Sweater and gumbo weather in Truro

Here’s a link to my recent column on chicken, oyster and sausage gumbo in the Provincetown Independent.

https://provincetownindependent.org/visual/2020/10/22/gumbo-is-for-sweater-weather/

Lilacs and peas!

Everything's blooming.  Lilacs, apple trees, irises, chives.  Well, OK, not everything.  But lots of things ARE blooming and lots of other things are poking through the ground.  Like the new asparagus crowns I put in.  And the peas, radishes, lettuces, beets, carrots and parsley.  No dahlias poking up yet.  I lost more tubers this winter than ever so I consolidated the remainder into a new smaller area of the garden, right in front of the hollyhocks and sunflowers.

The birds have been magnificent this spring.  They start around 5a and, if the windows are open they're loud enough to wake us.  But I love laying half-asleep and listening to them.  Soon we'll take the feeder in and they won't be as active near the cottage, but for now I can listen while the sun rises.

I'm beginning to think about the menu for the Oysters, Seersucker and Gin summer party at the cottage.  Our favorite Oysterman Jason Weisman will be shucking and serving up his delicious oysters and clams with the amazing sauces he and his wife make from locally foraged ingredients.  And Christopher will roast pork in Julia Child's marinade sêche that we'll serve with a tonnato sauce.  I'm considering a simple scallop crudo, a couple of Didi Emmons dips with crudités, my traditional pimento cheese, and a white bean garlic spread.  And deviled eggs.  I also have a pureed carrot spread with curried yoghurt that's very tasty.  Oh, and the smoked andouille sausage that Christopher and I made this winter will be the center of the charcuterie platter.  I need to start a list.

This week I plant okra, cayenne peppers, and blue hubbard squash!

Did anyone say transplant?

Is it me, or am I always transplanting?  I can't ever seem to get things in the right place, the first time.  Arghh!  And since it's chilly and damp and cloudy (what we call spring on the Cape), it's a good time for moving things (most things anyway).  Today as I was having my coffee, preparing to transplant, and listening to C.L. Fornari's Garden Line on 95.1 (a station on which you can also hear Rush Limbaugh--just saying) a flock of very large turkeys moved through the front garden.  I love watching them, even as I cringe as they root through things best left unrooted through.  Still
. . . they're Wiley Cottage turkeys, so . . .

Once fully caffeninated and turkey-bonded,  I transplanted 2 azalea bushes that were in the wrong place.  I think I've got them, now, in the right place, at the side of our gargantuan and legendary rhodedendron, planted by Mrs. Wiley over 30 years ago.  They will look good together, the small rounded shape of the azaleas mirroring the large rounded shape of the rhodi.  Of course I know this is not the optimal time to transplant the azaleas because they're just coming to life after winter.  But not everything in life is optimal, so . . . just live dammit!

gigantic rhodi

I also moved our blue-purple Rose of Sharon to the new, still in formation, front (someday, secret) garden.  I put it in front of and to the right of the limelight hydrangeas.  I know that doesn't sound like a good combination, but the tree cover determined the placement.  Aside from raking and watering-watering-watering the transplants that was my garden work today.

Some unpicked Eastham turnips are pushing out leaves so I cut some to
include in my white bean stew with smoked pork sausage from Johnson's Boucannerie in Lafayette, LA that Ms. Nev sent up for Christopher's birthday.  It was pretty delicious--just sauteed chopped onions, garlic and a carrot cut in big chunks.  A half pound of white beans, washed and soaked in cold water for a few hours while I transplanted.  A bay leaf, salt, pepper, a spring of thyme uncovered when I raked the herb garden.  Some frozen diced tomatoes (looked like about a cup) and the dregs of some white wine I had around.  That's it.  I had an endive in the vegetable drawer which I cut in half, rubbed with olive oil and salt and pepper and then put under the broiler for about 10m.  I topped that with some shaved parmesan and it was a passable first course.  For the main I did the smoked sausage in a traditional method--put the links in a skilled and cook over a medium fire until browned then add some water.  Continue to cook until the sausage wass glazed and crisp.  I split the sausage and served it over rice with the bean stew on top and it was pretty damned good.

sunset at Wiley Cottage

Tomorrow I'm moving the peonies and planting parsley and lettuces before I'm off to the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History for a talk on using native plants in landscaping.  I hope the turkeys join me again for coffee!

Easter Ham

OK, this isn't a picture from this s
torm but you get the picture

Snowwwwwww!

