly out here, perfect weather for soup. I know you can also can and fry green tomatoes, but what else? Any suggestions? I'm wide open to them!

Dinner in the Field

Fall is almost here--It's almost palpable. Corny as it sounds, I could feel it in the air when I stepped outside yesterday afternoon. Although it was 80+ degrees, there was the tiniest edge to the air; a slight tang. It'll be here soon enough, and boy, does that make me happy. I love fall. Especially fall in my little corner of the world. Walkable historic towns with Victorian architecture lend themselves beautifully to fall foliage, as do the views of the Delaware River from the New Hope-Lambertville bridge.

On Sunday, A. and I had a pretty unique opportunity to celebrate the coming of the new season: a harvest dinner in the fields at Dreyer Farms in Cranford (another picturesque little town). The dinner was catered by the chef of Boulevard Five72, using produce from the farm. This one dinner was the best possible commercial for both the farm and the restaurant. It's too bad both are more than an hour from where I live, or I'd be there all the time. Then again, for the sake of my bank account, maybe that's a good thing.

First off, the weather actually cooperated, after several days of rain, cold, and gloomy skies. The sun came out, and the temperature went up to the 80's, which meant the sangria served during the cocktail hour were doubly refreshing. Ditto the champagne, which I really can't resist. Passed hors d'oeuvres included smoked salmon tartlets, wonderful polenta cakes with ratatouille (the polenta was perfect--crispy outside, and moist within. My hat is off to them), and sublime tempura-battered green beans. I really, really want to track down a recipe for those and make them for A's birthday party this week.

As the sun set and the mosquitos mercifully stayed away, we moved to the long table that had been set up between rows of basil and salad greens. By chance, I found myself sitting in the midst of the Dreyer family, who have farmed this same plot of land since 1904. Paterfamilias Henry Dreyer, who sat across from me, was a great dinner companion, and we chattered away through all four courses, covering everything from tomato blight to what to do on a visit to Quebec City.

Like the hors d'oeuvres, the main meal didn't disappoint. We moved from a lovely light salad to a prawn served on heirloom tomatoes and watermelon, followed by veal with sweet potato puree and an almond tart with Jersey peaches for dessert. Not a single thing disappointed, and the flavors were lovely. And so were the wines served with each course. Maybe the wines were too good--I did wake up with the slightest headache on Monday morning. Still, definitely worth it. Now, I'm off to try and find that green bean recipe. Wish me luck!

Perfect Polenta

One of the things I like most about belonging to our CSA farm is that it essentially forces me to cook according to what's really in season, the way people used to. I'm a history buff, so I enjoy that and occasionally pretend I'm Laura Ingalls Wilder, tramping through the fields to get dinner. It also makes you use your imagination. You have no idea how many different things you can do with a tomato until you have three pounds of heirlooms, plus a pound and a half of cherry tomatoes on your hands.

Last night, I put those tomatoes to good work in a dish that would have made my Italian forbears proud: spicy tomatoes with shrimp and mussels, served over homemade polenta.

Polenta's a wonderful thing, and it's incredibly easy to make, which makes me wonder why the heck I ever spent upwards of $4 on the ready made stuff when I could have just bought $2 worth of cornmeal and made about 20 times as much of it at home. Like pasta, it's versatile and can be served as a side dish on its own, mixed or sprinkled with cheese or jalapenos to give it a kick, or covered with some kind of sauce, like we did last night. You can have it soft, like grits, or let it harden and slice it up to toss on the grill or in a pan. This also makes me feel Laura Ingalls Wilder-ish--what we call polenta she called Cornmeal Mush in her books. I think polenta sounds nicer.

Polenta A La Bree

1/2 onion

1 cup cornmeal (course ground works best)

Olive oil

salt and pepper

1. Saute the onion in the olive oil until it just turns translucent and starts to release its flavor, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool slightly.

2. In a large saucepan, stir together 1 cup of water, the cornmeal, and 1 tsp. salt. Add the cooled onion. Stirring constantly, add 2 cups boiling water.

3. Turn on the burner under the saucepan to medium heat. Cook the polenta, stirring constantly, until it's thickened and comes away from the sides of the saucepan. Taste and season.

**If you like, you can fold in some parmesan or pecorino romano cheese, or sprinkle the cheese of your choice over the top of the warm polenta. Serve warm immediately, or spread in a greased brownie pan and let cool. Cut into slices and grill or saute.

The Best Money Ever Spent

Some months ago, a friend of mine asked if A. and I wanted to split a family share at a local CSA organic farm. It didn't take us long to jump at the opportunity. Organic produce every single week from May to whenever it peters out in the fall for $200? We're in! And it was easily the best $200 we've ever spent. Although the weather's, well, sucked for most of the summer, the abundance of produce has been astonishing. The share is split three ways, and yet we still tend to end up with more food than we can eat (hence my recent canning craze).

The whole idea is great--swing by on your appointed day, toting baskets, clippers, and bags, help yourself to your share of the produce in the farm stand, and then take to the field to collect flowers, fruit, herbs, and more veggies. The raspberries and blackberries are coming into season now, which gives us a little something to dress our cereal up with every morning. It's a great thing; it gives those of us with no time, space, inclination, or talent for gardening all the benefits of fresh-grown produce with almost none of the work. And, it gives me something to look forward to on Wednesdays (our appointed day). I never check the farm's website to see what's on offer--I like to be surprised. Every Wednesday's like Christmas morning now.

In season this week: the aforementioned berries, heirloom tomatoes (mmmmmm), watermelon, and dill, among other things. I grabbed the dill on a whim, I'll admit, and now I'm trying to think of things to do with it. I think I'll do a veggie dip with some plain yogurt and snack on it at work next week. What do you think?