Deck the Halls

Frasers, Cedars, Dougs, and Nobles...

          

Sounds like a bunch of guys at the Harvard Club.  It’s pretty close, because these trees are the crème de la crème of the beautiful evergreens that give their life for our Christmas celebrations every year.  Fresh, and dripping with dew, they make their way from the hills of North Carolina and the mountains of the Pacific Northwest to us in the form of wreaths, trees, garlands and kissing balls. It’s time to recycle out the old Indian corn for the squirrels, have a good time smashing the pumpkins and gourds for the birds and next spring’s garden seed. Yet another season is upon us, and it’s time to hang the beautiful greens of Christmas.

Many of these trees are lovingly grown on family farms and plantations, where for every tree that is cut, another dozen have been planted.  The business of putting together the boughs of evergreens is a family collaboration—wiring foot after foot of fresh cut greenery into long-lasting garlands, swags and wreaths.

Balsam is the most fragrant of firs.  Wired into mostly wreaths, this outstanding fir scents up a house like nothing else.  Loose, and fluffy, balsam needles tend to fall a little—but all the better when you vacuum them up.  The scent of balsam fir needles will last in your vacuum for months, freshening up the house and reminding you of your lovely Christmas season.

Douglas Fir, surprisingly enough, is considered its own species. Not a true fir, pine or spruce, the Doug fir is plentiful and produces more softwood per acre in Oregon than any other state in the country.  Its soft needles completely encircle its branches, making it perfect for cutting boughs and holiday trees.  The uniqueness of its cones makes the Doug Fir readily recognizable—little split bracts protruding out of each scale gave rise to a Native American Indian legend.  It is said that each bract signifies a mouse tail and legs from the time when they hid in the cones during forest fires.  A nice tidbit to remember when hanging pine cones on the tree with the kids.

Fraser Fir is the cream of the crop when it comes to Christmas trees.  Very similar to Balsam, it was once thought they were one tree, until the Fraser and Balsam took hold in different parts of the country. The Fraser is grown in the Southern Appalachian Mountains at elevations of above 4500 feet where the summers are not humid.  Its stiff, needle-retaining character has made it the most popular and coveted Christmas tree.  You can just hear the fiddles and banjos singing through the mountains while stroking the branches of this stunning tree.  

Western Red Cedar from the great mountains of the Pacific Northwest, has a flat appearance with a light green shade and small berries. It maintain it’s shape and freshness for quite a while, making it invaluable for roping and bunches. The Noble Fir, another great western fir, has a beauty all its own in the blue tinge of its needles.  Portly, fat, and full of substance, a Noble wreath is outstanding on the front door. 

Boxwoods are not in the fir family, but are evergreen shrubs known for their architectural beauty when planted in colonial and modern gardens.  As a tree, they are conical and magnificent when shaped. They are perfect planted in urns and pots.  Wreaths and roping made out of the common American Boxwood give an elegant Greek classical look to the front door or entrance way.

Taking care of your greens and trees are easy. In the plant yard, we give you the first cut on your tree.  When you bring it home, dunk it in a bucket of water until ready for the house.  At that point, you can give it a second cut, so water is sucked up readily to keep it fresh and keep it from drying out.  Checking the tree often is a good idea, for it likes to drink a lot.  Adding a product to the tree water such as “Prolong” will help the moisture get where it needs to go— in the tree “veins”.

The same goes with greens.  Instead of a cut, you can mist your wreaths and roping every other day.  The needles and leaves will appreciate a little drink on the foliage.  The heat inside the home is drying, so keep the spray bottle handy.

I always hate seeing the family Christmas tree dumped out in the street like garbage on December 26.  After New Years, I put the tree--   stand and all -- outside.  In the past, the kids decorated it for another Christmas go-round with cranberries and popcorn for the birds.  It’s also good protection for the critters during those beautiful snowstorms we get.  As far as they know, the darn tree fell from the sky to protect them! 

Cutting the branches off the tree and laying them around rosebushes and tender trees such as fig and other fruit trees forms an airy mulch that can protect from hard freezes. Azaleas, Rhododendrons, and other acid loving plants will benefit as well from the acidy mulch of disintegrating wreaths and branches.   When starting a fire, nothing makes better kindling in the fireplace than dried fir branches and pine cones. Stripping the needles off wreaths and trees for use in fragrant potpourri and sachet sacks is a good project as well.  In the end, the greenery just keeps on giving.

