Not Derby Pie

I had a day of nearly-harrowing travel yesterday, in which I faced not one but two 3-hour delays and ended up purchasing an extra ticket in the nick of time (as in: second-to-last seat on the flight) that got me home at a blessedly reasonable hour. Also, in case you’re lucky enough to live in a city where October has decided to behave, let me tell you about the temper tantrum it’s throwing back east: the rain is coming down, and it hasn’t stopped for a second these past few days. Here’s the lemonade from the lemons: it’s just gross enough outside that I feel not a shred of guilt about spending this weekend inside.

Fortunately, the ingredients for my new favorite salad are here and ready to go, as they tend to be quite often these days. I keep a jar of the dressing on the top shelf of the fridge and regularly replenish it when it runs low. Romaine is pretty much always in the house, and at least for the next few weeks, I still have a regular supply of corn. To say this Southwestern Caesar has become a staple? Understatement of the week. At least.

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Inexplicably, I woke up Friday morning with a serious craving for spicy green sauce. Of what variety? No clue. What would go in this sauce? Again, couldn’t tell you. But I wanted a sauce, thick and green, spicy and fresh, to eat with salmon. And since there’s only one cook in this house (D being capable of excellent cleaning and eating but really no cooking whatsoever, seriously), my craving was my command.

I typed “spicy green sauce” into Google, and, you know, 16 MILLION results came back. So this spicy green sauce that I totally made up? It’s a real thing. 16 million real things, to be precise.

And then, because I’m terribly indecisive, I made three spicy green sauces. Hey – a craving is a craving, non?

9 chilies and two bunches of cilantro later, I found two versions that I really like. One I’ll save for another time; the other is a perfect accompaniment to this simply roasted salmon.

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In lieu of a main course, today I’ve got nibbles for you. No big story, no recipe. Just a whole bunch of tasty little things we’ve been cooking and eating that you might also want to cook, and eat.

I hope you’ll share what you’ve been cooking in the comments. Let’s trade ideas.

Avocado Toasts

Peaches may be over for the year, but at least we’ve still got our beloved avocados. About a year ago, I had an avocado toast at Cork that most of my DC friends already know and love: good bread, rubbed with olive oil and toasted, topped with the thinnest slices of avocado, more of that olive oil, and crushed pistachios. So simple you almost wouldn’t order it, but by your good fortune you do, and you never skip it again.

It’s easy enough to make at home, but I change it up depending on my mood and the time of day. In the morning, I’ll pop the bread in the toaster and spread a thin layer of ricotta under the avocado. At dinner time, I’ll stick with the Cork original, or add a bit of mint or basil to the mix. And of course, what’s better than ricotta toasts at lunch? Those get the works: hummus, muhamarra, harissa, and maybe some feta cheese.

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This past Sunday, thousands of DC residents who work for government frantically checked email to see whether they’d be considered essential staff in the event of a government shutdown. Politicians continued to refine the art of ignorant obstructionism. This town became even more this town-ish.

…and the rest of us? Well, we went outside.

Government shutdown notwithstanding September 2013 should go down in the history books as a glorious time in this town. The weather has been incredible: clear skies, cool breeze, not too much rain. It’s practically screaming at you to stop being an idiot, get up off your butt, and get stuff done. The pols may not listen, but I will.

We spent the morning at the National Arboretum, an outdoor oasis owned by the Department of Agriculture (government! Ahh!) right in the middle of Northeast. It’s got big, green pastures, hundreds of varietals of plants, trees, and herbs, and even a separate garden with twenty kinds of chile peppers. The first time we went was for a birthday party that actually happened elsewhere — oops! — but we were so taken with the expanses of green in the middle of the city, we decided to go back.

We roamed the grounds for an hour, and then — because what’s a hike without a picnic?  — we chose a speckled sunny spot in the middle of one of the gardens, put down a big blanket, and laid out a majorly awesome spread of food. We covered the blanket with fresh harissa, hummus, three kinds of bread, zaatar-roasted eggplant, cucs, sprouts, avocados, and plenty of feta cheese.

Oh, and of course, some of this pepper spread.

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Let’s imagine that you were to brown six sticks of butter in one week. Hypothetically speaking, you’d watch six creamy blocks of pale yellow fat turn into a hot, bubbly liquid smelling of toasted hazelnuts and caramel. Going out on a limb here, I’m guessing you might start to wonder why we ever use unbrowned butter. Not that I would know.

I have so much to tell you about brown butter (and desserts involving said item) that I’m a tad embarrassed. Does she make anything else? (Yes, I promise, she eats greens from time to time.) I’ll spare you an onslaught of indulgence by plopping a salad in between, a bit of dietary comic relief so that you can enjoy brown butter and I can enjoy not getting made fun of.

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On a beautiful Sunday in March of 2006, I left my apartment in Jerusalem and drove due north for about 200 km, until I arrived at Moshav Shtula, which sits on the border between Israel and Lebanon. (On the border, as in: on my morning run, I got about 10 minutes before hitting the UN blue line and turning around.) I went to spend a week with Sara Hatan, a Kurdish immigrant who had raised her family (14 children!) on Shtula and established a reputation as an excellent cook. My friend Neil, who sent me to Sara, told me that people came to visit her restaurant from across the tiny country. They said her kubbeh was the best they’d ever had. And friends, as excited as I was to spend the week washing Sara’s dishes and waiting on Shtula’s guests, what led me there in the first place was kubbeh.

Kubbeh are meat-filled bulgur and semolina dumplings that are either fried and served as an appetizer, or boiled and plunked into soup. I was after boiled kubbeh, specifically those that find their way into kubbeh hamusta, a sour, sorrel-based soup that I love.

Sara taught me to make kubbeh hamusta. By “taught,” I mean that she poured water into a big pot until the water rose halfway up her arm, then said — in Kurdish-inflected Hebrew — “See how much water to use? Good.” She shaped five kubbeh in record time, without even looking down, and then had me do one.  I started to curl the semolina dough around the meat, when before I knew it, she’d snatched the thing right out of my hand, managing to salvage it in the nick of time. Over five days cooking with Sara, I five pounds fuller and (maybe?) five pennies wiser. She was hilarious and accomplished, but she had no interest in teaching me. Fortunately, the internet exists. I’ve since taught myself to make a not-all-together terrible kubbeh hamusta.

I recently learned that kubbeh hamusta is just one in a large family of sour meat-based soups. According to my brother, soups like this exist in Turkey and elsewhere across the Middle East. Needless to say, I want to try them all. For now, I’m settling for two. The second? Agrio.

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Purslane is in season here, and if you’ve had the chance to buy it straight from a grower, you know that it’s far more active of a plant than it might look on the shelf of Whole Foods. Purslane is no wimpy pile of leaves; it’s a big, flowery, almost overgrown plant, with thick stems the size of garlic scapes and row after row of firm, round leaves. It announces itself by looks alone, and with its bright, tangy flavor, boy does it pack a punch.

The stems of purslane, I recently discovered, are quite mucilaginous, not unlike okra. I tried to saute them in a bit of olive oil and I ended up with a stew the texture of gumbo. Next time, I’ll leave the stems whole and either grill them, or saute them in a very hot pan with very hot oil, to keep the goo at bay.

But the leaves, that’s where the fun is. Purslane is tart, like sorrel, which makes it a perfect pair for summer’s sweetest melons.

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