This Little Piggy Went to the Market
Roll down the window and let the
wind blow back your hair.
There is no better time of
year than summer to bring you along with me as I
make the rounds gathering our local treasures.
First stop: My local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm Girl Farm. I had to snap a shot of Farmer
Laura's
table full of just-harvested vegetables. They are bursting with right-from-the-field flavor!
Watching a farm grow and change through
the seasons is a damn inspirational thing for me! Listening to other CSA members
chat about recipes with Vivienne at the pick-up table? Learning new techniques
and tidbits of obscure veggie trivia? Right up my cookbook-collecting, recipe-squirreling alley!
If getting to know your farmers and putting money from
your pocketbook into their hard-working, dirt-covered hands sounds appealing,
then the CSA thing could be for you.
It might not be too late to find your local CSA. Be willing to embrace the misfit vegetables: the ones
with the little dings, the funny shapes (take a photo and become a local
celebrity) or on-the-verge-voluptuous ripeness. The veggies that
prefer a life on the farm rather than a bumpy ride to the supermarket will reward you with the very best flavor.
Next stop: Farmers' Markets! Love them. Love them all. I am on record as
being jealous of all of you who leave the breakfast table here to visit the
market in Great Barrington on Saturday mornings. (Guests take precedence over farmers' markets on weekends.)
But I get around. Wednesday afternoons you'll often find me at the The Nutrition Center's Market in GB (that's Great Barrington-speak for our town). Friday afternoons I drive along the Appalachian Trail to
the The Sheffield Farmer's Market.
That drive never gets old and I always find a little snap, crackle or pop
for breakfast. Some shiso leaves to chiffonade with a sprinkle of arugula
flowers on the onion tart, or the first of the season's strawberries to plunk
down sweet and whole over a rose petal jam crostada, but that is all SO last
week! Who knows what awaits this week?
Ah, yes. Chocolate Springs! Heavenly morsels that go by the charming
name of bon-bons are perfection and waiting for me to fetch. No giant boxes of
mass-produced stuff here. Owner/Chocolatier Josh insists on selling only
micro batches because he uses no preservatives.
One will be on your pillow when you arrive.
When the chocolate swoon eases, use those endorphins
to hit the open road and explore Berkshire County on your own. If you're at the inn pick up
a Berkshire Grown farm map that is next to the coffee pot in the morning.
Whether you
are planning to come here on vacation or day-tripping from the comfort of your favorite
chair, the best of the best and the freshest of the fresh are three clicks away
with these ruby slippers:
Berkshire Food Journal and Berkshire Grown with its map-o-licious maps. Here's the inside scoop on farm hopping,
local eating and who grows what, where.
We've got a whole season ahead waiting to unfold! Wherever you enjoy it, get
out, poke around, find your farmers and make time to smell some roses.
Happy
Summer!
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Making
Time to Smell the Roses: Rose Petal Jam
I
promise a more realistic recipe next month, but...
I love this stuff and I make it often these early summer rose-filled days. All
you need:
Roses
Sugar
Water
Lemon
My wall of cookbooks came in handy once I narrowed my search to the right
part of the globe. I found the answer in The Glorious Foods of Greece by Diane Kochilas. The story
of the monks at Taxiarhon Monastery in Aigeon on page 60 is inspiring and my
kind of recipe. I can feel Brother Christostomo and his predecessors looking over my shoulder while I rub the sugar into the petals. They would severely disagree
with the amount of sugar I am using!
Here's the scientific recipe in the book from page 61, more or less (with my
changes in parenthesis).
1. Pull the petals off of ½ pound of unsprayed roses.
(That's a lot of roses ... I never have more than a dozen or two or three at a
time, a mere ounce or two once the petals are pulled off. Don't use the
green stems, leaves or stamens. Only use fragrant, red or dark pink roses
... no yellow, peach, white, etc.)
I have grown Madame Isaac Pereire and Reine des Violette just for making jam ...
because I am insane. But since they are so disease-resistant now and you can't
be spraying the roses (with poison) that people are going to eat, I use Rosa
Rugosa, roses that smell strong and rosy and wonderful, the kind people pass
by and say "Ahhhhhhhh."
 
I have two bushes back by the chickens
and one by the garden gate that I don't use as much. If you really want to know why, ask me on your next visit.
2. Rub the petals with 2 pounds of sugar.
(I usually have
between two and three cups of petals. I use about half a cup
of sugar ... this can cause issues with the jelling. That's when I call
the jam
confiture or syrup. Andrei hates this. I pour it over rice pudding.
What's not
to love?)
3. Knead the petals with the sugar, rubbing vigorously
with your fingertips,
until they wilt and become a pulp-like mass. Let stand for 2 hours.
(They
will have turned an unattractive shade of purple ... no worries ...
just
wait.)
 
4. Place the rose petal pulp in a heavy-bottomed pot, add a cup of water, and
stir continuously over very low heat for 10 to 15 minutes until the sugar
becomes a thick syrup.
(She means heavy-bottomed! Heed her advice. We are working with fewer
roses so I add ½ a cup of water. If you use less the roses burn before their
pectin works its magic. I go until the liquid really is almost gone and it is
bona fide jelly. This is not for the faint of heart because of course it goes from
jelly to burnt in the blink of an eye and then my friends, it is over.)
5. Just before removing from the heat, stir in the lemon juice.
(How much you ask? Enough to turn the jam back to the exact color of the
roses!! I'll let Brother Christostomo explain.)
"The final product" he says, "has to have the same color as the
flowers when they are raw. You can't boil it for too long, otherwise the sugar
will caramelize and darken and the sweet will be ruined (Boy, don't I know it!).
It has taken me many years to perfect the color. There are many, many
secrets."
Of which you and I know just a few.
But this recipe will surely gladden your
heart and delight those around your table. I don't bother canning it. It
doesn't last that long. Just put it in the pretty jar it clearly deserves.
One last note. I often don't get enough petals in a day to make a batch of
jam. I have found you can pick what you have and leave those petals for several
days sprinkled with sugar while you collect more.
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On the Corner Table
For whatever reason, reading Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury has become a summer ritual
for me. I've read it out loud at summer camps to tame the savage beasts,
when it gets too hot or late summer ennui sets in. I start on the Solstice,
allowing myself only one chapter a day and I'm always sad when it is over,
which is always too soon. There is something wonderful about reading a book
over and over.
I have given this book away more times than I can count. Friend of the inn and
keen-eyed newsletter reader Erica suggests WorldCat as an alternative to buying the book. I like
that! And I LOVE this book! I'll share it at the breakfast table but you'll
want to have a copy of your own. I know you will.
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