Wild Mushroom Camp

At this time of year, up here in the Catskills, people are always dropping by with wild mushrooms. They naturally want to know if the mushrooms are edible, and if so, how to cook them. There are friends and neighbors who come across the mushroom patch of their dreams, and want to sell to us (the answer is, regrettably, no). Some friends want to go foraging with us - this requires a little hemming and hawing, empty promises on our part, or excuses about the patches not producing just now due to the weather.

Ah, the patches. Our largest haul this summer has been a 5-lb. collection of chanterelles. Chanties stay in families, so where there's one, there are usually more. The stunning, 12-hour+ deluge of last Friday yielded another smallish haul, enough to eat plenty and send the rest to a morel-hunting mom in Michigan. We worried about them being soggy and thus unappealing given the beating we all took from the storm. But they somehow get the moisture without the contact, hiding under logs and leaves.

A few good meals included roasted potatoes with chanties, garlic, and sage (the grill was useless in that weather); watercress from our "pond", which encouraged both the frog and the cress to grow, tossed with chanties and wild onions; and little wonton ravioli stuffed with chanties and the remainder of a roasted red pepper and tons of parsley.

If you're tempted by the "hunt" and want to get away to the northern Catskills region in October, check this out. It's a wild mushroom workshop in Grand Gorge, NY. This is gorgeous farmland, a little town with businesses in the old wood houses along main street, and hills (not sure if that far north is still Catskill land) with llamas and other grazers. I'm not endorsing the class - just happened to run across it. But the region is gorgeous in October and probably ripe with wild mushrooms. http://www.herbalbear.com

Stopping by the Woods on a Fruitful Afternoon

Laura's cat threatens the harvest.

(To get straight to the cooking, go to paragraph 3.)

You know how you keep saying you're going to .... paint your bathroom, invite your aunt to dinner, take a hike in the woods? All but the most serious procrastinators eventually get around to accomplishing some of their list, even if it means moving to another house (presumably with a fresh coat of paint).

Being in the country on weekends gives us even more things to put off (double the peeling-paint bathrooms). Bummer. However, we took a spontaneous bike ride (while cleaning out the basement where the bikes live) that paid off in spades. When the road turned to muddy, rutted path, complete with bear paws, we ditched the bikes. Suddenly ... you know what I'm going to say - there was a chanterelle spotting. Small patches are not today's news, but a series of small patches make for an exciting and delicious week. We gathered from one clearing to the next, filling up our tee shirts and pockets. Jules refused to offer up his tee shirt, so we made do with Thierry's bandana. Evidently the surrounding residents - both human and furry - are not into mushrooms, so we came home with several pounds.

The stems need trimming, and can be thrown out on the back 40 to regenerate a bit closer to home (no guarantees). Go ahead and soak the little suckers if they have clingons in the gills and caps. The water becomes chantie juice which becomes the base for a sauce.

Nothing like a surprise patch to change the menu. A quick saute with some scapes, shallots, and chives, sauced with reduced chicken stock, makes a quick pasta. At this point in freshness, chanterelles are juicy enough to grill or roast. A foil pouch with parboiled chunks of potato works, with a bit of olive oil and clutch of herbs. Saute some and toss while hot over wild watercress or arugula. Got pork? There's a reason for ham, and that purpose is to serve chanterelles. If you're waiting impatiently for the canning stuff to come in - peaches, corn, tomatoes - here's a different way to preserve summer's harvest. Cook diced chanterelles in a little butter w/s&p, cool, and double-bag them for the freezer. Even better, make Sage Ravioli with Squash and Chanterelles, then freeze. Or spread cleaned mushrooms on a screen and dry in the sun (bring inside when the evening chill sets in). Dried are not fantastic from a texture standpoint, so dried chanterelles work best in a melange.

So here's a page torn out from The Mushroom Lover's Mushroom Cookbook and Primer, Workman 2000.

Happy hunting (and know the difference between a chanterelle and a jack-o-lantern!)

Notes from the Summer 2009 Fancy Food Show
a delicious view from Booth 5319, home of Transatlantic Foods
and the Aux Delices des Bois brand

When you're on the convention floor fielding an endless crowd of visitors to your 10x10 booth, there's not much time to visit the rest of the show. The good thing about the Fancy Food Show is that you don't have to pack a lunch. In the morning you get a jumpstart on miniature paper cups of coffee, and if you're lucky, there's a rugala booth in your line of sight. Yogurt jump-starts any healthy-eating day; we beat the crowds to our old friend's stand. Good thing, because Fage (the standard-bearer Greek yogurt) was wiped out by Day 3 - and their refrigerator cases spanned a good 20 feet of floor space.

Once the floodgates open, there is not a lot of time to eat. Between cooking up Aux Delices des Bois Artisanal Spiced Bacon (ok, we had plenty to offer for breakfast, too - including schmeers of black truffle butter on everyone's bagels), refilling the truffle butter toast samples, and spearing Aux Delices des Bois Pig'Nics with toothpicks, we played host to a steady stream of gourmet store and distributor buyers. Each visitor provided invaluable feedback about our one-of-a-kind goodies. Problem was, we didn't get to visit with everyone (Next time, Bonnie!). Next year, come early to the folks in the outrageously orange shirts.

