Maggie's Farm

I have a few friends who have taken trips to France or Italy to attend 5-day to one week hands-on cooking schools. Generally, husband and wife participate although one is usually more interested than the other. Some also offer classes for youth.

Many of the schools run from around noon or 1 through suppertime, when the students eat their creations together. The meal planning and local shopping are part of most courses except for the ones sited on farms.

People have told me that these have been the most fun they have ever had while traveling because it gets you into the culture and away from the "sights."

Here's a small sample.

Just for fun, you can google "tourist cooking schools near Paris," or "in Provence", or "in Italy,"  etc. As you know, each region of Italy has its own cuisine and its own different produce.

It's a holiday season decoration and a holiday season treat. We usually have mounds of them on Thanksgiving. The Granada, The cultural history of the pomegranate, from ancient Greece to modern medicine.

Gee, I still like those foods. And coffee jello with Miracle Whip. Good stuff. For the few Americans who still cook dinner at home (a rapidly-shrinking number partly because of the rise of women with day jobs), what they are fixing is more international and more sophisticated than 30 or 40 years ago.

As she notes, over the past 50 years food in the US has taken up a diminishing proportion of the family budget. Thus the boom in prepared food, fast food take-out, and restaurants in general. McArdle: The Economics Behind Grandma's Tuna Casseroles:

 We were the sort of people who did our grocery shopping like a trade caravan moving from oasis to oasis. You started, perhaps, at Fairway Market in the 70s, for produce, and then you moved methodically up Broadway from point to point: Bruno’s for fresh pasta, Citarella for meat, Zabar’s for cheese and deli sundries, H&H for bagels, the Korean vegetable market on the corner for staples you might have forgotten to grab at some earlier stop. Then you cooked. Unless it was her busy season (my mother sold real estate when she was not simmering blanquette de veau), we had a fresh cooked meal from scratch every night.

If this sounds unbearably precious, it wasn’t, because the great blessing of my life is that my mother did not let me become a food snob.

 Re-posted to collect some more ideas -

Our popular Maggie's Classic Mommys of America Comfort Suppers series reminds me to do a series on classic old-timey Mommy's Desserts. Most Moms today don't make dessert except for special occasions, but it was a nice touch and popular with the kids.

Furthermore, growing and physically-active kids need sweet and sugary treats - for health, energy, and peace of mind - and to feel the love.

Moms never used to buy desserts. People lived on strict budgets, and only the prosperous went to restaurants other than the hot dog stand, which was fast food. People raised in the Depression, or raised during WW2 or the 1950s and 60s, did not buy stuff, and a linen-napkin restaurant was very special, unlike today. They got off their butts and made stuff - even my Mom with 5 kids. I remember some my favorites:

Coffee Jello with Jiffy-Whip (that's how I learned to love coffee in my youth)

Apple Pan Dowdy or whatever version of that sort of apple thing

Blueberry Cake with Hard Sauce (she'd only make it if we picked the wild berries at the Farm)

Yellow Cake (from the box) with Mocha frosting for birthdays. Mom never bought a cake in her life (except for the annual Buche de Noel)

Indian Pudding for winter holidays, with ice cream or whipped

Bread Pudding +/- rum, and English-style custard or rum sauce on top

Apple Pie, from our apple trees, with ice cream.

Cherry pie, from my great-aunt's amazingly-productive cherry tree.

Home-made vanilla ice cream, hand-cranked machine. Sometimes, with home-made chocolate sauce, sometimes with rhubarb sauce, sometimes with butterscotch stuff out of a can or bottle.

Peach Melba, with canned peaches

Trifle with rum- or wine-soaked pound cake - for special parties

Strawberry Shortcake, made with Bisquick

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Brownies, occasionally with ice cream on top

Rice Pudding with raisins. Might be good with dried cranberries too.

Root Beer or Sarsaparilla Floats in hot weather

I'll get to work on an Official Mommy's of America dessert post, but only if you tell me what some of your favorite Mommys of America home-made desserts were. Since we are read all around the world, the whole world will appreciate, and benefit from, our homey memories.

Tell me in the comments.

