Time Out

Leslie in the fog at Torrey Pines State Reserve, California

Finally, after weeks of relentless work, my wife Leslie and I are on vacation!

This is a short one - two days before a gluten-free expo at which I'm a vendor - and two days after. We "did" the San Diego Zoo  and the Thursday Farmer's Market yesterday and Torrey Pines State Reserve today. Both are wonderful places, but I found the latter a bit more visually interesting:

   
Torrey Pines the species are one of the most endangered in the Pinus genus, and I particularly enjoyed speculating about their tiny ecological niche, of which there are only two - one of them on the Pacific coast not far from our hotel. Their survival is often described as both miraculous and tenuous, and I had to wonder what sorts of mycological help they might be getting. There should be mychozorrheal partners. However, none of the State Park literature mentioned any. 

It's fun to march around on a foggy coast, relaxing and taking photographs, thinking about fungi and wondering what kind of crowd the Celiac Awareness Tour will have tomorrow. The day was gorgeous so I even stopped thinking about my constant obsession: food. However, that obsession has returned, for it is now dinner time.

On the topic of food, here is the latest recipe from my members-only newsletter: 


This treat is black chocolate-quinoa cake, a dessert I've been making about once a month for at least five years. The original version is on the back of Bob's Red Mill quinoa flour packages. You can see it HERE.

If you follow Bob's recipe  - it's still on the flour package - you'll make great-tasting cupcakes. But to turn out truly luscious cakes you'll need some substitutions - primarily black cocoa, which is available from King Arthur Flour - and you'll want to frost the end product, ideally with the chocolate-mocha recipe found in Joy of Cooking.

Last week my wife Leslie and I were invited to a friend's house for dinner. I always bring dessert when we're invited out, but our friend Rebecca can't eat dairy, so I decided to modify this recipe, making it dairy-free. The changes were few, and the results, excellent.

The version described below is the dairy-free one. It's an upside-down cake, topped with chopped pecans that have been laced with honey and molasses. Obviously, those with nut allergies can't eat this, but the topping can be removed without changes to baking time or preparation. I think the frosted version remains superior, so if dairy isn't a problem, skip the upside-down technique and whip up some frosting instead. (Frosting recipe follows cake recipe). Or you can be totally decadent and use both nuts AND frosting. In that case I'd suggest slicing the cake in half and re-arranging the layers so that the nuts are in the middle. Which is what I'm doing from now on. Thank you Rebecca!

Black Chocolate Layer Cake

Makes one 8" circular cake, 6 - 12 servings

Ingredients:

1/4 cup virgin coconut oil
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup King Arthur Flour Black cocoa
1 1/4 cup quinoa flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs, separated
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup silken tofu

For the topping:

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
2 TBLS virgin coconut oil, melted
2 TBLS honey
1 TBLS molasses

For the frosting:

1 2/3 cup 10X confectioner's sugar
3/4 stick butter, barely softened (about 60 F)
2 TBLS red cocoa
3 TBLS decaf espresso, cooled to room temperature
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt

Procedure:

Place the water and the 1/4 cup coconut oil in a small saucepan over medium heat until the coconut oil melts. Remove from heat, whisk in cocoa until mixture is very smooth, then set aside to cool.
Preheat oven to 375 F. Line the bottom of an 8" diameter circular cake pan with baker's parchment. Grease sides of pan. Sprinkle pecans evenly over parchment. Drizzle honey and molasses over pecans. Scatter dabs of coconut oil over this.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir until well blended.
Separate eggs, discarding one yolk. In a medium bowl, whip whites until stiff but not dry. In a separate, small bowl, stir yolks with vanilla and silken tofu until well blended.
Add water/cocoa mixture to flour. Stir until well incorporated. Add yolk/tofu mixture and stir until well incorporated. Fold in egg whites. Pour batter into pan. Bake for 40 - 50 minutes, turning pan 180 degrees once after 20 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.  Remove and cool on a rack at least 15 minutes. Place a plate on top of cake, invert cake, then remove pan. Peel away parchment. Allow to cool thoroughly before frosting.

