Sunchokes, otherwise known as Jerusalem artichokes, are funky. They are neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke. A tuber that grows on the underground stem of a certain species of sunflower, sunchokes look like the offspring of a potato and a knob of ginger. The taste took me back to my childhood when I used to eat raw potatoes–why I ate them raw, I’m not sure–but nonetheless, this odd root has nutty, starchy, slightly sweet undertones with a texture similar to jicama.
I’m a verbose person. I write haikus for fun to practice being concise. I had an entire commentary written to commemorate the history of My Veg Table, observing its 100th post in seven years. Instead, I scrapped it and presented myself with a challenge: celebrate my 100th post in 100 words…
My second road trip to Savannah started as a solo event, but quickly turned into a duo for four whole days: being fully vaccinated meant more hang time with my BFF. Stephanie’s place is about 15 minutes out of downtown Savannah, so we could pop in and out of town to do as little or as much as we chose. With her quarter at SCAD finished and my school year coming to a close, it was the perfect time to take advantage of our Memorial Day weekend by exploring the surrounding areas, cooking and relaxing.
What’s more fun than ordering from a menu? Creating your own menu. A charcuterie board is merely a combination—usually create your own—of cured meats, cheeses, pates, jams/jellies/compotes, nuts, honey, pickles, veggies, dried fruits, mustards, crackers, olives and the like, presented on, well, a board. The combinations are limitless and your board can be as big or as small as you can imagine it to be; they are great for a large party or a party of one. It is an experiment in flavor-pairing and an interactive way to dine with friends and family.
There are two vacant lots a few houses down from mine. Currently, they serve little purpose other than a place to play ball, a cut-through to the alley and a place where we left our leftover Halloween pumpkin for the local wildlife to feast upon…until the other day when my husband and son arrived home with a very special find from a tree on-site. As green as a lime, as smooth as an apple and the size of an orange, it was clearly unripe, but I wasn’t sure of what exactly it was. Its ovoid shape and stem had the unique hallmarks of a persimmon; I was fairly certain that they had stumbled upon a Hachiya persimmon tree. Upon further research, we found that this was a black sapote—cousin of the persimmon—but very different, so much so that its nickname is the chocolate pudding fruit.
Every cook needs an arsenal: those essential items that you just can’t cook well without. For me, it’s my special knives, my Le Creuset pots that cook everything evenly, that nonstick skillet that never sticks, my favorite spatula and tongs, sheet pans, good olive oil, aged balsamic, and of course…spices. The right spice can turn boring into fabulous and introduce nuances and flavors to the most mediocre of ingredients. Enter my spice hoarding situation: you name it, I’ve probably got it—and so much more.
Honey, we have a problem. Some—and when I say some, I mean my husband—might say I have issues. My real issue is that I don’t have enough pantry space to house my ‘collection’. What’s really wrong with having 24+ bottles and jars of honey, anyway? Each is unique in color and in flavor; would he be as critical if he amassed 24+ bottles of fine bourbon? I should think not…
I wasn’t always such as avid collector. In fact, this sugar girl was never a big fan of honey; it had an odd taste I couldn’t get past. A decade ago, a free sample of local nectar from a farmer’s market changed my opinion of this alternative sweetener—forever. Not only did I taste one sample, but I tasted four: one for each season here in Florida. Amazingly, they each looked and tasted shockingly different; I was dumbfounded. The variations resulted from what was pollinated during each season: Fall and Winter were dark amber to brown with a more complex flavor; Spring, practically clear yellow and mild tasting; and summer, still light in color, but cloudier and a bit more flavorful than spring. If this is what a year in Florida tastes like through the ‘eyes’ of local bees, my curiosity was piqued about the varietals of honey around the country, let alone the world. What might those taste like?
Deep in my memory bank, I house a poem from my youth—a tongue-twister, actually—a tongue-twister about butter. Although the name of the book escapes me, the poem was about a girl recognizing the importance of good butter. How can something made solely of cream—and sometimes salt—add such depth of flavor to so many things both sweet and savory alike? It’s pretty amazing: I can see why a poem might be composed applauding its awesomeness. Even margarine—butter’s non-dairy competitor—is barely called margarine anymore: it’s called buttery spread or buttery sticks. Because even if you can’t eat the real deal, you want your substitute to taste just like it. And what’s even better than real butter? Homemade butter!
Using celery leaves as an ingredient never occurred to me before I read it on the ingredient list of my grandmother’s Thanksgiving stuffing/dressing recipe. Apparently, I was underestimating the leaves that I always discarded along with the cut white bottoms of the stalk. But, grandmas are usually right, and this was no exception: the stuffing got such a boost of freshness and celery-flavor that simply sautéeing the stalks just couldn’t provide. Think of these leaves as a substitute for parsley: hearty and slightly bitter; grassy, but not overwhelming. It’s everything I love about the flavor of celery without the crunch.
Celery leaves may be hard to track down: most grocery store-celery is sold as either the hearts—no tops— or if there are some leaves present, there are only a mere few; a farmer’s market or natural food store may be your best bet at finding them. When our COVID isolation started, I began getting weekly produce boxes from my favorite local farm and I received a surplus of celery with more leaves attached than I knew what to do with. In the interest of resourcefulness, my goal was to find other ways to use up the tops as well as the bottoms in my weekly cooking.
I remember so vividly being in my Grandmother’s kitchen, seeing raisins soaking in a saucepan on the back burner; she was making her usual accompaniment to ham: raisin sauce. This unique sweet sauce countered the saltiness of our annual Easter ham; I could never seem to get enough of it. Inasmuch as I love to cook—and for as much as I love this sauce—you would think I would make this stuff all the time, but for some reason I never did. I always left it up to my Grandma and later, my mom.
As I was preparing a batch for our COVID Easter meal for three, I questioned why this was only the second time ever that I had made it myself? One reason is that my mother typically hosts Easter: the sauce is always simmering away on the stove by the time we arrive. The other reason is that for many years I was a vegetarian and the only thing I/we ever paired this sauce with was ham: no ham = no raisin sauce. I was determined to find out what else goes well with the sauce that I could—and do—eat by the spoonful.
