111332 Sat Sep 07 15:53:06 -0700 2002 7 7 Chicago Area 0 602446 [David Hammond is sitting in for Vital Info, who is taking the day off] I went to the Oak Park Farmer’s Market with two things on my mind: mushrooms and tomatoes. At Nichol’s, catch of the day was a pair of puffballs (reminded me of an old King Kong joke). There was one hacked-up ball on display as a “bad example”: it was rotten, the core was yellow, and it was there for demonstration purposes (portions had the plasticine quality Rene referenced). The other one was almost gone – I bought two of the few remaining $3.00 portions, amounting to about 2 ounces. The young Nichols man told me they had pulled over 250 pounds of puffballs from their land this year. So let’s do the math. $1.50 an ounce, $24 a pound, for a total take, so far this year, of $6K -- and that’s for a crop that theoretically requires no cultivation or care (though the Nichols guy told me sotto voce that he spreads spores in hopes of encouraging the natural process – got to maintain the mystery, though, of spontaneous generation, unaided by human intervention). Puffballs don’t need the rotten wood that’s preferred by morels and other finger-lickin’ fungi – they tend to grow in large “fairy circles” in normal-type land (or so I’m told; Cathy, confirm?). That may account for their subtle taste: unlike the deep tang of the earth I expect from morels, Lepiota and other fungi that thrive on death and decay, the big white fluffy puffball fajitas I had this morning were exceptionally tender, with a light nutty taste, almost smoky, and a marshmallow-y texture that’s firmed and enhanced by butter browning. At Skibbe’s of Eau Claire, I got 25 pounds of #2 tomatoes (beat-up, blemished and bruised – for gravy). I also got a half-a-peck of heirlooms: green zebras, yellow romas, and a big red brandywine. I took all these home to eat right away. The zebras were slightly acidic, but very good, and I love the color. The yellow romas were okay, but my feeling about yellow tomatoes is similar to Unknown Joan’s feeling about yellow sweet peppers, which is similar to Gertrude Stein’s description of Oakland, California: “there’s no there there.” The brandywine, however, was my dream of the perfect tomato: deep red, tender, and without the “wagon wheel” interior of store-bought tomatoes – instead of spokes, there was a dense matrix of fleshy fingers separating very tender pockets of soft seeds. The taste was an excellent balance of sugar and acid – you could feel the acidity on the tongue, but it was not in the slightest sour. Brandywine may be the #1 eating tomato for me, the archetype of everything a good tomato should be. With the other 25 pounds of #2 tomatoes, I’m going to do a slow-cook gravy with Nichol’s fresh Italian garlic, Caputo’s hot sausage, oregano from The Wife’s herbarium, all served over polenta with a nice, cheap Chianti (no fava , per favore). My experience indicates that it’s best to have Sinatra on the stereo when making marinara – seems to create the right mood for the cooks and the cooked. Not sure it’s essential, but it also seems to help when I wear a cocked-back hat, strap shoulder t-shirt, crucifix, boxer shorts, black socks with garters and dress shoes. I'm not 100% certain that this can be scientifically demonstrated, but this sartorial support seems to enhance the sauce and the overall experience. [Tune in next week for regularly scheduled programming] Sat Sep 07 15:53:06 -0700 2002 0 David Hammond 1 602450 So, tomorrow I'm going to bust the Nichols guys, and if not then, Wednesday at Green City. I've been saving my change all summer for puffballs, they haven't had any, and they just tell me they haven't found any. Thanks, David. Someday we'll compare gravy stories. By the way, this year I've grown a an heirloom tomato (name lost to the trash, bought it at Jewel of all places) that is the hit of the garden. Yellow, squat plumish shape and kind of small, keeps green shoulders relatively far down the fruit, cracked (but then so is every other tomato beyond cherry-size this year) but when you cut into it, it's green. And I mean green like the color of fresh cooked baby green beans. But it has the flesh/seed ratio of a plum. But it's very moist. And it's sweet, but not sweet like those peach tomatoes, sweet but with just enough acid. And, thank you for the characterization, firm but soft flesh and soft seeds. What a winner. I have been using it, and some whole currants, and some halved other cherry/pear type tomatoes. Actually, first I make a red-wine vinaigrette of shallots, wine, salt, pepper, REALLY GOOD OIL, and add the small cut up tomatoes, let it marinate and get really soupy. Then I cut up the heirlooms (I save the homegrown heirloom for this and add some purchased heirlooms, into slices, chunks, however), arrange in a dish that will accommodate the liquid (and then some) and spoon the first salad over the second, about 10-15 minutes before eating time. Now that's some gravy :-) I'm kind of off the tomato/basil thing this year (so far, tomorrow I'm doing an uncooked tomato/basil thing for my Italian/Albanian niece (chowhound in the making question: "do you think liking spaghetti is in the blood?"). One of the things I like about the above salad is that it works in my household, where unfortunately Himself is allergic to uncooked tomatoes (and I suffer if I eat too much of them at one time). So, between the two of us, there are often left over tomatoes. The leftovers of this salad can be successfully saved. Don't get me wrong, the texture of the tomatoes suffers, but somehow the taste is really good the next day as well, out of the fridge. I've used it with freselle, I've eating it as a soupy mix, and something about dragging the water out of the tomatoes before refrigeration works. Salt is a preservative, after all. Sorry to do such long posts. I have recently entered graduate school where I am learning to reify the heuristic and attempting to agglomerate them into a unitary theory of the city. The only unitary theory I can think of is chow. Cities got it, suburbs generally ain't. Ciao. Sat Sep 07 19:25:03 -0700 2002 602446 0 annieb 2 602452 Annie, Currants sound like a good touch in the tomato salad -- balances the acid, no? And shallots are a lighter onion-y flavor that wouldn't overpower the tomato -- I'll try it. You mention “really good” oil. I think of olive oil the same way as I think of scotch and cheap cuts of hamburger: cheaper frequently means more flavor. Now, I’m am very open to changing my mind on this, so I’d like to know what brand you use (and I’m assuming you’re using olive oil, but correct me if I’m wrong). Incidentally, in defense of the Nichol’s guys – maybe they just run out of puffballs by the middle of the week. Sat Sep 07 19:47:17 -0700 2002 602450 0 David Hammond 3 602454 David, Currants meant currant tomatoes. I leave them whole, actually, makes it kind of fun to chase them around on the plate. The dressing doesn't (hasn't) needed any sugar, but the failsafe tomato in our building garden is the sweet 100 (I prefer it to the sweet 1000), supplemented by some good yellow/orange cherry tomatoes from the market. Nah, they don't run out by mid-week. Last year I always got them on Sundays at the WP market, which has moved into the actual Wicker Park itself this year (harder to park, but shady). And that switch may have had something to do with the fact that it's all yuppies shopping there, almost no latino women with food stamps, or it may not have. And there may be no correlation at all to the Green City. Maybe I just didn't get there early enough and they sold them all to professional chefs and gold coasters (Arun used to regularly beat me to all the green garlic at Lincoln Square before everyone started selling it, it happens, and first come, first served.) As to Olive Oil, well, that almost as heuristic :-) as picking movies. I like Spanish oils, they're a good value, actually a lot of the oil labeled imported from italy is imported to italy from spain and then exported from italy. Greek oils can be really good too. And by good, i mean good value/cost ratio. So here's a stab at some things I take into account: What does the label say. Compare labels (I can't remember the legalese of a spain to italy to usa oil, but you can figure it out if you compare the language) What color is the oil? I happen to like green, but also a good golden yellow. Is it in a dark glass bottle? Sometimes this is the clue to a good decent oil that doesn't have a big name but has a good cost/value ration. Antica Sicilia for instance, which I can get for about $7.50 a liter at my local produce market. It's an indication that the exporters/producers/whoever knows it's a mass market product and they want it to arrive and last well in a variety of market conditions. Does it list the acidity content on the bottle? This is getting a little esoteric, but they do it more and more in spain, and in spanish imported bottles (which I would have to say are what I tend towards). Sarica, for instance, the brand established by the guy who owns Cafe Iberico (and a great label, their whole pickled garlic will keep your arteries open and your companions none the wiser or unhappier, odor-wise), labels the acidity level of their oil. Under .5, or ,5 as it's listed on the bottle, is good. But use it up once it's open. Greek oils often look tantalizingly green to