fruit salad

Fruit Salad. That’s what Sailors call the brightly-colored medals and ribbons that adorn their uniforms.

Sailors are given decorations for many reasons – in recognition of personal performance, for unit excellence, for participating in specified campaigns, and for certain service and training milestones.

In the Navy, operational units are recognized for their preparedness for their mission with the Battle Efficiency award. Individual members of the unit are authorized to wear a ribbon, a Navy blue field bracketed by gold and white stripes, with a large metal E attached in the center. Ships that win the award are allowed to paint the letter in white on the stack. When I was a young girl mastering the alphabet, my father was part of a ship that had won the Battle Efficiency Award. Visiting the ship one day, I saw the large E and mistakenly thought that the crew had put it there as a sign of appreciation for my dad. It was during the early days of my active duty career that I learned the true meaning of the letter E. As an Ensign, it was a thrill to be part of an aviation squadron that won the award, and to be able to wear the special letter on my own uniform.

The wearing of decorations is a great way to instill pride and morale. I’ve learned that in the civilian sector recognition comes in different forms. I recently catered a dinner for a new client. He wanted a buffet of simply prepared foods for a special birthday celebration. I wanted to live up to the expectations of the friend who'd made the referral and to serve a meal that he and his guests would enjoy. A couple of days after the event I received a great thank you note, the client writing that the meal “suited me to a T, simple, beautiful and made with love.” Those words didn’t come in a citation with a medal but they meant just as much.

One of the dishes I prepared for the dinner was a simple salad of beets, oranges and feta cheese, sprinkled with mint. And a hint of love.

macarism and cheese

Macarism. To rejoice in another’s happiness.

One of my classmates from culinary school started a small catering business after we graduated. I’ve had the chance to work with Nati on a few memorable events. There was a cocktail party for the launch of a fabric studio in a very industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn, a warren of empty streets and warehouses. We set up the assorted sweets and savories on the worktable in the center of the studio, with votive candles and flower arrangements helping to transform the workspace into a welcoming room. A few months later there was a buffet dinner for 75 Russian executives, prepped in a rented kitchen with smoke alarms on the vents 20 feet above the floor. Smoke alarms that started sounding as we seared 40 pounds of fish fillets and had us standing underneath waving sheet pans to direct fresh air upward. Smoke alarms that wouldn’t stop despite our best efforts. Smoke alarms whose sound was drowned out only by our laughter at the ridiculous situation.

In addition to her catering, Nati has had some gigs as a private chef and as an assistant to a food stylist. They’ve worked on a few cookbooks together, and it has been a vicarious thrill to hear the stories from those adventures. Today I picked up a copy of one of their recent styling projects. It was wonderful to open the beautiful cookbook and read about my friend in the author’s acknowledgements: to N.G. “who made working hard a joy; even cleaning up was fun.” Truer words were never spoken.

Before culinary school, Nati worked in architectural design. She is a huge fan of another woman who made a career change through food. To celebrate seeing Nati’s name in print, I cooked up a little “macarism and cheese,” using Julia’s bechamel sauce as the base.

Macaroni and Cheese

From a recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Serves 4 to 6

1 box of penne or other pasta

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 cups of milk, heated to a boil

1 ½ cups of grated white cheddar

Pinch of nutmeg

Salt and Pepper

In a large saucepan bring 2 quarts of salted water to the boil. Cook pasta for 8-10 minutes or until cooked. Drain pasta, reserving a cup or two of the cooking liquid.

While the pasta is cooking, make a white roux: Heat the butter over low heat in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. When melted, blend in the flour. Cook slowly, stirring until the butter and flour froth together, about two minutes. Do not let this mixture continue to cook or it will color and become a brown roux.

Remove the roux from the heat. Add all of the heated milk at once, beating vigorously with a wire whip. Return to a medium-high heat, stirring constantly with the whisk, until the sauce comes to a boil. Cook on a boil for one minute, continuing to whisk.

