A Good Dish

making food simpler

A Solstice Cocktail May Be Just What You Need On The Longest Night Of The Year

Averna and Cider make a great cold weather cocktail
Soda fired cup by Tom Jaszczak

The longest night of the year calls for celebration, gathering together, warming the gloom with lights and a toast to the cozy days ahead. Since alcohol may disrupt our sleep cycles, we don’t necessarily want a drink that is too boozy. A solstice cocktail needs to be tasty, warming, comforting but not too alcoholic. Hence, I can recommend the drink my brother-in-law served for Thanksgiving, the oddly named but delicious Fall Spritz. He found the recipe in Bon Appetit magazine and it was perfect for the occasion- took the edge off without getting anyone sloshy.

These two Amari may be similar but we definitely preferred the Averna

The recipe in Bon Appetit called for 1 part Averna to 4 parts Basque-style hard cider. Averna is a Sicilian amaro, a digestif made with herbs that you could sip on its own over ice but is often used to balance other liquors in a cocktail. It can substitute for vermouth in a Manhattan (known as a Black Manhattan), replace part of the vermouth or add depth to any whiskey, bourbon or rye drink. Our local liquor store doesn’t carry Averna but prefers Rammazotti, an amaro from Milano that is more bitter, a little thinner and costs less. We tried both and but I preferred the slightly sweeter Averna. There is a whole world of Amaro out there and I am enjoying learning about them. Aperol, Campari, Cynar and Fernet Branca are some of the most well known here  but Averna and Rammazotti are both quite popular in Italy. If you buy a bottle to try this drink and wonder how else to use it, there are lots of recipes online. Food and Wine published a piece on Averna cocktails last year which included a delicious sounding Averna and ginger beer, perhaps a good alternative if you don’t go for cider. I tried the recommended Basque cider but found I like a more standard hard cider (the Basque-style was a bit sour for my taste) which is more broadly available. Specifically, I used Harpoon Craft Cider but any brand that is not too sweet will work.

I found this Basque Cider at Whole Foods

We garnished our Solstice cocktail with a slice of orange but one of those delicious Amarena cherries I wrote about last week or a slice of lemon would also be tasty. It is an easy cocktail to mix (a pitcher can be mixed ahead and ice added by the glass), will warm a cold and dark night and toast the beginning of the beautiful winter season.

Happy Solstice!

Winter can be a blast! And certainly beautiful.

It’s The Season – Specialty Items And Seasonal Produce Are Available Now

Clementines are now in season
Bowl by Melissa Weiss

As those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know, I am a big advocate of eating seasonally. Not only does it make more sense in terms of avoiding excessive shipping and pesticides, supporting local farmers and adapting to temperature shifts by cooking with weather-appropriate vegetables, but it also makes foods which are only available at certain times of year seem more special and tied to seasonal celebrations.

These cherries are good in all kinds of drinks and on ice cream

Now that Thanksgiving is over, the holiday season is in full swing. It doesn’t matter what holiday you celebrate or if you celebrate any, the shorter, darker days of December need festivity. Perhaps the fact that so many holiday are grouped at certain times of year (harvest, spring and the start of winter) is because we need connections at these moments of transition. Whatever the reason, this is a great season for using specialty items – things that are either only available around the winter holidays or are in season now.

Pomegranates are one of my favorite seasonal fruits
Plate by Melissa Weiss

In New York, bags of domestic little orange clementines and big red pomegranates have begun to appear. Both are perfect for adding splashes of color and juicy bursts to otherwise drab winter salads and tabletops. Pomegranates can last up to two months refrigerated so I often try to stock up in December for after the holidays, when we also will need some vitamin C and rosy color. (This year I may even try freezing the arils). Ditto gorgeous orange Fuyu persimmons, although they don’t last as long, perhaps only a week or two. Persimmons are delicious eaten on their own, sliced or diced into salads or slow roasted in the oven. Domestic Meyer lemons are at their best right now through the winter and are fragrant and tasty. Leave a big bowl on your kitchen counter and use them to brighten vinaigrettes, sauces and cocktails.

Meyer lemons add vibrancy to all kinds of dishes and cocktails
Plate by Melissa Weiss

At my favorite local market from Thanksgiving through January, a giant bag of mixed in-shell nuts will tempt me to buy some every time I am there. A bowl of nuts with a cracker serves two purposes; one – fresh nuts are just that – fresh – much less likely to be rancid than packaged nuts which may have been sitting around a long time and two – having to crack nuts by hand slows down how fast you can eat them (they are both nutritionally and calorically dense). When you visit your local farmer’s market, now is the time to stock up on winter squashes like buttercup, butternut and kabocha, onions and garlic, all of which will last for a couple of months in a cool, dark place. Root vegetables, like carrots, parsnips, daikon and beets, will keep in a crisper drawer in your fridge for a month or two, especially if you leave them dirty. Don’t forget fresh thyme and rosemary, which you can hang in bunches to dry or use fresh to stuff inside poultry and fish or to chop and sprinkle over roasted cauliflower, carrots, parsnips or squash.