Frosting:

In a medium bowl, mix sugar and cocoa.  In a separate medium bowl, cream butter until fluffy, using a mixer set to medium-high speed, about 3 minutes. With the mixer running, slowly add sugar-cocoa mix. Beat until soft. Add espresso and whip until smooth. Add vanilla and salt and whip about 1 minute. Let stand 5 minutes then whip well. Spread over cake.

Fever Diary

Vacation!

This week Luce’s Gluten-Free Artisan Bread passed another milestone: an initial health department inspection. We have a few minor corrections to make, but we can complete them in 3-4 days. That means production can start next week (week of September 24).

If you haven’t signed up for my e-mail letter, now is the time. Members will get dibs on the first batch out of our kitchen.

It’s been a long haul to get to this point, and I have to confess I’m feeling quite a mixture of emotions. I’m elated to have finally put this together and gotten it “legal”, excited at the prospect of sharing my bread mixes with the world, and more than a little intimidated by the amount of work ahead. 

With the thought that my future might be a very busy one, my wife and I took a vacation last week, visiting one of our favorite places: Chincoteaque Island, Virginia. Those of you who loved to read as children probably know the name. It’s the site of a kiddy-lit classic: Misty of Chincoteaque. Now a good reader I was not, but I know that this story revolves around the wild horses that actually exist on the island. 

Sunshine and vacation shoes

We’ve been vacationing on Chincoteaque island for about 20 years. We always go the first weekend after Labor Day and we usually stay three days, but since I’ve “retired” and since this retirement is soon to end, we elected to spend four weekdays on the island this time. It has a huge National Wildlife Refuge, glorious beaches, a beautiful long-needle-pine forest, interesting fungi and - thanks to all those wild ponies, a world-class mosquito population. 

This year the days were all sunny and not terribly hot. Surf was heavy, thanks to two tropical storms out in the Atlantic, but the water was relatively warm. 

Food on the island can be a bit of a challenge, given our dietary restrictions, but we like to spread our net wide and drive all over the Southern DelMarVa peninsula in search of non-toxic treats. This time we tried the harbor town of Onancock Virginia - and lucked out. The restaurant we found - and went back to twice - was The Inn and Garden Cafe, where Chef Ted went out of his way to make gluten-free crabcakes. What a treat they were!

Leslie and the North Atlantic

A week of lounging in the sun, swimming from time-to-time and eating crab was intensely refreshing, but all too soon it was time to head home. THAT however meant stopping at as many BBQ joints and produce stands as I could convince Leslie to tolerate. Think wood-smoked pig meat, late summer melons, fresh limas, okra, tomatoes, and of course local figs. These were smallish, quite dark and tough-skinned, but much more intensely flavorful than the California varieties I’ve been finding in my local groceries.

Easy to love: Virginia figs

Our journey home was on a Friday. On the way I ate more than a few figs, and was so enraptured by their musky rich flavors I neglected to pay sufficient information to my passenger my wife. Had I been less self-absorbed I might have noticed her unusual restlessness (Leslie is a world-class car sleeper). But as it turned out I didn’t suspect a thing until we were home. “I don’t feel well,” she averred. At which point I noticed she was flushed. I put a hand on her forehead. It was hot. Shit. Leslie is one lady who never gets fevers. I was pretty certain I knew where this one came from.

The first day we’d been on the island, Leslie had taken a walk we always take together: to a wild pony overlook. Rarely are ponies visible, but the view is terrific and the forest through which the trail winds, gorgeous. Unfortunately it is quite mosquito-riddled. This year it was beyond the pale. Mosquitoes usually don’t pursue me, but 20 feet into the woods they were around us in a dense swarm. “Forget this,” I told her, “say hi to the horses for me, I’m waiting in the car.”

I thought she’d come with me. Mosquitoes love her. But, no, the walk was a tradition and she loves traditions. When she got back to the car she had a nimbus of bugs; so many they were uncountable. Even jumping in and slamming the door we ended up with dozens in the car. Despite the fact I thought she’d been foolish to go out in that mob, I felt sorry for her.