Remember the 12 days of Christmas, and keep the tree and wreaths around for a while outside before relegating them to the useless trash. The magic might just continue for just a little bit longer after the presents are unwrapped, and the relatives go home.  Peace and Goodwill to all—even the garden. 


Garden Center Post
By Patricia Dumas
November 2010

Thankful for the Cheese Course

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Photo by Phillip Kidd

Several things distinguished my Thanksgiving dinner from most around the country. First, no family members were present; not one diner was related to another, even through marriage. The absence of relations can make for a lively, carefree evening. Second, the meal began at a late hour, after 6 p.m., a schedule which allowed my childhood friend Andrée and me to cook for six hours straight, as soon as I got off the train in Rhode Island. And it meant that the festivities could carry on late into the evening, fueled by wine and Dogfish Head's Punkin Ale. Next, there wasn't a TV to watch football (poor Phillip had to follow the scores on his iPhone), and there wasn't any meat. The latter is not entirely true, as you can tell in the photo. Guests Barbara and Brad generously contributed a turkey, but Andrée and I prepared a completely vegetarian meal, as we've done for seven holidays together. With or without the turkey, the menu was one of plenty and not deprivation. In my mind, this holiday meal is all about the side dishes and the bounty of the season and not the poor turkey. Finally, we six diners enjoyed a cheese course in between the main meal and dessert. Somehow we managed to find room in our stomachs for it.

We included a cheese course because Andrée and Barbara, noting my growing expertise, asked me to lead a tutored tasting during my visit to Rhode Island so that they could learn a thing or two about cheese. Conducting a lesson on Thanksgiving itself made sense since we'd already be together and there was a good chance that Barbara and Brad would leave the next day to go skiing if snow could be found.

Photo by Phillip Kidd

The day was thus established, but we still had to decide when to hold the cheese tasting--before the meal or after?

For me, there was one uncontested answer. After the main meal. The timing is a nod to culinary traditions in France and Italy, where cheese is eaten before or instead of dessert, and in Britain, where cheese is eaten after dessert (a custom I still can't fully adopt; I like to end on a sweet, not savory note). It is also a nod to thriftiness and practicality. Good cheese is expensive, and it's painful for me to see hungry guests wolf down hunks of fine cheese without savoring it and without saving room for all the food to come. Delaying the cheese course means that guests won't ruin their appetites and that they will be able to appreciate the cheese more. It also serves as a delicious transition from the main meal to dessert, thereby prolonging the enjoyment of a shared dinner. An added benefit, one that none but dentists typically know, is that the consumption of cheese at the end of the meal helps protect teeth from the damage of eating sugars during it.

Photo by Phillip Kidd

Since serving cheese before dessert isn't an American custom, I Americanized our cheese course by serving only U.S. varieties on this most American of holidays. In case you haven't realized it yet, we are enjoying a renaissance of artisanal cheese production in the U.S., similar to the rebirth of fine domestic wines in the 1970s. American cheese no longer means processed yellow slices, but tasty, handcrafted cheese, often made with the milk from the well-cared-for animals that the cheesemaker raises. As a tip of a Pilgrim's hat to America's "discovery," I served Spanish marcona almonds and apple paste with the wedges of cheese.

If you are unfamiliar with America's finer cheeses, come by the cheese counter at Sickles for a taste: Upland Farm's Pleasant Ridge Reserve, America's most winning cheese; English-style bandaged Cheddars from Cabot in Vermont and from Fiscalini in California; creamy, aged goat cheeses, also from California (Cyprus Grove) and Vermont (Vermont Butter & Cheese); fruity blue cheeses from Rogue Creamery in Oregon; and meaty, washed rind squares from California (Nicasio Square) and Virginia (Grayson).

Whatever I may say, serve whatever cheese you want whenever you want. There are no rules. Just keep in mind that cheese doesn't have to be an appetizer; it can be its own course and this may help you enjoy your delicious selection even more.

Enjoy!
Diana the Cheesemonger

Find the Bitter Pleasures of Winter in a Sprout

From wikipedia

The trees around us are barely clinging onto their colorful leaves, and I myself am barely clinging onto warmth. My toes and fingers are tingling from the cold, and my core is uncomfortably taut from suppressing shivers. Believe it or not, I’m inside, not outside in the increasingly barren landscape that is relinquishing itself to the bleakness of winter.

Even as my toes and fingers turn purplish-red from the cold, I must admit that there are some joys during winter. Chief among them are the continued presence of green vegetables in my kitchen––not everything turns brown at this time of year. But they do change their nature. Wintertime veggies aren’t light and lively like their summer counterparts; they’re no cucumbers. Bitter, tough, and unpleasant to eat raw, they put demands on us in the kitchen, but they also can bring us delight, if we are willing to stop our grumbling and start eating.

