Gorgeous, fresh nectarines, from the dumpster. Fresh thyme I’d frozen in the fall.

And what to do to transform them into a hearty, complex dish fit for a leisurely January afternoon?

Salt is a good place to start.

White truffle salt

&

Black lava salt.

Gifts of C, from Spice Station in LA.

Let’s start off with a salad.

Shoots and winter greens and from the CSA, oranges from the dumpster, toasted flax seed, and black lava salt. Crunchy, bitter, tender, sweet.

Hmm…

Leaves some in wanting of umami…

Toast; tahini; egg, fried (crisp edges, soft yolk); fresh thyme; sliced stone fruit; white truffle salt

generously;

and

a yolk

broke.

The sun sears as though through parchment paper. Air hangs like brocade.

The height of the season.

This is what we have to deal with?

Needless to say, we were like two kids in a leisurely, late summer candy store.

In the best of worlds, cooking hour and happy hour: a) last much longer than a single hour; and b) overlap significantly.

White wine, fresh peach purée, elderflower liqueur, thyme, bitters.

Fresh black mission figs, stuffed with goat’s cheese whipped with honey, and fresh oregano blossoms.

But enough with the peach drinks and the flowers; it was time to get down to business. While Chloe’s mom worked on the clams at the stove, I took a big basket of fairytale eggplants, kale stalks, and sliced dark sauerkraut bread out to the deck and fired up the grill, to exert my male supremacy and pyrotechnic dominance by heat-blasting teensy, purple, tear-drop shaped vegetables named for the mythical world they seem to have lost themselves from.

Grilled fairytale eggplants with sesame-sherry sauce and oregano.

The oregano plant was really producing, I felt like I needed to take advantage of all the beautiful leaves and buds. They were just what this dish needed to cut through some of the sweet creaminess of the sauce and the meatiness of the eggplant, not to mention their herbaceous, spicy aroma swirling around the table, lifted by the steam to mingle with the grill smoke and the august light falling about, heat hanging itself from our skin.

Along with the eggplants, we enjoyed some local clams braised in white wine, tartines with grilled dark sauerkraut bread with butter, herbs, and sliced radishes, kale salad, and a delicious Chablis that was perfect for the simple fare and wooed me with its crisp minerality. It knows the way to my wine-heart.

Chloe and I dabbled in dessert. We took the rest of the grilled bread and topped it with butter sage, thyme, and melted dark chocolate.

Somehow a husk cherry found its way into my wineglass.

We won’t ask how that happened. But it was a nice surprise to find at the bottom. Husk cherries are one of my favourite of summer’s bounty. They are candy. They taste like pineapple and hazelnuts and poundcake! And have the most playful yet distinguished pop. You even get to peel them from their husk, just like a mint or a toffee.

Next morning, Chloe made me a delicious breakfast of greek yoghurt, granola, blueberries, huskcherries, and a drizzle of wildflower honey. It was like dessert. But that, I guess, is how things go on summer vacation in Westhampton with the Zales.

I, for one, am not complaining.

The life.

Creamy sesame-sherry sauce

In a bowl, Combine tahini with some of your favourite oil (olive, walnut, or grapeseed would all be lovely), a splash of sherry, a few drops of sherry vinegar, a dash of nutmeg, a bit of honey, and a pinch of salt, and whisk until blended and aerated. Adjust for taste and texture. Serve over grilled eggplants or other vegetables.

But then I remember a byproduct of those bountiful summer months: CSA excesses carefully blanched, frozen, and otherwise stored for later days. Paired with a select pantry of dry goods, fresh greens both hardy and tender from our winter CSA and the Yale Farm, and a little ingenuity, these stores let us eat well — locally, seasonally, and deliciously — even in the months of late winter when the worst may be over but there are still many weeks before the ground fully thaws.

