Yes I Can

My first ever canned whole tomatoes

I’ve always thought that the process of canning--putting up food for the winter-- sounded romantic. Not romantic like a candlelit dinner, exactly, or watching a sunset with a handsome guy. But romantic as in I picture a log cabin and the smell of the fire while preparing fruits and vegetables from the garden for the long, blizzard-ridden winter ahead.

I do love log cabins, and I love the smell of a wood fire. In fact, now that I have a real fireplace, instead of just a beautiful but useless marble mantlepiece, I light a fire every night starting in the Fall. And I don’t even mind cleaning up the ashes or hauling in the wood.

But I don’t like the cold and I wouldn’t want to brave an entire winter full of swirling snow without a furnace or a nearby restaurant and grocery store. My Little House in the Prairie scenario has to have a way out.

However, I think there is something to be said for the middle ground and I do believe that we, or at least I, have learned to take our food for granted. I also think consumerism is rampant in our society and that we are burying ourselves in garbage—much of it plastic.

So I have been trying, little by little, to remind myself and my daughter where the food comes from and what is involved in getting it to our table. Moving to a farming town this last year has both inspired that and made it possible.

So putting up some of that food for the winter has naturally followed, at least in my farmer-wanna-be mind. My friend, Karen, who grew up on  a farm, has known how to can her whole life. Every year she grows a huge vegetable garden and when the tomatoes get ripe, she cans like nobodies business.

When she came up for a visit last weekend, I asked her to teach me how to do it. We went out to a local farm and bought a bushel of plum tomatoes and a case of mason jars at the local hardware store. The tomatoes weren’t organic, which I would have preferred, but plum tomatoes are best for canning  because of their low water contents and all I could find locally in organic were other varieties.

So I had to compromise—which I think is my whole point here anyway. I really enjoyed the experience of canning a dozen beautiful glass jars of whole tomatoes. I loved it enough to do some tomato sauce next, both the Italian kind and the spicier Portuguese tomato sauce, and I might even freeze some of the other amazing organic vegetables that grow here so that I can have them in the dead of winter. And I intend to at least move in the direction of growing some vegetables and making more things from scratch.

But I'm not getting rid of my furnace. So there.

Summer

It's the last week of summer.

True, there is still more of summer-like weather and school does not start for Adelaide until the day after Labor Day, but for me this feels like the last week. We had an unusual summer because we have been away for just about all of it. We spent the first 6 weeks in Lake Placid, living in three different houses, then two weeks at our cottage on Lake Michigan (Adelaide spent one of those with her Dad in Cape Cod), and then one final week--this one--back in Lake Placid.

We've been away for 9 full weeks! And then on Sunday we head back to a place that had barely begun to feel like home--Granby, Connecticut, where we will gear up for Adelaide's final year of high school.

I've never been on the road for so long before and I have to say--it's been great! Even though I have been working throughout, and Adelaide even more so--skating and working out for 5 or 6 hours every day that we were in LP--it has really felt like Summer, with a capital S!

True, I have pretty much had it with packing, stuffing the car to the brim, unpacking, and packing up again. But we have been privileged to be in beautiful places, surrounded by nature. No, I never made it to the ocean this summer, but I have lived right on other water for most of the time. My spirit has been soothed by its sounds. I've played in and on the water and hiked in the woods.

Adelaide has made several leaps up in her skating ability and that has been so exciting to watch. She had a late start in the skating life, but through incredibly hard work she has managed to pretty much skate as though she has been doing it since she was 5. She is ready to find a partner and compete for real!

Yesterday I made one last trip to the Lake Placid Wednesday farmer's market and picked up fresh vegetables and local cheese and meat. Going to the farmer's market really feels like summer. Tonight I will make sauteed greens, Portuguese-style, and savor the taste of a great summer.

Soup Imposters

I love coincidences.

photo by savannachik

Last week I wrote an article for About.com that was a cookbook review of Ana Patuleia Ortins' Portuguese Homestyle Cooking. One of the things I like about her book is her detailed attention to writing recipes that are authentic.  She says, in her book, "While I encourage substitutions when necessary, keep in mind that if you substitute a different ethnic ingredient--for example, kielbasa instead of linguiça--the dish can longer be considered authentic Portuguese cooking; it is now fusion."

And I agree with that. There is nothing wrong with experimenting, blending cuisines and using the ingredients one has on hand, and I do that all the time. In fact, I had leftovers from making the very traditional Arroz de Tomate (Tomato Rice) and discovered that is is excellent mixed with some smoked Lake Michigan trout. This combo is not in the least authentic, but it was good!