There’s one vegetable in particular that I welcome at this time of year, and it’s the Brussels sprout. I know that it’s not the most sexy of vegetables and that it makes many folks gag at the memory of suffering through the challenging texture of a dull, over-boiled sprout, but I for one found joy in this maligned vegetable after unlocking its culinary secrets.

The first trick to appreciating Brussels sprouts is recognizing their seasonal appearance. Unlike its green brethren––broccoli, cabbage, kale, spinach, collards, Swiss chard, and broccoli raab––Brussels sprouts come out and play for a short window of time. This means that you should grab them while you can, and while they’re at their sweetest. One of the few gifts of Old Man Winter is making leafy greens and root vegetables sweeter after a frost. See, winter is not all bad. On top of that, if you can't be convinced of a sprout's gustatory merits, you can be happy that its season is so short.

From Fine Cooking

The most important trick comes in the kitchen itself. Don’t boil Brussels sprouts and don’t leave them whole (unless they’re small and you’re braising them in a flavorful liquid). What a revelation it was to learn from Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger on the cooking show Too Hot Tamales, one of the first programs of the Food Network in the mid-nineties, that you could shred the sprouts, sauté them in butter with salt and pepper, and enliven the rich dish with a squirt of fresh lime juice. This preparation yields all the satisfyingly complex taste of a mini cabbage with none of its undesirable texture.

Browning halves or quarters of Brussels sprouts, in a skillet or in the oven, is another trick for the kitchen during winter. This cooking method draws out their sweetness and adds a caramelized nuttiness. All you need is butter or olive oil––or a combo of both––and salt and pepper, but to make this dish worthy of the holiday table you can complement the nuttiness of the vegetable with a sprinkling of toasted hazelnuts and a squirt of bright lemon. Here’s a recipe from Fine Cooking, if you want to give this a combination a go, Browned Brussels Sprouts with Hazelnuts & Lemon.

Brussels sprouts don’t need to be relegated to a side dish; they can be a whole meal, as a cheese-y pasta dish with gorgonzola or as a rich gratin with Gruyere cheese, which could serve as a vegetarian’s entrée at Thanksgiving.

At the store you usually have the choice of prepackaged tubs of Brussels sprouts or loose ones. I would go with the latter since you can select the most desirable ones. They should be firm and green with a minimal amount of brown spots and yellow leaves. Note that you can remove the outermost blemished leaves and that the smaller sprouts tend to be the sweeter ones. At the farmers’ market, if yours is still open, you can even buy them on the stalk, which is visually dramatic. I like to do this, even though it tends not to be the most economical and it requires some work removing the sprouts from their stem, because it’s fun and it puts me in closer touch with the bounty of the season.

Nothing puts me more in touch with the season than my chilled fingers and toes, which get even colder on my bike rides home from Sickles at the end of the day, but even those rides are enjoyable. I can stop in Locust on the other side of the Oceanic Bridge and gaze in wonder at the amazingly clear night sky and its dazzling stars. The trick with anything is finding the positive, even in a Brussels sprout.

Enjoy!

Diana the Cheesemonger

Where have all the flowers gone?

The honeybees that droned around our flowers all summer long have long gone into hibernation, feasting on the collected honey in their hives to sustain themselves over the winter, shivering away around the queen bee to keep the colony warm.  The lowly bumblebee doesn’t fare so well.  Only the mated queen gets to survive, while the other lowly workers pass on into bumblebee heaven.  Somewhat like the way of the world. It’s all about where you are on life’s ladder. 

The garden spiders that graced us with spectacular webs this fall, have all but died, leaving their little egg sacs under our eaves.  With Charlotte always on our minds, we miss the nightly spinning and redecorating of the web along with the beautiful, yet grisly show of stealthy moth capture.

 The birds are still here.  Maybe not with their joyous song or color, but, they’re laying low, roosting, and spending all their time and energy looking for food. If your yard is full of berry producing shrubbery, you’ll find a lot of activity.

 Robins and other berry-lovers find a wealth of food in pyracantha, winterberries, and viburnum fruit.  These feeder shy birds will even come to our feeders if we put out fruit, berries and suet. There’s even dried mealworms available. These ugly little critters are beautiful to the birds. Besides Robins, they attract birds like hungry and cold bluebirds, catbirds, mockingbirds and other insect-lovers.  You might even find a rare Rose Breasted Grosbeak snatching one up. Try some of the amazing flavors of Cole’s specially formulated seed too.   There is something for everyone—and even specially coate seed to keep Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel from depleting the stores.