It's snowing outside.  I just want to get that out of the way.  It's April 3rd and the world is snowing it's ass off.  It could be bad, right.  For example the asparagus crowns I just planted could die (I don' t think they will because it's not really cold).  It's actually not really bad.  Christopher and I have decided to make the best of it.  A cozy fire.  Some morning netflix.  A snowy walk.  And the weather has given us a use for the last of the Easter ham, because what better use is there for a ham bone than split pea soup.  Not only do I have the bone and some meat, but I also have the ham stock from Julia Child's braise and glaze recipe that includes an entire bottle of riesling.  No recipe needed.

1 onion and 1 leek (because that's what we have)
2 rejuvenated celery stalks
1 carrot
1 garlic clove
some blanched chard we had in the freezer

chop and mince all that up and sauté in some oil until softened.  Then add some salt (2 teaspoons more or less), some black pepper (about a quarter teaspoon), some herbs (savory would be nice, or sage or thyme--about a teaspoon), a bay leaf.  stir it up.

add 8 to 10 cups of stock or water.  I had about 7 cups of ham stock and about a cup of chicken stock so I threw those in and for the rest used water.

Then add about a pound of rinsed split peas, a ham bone, and/or some chopped ham.

Bring to a boil then cook on a low simmer until the peas break up and thicken the soup.

Yum.  I also made some bread with about 3/4 cup of scottish oats (the pulverized kind) using my father-in-law Peter's recipe.  So instead of 3 c. bread flour, use 2 1/4 c. plus 3/4 c. scottish oats.  And that was the end to a lovely snowy weekend.

NOLA baby. NOLA. City of my dreams

camellia at Afton Villa

It was my mother's 73rd birthday last week so I planned a trip to south central Louisiana to celebrate with her.  Not that Ms. Nevest was particularly celebrating 73.  And I understand--after 35, in my experience, it's just annoying.  Anyway . . .

I spent a couple of days in Lafayette (famed for Cajuns, crawfish, and Mackenzie Bourg (yawn)).  We did the thing Ms. Nevest loves best:  admiring her admirable garden, solving home design conundrums, and avoiding social interactions.  I love these activities too (I'm a little more tolerant of social interactions than she is, but not much . . .).  My HGTV contributions were 1. the idea to install a hedgerow of wax leaf lugustrium in front of the house where, until recently, had stood a gigantic cypress tree that clearly would have been happier in a swamp (so Ms. Nevest had the MF chopped down--Ms. Nevest don't play); and 2. a plan for a curtain on a track rod to divide the two sections of her living room.  Because she wants them divided.  And so if things that ought not be divided must be divided, a curtain on a track is a good way to accomplish that.  For my contributions I was rewarded with a gigantic mound of steaming crawfish from our favorite crawfish takeout--the Boiling Pot on Foreman Drive.  Should you find yourself in Lafayette, LA, I recommend it highly.

And, because I can only sit around the house so much, we went off on a little road trip, starting with breakfast at the Palace Cafe in Opelousas (FYI only 2 doors down from the barber shop where Clyde Barrow got his last haircut before he and Bonnie were cut down in Bienville Parish--just an interesting little Bonnie and Clyde factoid).  Then we drove north to Afton Villa Gardens in St. Francisville to see the azaleas.  I was hoping to take the ferry from New Roads to St. Francisville--you really get a sense of the giganticness of the Mississippi River when you're on a little ferry in the middle of it.  That thing is scary!  But there's a new bridge--so disappointing.  In any case, the road from the highway to the gardens was lined with moss-dripping live oaks and flowering azaleas.
(Asphalt to azaleas--that pretty much sums up Louisiana.  Ever more asphalt and fewer azaleas, though).  And then, having had our fill, we were off to that Eden on the Mississippi, New Orleans.  That salacious, glorious omphalos of civilization outside the edges of which, as Ignatius Reilly understood deeply, is really only Baton Rouge, flatulence and chaos.  NOLA--an Ark in the maelstrom.  The city of my dreams.

Tracey's on Magazine 

Christopher and I had rented a shotgun in the Irish Channel (appropriate since the Feast of St. Patrick is a big deal in NOLA and it was fast approaching--think parades with turnips and cabbages as throws). Christopher was not to arrive until the next day and when he did our first meal would be, as it always is, a poboy at Tracey's on Magazine.  I recommend either oyster, or shrimp or roast beef.  One of those and an Abita Amber and you're good to go.  So very good.  But for them moment, Ms. Nevest and I settled into the apartment, met the neighbors ("heeyyy.  How y'all doin'?").  Rested.  Because we had a big night ahead.

