Labor Day week-end

Joe came to visit me for this last, long week-end before classes begin. Apart from the obvious merit of simply seeing each other, it was a chance for him to discover my new environs, and a chance for me to get some help setting up my new apartment. We ate copiously; we explored. We stocked up on wine. We watched Daria. We set up my internet. All in all, a highly successful goodbye to summer.

Some loot from Saturday's farmer's market excursion.

Saturday night thunder storm.

Walking the Nichols Arboretum.

Apple season is soon upon us...

Rosemary Tom Collins.

Buttermilk biscuit and sorghum syrup from Zingerman's (again).

Parking lot shenanigans.

River Bend Farm

Our Massachusetts week-end came to to a close yesterday morning with a walk along the Blackstone River from River Bend Farm in Uxbridge. And what a perfect late summer day it was for a stroll, too!

Contemplating the river.

Turtle!

A good deal of mushrooms are cropping up in the wooded areas. I wish I hadn't lost my handy mushroom field guide (I had a phase).

Blue sky; bit of moon.

Canal lock; the "liquid carpet" effect of growth on the water.

Summer food

Eating in summertime is an occasion to be fêted, as beautiful fruits and vegetables abound. Here are some hot hits of the past week.

Arugula with soy beans, spiced almonds and raspberries.

Muffin and 1989 National Geographic at Commune.

Cured chickpea salad; chicken sandwich.

I consume the muffin; Joe consumes an article on the USSR.

Fried sardines.

Joe demonstrates the tomato salad, may or may not be posing for a mug shot.

Lamb and cherry stew

Sunday was our last performance of L'Étoile, and it was a wonderful way to cap off this first summer season. Now that I'm on vacation, I've been playing tourist with Joseph, on visit from Brooklyn, and eating up a storm in restaurants. Tonight, however, I decided to cook.

Lamb stew, with roasted potatoes and zucchini.

Lamb and cherry stew

(serves 4-6)

2 lbs lamb - various cuts, with a few bones for stewing

olive oil

1 large onion

4 cloves garlic

1 8 oz. can tomatoes

2 handfuls fresh sweet red cherries, pitted and halved

2 bay leaves

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tbsp turmeric

1 tsp tsp cumin

1/4 cup red (sweet) vermouth

salt, to taste

Remove as much fat as possible from the lamb and cut the meat into pieces. Heat olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan with lid or Dutch oven; pat the meat dry and sear on high heat for a few minutes. Add the onion cut into thin strips and the minced garlic.

Reduce the heat to a medium. Add the tomatoes and halved cherries. Add the herbs, spices and salt, as well as the vermouth. Once the mixture begins to simmer, reduce the heat further to low. Cover the pan and let the stew cook for 1 hour, until the meat falls away from the bone and be split with a fork. Adjust salt to taste. If you've started your stew early in the day as I did, you can let it sit, then reheat it gently before eating (this is a good way to make sure the flavors settle). Remove the bay leaves before serving.

And for dessert, honey-rosemary crème Saint-Honoré with nectarines and blueberries, almonds, Cointreau and rum sauce. Now we sit, round and tired, digesting while watching Hitchcock's Suspicion.

Simple summer pasta salad

After two and a half days of soup and raw garlic (wonderful when one has a cold, tiresome on the senses very quickly), I was more than ready to move on to a solid dinner. So, while preparing my meals-in-mason jars for tomorrow in rehearsals, I also whipped a quick pasta salad to enjoy on the porch.

Zucchini and chickpeas in jars.

Summer pasta salad

(serves 2)

1 cup [whole wheat] pasta, dry

3 large, ripe tomatoes

1/2 Haas avocado

extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar

salt, fresh-ground pepper

3 to 5 leaves fresh basil

Instructions are hardly needed: Boil pasta as directed. Drain the cooked pasta and toss with olive oil in a bowl to let cool. Chop coarsely the tomatoes and the avocado. Toss all of the components together with more olive oil as necessary, a dash of balsamic, salt and pepper to taste. Finely chop the basil and add to the salad before serving.

