Author Archives: Lee White

A Number of Nibbles: Places to Go – Chester Farm Market, St. Sophia’s Greek Festival & JAMMS

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#1

Chester Farm Market
Sundays, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., June 2 through October 2

Chester sunday marketI know summer is here when the Chester Farm Market opens, I missed the first, but I will be there every Sunday ‘til fall. This year they have closed Main Street, there is music and the tents are full of gorgeous food and incredibly nice people. Friends and I spent almost an hour there (my friends say it takes that long because I have to pet every dog there, and there were quite a few).

This year, in addition to produce, there is a dairy with fresh milk (in bottles!) and the most delicious yogurt you’ve ever tasted. At the Hay Person’s tent, there were beautifully flowers and handmade jam. There was lots of honey, a lot of lettuces and seafood.

The amazing thing, to me, was the bread. Howard Kaplan had not only baguettes but bialys. Joan and I bought all that were left.

I got two boules from Alforno’s Bob Zemmel and Linda Guica (some of which we ate with fresh radishes, salt and butter at home). At Simon’s Market, we shared mozz, tomato and basil sandwiches on salt-encrusted bread that was chewy enough to give our teeth a workout. And Charlie van Over wasn’t even there with his incredible baguette. We are one fortunate shoreline denizens.

#2

St. Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Church Festival

st sophia NewLondonSome years ago the congregants of New London’s St Sophia Greek Orthodox Church had a serious problem: the church’s needed a new roof and the cost was mighty expensive. Their solution was to have two Greek Festivals instead of its annual fundraiser in order to help raise money to pay for the new roof.

Because both were so successful, there are now two festivals each year. I have never missed one, although I know people who go six times at each of the festivals, from lunch on Wednesday until the last on Friday night.

In June I went with friends. I had lemon chicken soup, moussaka, spanakopita and one cookie.

I never eat the stuffed grape leaves because they are simply not as good as those made by my daughter-in-law and her mother. I have made it myself with their recipe. If you e-mail me (leeawhite@aol.com), I will send the recipe to you.

And if you know where I can find real grape leaves (instead of the jarred ones), I will be forever grateful.

#3

J.A.M.S.S.
1522 Boston Post Road
Old Saybrook, CT 06475
860-510-0839

jamss_fruit_3I do head south quite a few times during the week on I-95, though rarely on weekends in the summer. I had errands to run and decided to have lunch at J.A.M.S.S in Old Saybrook.

Ooops, it had moved, but not too far away. It now has a much bigger kitchen and dining room and serves breakfast all day. (By the way, their breakfasts may be better than those at Kitchen Little.)

But it was lunch. The menu and specials are fabulous, and I chose a soup and half a sandwich—the former cream of mushroom and the latter curried chicken salad with halved grapes. For a side I opted for macaroni salad.

Everything at J.A.M.S.S is housemade, by the way. The sandwich was the best ever, as was the macaroni salad (almost as good as Gloria Pepin’s recipe). But the mushroom soup was pure heaven. I asked to buy a pint to take home; sadly, I had gotten the last bowl and there was not a soupcon left.

Service was terrific: pleasant and knowledgeable waitstaff, including a 6’8” waiter who just finished his freshman year at Kenyon College. And, yes, he does play basketball.

 

Nibbles: Now is the Time to Bake a Spice Cake

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On Sunday, March 1, I decided that winter was done. That afternoon, though, I drove to the Ward’s home in Madison to celebrate Zimmy’s 90th birthday. There would be around 40 of us and the food promised to be yummy. I had bought my Coca-Cola Cake and a slow-cooker full of Cincinnati four-way chili. Both were good but Eugenia’s baked rigatoni along with chopped liver, potatoes Lyonnaise and Norma’s  gorgeous jelly roll, 18-inches long ringed with beautiful berries were even better.

It was snowing as I drove my car out of the garage and the light precip turned into serious snow (I’d worn real shoes instead of the knee-high mukluks’ I lived in for more than a month.) By the time I got to Madison, there was an inch on the ground. The party was fabulous, but by late afternoon, people began to head home.

When I got into my car, it was a serious snowstorm, and I had “miles to go before I sleep,” as Robert Frost wrote. The usual 45 minutes tuned into two and a half hour, never seeing a white or yellow line. All I could do was follow the cars in front of me. Fortunately, I made it home safe and sound.