Jim, Sarah, Ms. Nev and
me at Borgne

That evening Ms. Nevest and I met our friends Jim Underwood and his wife Sarah at John Besh's Borgne for dinner.  When I go to the city of my dreams I so look forward to seeing Jim and Sarah, because they're the most lovely people.  I'm lucky to have inherited them from my brother Brit--Jim is his friend from back in the day.  But I'm selfish that way, so I've colonized them--don't judge me.  Did I mention they're lovely?

Anyway to get back to the story, I've resisted going to Borgne because it's in the Hyatt Regency Hotel.  Yuck!  The idea of a hotel restaurant, at least in NOLA, doesn't appeal.  But Jim suggested it and who are we to argue with a local.  Once again, Jim knew.  It was a wonderful meal, laid back with great service.  I'm still thinking about the shrimp and crab salad with horseradish dressing.  It's the best thing I've had in years.  And Ms. Nevest laughed all night.

St. Roch Market

The next day I dragged Ms. Nevest up and down through the Lower Garden District, the Bywater and the neighborhood north of St. Claude to have a look at houses on the market in our price range and the neighborhoods they're in.  That was like, 2 houses.  We made a lunch stop at the newly renovated St. Roch Market on St. Claude where I had a delicious order of avocado toast with fried eggs at Juice NOLA. Also worth a try, Koreola for a Korean-Creole mashup.  We also checked on the progress of the new Rampart Street streetcar line.

Christopher arrived midday and we all napped after the afore-mentioned Tracey's poboys (with a few oysters on the halfshell and bloody marys tossed in).  Our evening plans centered around dinner at Brennan's, which was also celebrating a birthday (its 70th)

poster on Magazine Street

 with a complete redo.  And it's a restaurant to which Ms. Nevest had not been in 30 years.  We started out in the lovely courtyard with a bottle of Billecart-Salmon (our inescapable favorite--that's a whole other story).  The staff was very attentive about Ms. Nevest's birthday (to the point that it felt just marginally creepy) and the food was tasty in that classic Creole sort of way (which is to say once every decade might be enough).  Among other things we had the blue crab remoulade (meh), the lamb rack, the palm sugar roasted duck and the vadouvan roasted drum.  Nice-nice-nice.  All of the main courses were very well done, although at times it was hard to see them through the haze of the special of the day, Steak Dianne, that was being cooked table side throughout the dinning room.  Between the smoke of Diane and the the flames leaping from the bananas Foster I was worried that someone was going to catch on fire.  We get it--bananas Foster with its tableside preparation was invented at Brennan's.  Still.  There was a whole lot of sizzling going on!  All in all I had the clear sense that Ms. Nevest would have preferred to get Olive Garden takeout and eat at home in front of the TV.  So next year, . . .

in the courtyard at Brennan's

Afterward we went to the Sazarac Bar in the Roosevelt Hotel for, well, Sazaracs, to round out the evening festivities.  I always forget how lovely the murals are (they remind me of the murals at Bemelman's in the Carlyle in New York--not in style, but in significance).  It was a nice way to end the evening.

Joe and Carl at the Spotted Cat

The next day Ms. Nevest said her goodbyes and was off on I-49 to Lafayette.  Christopher and I had 24 hours to do our own thing before the arrival of our friends Joe and Carl.  We walked the neighborhoods looking at houses and went to the Audubon Zoo (well worth a trip).  The gorillas La Petit Grocery, Justin Devillier's restaurant on Magazine.  What we didn't do is have the crab spaghetti (which we ALWAYS have) because, sadly, it has been taken off the menu.  But we did have the blue crab beignets (think creole soup dumplings), charred cucumbers, the roasted broccoli bagna cauda and the justly famous burger.  The service is top notch.
freaked us out a little; they looked a little too much like  us and they were sitting on cardboard boxes, which made them look like homeless gorillas.  Just a little sad.  That evening we did what we always do for our first evening meal in NOLA, we sat at the bar at

Casamento's oyster loaf

We ate at many other NOLA restaurants, some old and some new.  We had oyster loaves at Casamento's on Magazine, the buffet at Lil Dizzy's on Esplanade, amazing cocktails at Cure on Freret, a surprisingly mediocre meal in an atmosphere reminiscent of the Cheesecake Factory at Donald Link's Peche in the Warehouse District (though the "fish sticks" and the spicy ground shrimp and noodles were pretty tasty), and some workman-like pizza at Ancora on Freret.  We heard music at the the Spotted Cat on Frenchman and Maple Leaf on Oak.