You get the idea - there's practically no escaping your booth when hunger strikes. So you get to know the products from your neighboring aisles. Each of us took a few minutes to graze, which led to some interesting eating. Unless you really take an hour to walk the show, you are on a steady diet of imbalanced, miniature, quirky meals. Chocolate truffles are luscious, but not recommended as a first course to proscuitto or stuffed olives. Noontime means Hale and Hearty has lines snaking down the aisle, much like its namesake stores. After a cup of soup, you can grab a fistful of dried mango or wasabi bonbons, speed taste a line of barbecue sauces, and drool over exquisite, marshmallow-sized cheeseburgers and crabcakes.

I think I took more visitors than any to David Rio Orca Spice Chai booth, just to get another sample. Our crispy Duck Confit was supposed to be paired with some of the excellent savory jams and sauces down the aisle, but we didn't get a chance to introduce them to each other. Just-add-water cellophane noodle soup reminded us of the great meal service on a recent Cathay Pacific flight, so it tided us over till the closing bell. Lucky for us we were bordered by two sofi Gold winners, who traded daylong snacks of taziki and samosas for strips of our Artisanal Spiced Bacons.

At the close of the show, exhibitors join in a giddy, got-a-flight-to-catch frenzy of breaking down the booth, shrink-wrapping everything in sight, packing up displays and tossing leftover food in the City Harvest bin. Lots of us trade samples with others, in wildly uneven swaps - but hey, we're all foodies, and we're all hungry for new flavors, food categories, and meal ideas. In fact, all of us food producers take away things more valuable than sales leads: a sense of community, new inspiration, and a desperate desire for a protein-heavy salad!

Fancy Food Show Real Time Bacon Reports

from the desk of : Dept of Shameless Self-Promotion

Bacon Isn't Just for Breakfast Anymore!

Follow your nose to the Transatlantic Foods booth at the Fancy Food Show, BOOTH 5319. We'll be cooking up our new Aux Delices des Bois Artisanal Bacons, the exciting new twist on this old fashioned breakfast treat.

Sunday mornings will never be the same. Our thick, crispy slices of country bacon balance meat and fat, don't shrivel up like an old apple, and bring to mind 1950s farmhand fare. This smoky, thick-sliced bacon comes from pigs raised and processed by a small, sustainable farm. It naturally invests TLC, healthy food, and personal oversight throughout the pork production process. The smoker has been husbanding thick sliced bacon in the hills of Amish country and western Pennsylvania for 3 generations. Compared to industrial, mass-produced product, the pigs are raised in a dignified, clean, and comfortable environment - think summer camp for piglets!

Above: the first 3 generations of our smokin' smokers

4 styles:

Farmhouse Country * Southwestern-Style Kick * Cracked Pepper & Garlic * Herbes de Provence

• No nitrates or nitrites added, except those naturally occurring in celery (who knew?)

• Minimally processed, no artificial ingredients

• Unlike other brands, the reverse side of the slices are in plain site

• Resealable bag

Want to taste at the Fancy Foods Show? Get a daily Tweet with sizzle tasting times!

More tales of scapes and huitlacoche

Tune into the Leonard Lopate interview with Peter Hoffman of Savoy Restaurant. You can follow him around the greenmarket to buy scapes.

http://blogs.wnyc.org/culture/category/food/

3 Recipes for Scapes

Scapes have such a short season that we loaded up on them and ate them all weekend. Here are a few recipes.

Scapes are a wild summer aromat we look forward to as much as ramps. A long, green, hollow stalk - about the same width as a scallion or long bean - curls around like a joyous spring. Slice it as you would chives or grill it whole.

This weekend we found some scapes, and paired them up with shiitakes bought in Chinatown a week ago. These dry, flavorful shiitakes hold their shape and flavor beautifully, so if you can get downtown, look for them.

Recipe #1 Scape & Shiitake Saute
Slice up the scapes about 1/4 inch. Saute the shiitake in a little duck fat, simmer, covered until slippery. If the pan is dry, add stock or wine. Add the scapes and let it all mellow for 5 minutes. Season and you're good to go.

#2 Scape Garlic Bread
Our family has 2 men who devour baguettes like, well, petits pains. When we have a bread-baking weekend, 1 baguette disappears as I take the other 2 out of the oven. An annoying habit they have of lopping off both heels first leaves us with plenty of dried-out baguette. Before it's too late for anything except croutons, I slit it lengthwise. Melt some butter with chopped scapes, spread on the bread, and broil.

#3 Lazy Lady Grilled Scapes
This is good to add to marinated vegetables you intend to grill. Toss whole, long, twisted scapes with olive oil and lemon, salt and pepper. Toss into the grill basket and turn as needed. Keep a close eye on them.

Bonus recipes: diced scape over tomato salad; scrambled eggs with Aux Delices des Bois Artisanal Bacon, wine-jus pan sauce for steak, cornbread....

Find scapes at farmers markets

Ask the Pro - Barbara Kafka shares her tips

Ever wondered what to do with that pot of gold?

We're talking about morels, of course, which are in full swing.

Here's what Barbara Kafka - veteran restaurant consultant, famous (and delicious!) cookbook author, longtime Vogue columnist and, well, check her out at http://bkafka.blogspot.com/ - suggests:

"For the people with an over suppy of morels--what a pleasure--I suggest
cleaning them sauting in a little olive oil and simmering in some chicken
stock until cooked and freeze in small quantities."

When we have the right weather and stretch of time to supervise, we dry morels. The sun does a nifty job, and takes more than a day to dry them. Lay morels out on a screen with plenty of space in between the pieces. When they feel brittle, turn them and do the other side. At dusk, take the screen inside, to avoid the dewy hours of dusk-to-dawn.

For more details, check out The Mushroom Lover's Mushroom Cookbook and Primer, by Amy Farges, Workman 2001.