There are two basic textbooks used in American cooking formal education:

- The Cordon Bleu's Professional Cooking (The CB also has an accompanying Professional Baking)

- The CIA's (Culinary Institute of America) On Cooking: A Textbook of Culinary Fundamentals

Either of these tomes is great fun to read, and all chefs use one or the other as foundation for recipes and technique. There is a lot to learn. Chefs know everything, but cooks know how to make it. Chef is architect/engineer, cook is carpenter.

Most kids in New England are raised on Fluffernutter on white bread. On this manna they grow big, strong, smart, and well-mannered.

What is less-widely known is that there is a gourmet version of this gooey nourishment - Fluffernutter with banana. Toasted!

That is our version of regional haute cuisine and I am sure it is government-approved. However, I still prefer a grilled cheese with ketchup. Cheddar, please, white bread, and tomato slices in it. Yum.

Lobster is overrated. It's just a big bug, but I am happy to promote Yankeeland's Clam Chowda, Cod Chowda, and baked beans. Especially Cod Chowda. With hot biscuits on the side.

A classic, cool weather Southern Italian dish. Easy.  I am not a big fan of southern Italian, but this is a standard for those many who enjoy this sort of thing. Use chicken thighs only.

Saw this on Food Channel yesterday morning while chained to the stair machine, so at Costco yesterday I picked up a big package of ribs to make today. 

Long and low - that's how to do baked ribs.

Those at Costco were not exactly short ribs, but whatever. Ribs are delicious, and for me polenta is as good as grits - or better. Basically, very similar. This has cheese polenta. Nice, but plain is good enough for me if there is a great sauce.

There is roast beef, mutton chops, fish and chips, and steak and kidney pie, but #1 is this good comfort food. But who has these spices in the cabinet?

Acorns are popular fall-fattening foods for all sorts of wildlife. The Indians depended on them too. It seems that all acorns are edible.

The Mechanics of Eating Acorns

In America, a pasta dish is often used as a secondi (ie an entree - the use of the term entree for a main course is American). Properly done, the pasta is a small dish primi followed by a meat (eg braciole) and vegetable secondi. Well, in America we do whatever the heck we want but at Maggie's HQ we try to respect the time-honored Italian traditions.

For me, any pasta as a main meal is a disgusting, bloating, cloying, enervating, fattening, brain-numbing experience.  Best for a small dish primi, for special flavors. Same applies to risotto, gnocchi, or polenta. American restaurants serve too much primi to fill you up on the cheap.

Most common American error is to dump the sauce (or "gravy") on top of the pile of pasta. Nope. Dump the pasta in the hot pan of sauce and serve thinly-coated. That's what pasta tongs are for.

Others:

Don't Make These Sunday Sauce Common Mistakes—Or We'll Tell Nonna

It takes a lot of time and trouble unless you use a slow cooker.

Peeling is the biggest problem.

Got some advice from my chef friend about Goulash. I have a lot of venison in the freezer, some tender cuts and some tough cuts. Tough cuts are for the goulash.

It's all about paprika. Very simple. Chef tells me real goulash has no tomato in it, and the meat should be falling apart. Like real chili, should be made with meat chunks, not ground meat. No noodles in the stew, but can serve on egg noodles or rice with some sour cream to top it off. This stew at the end should be thick, not soupy.

Recipe:

Brown a few onions in butter and veg oil - not chopped, just quartered, with some garlic
Then brown chunks of tough meat in butter, after seasoning heavily with salt, pepper, and paprika
Cover with chicken or beef broth and bake covered in oven for 2 hours or more.
Then check it for moisture, add some broth or water if needed, check for salt, add more paprika. Can add some potato chunks if you want.
Then back in the oven for another hour or 2. If too soupy, uncover and let it thicken in oven longer or cheat and stir in some thickener.

I guess crock pot would work, but it would need to cook a while at the end to thicken.

Here's an example:  Real Hungarian Goulash

We consume a fair amount of ricotta in our house. It's a versatile substance, but I like it on good bread with a slice of tomato and some salt, or some jam or jelly.

Excellent in omlettes too.

It's not actually a cheese. It's made from whey. 

If you can find it, Ricotta Salata is very tasty. It's popular in Sicily.

Peaches ripen late up here in New England. Yes, there are peach varieties which thrive in the North.