Cure on Freret

 The highlight of our visit (food-wise)--as we expected--was the Israeli restaurant Shaya on Magazine.  Truly memorable food.  In the last decade, for all the wrong reasons, New Orleans really has been transformed from a food museum into a food destination with all kinds of surprises--Shaya is one of them.  The food at Shaya has nothing to do with historic NOLA foodways (at least in terms of content) but everything to do with the transformational and additive dimension of a city that has had to reinvent itself many times over the centuries, incorporating the new in innovative ways.  The food at Shaya is fresh and bright and very interesting.  The space is lovely and the service is too.

Mardi Gras Indians on Super Sunday

Finally, our trip providentially coincided not only with St. Patrick's Day but also with St. Joseph's Day and Super Sunday.  We checked out the St. Joseph's Day Altar at Our Lady Star of the Sea in St. Roch and we attended uptown Indian Practice and saw some pretty amazing costumes.  Super Sunday was more chaotic that I had imagined it would be but I guess that's just part of it.

Joe and Carl at Cure

Is it spring yet?

It's spring, right? We did have 30 bags of manure delivered today and as I type Christopher is outside manning the grill.

Of course we live in New England so it's also raining and chilly and foggy.  But at least it's not snowing.  Tomorrow promises some breaks in the clouds and so my plan is to spread some of that manure and plant grass seed in our new front garden.  At the moment it's just 12 yards of our friend Froggy Frazier's topsoil but soon it will be verdant.  And maybe, if I'm feeling brave, I'll even put in some lettuces

For the first time since winter began we did our evening walkabout.  A walkabout is when we mix the signature cocktail of the day (today, Negronis), and then we walk all around the cottage from Old County Road to the back 40, getting a sense of what's thriving, what's dying, what needs to be moved where, how we should next augment our screen-of-shrubbery that shields us from Old County (currently we have 10 winterberry bushes on order from Bayberry).  Today we examined the stump of a pine tree that was felled in the last storm.  And we talked about what vegetables should go where in this year's kitchen garden.  All the lettuces are moving, as are the tomatoes, as are the dahlias.  And we're putting in an asparagus bed.

Even though it's Good Friday, we couldn't resist putting a chicken on the rotisserie.  When we got the cottage years ago my mother bought us a grill--a gigantic Weber--and insisted that we get a rotisserie attachment, which seems foofy and useless.  Long story short, we use it all the time.  Rotisserie chicken, rotisserie pork loin.  All amazing.  The rotisserie porchetta was a particular success last summer.

For the chicken we dry brine it in the ice box--we like the free range chickens we get from Drew Locke at Hillside Farms (though we don't have one today).  Historic Truro chicken farm.  Destruction by lightening in the 50s.  Revived by Drew in recent years.  It's a great story and he's a nice guy (read the Edible Cape Cod story here).

Oops, got off track.  Dry brine the bird by rubbing half a cup of kosher salt all over, inside and out.  Let it sit for as long as you can up to overnight.  Rinse and dry well.  Truss (you can put aromatics inside the cavity--quartered onions, herbs, lemon halves, etc.) and put on the rotisserie or in an oven preheated to 425 degrees.  Inside this causes alot of smoke but it's a dream on the grill.  Roast to an internal temperature of 160 degrees and let it rest of 15m.  Delicious.

We had carrots and asparagus so we grilled them too and tossed in the butter-spice rub that Martha Rose Shulman stole from Susan Goin in this recipe (similar flavors to Ludo Lefebre's roasted carrot salad--we made that a couple of times last year--to die for.  Here's the recipe).  Thyme, cumin, coriander, tumeric pounded in sweet butter and mixed with grilled vegetables.  We didn't have any mint but we did have some garden parsley in the the freezer and it was still delicious.  A very satisfying meal with a game of dominos, some mezcal from our recent trip to the Yucatan and some Truro Chequesset Chocolates for dessert.  All in all--a good spring day.

Bake bread--just do it!

It's almost spring--it must be, my seeds have arrived.  But it's still frigid in the mornings and that just makes me want to bake bread, which warms up the kitchen and fills the house with amazing smells and makes getting up worthwhile.   My father-in-law (now in all 50 states!) turned me on to bread-baking and now I can't seem to stop.  While I'm longing for the plants in the garden to poke their way through the warming ground, I'm still savoring the warmth of a morning baking bread and the sound of the crackle as the loaves cool. Best sound in the world

Peter Bellonci's bread recipe