Fresh nuts just taste better!
These are at Mani Market on Columbus Avenue

Besides seasonal produce, there are specialty items which appear only around the holidays and which I try to remember to buy while they are available, both to use and to give as gifts. This year I discovered Amarena cherries – jars of real Italian cherries in syrup to use in place of those scary neon Marischinos we stopped buying long ago. These jarred cherries are delicious to use for a Shirley Temple, cherry milk or especially for a cocktail like a Manhattan, if you can resist eating them right from the jar. This is what I will stock up on and bring for house gifts this season. I’ve also seen tins and boxes of  spiced cookies, herbed crackers and flavored Marcona almonds around, canisters of peppermint or marshmallow hot chocolate mixes, scented fir, eucalyptus or gingerbread candles, truffles, filled chocolates and boxed or planted Amaryllis bulbs. (These will be even better when given in or with a piece of handmade pottery in which to eat, drink, store, serve or display them). Get them while they are available. All make wonderful (and easily transported) gifts for others or just for treating yourself.

Amaryllis bulbs and plants are available late fall and early winter

The Holiday Pottery Sales Are On!

A detail from the wall of cups available for sale at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia

Some people wait all year for the Black Friday sales. I wait for the holiday pottery sales. Just as September always feels like the beginning of the year to me because of the start of school, the holiday season starts off with pottery sales. I hosted a sale for decades but always managed to get to some of the others. Now the season is here – the clay sales have begun!

A corner of Melissa Weiss‘ booth at the PMC this month
Pots by Nick Moen-The Bright Angle
at the PMC show earlier this month
Bryan Hopkins Pots at this year’s PMC
Paul Eshelman Pottery at the recent PMC show

The PMC (Philadelphia Museum Craft Show) has come and gone (it was a beauty this year) and every weekend from now until the end of December, there will be wonderful exhibitions and studio sales of ceramics and other media all across the country. Not only do you get to see and buy pots but you also get to meet and chat with their makers!

Donna Polseno pots at the Old Church Pottery Sale

One of my favorite shows (and these are really exhibitions as well as sales – a chance to see new work as well as buy it) is the annual invitational Old Church Pottery Sale in Demarest, New Jersey. We have been going for more than 25 years and a number of our favorite pots were purchased there, including some early Ayumi Hori mugs, Bernadette Curran tumblers, Silvie Granatelli bowls and Matthew Metz cups. This year a number of young potters will be exhibiting there and I can’t wait to see their work!

Peter Beasecker pots at the Old Church Pottery Sale
Some of Adero Willard‘s pots at the Old Church Pottery Sale
Mark Pharis pots at the Old Church Pottery Sale

Of the many terrific group shows I can’t get to this year but wish I could, the 16 Hands tour that takes place this weekend in Floyd, Virginia seems particularly appealing. And I would love to peruse Art Providence and the Foundry Show in Pawtucket the 2nd weekend in December. I have listed below the group sales I know about but there are certainly plenty more. If you have favorite potters, contact them to see when their sales are or in which group shows they will be participating. Many college and university ceramics departments hold holiday sales as do clay galleries, both brick and mortar and online. If only we could get to them all…..Happy hunting!

Holly Walker Pots at
Society for Arts & Crafts in Boston

(A little consolation if you can’t get to some of the shows or miss the pieces you desire online – there will be another batch of sales around Mother’s Day).

A favorite mug by Perry Haas purchased at the Old Church Pottery Sale

Making Miso Soup Is Quick And Easy!

Miso soup with vegetables and tofu
Earthenware bowl by Lisa Orr

Miso soup is one of the simplest and one of the most soothing soups out there – both easy to make and satisfying to eat. It may contain vegetables and tofu or it may be broth alone. I think of it as the vegetarian version of chicken soup when you need something comforting or healing. Even when the weather is warm and another hot soup would be too heavy, miso is light but substantial enough to make a healthy meal. A typical Japanese breakfast includes miso soup – it is a tasty option on a cool morning and an easy way to add more veggies to your diet.