Remove from heat, add grated cheddar, nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste. Add the hot cooked pasta. Stir in a little bit of the reserved pasta water as needed to thin the sauce.

thank you

For my first assignment in the Navy, I wanted to learn as much as I could about the Navy, preferably in the Atlantic Fleet. I wasn’t too keen on going overseas right off the bat, and when I did go overseas I didn’t want it to be to the Far East. Which is, of course, why my first assignment took me to South Korea…where I worked for the Army! I was assigned to the Public Affairs Office of the headquarters for US Forces Korea, so technically it was a joint (or interservice) command. My boss was an Army Colonel and his boss was a four-star general, also “hatted” as the Commander of the United Nations Command (in case of war) and the Eighth US Army. As it turned out, I couldn’t have asked for a better assignment.

My job involved coordinating media coverage of the 43,000 troops then stationed in South Korea. Most of the interest was in the forces near the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ. I was also responsible for setting up and escorting weekly tours for the press to Panmunjom, the truce village that sits inside of the DMZ. The DMZ is a two-mile wide strip of land that bisects the Korean peninsula into the communist north and democratic south, one mile on each side of the military demarcation line that was decided on during the truce talks that stopped the shooting of the Korean War in 1953. I made several trips to Panmunjom during the course of my year in-country.

The Imjin River acts as a natural barrier on the southern side of the DMZ, limiting access to that area for travelers from the south. There is a large plaza with war memorials near the Freedom Bridge which allows military and special access to the area near the DMZ. This is the furthest point north that most South Koreans are allowed to travel. We used the plaza area, Imjingak, as the rendezvous point for many of the press tours to Panmunjom.

One day I arrived at Imjingak a little before my scheduled tour. It was a great opportunity to walk through the park and see the memorials. I also took note of the various groups that were there. There was a group of girls, probably fifteen or sixteen years old. I saw them again a bit later, in the parking lot. I was in my dress blue uniform, with the white and black hat (or “cover”) on my head. One of the girls approached me and very shyly said “Hello” in English. “Anyonghaseyo,” I replied, with a smile. Next came “how are you?” to which I echoed “kibuni chosumnika?” (Is your spirit okay?) The girls erupted in giggles at hearing a foreigner trying to speak their language. We commenced a short volley of standard English and Korean phrases, with lots of giggling and smiling. As the girls boarded their bus, a very elderly gentleman dressed in a traditional Korean hanbok approached me. With a slight nod of his head, he said, “kamsahamnida.” Thank you.

His words came at the beginning of my time in the Navy; it was what turned an intended four-year hitch into a twenty-two year career. That day at Imjingak and all the days after, I was the one who was thankful, for the opportunity and honor of serving our nation.

dim sum

At the end of a long trip last month, I stopped in DC and had dinner with two friends, one a naval officer and the other a Foreign Service Officer. Our conversation turned to the early years of our careers, in the waning days of the Cold War and the period just after the Berlin Wall fell. It was very interesting to hear tales of living in Romania – so challenging that embassy folks knew to carry their own light bulbs when they traveled outside of the capital! I talked a bit about my job in South Korea, where I spent a lot of time escorting news media up to the Demilitarized Zone, peering into communist North Korea. When my dad came out to see me, we took a trip to Hong Kong and made a tour up to the border with communist China.

I told my friends about the trip to Hong Kong. My dad had first traveled there while an enlisted man serving in the Pacific Fleet at the end of World War II. After the war ended he got an appointment to the Naval Academy, where an upperclassman told him he could never make it as a Naval aviator. That got Dad’s goat, and he buckled down and graduated in the top part of his class, earning a spot in flight school. After earning his pilot’s Wings of Gold, he joined a squadron in the Pacific Fleet. It was during the Korean War, and they deployed to the theater, with a stop in Hong Kong on the way. (As a side note, Dad’s aviation career was cut short when his plane and the deck of an aircraft carrier became intimately acquainted. Fortunately he walked away with little more than a scratch, but realizing that the upperclassman at Annapolis had been correct all along, Dad became a surface warfare officer and spent the rest of his career driving ships.)