Obviously, my decision that winter was over made God laugh. Once home I made a cup of tea and warmed my toes with a blanket. After watching “Downtown Abbey,” my new decision would be to make a spice cake the next day.

Old-Fashioned Spice Cake

Adapted from Linnea Rufo, Bee & Thistle Inn, Old Lyme, CT

Yield: serves 10 to 12 people

old_fashioned__spice_cake1 cup sugar
One-half cup (1 stick) butter
One-half cup currants or raisins or dried cherries (optional)
One-half cup candied ginger, chopped
2 eggs
2 tablespoons molasses
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
One-quarter teaspoon cloves
One-half teaspoon ginger
One-teaspoon salt
1 cup milk

  1. Preheat oven to 350º F. Grease a 10-inch tube pan.
  2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition.
  3. Whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and salt. Stir dry ingredients into egg mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.
  4. Pour batter into prepared tube pan. Set on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 1 hour and 5 minutes, or until cake pulls away from sides of pan and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
  5. Cool cake in the pan, set on a rack, for 10 minutes. Remove cake from pan and spread on icing at once, while cake is still warm.

Espresso Icing

1 and one-half cups of confectioners’ sugar
1 tablespoon of espresso
1 tablespoon milk

Whisk icing ingredients together.

Nibbles: Super Squash Soup Warms The Heart

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It was a bit of an iffy week, with some weather including rain, heat (mid-seventies in October!) and a pretty cold evening when I thought I might take the soft and comfy throws into the living for the cats and me.

Each of the days, while my friend Nancy was vacationing in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, I fed her feral cats. She had packed up eight enormous plastic bins of dry cat food and left me a quart-sized bottle for fresh water. Each early afternoon, I would change my shoes for sneakers and walk a path down a hill and into the woods, rife with poison ivy, to the little den she fashioned with one of those plastic igloos and a large green trash can set on its side to hold the food and water.

I am a city girl so for decades I thought poison ivy was a maple leaf (three points on a leaf) for three leaves, so I guess I am not allergic to the little devils though my husband knew exactly what they looked at and was very sensitive. On the other hand, I did get scraped by some twigs and wound up with a few infected sores which are fine, now.

Doug and I were never leaf-peepers. We grew up in upstate New York and together we lived in New England. We never thought it important to drive hours to Vermont or New Hampshire when we saw gorgeous colors up and down I-95 and in our own backyard. But my good friend Kirsten McKamy and her adorable partner, Charles, invited me to have lunch at his 1750 cape in Storrs, Conn.

It took about an hour from my condo on the shoreline to Storrs and I must say that the foliage was spectacular. His magnificently restored house sat in seven acres, at least two of which were mowed. The vivid green of the lawn, the enormous maples and oaks and the big pond across the road turned my quiet Sunday into quite a picture.

Even better was the food: an herb “cake,” squash soup and two desserts, Kirsten’s pear tart and my apple cake. I will serve that soup the next time I have friends for dinner. Then again, maybe sooner.

Roasted Kabocha Squash Soup with Pancetta and Sage

From Epicurious

Roasted kabocha squash soup with pancetta and sage

Roasted kabocha squash soup with pancetta and sage

Yield: 8 servings (about 11 cups)

1 4-pound kabocha squash, halved and seeded

1 cup vegetable oil

20 whole fresh sage leaves plus 1 and one-half teaspoon chopped fresh sage

One-quarter pound sliced pancetta, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 and one-half cups chicken broth

3 and one-half cups water

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Dollops of crème fraiche (optional)

Roast squash: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roast squash, cut sides down, in an oiled roasting pan in middle of oven until tender, about an hour. When cool enough to handle, scrape flesh from skin.

While the squash is roasting, heat vegetable oil in a deep small saucepan until it registered 365 degrees on a deep-felt thermometer. Fry sage leaves in 3 bathes until crisp, 3 to 5 seconds. Transfer leaves with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain.

Cook pancetta and make soup: Cook pancetta in a 4-quart heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring, until brown Transfer pancetta with slotted spoon to power towels to drain.

Add olive oil to pancetta fat remaining in pot, then cook onion, stirring, until softened. Stir in garlic and chopped sage and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add squash, broth and water and simmer 20 minutes to blend flavors.