Mentally I returned here to balm my fear

By Saturday morning I was feeling much sorrier. Her temp was up to 102, and she was alternatively chilled and sweltering, nauseous and head-achy. I spent the day feeding her acetaminophen. We called our doctor’s on-call service and were told her fever was “low-grade”. We tried to shrug it off.

Sunday was worse. We had a wedding to go to but I called and cancelled her seat. She insisted I go - she wanted photos of the wedding gown. I did go and had a great time. When I got home I stuck a thermometer in her mouth. 104.

Panicked, we struggled to face the situation rationally. That’s not so easy when one of the engaged brains is beginning to cook. 104 is the border for hallucinations, and Leslie allowed she was having some trouble processing time-related concepts. My pulse had begun to race, but we agreed to not head to an ER until we saw what acetaminophen did. Which was actually and thankfully quite a bit. Her fever dropped to 100 and she soon fell asleep.

It was a wild night. Her fever “broke” early Monday, bathing her in perspiration and rousing her for showers and mop-downs twice before dawn. I had to pry her out of bed for a noon doctor’s appointment. Which, as I feared and suspected, indicated (but did not prove) West Nile Virus.

I’ll skip the rest of the medical story and say that in the intervening days she’s improved steadily: no more fever, no more nausea, gradually increasing appetite. We do not yet have an official diagnosis, but whatever-it-was, was too close for comfort. Fortunately she’s unscathed.

Postscript (written 9/22/12): Leslie has almost completely recovered, though she still is quite tired. Lab results say it was NOT West Nile. We're going back to the doctor next week for further investigation.)

As for me, I almost suffered the unspeakable calamity of losing those Virginia figs. By the time I remembered them on Monday afternoon they were at the outer orbit of ripe. Leslie was too sick to eat, and I couldn’t do that job myself (Anybody know what happens when you eat an entire quart of ripe figs? Bet you can guess...) so I elected to try a combination that’s been knocking around in my head since figs “came in” this autumn: cooking them with chanterelles.

Chanterelle vodka

Problem: I had no fresh chanterelles. Idea: I had a fifth of chanterelle vodka.

Do not go down to your liquor store and try to order this. You must make it: shred two or three very fresh, large chanterelles into a bottle of vodka and stash this in the refrigerator until the mushroom fragments sink to the bottom and the booze turns faint orange. Then freeze it or just keep it cold. 

Chanterelle vodka is not something I’d consume directly since I do not drink, but I made a bottle in August for slight-of-hand flavor tricks. It was time to try one. If I did this right, the diner would find unique flavors in the caramelized figs but not realize they were mushrooms. Unless of course I’d told them the ingredients in advance.

The figs were so pungent they overwhelmed any but a heavy dose of mushroom booze, but after fiddling with the ratio I ended up with a fun and rich dish. I’m not sure where it should be on a menu, but my instinct says appetizer. Whenever I ate some - which was often, since Leslie wouldn’t touch it - I paired it with chive-and-onion-laced Cotswald cheese, or Basque Issara cheese, or Vermont Clothbound Cheddar, and it was terrific. And, yes you can store leftovers in the fridge, though for some reason that kills the chanterelle flavor.

One of the best things about this dish - besides the illogical yet wonderful flavors - is how quickly and easily it can be realized. Just one thing: if you’re going to forage your own chanterelles and/or figs, wear plenty of mosquito repellant.  

Caramelized figs with onions and chanterelle vodka

Ingredients:

10 small figs, or 5 larger ones, halved and stems removed

1 TBLS unsalted butter

1 TBLS extra-virgin olive oil

3 TBLS Vidalia onions, chopped fine

1/8 tsp salt

Pinch paprika 

7 TBLS chanterelle Vodka, divided (see text, above)

Procedure: 

In a heavy skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the olive oil and allow to heat until butter sizzles. Add chopped onions and distribute evenly. Allow to sauté until onions just begin to brown, then reduce heat to low and place figs halves onto the hot oil, face down. Sprinkle salt and paprika over the simmering figs.

Continue to braise the figs for 10 minutes. Add one tablespoon of the vodka. It will boil off vigorously. Turn heat off.