This dish is exemplary of the diverse and delicious flavours of winter. I’ve made it a few times and its supremely versatile. The basic idea is a warm grain salad; you can swap in different root veggies, herbs, and greens, whatever you have on hand. It’s comforting, satisfying, healthy, keeps well, and rustic (with serious charm potential if you treat it nice and dress it up a little).

Warm grain salad with roasted beets, herbs, and brown butter

- dry grains (I use a combination of whatever we have – wheat berries, rye berries, barley, buckwheat groats; more variety = more flavour!)
- root vegetables (you can use anything – beets, rutabaga, celeriac, sweet potato, turnip, any and all kinds of squash)
- hardy, woody herbs (think sage, rosemary, certain varieties of thyme)
- fresh greens (anything goes)
- butter and salt

Soak the grains overnight. Cook in a crockpot or on the stove with 3x the water.
Chop the veggies, toss in a bit of oil and salt, and roast in the oven until tender.
Mix together grains and root veg and cover to keep warm. De-stem herbs and fry in a pan with butter until strongly aromatic, beginning to crisp, and the butter just begins to brown.
Season with salt to taste. Serve warm with fresh greens.

See? Too easy. Writing up this recipe was pretty much unnecessary.

You’ll notice that this particular one was garnished with a few slices of fresh pear. But Josh, you ask, are you actually telling me you got some pears in your February CSA? Ah what a world it would be. There were a few pears left in the cool-bot (our refrigeration unit at the Farm made from an insulated wooden box and a tinkered-with air-conditioner) and I happened to have such a one on hand. It was a nice luxurious bit of sweetness. Though honestly I’d just as soon prefer some little hakurei turnips – they’re sweet and tender yet much more earthy and subdued, adding to the whole wintery sagaciousness thing, the laconic allure.

Warm grain salads. Where it’s at.

Some further ideas:
- toss in some spices like caraway, aniseed, cumin, coriander
- make a oil-vinegar dressing like you would for a salad
- top with a fried, poached, or soft-boiled egg
- crumble that goat’s cheese!

Share your combinations and inspirations below! You can, as it were, put them in the pot.

True last meals at home are a solitary endeavour. It is late at night; beds are gone to; there is the long hall to the kitchen, jet windows and specks of buoy lights. Fitting this first walk a week prior early in the morning, horizon cloud the sun diffuse.

It is an indulgent amalgam, a collation of the luxuries of eating at home.

whole wheat yeast bread, homemade, toasted
almond butter
avocado
raw cacao nibs
sea salt.

A symbology.

Sleep for two hours and here I come. Its aura lingers as I travel.

And a sandwiched version in the Toronto airport.

And they make juice.

Lisa and I went while I was home for break. The food was good (particularly the avocado yam sandwich with jalapeño cilantro dressing) but the juices were great.

New Year Cleanse: carrot, apple, burdock, ginger, lemon (served cold)
Longevity Latte: matcha, reishi, ginseng, gingko, honey, hemphearts, nut cream (served warm)

Oh and wheatgrass shots. One of my favourite flavours. Like chlorophyll candy.

After our lunch, we couldn’t help but sample some sweets. They had a lavender fig truffle. That’s obviously what I got.

Derivation no.1: Make it yourself.

Corollary no.1: It is much more delicious and much healthier than anything you would buy. And it’s fresh and zingy.

It is so easy. It is as easy as making salad dressing.

Get a jar.

Start with some sesame oil and rice vinegar, in the ratio you would use for salad dressing (I like a rough 2:1). Shake it up.

Spoon in some good natural peanut butter. That is, no hydrogenation, no sugar, no added unnecessaries. Just some good straight blended peanuts. Be generous. Shake it up.

Season with spices and flavours. I enjoy things like star anise, chinese five spice, Szechuan pepper, ground lemongrass, cardamom, coriander, long pepper. Cumin and curry could work too. Oh and definitely sriracha for some heat. Experiment with these.

Shake it up. Don’t forget the salt! That’s important.