You may think the garden is dead, wiped out and gone.  Not true.  Everything is sleeping, from the roots of your black-eyed Susies, to the limp-leaved hulk, which is your dogwood tree. There’s life left yet underground.

Take a look at our TLC (tender loving care) corner and reduced perennial table as an example.  The plants may look a bit worn and bedraggled. But, look again. Great bargains are to be found under their homeless and shabby looks. The plants are just taking a snooze until next year when they’ll be bigger, better and full of blooms. They’re still healthy and vigorous- it’s what plants do at this time of year—curl up and look dead.  Some of our plant bargains include full grown grasses, ferns, asters, and daisies. You can plant as long as your spade can dig a hole in the earth. 

Fear not.  Flowers and gardening are not dead.  One step into the greenhouse lures you into the wonderful world of indoor gardening. Try your hand at the easy to grow phalaenopsis orchids.  They come in a zillion colors and are really a pleasure for the indoor gardener. The Christmas Cactus is an old-time favorite that can live for many years with little care. Every year, the kids know it’s almost Christmas when our 20 year-old plant blooms in a profusion of pink flowers.  Here at the market, we have one that has been in the Sickles’ family for almost 100 years!  

You can extend your love of gardening by experimenting with taking cuttings of pothos, heirloom begonias, and Christmas cactus plants to make even more for your windowsills.   Easily rooted, these plants (with a little help from rooting powder) will satisfy your need to cultivate. Jade plants are a joy to root—just stick them in potting soil, water regularly, and they root within a few weeks.

Bulbs are an amazing way to play at gardening in the fall and winter.  For a blast of color indoors before spring, try storing a few tulip and daffodil bulbs in the fridge for about a month.  After that, pot them up in stones or potting soil, and voila—spring flowers inside in January and February!  The paperwhite narcissuses are perfect for indoors.  These tender bulbs will blossom into a profusion of white flowers with an enchanting fragrance when potted up in the house. They need no cold period and grow fast.

You may just be content with looking out your windows.  The bleak winter garden has a beauty all its own. But, if you can’t stand another minute without flowers, bright green leaves or dirt between your fingers, there’s a whole indoors to green up and satisfy any gardeners heart.

Patricia Dumas

Balthazar: A Well “Bread” Bakery

Of all the foods that I would not want to live without, bread is at the top of my list. I absolutely love bread, in all its variations. You can forget all of those low carb/high protein diets that banish bread from the dining table. Bread is here to stay in my kitchen. And I am in good company. According to the late great James Beard: ”Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.” British journalist William Cobbett put it even more simply: “Without bread all is misery.”

Bread has an amazingly long history, almost as far back as the beginning of mankind. This basic food made from wholesome grains has been called the Staff of Life in some cultures, and in others it has been the cause of brutal wars. Bread is ubiquitous, popping up on tables all over the world, finding a place at every meal, from breakfast to dessert. But all breads are not created equal. There is one particular bread company that excels at the art of bread making, namely Balthazar Bakery of New York City and Englewood, NJ. Since 1997, Balthazar Bakery has produced only the finest breads, using the freshest ingredients and time-honored techniques. Their large, signature crusty rounds reflect the traditions of the past, when villagers used to bring their dough weekly to the town baker’s communal ovens for baking. The long, hot bake would create a delicious caramelized crust and the large loaves also stayed moist and flavorful. Today, Balthazar’s breads are known for their exceptional crust, handmade dough and vibrant flavor.

Sickles Market offers almost a dozen varieties of Balthazar breads, including Baguette, Brioche Loaf, Cranberry Pecan Batard, Multigrain Loaf, Olive Batard, Rosemary Ring, Rye Boule, and Walnut Batard. The baguette is the quintessential French classic with a light airy crumb and crunchy crust. It is the perfect accompaniment to any cheese as it allows the true flavor and texture of the cheese to prevail in a tasting. I especially like to use a thinly sliced baguette with one of my holiday favorites: Fig Tapenade and Goat Cheese Appetizer. You can encircle the tapenade with thyme branches, the goat cheese rounds and the baguette slices to make a lovely wreath on the platter. To me, the walnut batard is the most irresistible of all the breads. It is dense, moist and studded with chunky walnuts, without being sweet. Spread some Stilton or creamy St. Agur Blue on sliced walnut bread for an elegant dessert.