When we went to Hong Kong in 1988, it was fun to watch my dad experiencing the city again, 35 years or so after his last visit. He was amazed by the modernization and growth of the city. I’ll never forget standing on Victoria Peak with him, and what he said as he looked out at the busy harbor and bustling city below. “Wow, this place sure has changed from the last time I was here.”

The Washington Post had done a special feature on dim sum shortly before my dad’s visit. When we got to Hong Kong, he was eager to partake in the Chinese delicacies that traditionally accompany afternoon tea. We ate a lot of dim sum that week. Dad was so taken by it that I’m pretty sure if there had been such a thing as a dim sum breakfast, we would have found it and partaken of it, too.

That is the story I told my friends last week, over dinner in DC. The next day I returned to New York. When I went through the large amount of mail that had accumulated, there was a package from my uncle, forwarding a couple of things he had found while going through some boxes that had been in my grandmother’s attic. One was the certificate given to my dad when he completed flight training. The other was a postcard my dad had mailed him from Hong Kong on October 18, 1988. “Hong Kong has changed one heckuva lot since I was here in 1945, 46, and 53; and they’re still building skyscrapers. Came down here from Seoul with Ellen. The Navy’s giving her a real education – when she leaves Seoul in December, she goes to Spain. Love, Dave” Twenty-four hours after telling my story of a trip taken twenty-two years earlier, I was holding Dad’s version in my hands.

I don’t know why he didn’t tell Uncle Andy about the dim sum; we certainly tasted enough to fill a postcard or two! Here’s a recipe for a dim sum-inspired treat.

Squash Potstickers

Makes about a dozen

One small butternut or kabocha squash

Salt and pepper

3-4 tablespoons canola oil

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts or pecans

1 package won ton wrappers

1. Preheat oven to 400F.

2. Wash and dry squash. Cut squash into quarters, removing membrane and seeds. Place on tray, drizzling with 1-2 tablespoons oil and seasoning with salt and pepper.

3. Roast in oven for about 40 minutes, until you can insert a knife into the flesh easily. Remove from oven and let cool.

4. Scoop roasted flesh into a bowl, mashing with a fork to bring it to a puree-like consistency. Stir in cinnamon, nuts, and salt and pepper to taste.

5. Make the dumplings by laying an empty won ton wrapper on a cutting board. Scoop a small amount of the squash mixture into the center of the won ton skin, making sure there is plenty of room on the sides so that you can fold over the wrapper without the innards oozing out. Seal the dumpling by dipping your finger in a bowl of water and running it along the edge of the pasta. Press together to seal, and crimp the edge with a fork.

5. To cook the potstickers, you will need a sauté or frying pan that has a lid. Heat remaining oil in pan on medium high heat. Add the dumplings and sauté for two minutes. Then pour about a quarter cup of water in the pan, cover and steam for two minutes. Serve immediately.

Notes

- Won ton wrappers are available in the refrigerated section of most grocery stores.

- If desired, serve with a mix of soy sauce and dark sesame oil mixed with sliced scallion and minced ginger.

ode to joy

Music and cooking are a great culinary pairing.

A few years ago I catered a dinner party for a friend of my sister. Nelson is a portrait artist who lives in a painting- and sculpture-filled house outside of Philadelphia. His youngest children have inherited their father’s talent and have channeled it into music (and skateboarding, in the case of the youngest son). I spent the afternoon prepping the dinner, with Annalisa’s piano music making its way into the kitchen and filling the room – and my heart – with beautiful melodies. It made for one of my favorite cooking memories.

My sister and her husband hosted an engagement party for my niece just after I finished culinary school, and one of my classmates flew to Atlanta to help me cater the party. We had a great time doing our prep work to the inspiring songs of ABBA, the Swedish songsters doing a lot to help us channel our inner Dicing Queen. However, after about the twentieth replay of the cd, Anne begged us to find something new to play, so we moved onto Meatloaf. We had no choice.