A couple of days ago my daughter and I took a day trip to Petoskey, which is about 45 minutes away from our Lake Michigan cottage in Mackinaw City, Michigan. Petosky has a downtown area full of small restaurants and cool boutiques.

We started off with lunch at the Mitchell Street Pub. "What's the soup of the day?" I asked. "Portuguese Soup," said the waitress. "It has cabbage, potatoes and sausage in it." Well, bowl me over with a Petoskey stone! This area is not known for its Portuguese anything, so I was surprised, to say the least. And of course I had to order it.

While I waited for it to come I pondered the soup's title--"Portuguese Soup." That's kind of like calling a dish "Italian Pasta." It could mean one of hundreds of dishes. Portuguese cuisine relies heavily on soups and stews, and there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of varieties. Even just using those ingredients--cabbage, potatoes and sausage--there are more than one kind of Portuguese soup recipes that make use of precisely those items.

When it came, I took a tentative bite and was pleased with the flavor. In the second bite I got a piece of sausage and was well rewarded for my sceptical ponderings. It was kielbasa. There are some Polish restaurants around here, most notably the famous Legs Inn in Cross Village, and it is easy to find kielbasa in the grocery store. But authentic Portuguese sausages are either linguiça or its spicy hot sister, chorizo. Both have a very different texture than kielbasa. They are meatier and more chewy. The spices are entirely different.

Nonetheless, the soup was tasty and in some way was reminiscent of Portuguese soups. But really, it  was "Portuguese Inspired Soup."

Even up here in the North Woods, you just never know when you will come across a real Portuguese person who is going to know real Portuguese soup from an imposter. So, watch out!

Fudge and Fish

Mackinaw City, Michigan (photo by Larry Page)

From one resort area to another! Two days ago I traveled from Lake Placid, New York, where we stayed for 5 weeks through Canada to Mackinaw City, Michigan to our cottage on the lake.

Although both are, as I said, resort areas, they are quite different from each other. Lake Placid is situated in the Adirondacks between 2 lakes, Mirror Lake and Lake Placid. As you can tell from their names, they tend to be, well placid. Lake Michigan, on the other hand, is always moving, with waves constantly hitting the shore. It's my favorite noise to fall asleep to. Of course it can't beat the sound of early morning garbage trucks in Brooklyn, but hey, you can't have everything.

Both areas are wooded, full of beautiful pine and white birch trees. Both areas have bears and other wildlife in abundance. But Lake Placid is surrounded by the tallest mountains in the Northeast, whereas Mackinaw City is in a fairly flat area. There are some bluffs and big limestone formations, but the nearby ski area would make most true skiers shudder at the puny size of the hill.

Lake Placid is a good deal more upscale than Mackinaw City. In the middle of Lake Michigan, and viewable from my beach, is Mackinac Island. There are more well-to-do summer spots around here, such as Mackinac Island, which I can see from my beach, and Harbor Springs and Petoskey. But Mackinaw City has a grittier aspect to it. Here on my beach you can't see the fudge stores and the souvenir shops, but I kind of like knowing they are there. In equal parts I enjoy the kitchier aspects of the town, while also despising the tackiness of the whole thing. Go figure.

One of the things I am most looking forward to is that I can finally make my favorite trout dish--the one I learned from my long-ago trip to the Pousada de Såo Lourenço in Portugal. I thought for sure that I would find trout in Lake Placid, which is a fisherman's mecca. But it was nowhere to be found in any store and I wasn't desperate enough to go catch it myself.

Here there is an abundance of Lake Trout, along with the famous Whitefish that is also caught here. You can buy both of them fresh or smoked and I love it both ways. At one of the stores in town they even make their own version of Fish 'n Chips, lake style.

Yum. Who needs fudge?

Forests

Cobble Hill in Lake Placid, NY

Right now I am spending the summer in Lake Placid, New York. It is splendid here in a multitude of ways. For one thing, I get to watch my daughter skating in one of the best facilities in the country, an Olympic Training Center, in fact. The town is full of athletes of all kinds, from well-known skaters to uber Tri-athletes. Next week the famous Ironman Competition is being held. For those who don't know, it is a sort of Triatholon on steroids. The competitors swim for 2 miles, then bike for about 160 miles and follow that light activity up with a full running marathon of 26 miles. Yipes!

The other thing I love about this place is the sheer beauty of the natural surroundings. We are in the middle of one of the biggest wild forest plots in the country. Each village sits amidst mountains, rivers, lakes and trails. We've already hiked to the top of Whiteface (which was no easy feat as can be seen by the sunburn and scratches all over my body).

Later on today we are going to do a much smaller hike up Cobble Hill, which looks like a sort of mini-mountain on the other side of Mirror Lake from where we are staying. I scoped out the trailhead this morning so that we would know where we are going later on.