Brioche is my bread of choice at breakfast time. If you have never tasted the Balthazar Brioche Loaf, you are in for a real treat. The bread practically melts in your mouth! Martha Stewart has two delicious recipes for sliced brioche: The first one, the Balthazar Brioche French Toast ,produces a simple, yet elegant breakfast entrée. The second, the Pear Stuffed French Toast, takes a little more effort but is quite impressive. Of course, you can always serve up a basket of assorted Balthazar breads along with butter and preserves for a memorable but very low-hassle breakfast that puts a smile on everyone’s face.

Laura Han from Balthazar Bakery will be here in person this weekend(Friday 11/5 and Sunday 11/7) sampling these traditional artisanal breads. Please stop by Sickles and see why I have fallen in love with the Balthazar products. And while you are here, visit the cheese department as well. I’d be happy to help you find a special cheese to accompany your favorite bread.
Enjoy!

Cheri The Cheesemonger

Portrait of a Cheesemonger

I haven’t always been a cheesemonger. For most of my professional life, classics and education have provided me with a steady paycheck. For eight years I was a Latin teacher, and for another seven I served as the assistant editor for Classical World, an academic journal dedicated to the study of antiquity, based at New York University.

How does a classicist turn into a cheesemonger? Blame it on an obsession, or a possession, as the New York Times phrased it in an article from 2005 about me and other folks who have been seduced by the dairy way (and whey!). (Please note that this article, “By Cheese Possessed,” contains an error: I was working on a master’s paper, not a dissertation about the Americanization of Cheddar.)

Unlike famous foodies, such as Anthony Bourdain, I can’t pinpoint when my obsession began. As a boy, Bordain awakened to the pleasures of food after eating a plump––slightly obscene––oyster pulled right from the water by a French fisherman. Nothing as seminal happened to me. Mine was a more gradual development, starting with a girl’s typical enjoyment of cheese, usually of the yellow supermarket variety. My connection with cheese deepened when I became a vegetarian at the age of fifteen and would consult the hippie Moosewood Cookbook for meatless meals. Almost every recipe calls for a cup of cheese. Traveling abroad in college and unwilling to eat local cured meats, I turned to cheese to give me a glimpse into a region's cuisine. Cheese and I are now together forever.

This still doesn’t explain why I’ve redirected my professional path. Perhaps the explanation is hard to come by, even for me. There is a mystery to cheese that’s tough to shake once you’ve partaken in it. You want to be close to the magic of a perishable liquid turning into a deliciously edible solid that can last for years. From a more global perspective, being a cheesemonger helps you feel connected to agricultural lands all over the world and allows you to do a small part in keeping rural traditions alive in our increasingly industrial landscape. Working in a classroom or behind a desk doesn’t give you that satisfaction.

Now committed to being a cheesemonger, I’ve been putting some thought into my professional philosophy. This has been partially prompted by Crispin Cider of Minnesota, which has recently invited me to be a cheesemonger profiled on their Web site. What guides me is a commitment to giving my customers what they want for a particular event––whether it be a solo lunch or a cocktail party for fifty people––and to encouraging them to sample something new, especially an artisanal cheese (as opposed to a mass-produced one).

Tasting a cheese made by hand can awaken a whole new world of gustatory pleasures, and it can provide a connection to our anonymous food producers. Even though I primarily subscribe to a local, seasonal diet and I am very supportive of American artisanal cheeses for this reason, I don’t limit myself to domestic choices. In this way I am more of a follower of Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food Movement, who aims to preserve the best foods in the world, not just the local ones. This is not simply an issue of taste. Just as I don’t want to see Iraqi or Afghan artistic treasures lost to the ravages of war, I don’t want historic cheeses to be lost to mass production. They are just as much cultural artifacts of our shared humanity as monumental Buddhist statues carved into sandstone cliffs.

Only at this profession for two years, I’ve got to keep working on my craft. This entails learning how to store cheeses properly and offer them to customers at their peak. I also have to hone my cheese-cutting skills. This includes being able to open musty 50-pound wheels of clothbound English Cheddar and slippery 90-pound wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano and being able to slices wedges to order that look attractive, minimize waste, and reflect the amount that a customer wants.

I’ve got my work cut out for me, so to speak, but it doesn’t feel like a chore. I love cheese and I love working with it. On top of that, I relish the political and cultural role I play in keeping traditional foodways from extinction, keeping dairy farmers on their land, and keeping customers informed about the deliciousness of handcrafted foods and the impact of their food choices on the world around them. All that in a wedge of cheese!

Enjoy your cheese!

Diana the Cheesemonger