When pan has cooled to below the vodka boiling point, add the remainder of the vodka and swirl pan so that liquid picks up the paprika and salt. Return pan to low heat. Simmer another 5 minutes or so until the alcohol is boiled away (or not, if you want a dish with kick). Stir just once and place into a serving dish. Serve warm with very sharp cheeses.

Storm Story

You and me and rain on the roof...

When my wife Leslie casts a worried eye on the sky, it's time for fear. She's not a weather-watcher, and for her to take note of the way the atmosphere feels means something special is going on.

The afternoon I glanced her way and noted her rolling eyes we were one-and-a-half miles up a steep, rocky Vermont trail, looking for wild mushrooms with six friends. The weather forecast was for stable air with no chance of rain. I was hell-bent on reaching my secret lobster mushroom site. Our friends were enjoying themselves. But Leslie knew what I did not: in truth we were in deep yoghurt.

Moments later she said: "Listen." When I did, the sound was unmistakeable: rain in the canopy. 

"It's not supposed to do that," Claudine, one of our companions observed.

But it was doing that.

For just a moment a burst of concern crossed my consciousness. One of our party, Paul, had endured knee replacement surgery in November. He was already on his way back down the mountain alone, having pushed his personal envelope as far as he dared. Claude and Sara, the two strongest hikers in our party, were also on their way down. They, along with Paul and Paul's wife Christine, who had elected not to leave the parking lot because she was recovering from knee surgery also, needed to get back to New York City for evening obligations. That left Leslie and me, plus Claudine and Henri. We knew where Claudine and Henri were - with us - but that knowledge hardly mitigated the fact that Henri had gone through a lumbar laminectomy in March and Claudine too had had back and hip surgery in the past two years. The facts were chilling: we were a separated party, a party weakened by injuries, a party driven by obligations, with bad weather coming in. The potential was there for disaster.

 

But I refused to let myself feel menaced. Lobster mushrooms are one of my favorites and I knew they would be fruiting. We'd found a few in a predictable site on the climb up. Why let rain and injuries hold me back from collecting all there were to collect?

Lobster mushroom. Yum.

Leslie shifted to a bland face, so I dismissed the sky. What she did next, though, should have worried me even more: held out both hands for Henri to grasp. As he leaned into them to negotiate a short descent past slick rocks and roots, I thought, "Oh, he's having trouble," but my brain refused to process it. "You OK?" I asked.

"Oh, no problem," he answered, without a grimace or gritted teeth. He was not in pain. 

I shrugged. He and I exchanged smiles. Yep, he was OK.

The rain picked up.

We headed downhill.

Ten minutes later the precipitation was steady and moderately hard. Leslie stopped to put on a Gore-tex parka and the rest of us joked that she'd been the only one smart enough to ignore the forecast. Nobody was worried yet. The temperature was in the high 70's - no hypothermia threat - and there'd been no thunder.

The sky flickered. Thunder growled. "Great," I muttered.

Within seconds the rain became a downpour and for the first time I grasped our predicament. My focus, which had been the earth in search of fungi, shifted and I saw the trail from the perspective of Henri’s body: rain-slick roots, big mossy rocks and a slurry of mud. It was as hazardous as a sack full of cobras.

Leslie remained undaunted. Staying an arms-length downhill, she alternatively held Henri’s hands or placed herself where he could lean on her shoulders. We kept a slow and steady pace, stopping just once for Claudine to relieve Henri of his backpack.

Down we went one step at a time. The lightning and thunder were now constant and the heavy rain penetrated everything, drenching us to the bone. 

Eventually we approached the place I needed to turn if I was to bushwhack into my lobster site. Interestingly the sky was brightening, and there were even occasional bursts of sunshine. With what seemed to be a sigh of relief, the rain let up. “Leslie,” I said, waving for her to stop. “Whaddaya think? Are you OK if I slide into the woods for a bit?”

I knew she wouldn’t fib, even if doing so meant protecting Henri’s feelings. “Yes, go ahead,” she answered. “Just, can you come out at a place you can meet us where we have to cross the stream?”

“Sure,” I said, imagining the ugly pitch of rocks and water we had to get Henri across. The stream wasn’t deep but the crossing consisted of balanced rocks and large, tenuous steps.  A peach when you’re fresh is the pits when you’re tired, I thought, and headed off-trail.