Puree soup in batches in a blender, transferring to a bowl. (Use caution when blending hot liquids.) Return soup to pot and reheat. If necessary, thin to desired consistency with water. Stir in vinegar and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve sprinkled with pancetta and fried sage leaves. If you like, dollop spoonsful onto soup.

Cooks’ note: you can make soup 3 days in advance and chill, covered.

Nibbles: Chicken and Wine with Capers Perfect for Boules Bash

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Inn-607x401When Linnea [Rufo – the owner of and executive chef at the Bee & Thistle in Old Lyme] and I talked about what she would make for her boules party, she thought about Lasagna Bolognese.  This can be made ahead of time and baked just before dinner time, usually around 7 pm.  A big salad (we usually have somewhere around 45 people for dinner), maybe Charlie van Over’s bread. I would do a bar dessert while Linnea would get ice cream and fruit.

A couple of weeks later, we talked again. I said I would make the Bolognese sauce and the salad, too, if she would like.  “No, I’m not doing lasagna. I’m going to do chicken in wine with capers.”  The Bee & Thistle doesn’t even have a walk-in freezer and here she is choosing chicken with wine and capers, and she wanted to play boules, too. I thought she was nuts.

It turns out she wasn’t crazy. She had done most of the work ahead of time and the final roasting would take place in a big, big oven (it is a restaurant, after all) along with roasted zucchini. Everything was delicious and I, who can’t find a word for how boring zucchini is to me, loved this zucchini. Here are her recipes:

Chicken and Wine with Capers

From Linnea Rufo, executive chef of Bee & Thistle inn

Yield: serves 6

6 very large skinless boneless chicken breasts

Flour, salt and pepper to taste, for dredging

2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup of a nice white wine

1 large chopped shallot

2 cups low-salt chicken stock

One-half cup fresh lemon juice

1 cup capers, rinsed

One-half cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Garnish:

3 large lemons, halved (optional)

Cut each chicken breast horizontally so each opens like a book.

Chicken with white wine and capers

Chicken and wine with capers

Heat oil in a large high-sided skillet or a small roasting pan. Dredge the chicken in the flour, salt and pepper mixture, shaking excess and sear chicken until brown on each side. Do this in batches so you don’t cook them to the point where they will steam. If you are serving later, cool chicken and wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until just before dinner.

Before ready to serve, in the same skillet with all the browned pieces, heat and deglaze with shallots and wine. Add stock and lemon juice. Place chicken pieces in the broth and roast until chicken is done. Add capers and cook another few minutes. Place chicken and sauce in a platter and sauce with the juice. Sprinkle with parsley.

Optional: If garnishing, place half lemons on a grill until brown and serve each on top of each chicken.

Roasted Zucchini

Also from Linnea Rufo

Here is a zucchini that is truly memorable. And easy to make. So if a neighbor rang your doorbell and ran away and you open the door and see 10 pounds of zucchini, call him and thank him.

Small zucchini

Fresh chives

Extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Wash and dry the zucchini. Cut the bottoms and tops off, cut them into thin strips and place in a large bowl. Mince the chives and add to the zucchini. Top with olive oil and salt and pepper, to taste. With your hands (or with a big spoon), toss together. Leave them to macerate on the counter for a few minutes or in an hour or so. Set the oven at 350 degrees. But the mixture in a baking sheet and roast for 15 to 20 minutes, tossing once or twice during the roasting. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.

headshot_LeeAbout the author: Lee White (left) has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976 and has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant.  She currently writes Nibbles and a cooking column called A La Carte for LymeLine.com and the Shore Publishing newspapers, and Elan, a quarterly magazine, all of which are now owned by The Day. 

Nibbles: Lee on Life, Lemon Cake and Lids … Well, Canisters Actually

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My kitchen is starting to look like as kitchen, but not like the kitchen I had before.

I am not complaining.  The kitchen in Old Lyme was created by me and my husband.  As always, it was the first room to be finished.  It was two rooms and a hall.  It was dark and applianced in harvest gold.  The counter was Formica or faux Formica (is that an oxymoron?)  The floor was linoleum.