Different varieties of miso paste
The glass jars are good for storage in the fridge

Technically, miso is fermented soybean paste and ranges in varieties from light to dark, from delicate to robust. It adds umami, that extra dimension to a taste profile, both salty and savory. Miso can live in your refrigerator almost indefinitely so it is always there when you don’t know what else to cook. I learned to use miso right out of college when the Kushi Institute offered an introductory macrobiotic cooking class in my neighborhood. It was a moment when Japanese cooking was taking over Manhattan and beginning to replace Chinese as the major Asian restaurant trend. Miso soup in a little lacquer bowl started every Japanese restaurant meal and I was happy to learn how to make it at home. Our son loves it so much he orders two bowls to start his meal in a Japanese restaurant! Not just flavorful but also healthy, Annamarie Colbin, the founder of the Natural Gourmet Cookery School, recommended eating miso immediately following surgery because of its contractive, healing power.

Miso soup at our local Japanese restaurant with seaweed, scallions and tofu
Soup with vegetables and tofu before adding miso paste

The simplest soup is made by just dissolving some miso paste in water. The next level adds that dissolved paste to dashi, a broth made by boiling kombu (seaweed) in water. And in a third version, you add vegetables and tofu to dashi and then add the dissolved miso (never boil miso – it will lose its probiotic nutrients). If you have leftover rice, you can add some at the end of cooking. There are plenty of instant miso soup packets out there and they are adequate if you just need something for a lunchbox or travel. But for a real bowlful, take just a few minutes and make the real deal.

Miso soup with vegetables
Earthenware bowl by Lisa Orr

MISO SOUP WITH VEGETABLES AND TOFU

  • 8 cups cold water
  • 1 6″ strip kombu or kelp
  • 1 medium onion, peeled, halved and sliced thinly
  • 3 carrots, cut in half coins
  • 1 lb. tofu (I like firm but the choice is yours) cut in small squares
  • 1 bunch watercress, washed and cut in thirds (or a cup or two of broccoli or cauliflower florets or if you are out of fresh vegetables, add a cup or so of frozen peas)
  • 4  TBsps miso paste (I usually use 1 TB barley(darker/stronger) and 3-4 TBs sweet white(lighter) but see what you like)

Put the water and kombu in a small stockpot and bring to a boil.

Add the sliced onions, return to a boil and simmer for 3 minutes.

Add the carrots, return to a boil and simmer about 5 minutes.

Add the tofu, return to a boil until the tofu floats to the surface.

Add the watercress, return to a boil and turn off the heat.

Remove the kombu and cut into bite sized pieces and return to the pot. If you don’t like the flavor or the texture, just toss it in your compost pail.

Put the miso paste in a soup or small mixing bowl and add 1 or 2 ladles of the soup liquid.

Stir until the miso is dissolved. It doesn’t have to be liquid, just loosened.

Add the loosened miso to the pot, stir and taste. If it isn’t strong enough for you, dissolve another TBsp or 2 of miso paste and add to the pot.

Ladle soup with vegetables and tofu into bowls, top with a little chopped scallion, chives or dill, if desired, and serve.

Makes 6 dinner sized servings. If you have leftovers, store in the refrigerator up to 3 days. When re-heating, don’t boil, just warm. Add fresh greens, mushrooms or rice, if you like.

The empty bowl by Lisa Orr so you can get the full effect!

A Botticelli Cocktail for Cooler Evenings

 

Botticelli Cocktail with lemon
Porcelain Tumbler by Silvie Granatelli

When Caffè Storico, the Stephen Starr restaurant in the New York Historical Society, opened some years back, we had a drink there called a Botticelli. It was delicious then and recently, thinking back to it, we were inspired to try to create it ourselves. This is a softer, more citrusy and complex drink than just a whiskey on the rocks although it is also a stiff sipping cocktail like an Old Fashioned or a Manhattan. I don’t know what it has to do with the Italian painter Botticelli except that it contains a little bit of Amaretto and some Cardamaro and all are from Italy. We switched out rye for bourbon but kept the name because it is fun to say.

Porcelain bowl by Silvie Granatelli

We knew the 4 ingredients but had to guess at the amounts and came up pretty close. The only mistake we made in proportions the first attempt was to add too much Amaretto. It is quite a strong almond flavor and the drink only needs a splash. Cardamaro, on the other hand, is a herbaceous wine-like amaro (that comes in an elegant, long necked bottle, by the way, and makes a refreshing spritz) and is more easily added. Use a bourbon (or rye) that you like because it is the main ingredient. After balancing the liquor, we thought adding lots of fresh lemon juice (and a slice of lemon for a garnish) made the flavor even better. Ultimately, you will find the proportions you like, as is true with all recipes. Cin cin!

Botticelli Cocktail

  • 2 oz of bourbon or rye
  • 1/2 oz Cardamaro
  • 1 tsp (or just a small splash) Amaretto
  • Juice from 1/4 lemon (then add the lemon, or a fresh slice, if you like)

Stir well and pour over ice.

Amaretto is widely available and Cardamaro is sold at “better” liquor stores