Almost as soon as I began thrashing through the underbrush, Nature took another fickle turn. A close bolt of lightning painted the sky electric blue, thunder clapped, and the clouds opened wide. The storm had seemed heavy earlier, but now it was serious. Rain lashed with fury, turning  the air translucent. Lightning became almost constant, and for the first time I was afraid of being struck. I debated going back to the trail, but there was little I could help Leslie with on the pitch she was now traversing - a moderate, root-free one - and there was nothing she could do to make me safer. Alone and off-trail in a thunderstorm was my personal notion of a nightmare. There was no choice but to keep on. Besides, lobsters lay ahead.

Raspberries? Read on...

Before I got to them the rain doubled in volume yet again, turning my glasses into sheets of water. I could hardly see the forest floor, let along the subtle shifts of leaf cover and color that give away lobster mushrooms’ hiding places.

Lobsters - Hypomyces lactiflourum - are in fact “converted” mushrooms: a conjoining of one, not-very-good-to-eat genus with an overgrowth of a second. The overgrowing fungus, generically known as a hypomyce, converts the host - usually a Lactarius or Russula - into a delicious if crunchy treat. The hypomyce infects the host while the host is still underground. Harvesting lobsters means digging out as much stem as you can . Finding a good harvest means dulling your collecting knife - but you can hardly care, what you’re digging is delicious. For reasons I do not understand, lobsters come up in the same exact place year after year. Plus, when they are in their prime they are a flourescent orange-red; as easy to spot on the dull forest floor as a naked man in the subway.

But nothing is easy to see if your glasses are obscured with water. I stopped to check if there was anything in my pack I could use to squegee them and found one waterlogged tissue. Damn! I pressed on, crossing the low swell of land I knew harbored the quarry.

There they were. Or, rather, there it was - a single mushroom. I dug it up. There would be more. There always were.

But now the lightning was ferocious and the rain unbelievable. I could see almost nothing and was becoming genuinely afraid. Why had I abandoned Leslie, Claudine and Henri? What if something happened - a fall, a crashing tree? Did I really know to get to the right place on the trail? It was time to give up on lobsters and get into rescue mode.

A brief off-trail descent brought me to the stream crossing, fortuitously just as Leslie, Claudine and Henri arrived. The water was rising rapidly and had turned opaque, thanks to an upstream mud bank. It would be a blind crossing - impossible for Henri on his own and damned tough for anyone. Thankful for sturdy boots I inched my way across. Every foothold was tenuous, but at least there were footholds, and no place was deeper than mid-shin. We crossed safely. There was one more narrow, slick patch ahead and then we’d be home free.

20 minutes later we marched (or should I say, staggered?) into the parking lot. Except for Leslie’s parka-covered head, neck and torso, we were each drenched to the knickers. As if to mock us the storm was over and the sun was out. And - glory be! - there were Paul, Christine and Gary the park ranger, waiting with umbrellas and fresh footgear and prepped to headed up to find us. (A #1 rule of rescue: the rescuing party must not put itself in preventable danger.) Claude and Sara, we learned, had gone off to buy us hot coffee. Gratefully we accepted the dry towels Paul was offering, and arrayed ourselves under the park pavilion roof. A dry seat? Priceless. 

Hypothermia is never on my mind in July, so it didn’t occur to me as we sat and dripped that we were risking it. After an hour of inactivity, though, we were each thoroughly chilled, despite coffee, conversation, mockery (“You found how many lobsters?”) and bright warm sunshine. My thoughts were not as clear as I would have wished as Leslie and I got into the car and headed toward Brattleboro and a hotel. But the implications of this fuzziness did not strike me until I got out of the hotel’s hot shower and I re-inspected the box of berries I’d purchased at a roadside stand. What had I been thinking? What in God’s name was I to do with SO MANY red raspberries?

....to be continued....

FYI - if you read this far you've got the good news!

Legacies

New Italian bread. Legacy-worthy?