Season and adjust to taste. You might need a bit more sesame oil, rice vinegar, or pb to get the texture just how you like it. I like mine velvety and spoonable. You can also add in a touch of water if you want to loosen the texture but the flavour is already strong.

Mom made the most satisfying stir-fry while I was home, with tons of veggies and brown rice. I whipped up a quick batch of this peanut sauce to go with it. It was just… mmmmm.

There’s something about all the veggies and rice getting caught up in each other with the fragrant sesame, the spices, the sweet earthy peanuty fatty goodness…

Saucy.

A treat that pops up most every time I’m home. He’s sort of the strong silent type, but he speaks volumes with his cooking. Definitely an inspiration of mine.

What is eggs florentine you ask? Only the more sophisticated, stylish, and interesting cousin to the comparatively staid eggs benedict. Starting off with the same toasted english muffin, it quickly diverges into new territory with sautéed spinach and folds of cold smoked salmon, returning to its roots with the necessary poached-egg-qua-crown-jewel, and smothered in rich, unctuous hollandaise. I topped mine with some freshly chopped dill for a bright, grassy, aromatic note, and for a bit of bitterness to cut through the sauce.

Just another weekend morning in Victoria. How far away they seem, and yet how close.

Also let me just say that whoever invented the idea of cooking and egg so that it contains its own sauce and then covering that with another sauce of more egg and melted butter is a genius. It has to be one of the most classic yet underappreciated instances of witty culinary self-reference. Seriously, we’re talking MacArthur grant material here.

Someday I’ll learn my Dad’s hollandaise recipe. But for now I’ll just savour the memory of tucking in.

When Smitten Kitchen posted about a similar bold little winter comforter, my latent attraction to this combination developed into an acute fixation that I knew wouldn’t leave me until I got it out of my system and into the pot.

But our story actually begins with daily beach walks and winter sunsets on the bay.

The perfect time of day to reflect on the light hours, and look forward to getting into the dusky evening kitchen.

Coming inside from the sublime, saturated, happens every day back home, especially in the winter months. Something about the solitary walks, the boreal coastlines. This particular evening, it found its expression in this soup.

And how simple it is: chop an onion, a few cloves of garlic, a knob of ginger. Sautée in butter or oil until translucent and fragrant. Add in a whole bunch of chopped carrots. Let cook a few minutes more. Add water, cover and simmer. When carrots are soft, blend. Stir in miso to taste.

I also threw in some red lentils to simmer with the carrots, for some added body and that amazing satisfying heartiness that lentils lend to whatever you let them.

Garnished with chopped cilantro and drizzled with a little sesame oil and a few drops of sherry vinegar, it was everything winter soup brings to mind for me: warm, filling, aromatic, earthy and savoury, with contrapuntal tints of sweet and acid. Though I can’t promise I won’t be making this whatever the season, so long as I can get my hands on carrots.

I think I can sense a miso stint approaching. Watch out for miso butter.

- broccoli
- chioggia beets
- lemons
- a rather sad head of iceberg lettuce

And the only way to save them from refrigerator purgatory was to give them the dreaded taillage treatment.

My cuts weren’t all that even but I’m getting better. And it made for a beautiful salad!

I got into using lemon pith in salads in the summer, and still can’t get enough.

I also made a dressing with mustard seeds, lavender, the juice of the lemons, and this amazing Greek olive oil from Crete called Kastamonitsa, made by a family who owns a great restaurant in Victoria called The Black Olive. It’s spicy and grassy and a luminous chartreuse.

One of many glad reasons to have had a bit of time at home.

Including french toast: fresh figs, nasturtiums, akajiso, sorrel.

Don’t worry we also apply fresh-whipped local cream. Generously.

And herbs. Lots of herbs.

Sage, lavender, rosemary, apple butter.

Oh, September.

**photo credit to Cara Mae Cirignano, one of our beloved FESers