me, but I really want to take my greek friend with to explore. She is very definite about which are good and which aren't. I tend to keep a good basic extra virgin, plus a "special" extra virgin for, well, something special. I buy the latter in smaller bottles, quarter liters about, and try to use it up. By the way, I've gotten into using different salts, as well, and find that they add another, very slight, dimension of taste to the whole dish. The currant (dried variety) intrigues me. I usually dice the shalllot, then add some salt to it and keep mincing so it gets really little. I think I would want to mince the currants, and not use too many, but it could be good. If I did that, I might think about adding some finely minced parsley as well. Sat Sep 07 20:23:46 -0700 2002 602452 0 annieb 4 602478 Derr Annie, David, VI, and other chowhounds, I've been hitting the Tuesday market at Federal Plaza, and hope that these tomatoes last a few weeks longer. This is such a short tomato season in comparison to that of Texas. One of my favorite tomato preparations is in Julia Child's Mastering the Art...on p.525, gratin of potatoes "provencal". You take those great tomatoes, core and x them, blanch, shock, peel, seed, and rough cut (save the juice). Then lightly saute onion, garlic and anchovies in olive oil, with herbs, S. & P..Add the tomato, the juice and set aside. Peel and slice your potatoes, and start layering them in an oiled casserole with that tomato/onion mixture and grated Parmigianno Reggiano. Finish with tomato mixture, then more cheese and a drizzle of olive oil. I'd use the best olive oil for this dish Annie, and it sounds like you would also. Bake at 400F until done, about 40 minutes or so. Julia recommends serving this with swordfish or tuna. It's great with lamb or even on it's own. It's so good! Sun Sep 08 23:06:25 -0700 2002 602454 0 Ron Rosenbaum 1 602462 Dave, thanks for the market report. How ironic that on the day I take off for the start of the Jewish high holidays you invoke such a glorious goyish image. By the way, how's the sauce turn out with Louis Prima on the turn-table? Is that for the arbiatta? Sun Sep 08 08:56:57 -0700 2002 602446 0 Vital Information 1 602533 In reference to: "Puffballs don’t need the rotten wood that’s preferred by morels and other finger-lickin’ fungi – they tend to grow in large “fairy circles” in normal-type land (or so I’m told; Cathy, confirm?). I personally have not seen fairy rings of Puffballs. They have always seemed randomly placed. I did check with Leon who commented: "Giant puffballs do indeed grow in fairy rings some times. England especially has problems with the "real" fairy ring mushroom ruining golf courses with its rings, and John Ramsbottom (ca. 1955) cites a couple of "kiss of death to golf" instances where a turf has fairy ring fairy rings and then intersecting rings of giant puffballs." In reference to: "The other one was almost gone – I bought two of the few remaining $3.00 portions, amounting to about 2 ounces. The young Nichols man told me they had pulled over 250 pounds of puffballs from their land this year. So let’s do the math. $1.50 an ounce, $24 a pound, for a total take, so far this year, of $6K -- and that’s for a crop that theoretically requires no cultivation or care (though the Nichols guy told me sotto voce that he spreads spores in hopes of encouraging the natural process – got to maintain the mystery, though, of spontaneous generation, unaided by human intervention)." Puffballs, like a lot of other mushrooms, are where you find them. Marengo is out in the country. I suspect Nichols receives most of the puff ball not on the farm but supplied from people in the area. Regards, Cathy2 Tue Sep 10 11:16:07 -0700 2002 602446 0 Cathy2 2 602535 Cathy, You write, "Puffballs, like a lot of other mushrooms, are where you find them. Marengo is out in the country. I suspect Nichols receives most of the puff ball not on the farm but supplied from people in the area." The young Nichols man told me that he found a puffball circle on their property that was, in his words, "about a mile around." It's quite likely, though, that they supplement their stock with mushrooms from other sources. There's certainly a market for puffballs, as there is for squash blossoms, and Nichols seems to respond quickly with a supply of produce to meet emerging demands. Cathy, there are several forays scheduled by IMA in the next few weeks. Which of the areas do you feel are particularly promising? Some other hounds have expressed an interest in maybe going on one, and I was just curious if any of the scheduled events seem like they'll be especially cool. Tue Sep 10 11:36:38 -0700 2002 602533 0 David Hammond