So here it is July 1 and no bread business yet. I’m getting closer, but nothing is showing. At least not in the facility I’ve rented - which sits waiting in the summer sun for the township building department to cough up a permit for my three-part sink. Once they do, things should move. And show. And if you like photos of plumbers at work, I’ll have some.

In the meantime you’ll hopefully content yourself with a look at my updated website: HERE. As you can see I'm trying to keep things simple - bread mixes and nothing but, and just two, at least for the time being. 

There’s one thing troubling me. It should be the same thing troubling anyone starting a gluten-free business:  What if the whole gluten-free diet craze collapses before my business gets off the ground.

A morning's work.

It’s a reasonable fear. That the GF diet has “craze” or “fad” elements is, I think, beyond dispute. Recently I saw a study that indicated only 10% of shoppers buying GF goods had celiac disease or gluten insensitivity. When 90% of buyers are purchasing foods that have no proven benefit, it’s a fad. 

To misquote Andy Warhol, fads have a life span of only 15 minutes. With consumers spending about $6 billion in gluten-free goods in fiscal 2011, my guess is that we’re well past minute 7.5. Which means, the fad is on its way out.

You can see this already in the fringes. The hair shirt crowd has decided that giving up gluten isn’t enough, and are demanding their followers give up all grains. (They call this the Paleo diet. Mastodon for dinner, anyone?) And sugar - “usual suspect” #1 whenever a pleasure-giving substance needs beaten up - is re-appearing in TV shows and web blasts as Evil Incarnate, shoving gluten aside. 

So why, given this trajectory, go into a gluten-free business at all? My answer: legacy. 

The ultimate contribution we in GF foods will make is not health but the introduction of new and wonderful flavors to the world’s palate. 

micro-pies with rice-flour-almond crust

I know this is hard to believe. GF has the (well-earned) reputation for producing foods that only a desperate soul would consume. Anyone who received a celiac disease diagnosis 5 or more years ago is familiar with the genre. Crackers that punished the teeth. Door-stop bread. Cakes that dissolved into powder. 

These products linger, but they’re now the minority. We who must eat gluten-free have as many tasty, healthy and easy-to-find dining options as those with normal digestive systems. Some baking and cooking professionals have even risen to that old art-school slogan, “Good Enough Never Is” and decided that “As good-tasting as wheat” is not what’s needed; gluten-free must be more.

Beyond the tired old ways of making things with wheat flour, gluten-free is inspiring new options, new tastes. Consider: before the GF craze, who outside of Ethiopia had ever heard of teff, let alone tasted it? Has any wheat-flour baker tweaked spicy flavors from pie crust, without adding spices? We who are gluten-free can smilingly say, “We have!” 

Wheat-based bakers primarily rely on three grains. Gluten-free bakers use at least eight (millet, sorghum, corn, buckwheat, rice, teff, amaranth, quinoa), and that’s not counting the varieties within each family (ie: dark teff, ivory teff, red teff). Plus we augment our flours with many starches. In both categories we’ve introduced flavors previously unknown in our cultures. 

Not wheat but sourdough nonetheless. Whole grain and good!

Our legacy is with breads that are astonishingly good and taste nothing like wheat breads, in cakes and cookies and pies that delight the tastebuds with lush and interesting new flavors, in crackers with luscious chew and flatbreads that combine crunch and moist in unexpected yet wonderful ways.

Which is why I’m opening my gluten-free business. I think my breads will fill the bill. Egotistic? Perhaps. But I won’t claim to be the only one inventing legacy foods. Next time you’re the supermarket, pick up a bag of Bob’s Red Mill quinoa flour and try the chocolate cupcake recipe on the back. If those aren’t gluten-free cakes worth legacy status, I don’t know what is.

And for those of you with a love of experiment and a family willing to lap up your trial recipes, here’s two ideas I’m sure can be molded into legacies. I’ve put them aside in favor of breads, but I know that someone - maybe YOU, gentle reader - can do wonders with them.

Fresh red raspberries and buckwheat kernels, ready for the kitchen.

1) Buckwheat and raspberries

2) Ivory teff and seafood.

And there, I’m out of ideas for another round of writing. When next I sit at this keyboard I hope to have business progress to report. In my world the installation of a three-part sink is the most yearned-for of events.