This fall most of the cooking I’ve been doing has been in the kitchen of the house I’m sharing in upstate New York. One night last February I received a call from a high school friend who lives in Brooklyn. Maura and her husband Scott happened to be in my neighborhood, and I joined them for a beer. As our discussion continued, Maura mentioned that some friends of hers had a house for rent in a small town on the banks of the Hudson. The friends in question are two brothers from Charleston who have written a couple of cookbooks and have done a lot of travel and food-related writing. The more we talked about the house the more it became obvious that this was a no-brainer: the chance to cook in a kitchen owned by James Beard-award winners, and my share of the rent for a weekend house would be less than it was costing me to park my car in Manhattan?! Yes!

The upstate kitchen is a wonderful spot for cooking and listening to music. I open iTunes and turn to the classical radio station from Wyoming. They play a lot of the full rich sounds that I love, and it’s a real treat to hear the weather forecast “ten inches of snow tonight” and catch myself in a temporary state of confusion. The farmers markets right now are like a beautiful symphony, brimming over with gorgeous vegetables of every color and shape. I recently discovered the Long Island Cheese Squash, so named for its resemblance to a wheel of cheese. I used it in a curried soup; a butternut or kabocha squash would work just as well. I hope this recipe makes your tastebuds sing!

Harvest Squash Soup

Serves four

1 medium-sized squash, about 3 pounds

1 medium onion, cut into medium dice

4 to 6 cups vegetable stock

2-3 teaspoons curry powder

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400F.

2. Scrub squash clean and cut into quarters. Remove seeds and stringy innards. (Note: seeds can be reserved for garnish, see below.)

3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper of lightly oil it. Place squash quarters on the pans and drizzle with olive oil and season with a sprinkling of salt and pepper.

3.. Roast squash in 400 degree oven approximately 30-40 minutes, or until cooked. (Test for doneness by inserting a fork or sharp knife into flesh. Squash is cooked when said utensil goes into flesh easily.)

4. Allow squash to cool enough for easy handling. Meanwhile, sauté diced onion in olive oil over medium high heat, until translucent. At the end of cooking, add the curry powder and stir to combine with onions; cook over heat for about a minute more. (This technique helps bring out the oils in the spices of the curry mix and enhances the flavor)

5. Scoop cooked squash out of the skin and put in the pan with the onions. Discard skins. Add about 3 cups of stock. Puree with an immersion blender. (Alternatively, moved cooked onions into a blender, add cooked squash there, cover with stock. Close blender tightly, covering the top with a dishtowel just in case of “explosion” during processing.) Once majority of squash/onion mixture is pureed, you can add more stock (and water as needed) to get soup to your desired thickness and consistency. Remember that the soup will thicken after the pureeing, so you’ll want to make it a little thinner than you think you want. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

6. Serve soup warm, garnished with roasted seeds, a sprig of thyme (an ingredient in the stock), or a dollop of sour cream/crème fraiche.

Note: For squash seed garnish, separate seeds them from the stringy membranes, place on an oiled cookie sheet, drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper. Toast in 250 degree oven for about an hour, until crispy.

magic

Maybe it’s the full moon that has appeared this week, or perhaps I’m still savoring a wonderful visit to Maine last weekend, but right now my mind is filled with awe and magic. I got these beautiful eggs from a favorite farmer this week, and they have had me entranced.

New York City has given me some pretty magical moments during our “courtship” of the past four years. One evening I was walking along Central Park South toward Fifth Avenue and as I approached the Plaza I heard beautiful music, almost like there was a real live soundtrack being played to accompany my perambulation. It was the hotel’s 100^th birthday and the Peter Duchin orchestra was set up for the festivities outside. I stood with a small group and listened for a few minutes, and as I started to leave, they began playing my favorite song, Begin the Beguine. I had a class uptown and I think I literally floated my way up Madison Avenue, Cole Porter humming through my head.