Rosemary olive oil cake, pastry cream and peaches

Considering this is the second olive oil-based cake I present to you, it's evident that I have a real weakness for them... and that I often don't have butter on hand. (I highly encourage you to try this cake, too.) In this version, I've opted to add whole wheat flour and almond meal to the mix, and to top it all off with bourbon-flavored crème patissière and peaches.

Whole wheat rosemary olive oil cake

(adapted from 101 Cookbooks)

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cups almond meal

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp kosher salt

3 eggs

1 cup olive oil

1 cup milk (preferably whole)

1/4 tsp almond extract

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary

Place your rack in the middle of the oven; preheat it to 350ºF. Grease a 9-inch-diameter cake pan or 9x5-inch loaf pan. (I used a glass dish, as no cake pans were to be found.)

Sift the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Some of the whole-wheat flour and almond meal will not go through the sieve; throw them back into the bowl.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and olive oil, along with the almond extract and rosemary. Gently fold the liquid ingredients into the dry ones. Pour into the prepared pan.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until a test toothpick comes out clean. Let cool 5 to 10 minutes before unmoulding.

Meanwhile, make a small batch of pastry cream...

Crème patissière with bourbon

1 cup whole milk

2 eggs

1/3 cup sugar (or 1/2 cup if you have a sweeter tooth than I)

2 tbsp flour

2 tbsp bourbon

Bring the milk to a simmer at medium low heat in a heavy-bottomed pot. Beat the two eggs in a mixing bowl with the sugar and flour. Pour the simmering milk little by little into the egg mixture while continue to whisk (lest the eggs cook in clumps!). Pour the entire mixture back into the pot, add the bourbon and cook to thicken at medium low heat, stirring continuously. Once thickened, let the cream cool and refrigerate.

The cooled crème patissière and peach slices.

Peal and slice three ripe peaches. You can choose to add sugar, but my specimens were plenty sweet on their own (ah! summer! what a season!). Serve the cake at room temperature with the cooled cream. I opted to assemble everything together, spreading the pastry cream over the cake and adding the peach slices to the top.

Having improvised on the bake ware front (and having no serving plate of the appropriate size) , I decided not to unmould my cake.

The cake, refrigerated and covered, will keep about 2 days.

Flowers at Prada Menswear sping 2012

Fancy floral trousers in summer? Prada's spring 2012 menswear collection may be your [expensive] ticket!

19 June, Milan. via Style.com

Seared chicken breast, sautéed zucchini with olives

Driving South.

My mother and I met up at San Francisco International, both landing at approximately the same time (she was coming back from France, so she definitely had me beat on the jet lag front). As I'm free until Sunday we drove down to Pebble Beach this afternoon for a short week-end at the sea. I'm certainly looking forward to a few walks by the beach, and slipping back into my familiar role as house cook.

Simple seared spicy chicken breast with rosemary

(serves 2-3)

2 large chicken breasts, halved length-wise

appr. 1 tsp nutmeg

appr. 1 tsp red pepper flakes

2 big sprigs rosemary

large sea salt, to taste

1/2 cup white wine, chicken stock or water

Rub the nutmeg into the pieces of chicken, and place them in a heated cast-iron skillet (preferably) with olive oil on high flame. Let sear about five minutes, until one side is browned a good deal. Add salt, red pepper and half the rosemary. Flip the chicken and let sear the second side.

Add the rest of the rosemary, and more salt as necessary. Add the wine, stock or water and cover loosely with a lid. Lower the heat to medium. Let the chicken cook until done through, approximately five to ten minutes. Let rest a few minutes before serving.

As the chicken is cooking (err... burning under supervision), let's get going on the zucchini:

Sautéed zucchini with olives

(serves 2)

3 small zucchini

3 medium cloves of garlic (or 2 if you're not so garlic happy as we are), minced

5-6 Kalamata olives in brine, minced

salt, to taste

The ingredient list is really for the sake of formatting - here are the less than abundant requirements.

Heat olive oil in a skillet over high flame. Slice the zucchini and add them to the pan.

Let the slices brown, about ten minutes. Add salt (not too much, as the olives are already quite salty themselves), the olives and garlic. Lower heat to medium and let cook five minutes more.

The finished zucchini await their chicken companions on a plate.