The mouth of the trail looks like the Buçaco Forest in northern Portugal, which I visited many years ago--kind of dark and creepy. I am dying to go back to visit it. We stayed in the famous Hotel du Bussaco, which was once a monastery. One of the things that made the surrounding forest so creepy and kind of macabre was the old shrines and huts all over it, where monks used to go to sequester themselves for a few days to pray and meditate.

The hotel itself was, by contrast, luxurious and splendidly decorated. One of the things I remember most about it was the beautiful display of breads that were put out for breakfast each morning and it was there that I first tried Broa, which has turned out to be my favorite Portuguese bread. It is made partially from corn and traditionally baked in a brick or stone oven and has a rustic, chewy texture that I love.

This is my kind of a trip, just like the one I am on now. I love to hike and canoe and try new adventures. But I also love to come home to comfort---and homemade bread.

Summer = Vinho Verde

I am, generally speaking, more of a red wine drinker than white. I usually like a glass of white wine on a blazing hot day, sitting by a pool with my sunglasses on and a good book. There is one exception to that, however, and that is Vinho Verde.

In fact, drinking a glass of Vinho Verde is really one of my ways of marking that summer is actually here. This year that was kind of confusing. First it got super hot where I live in Connecticut in late May. Then the temperature dropped and it rained for days and days. Make that weeks and weeks--as it did all over the Northeast. So it is only now, at the beginning of July, that I finally purchased my first bottle of Vinho Verde of the summer.

For those who don't know, Vinho Verde is one of Portugal's signature wines, along with Port and Madeira, but much less well known. That is changing now and exports to the United States are booming. Vinho Verde is also a completely different kind of a drink than either Port or Madeira. Those are hearty red dessert wines, kind of a dessert all in themselves in fact. Vinho Verde is light and a bit tart. It also has a light effervescence to it, which makes it even more summery. I always say that Vinho Verde is Portugal's national soda pop. Not that it is sweet at all; in fact it is rather more on the dry side. But it is bubbly and the Portuguese drink it about as frequently as Americans drink Coke, or at least I think so. Growing up, I don't recall my family ever drinking this wine. They tended more towards whichever of my many Uncle Manny's homemade wines happened to be around. These drinks I recall as rather thick and syrupy.

I did recently discover an excellent recipe for Lemon Liqueur in Maria Lawton's new cookbook, Azorean Cooking. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks excellent and may get added to my list of summer drinks!

I'm not sure when Vinho Verde hit my radar, but I'm glad it did! Today I am drinking it with a sprig of lavender from the garden.

A Perfect Trout

Today the crisp and cool spring weather reminded me of the day I traveled through the Serra da Estrela mountains in northern Portugal several years ago. This mountain range is really the only true one that Portugal has, and on that day it seemed perfect to me. I remember that, and the most perfectly delicious trout I ever ate while there! The Portuguese are masters of fish preparation, but this non-ocean fish dish was beyond mastery.

We drove on small paved roads through the Natural Park of Serra da Estrela that twisted in between pine forests--not the big, tall pine trees I am used to seeing in northern New England, but smaller and more twisted ones. We drove past sparkling clean brooks. It was the kind of day that was warm when you stood in the sun, but chilly the moment you stepped into the shade.

When lunchtime rolled around, we stopped at the Pousada de Manteigas, São Lourenço. The Pousadas of Portugal are wonderful hotels, often built inside of historic castles. This one was newer construction, but had been built to look like a typical mountain shelter of the region.

Upon being seated we were immediately bombarded by waiters and our host who fussed and cooed over my then infant daughter, Adelaide. This happened in almost every restaurant we visited while in Portugal. Sometimes waiters would even sit down and feed her so that we could eat unencumbered!

I wanted to eat something representative of the region, so after hugging and kissing the baby, the waiter recommended the trout, caught from one of the bubbling mountain brooks we had driven past.

We started off with Vinho Verde and some soup, which I am sure was delicious, but was so completely overshadowed by the dish that followed, that I can't even remember what kind it was.

The trout, when it arrived, was deceptively simple looking. It appeared to be a plain piece of filleted trout, next to a lemon wedge and a bed of rice. But then I bit into it and could not believe the gorgeous flavor! It seemed to be to be the quintessential trout preparation. It was moist, hot and delicately flavored with garlic. I ate every last bit of it.

I asked the waiter to tell me the secret to its perfection. "It's just olive oil, salt and garlic," he told me. "Nothing else!"

When I got back to the U.S. it wasn't long before I tried to duplicate it at home. After a couple of tries, I think I came up with a pretty good copy! Check out my recipe for Broiled Trout, Serra da Estrela Style.