In around two months, the two rooms began one, the hall was annihilated, and the door to what would become a patio became French doors.  The counter was granite on the island, butcher block on two other walls.  I had a six-burner gas cooktop, two electric ovens and a warming drawer.  Under the cooktop were two enormous shelves that held my two-foot salad bowl and my big stockpots.

My new kitchen is pretty, too.  But I have an electric range with one oven.  My dishwasher died after two turns with dishes.  I do have granite counters, but no island, no easy action to my special rack for muffin pans, warm cookies or half-sheet pans.  But I am making do and consider myself lucky that a mediocre cook learned how to be better with a great kitchen.  I am good enough, now, to cook anywhere.

Parties have begun and I am expected to bring food to the homes of terrific friends.  Last week I made potato salad (yes, two of my stockpots are on top of another rack over the sink.)  This week I may make a dessert.  I gave away at least 10 loaf pans and round pans and square pans in 8”, 9” and 10” sizes.

Here is the lemon cake everyone likes; as Staples says, “We have that!”

 

Lemon Cake

Adapted from Barefoot Contessa Parties by Ina Garten (Clarkson Potter/Publishers, New York, 2001)

Yield: Two 8-inch loaves

Lemon-cake_592½ (one-half) pound unsalted butter at room temperature
2 ½ (two and one-half) cups granulated sugar, divided
4 extra-large (or 5 large) eggs at room temperature
1/3 (one-third) cup grated lemon zest (6 to 8 large lemons)
3 cups all-purpose flour
One-half teaspoon baking powder
One-half teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher (or sea) salt
Three-quarter cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, divided*
Three-quarter cup buttermilk at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the glaze:

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

three and one-half tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 8 ½ (eight and one-half) by 4 ¼ (four and one-quarter) by 2 ½ (two and one-half) inch loaf pans.

Cream butter and 2 cups of the granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment for about 5 minutes, or until light and fluffy. With the mixer on medium speed, add eggs, one at a time, and the lemon zest.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. In another bowl, combine one-quarter cup lemon juice, the buttermilk and vanilla. Add flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately to the batter, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Divide batter evenly between the pans, smooth the tops and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until a cake tester comes out clean. (I find that on convection bake, this takes just over 35 minutes, so check with a cake tester after this period of time.)

Combine one-half cup granulated sugar with one-half cup lemon juice in a small saucepan and cook over low heat until sugar dissolves.

When cakes are done, let them cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then invert them onto a rack set over a tray. Spoon lemon syrup over inverted cakes. Allow cakes to cook completely.

For the glaze, combine confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice in a bowl, mixing with a wire whisk until smooth. (It should be thick but if it’s too thick, add a few drops of water.) Turn cakes right side up and pour glaze over tops of cakes. Allow glaze to drizzle down sides.

This is where I use the release kind of Reynolds Aluminum foil to wrap the cakes. But wax paper works well, too. The important part is to wrap them so the wrapping doesn’t strip off the glaze when you unwrap. After wrapping (if you’re not serving these right away), I put them in zippered freezer bags and freeze until ready to use.

*If you squeeze all the lemons you use for the zest (7 or 8), you get about 1 cup of juice, enough for cake, syrup and glaze..

Canisters for dry goods

One thing I did not mind leaving at my old house was the weevils.  Maybe they are not exactly weevils, but they began as evil little things and wound up as moths.  I spent lots of money on Pantry Pests, not as ugly as fly paper, but not the prettiest thing in my pantry.  Before I left the old kitchen, I dumped all the dry food, like flour, sugar (although I don’t think they like sugar), barley, couscous and the like, along with the canisters that held the stuff.

For over two weeks, I looked for canisters that would hold at least 10 pounds of flour, 5 pounds of sugar and enough rice and quinoa to hold weevil-free white goods.

I found them in T.J. Maxx.  Not sparingly, they are made by OXO Good Grips, a company that began with a potato peeler for people whose grip wasn’t as good as it used to be.  I wrote about them years ago and they sent me a Christmas card signed by all seven of OXO’s employees.  They still make incredible, reasonably priced, gadgets. Especially now that my grips are not as young as they used to be.

headshot_LeeAbout the author: Lee White (left) has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976 and has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant.  She currently writes Nibbles and a cooking column called A La Carte for LymeLine.com and the Shore Publishing newspapers, and Elan, a quarterly magazine, all of which are now owned by The Day.