As of now, I have had five friends over to pick grocery-bags full and have delivered bags to others. I'll ask a daughter to take a bag home to NYC today. And I have made substantial batches of peach jam, peach chutney, and canned spiced peaches. I am close to peached out with God and nature's abbondanza.

Still, this is a pic of the tree yesterday after all that. Plus the windfall from yesterday's thunderstorm. The local deer do not seem to like peaches. Neither do the turkeys. Squirrels like them, but it's more of a crop than they can make a dent in.

I use no sprays, no fertilizer - out of laziness as much as anything else. These peaches are as sweet as honey. I guess I'll make more jam, but let's consider peach pie, peach crumble, and peach buckle (that's old-fashioned).

Problem is that Mrs. BD and I are currently on low-carb, high protein heavy-work-out diet plans in an effort to delay the discouraging and ennervating effects of age and entropy. 

Anyway, there are two types of peach pie: a custardy one and the classic plain one. I like both but maybe prefer the more custardy one. There are many variations on both themes.

Now Peach Crumble. Dynamite with some vanilla ice cream or heavy cream. I salivate as I write this.

Peach Cobbler

Peach Buckle

As my final Peach Post of 2015, I'll offer this one:

Man, I love them. Will make some this week. Just need to pick up some whole cloves and cinnamon sticks. I see none in the pantry.

(Tip: about 4 medium peaches weigh a pound.)

I sent my buddy home with a bushel of peaches. He brought me a basket of his apples and about 10 lbs. of venison. I'll save some for Thanksgiving.

The sharing economy.

With all of my autumn canning/cooking, some answers and a question:

31 Ways to Eat Hot Pepper Jelly and canned Pepper Sauce

For me, it makes anything tasty - including burgers. Great with cheese and cream cheese. All cheese requires some fruity accompaniment. Really fine as a meat glaze. Heck, I dip my breakfast hard-boiled egg in some, and put some on scrambled eggs. I put some on rice too. It's not for little children.

10 Ways to Use Chutneys

For me, with rice, or on ham or turkey sandwiches

Fruit Jams and Jellies

Are not just for breads and toast. I think, best of all with cheese and meat. Or cream cheese or yoghurt.  Not to forget on crepes and Swedish Pancakes. And venison requires a jam or jelly on the side just as pork requires applesauce. Lean meats need a kicker.

Apple Butter

For me, best on ham, chicken, or turkey sammiches. Also good with the things listed here.

Lemon Curd

Supposedly used for scones, but I like it on fresh fruit or I won't eat the fruit - except raspberries

                                                How do you like to use these condiments?

It's too bad that all of the peaches on a tree begin to ripen at once. I pick before ripe. Up here, it's September for peaches and pears, October for apples.

I have a pal coming over today to help me with the harvest, and we'll split the harvest. He cooks stuff too, another old farm boy. It's been an excellent year for fruit trees in general in the Northeast: frigid long winter, wet spring, hot summer.

Maybe Mrs. BD will make a few Peach Pies and tarts for friends and kids, and I'll can up some preserves and Peach Chutney. She is a crust-making expert And I will keep a bunch to ripen fully on the tree to eat. I am fond of fresh peach slices on vanilla ice cream. Aren't you?

Tree has more peaches than we can ever use.

Our hosts in Wellfleet last week provided abundant and elegant breakfasts. Fresh fruits first, of course. I am not a fruit fan, but with a good dollop of Trader Joe's Lemon Curd I can enjoy them.

They provided fruit forks and knives with the beautifully-presented fruit course. Civilized and quite effective tools for all fruits and berries. Yes, old-fashioned. We need some.

With decent cutlery and Lemon Curd, I may yet become fruit-tolerant. Is fruit "healthy"? Not at all. It's really just nature's dessert.

Found that pic of a set on eBay.

In 2 weeks it will be time to harvest my peach crop. I have a neighbor pal who likes to get into the tree with me, and shares the harvest. Mrs. BD will make us a couple of peach pies (my favorite pie), and I will can 10-12 jars of peach chutney.

Some peach jam too.

I don't bother spraying, so my fruit are not picture-perfect but neither am I.

It's an abundant crop this year - note branch broken by the weight of the peaches. I'll let it hang and see what happens.

For cooking, best to use peaches before they are ripe for eating.