Earlier this week I stopped in at one of my favorite morning spots, Piccolo Café. The name is appropriate – it’s even smaller than my tiny apartment. But what it lacks in size it more than makes up in flavor! One of the owners is a tall Italian with an accent as thick as their espresso. As he steamed the milk for my coffee, Mr. Latte shared that their business is going very well right now, with a second spot in the works. Walking home up Third Avenue, I thought about our very pleasant exchange and about how wonderful it is to see their success. New York is sharing her magic in beautiful, subtle ways now.

The best way to experience the magic is to walk the city’s streets, but you can also enjoy a meal filled with flavor and goodness. This sandwich is my version of one of Piccolo’s tasty treats.

Egg Sandwich with Greens

1. Dress a handful of greens in a spoonful of a simple vinaigrette. (In the bottom of a bowl, use a fork to mix together one soup spoon of olive oil and one teaspoon of balsamic or sherry vinegar, add salt and pepper to taste. Lightly toss the greens in the dressing.)

2. Lightly toast two slices of bread.

3. Scramble two eggs in a pan with butter.

4. Place cooked eggs on one slice of bread, top with a sprinkling of grated parmesan cheese, top that with a handful of the dressed greens and sliced tomatoes, then the second slice of bread.

5. Enjoy!

nature and nurture

"The Hudson nurtures those who are attuned to its voice."

That sentence appears in the prologue to The Hudson: America's River, by Frances Dunwell. At the river's southern end, it can be hard to hear the river's voice amidst the cacophony of the city's traffic and inhabitants. Further upstream, it is hard not to hear the river's voice, whether in the gentle lapping of the waters on the shore, in the honking of barges heading up to Albany, or in the squawking of migrating geese stopping for a rest in one of the river's many bays. The river has inspired generations of artists and writers, and now the Hudson River Valley is home to a lot of the farmers and cooks who are part of our nation's growing locavore/eat local movement. And what inspiration there is!

Despite the heat and drought of this summer, it has been a great year for eating delicious treats grown in the valley - corn, beans, heirloom tomatoes. A fun discovery has been a number of orchards and farms with pick-your-own options. One morning as I was driving back to the city, I decided to pick some peaches. It was nice to see the smiles on faces of the men who work in my apartment building when I gave them a bag of the sweet treats, but the real gift was being in the orchard atop a ridge, under a bright blue sky with the stately Catskill mountains off to the west and the rolling hills of the Berkshires off to the east.

I returned to that same farm last week, to pick apples in one of their other orchards. This one sits lower on the hillside so the view isn't quite as dramatic, but the bright sky and the snaps of crisp autumn air made it just as nurturing. A friend from culinary school was up for a short visit and we quickly filled our bag with Jonagolds, Empires, Cortlands, and a few Honeycrisps for good measure. Most of the fruit went back to the city as gifts for friends, but a few of them found their way into delicious little cakes.

Natalia adapted a batter cake recipe that we found in the Once Upon a Tart cookbook. Enjoy!

Apple Tea Cakes

adapted from Once Upon a Tart

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature (plus a tad more for buttering cake pans)

3-4 tart apples, peeled, cored and cut into slices

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

zest of one lemon

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 cups walnuts, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter/grease 3 small loaf pans.

2. Toss apples with cinnamon, lemon zest and 1 tablespoon of the sugar. Set aside.

3. Whisk together sugar and flour in a mixing bowl, then whisk in the cooled melted butter, vanilla and egg until just combined. Stir in the walnuts and continue mixing until no flour is visible.

4. Place a layer of apples in the bottom of each pan. Cover with about a half-cup of the batter, then top with another layer of apples. Portion out the remaining batter evenly into each pan.

5. Bake in center rack of oven for about 30 minutes, or until top is golden brown and a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

6. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Remove cake from pan by turning it over onto a plate or simply slice from the pan. Cake can be enjoyed while warm or at room temperature. (And it makes a great breakfast treat the next day!)