Last fall I posted a story about the surge of Community Supported Fisheries (CSF), specifically the program out of Gloucester, MA called Cape Ann Fresh Catch (CAFC).  A brief summary of how it works: Just like the produce Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, participants pay upfront for that season’s share. The money helps guarantee that the fishermen will make a decent wage off his/her catch. In exchange, they drive dayboat fish to various designated locations in the city each day, where customers come and pick up their share.

In response, I got a few (totally fair) questions about whether or not I had actually bought into a share myself. Unfortunately, I had not at that point; my work schedule didn’t allow me to get to the dropoff locations in time, and, frankly, it was too much fish for me to take. But this Spring an offer turned up that was too good to refuse.

One of my coworkers who already had a share noticed that the dropoff route on Tuesdays went right by our office. She called CAFC and proposed a scenario: If she could drum up enough interest among the staff, would they be willing to make a dropoff at our office? Sure, they said, provided we get about a dozen shares worth of sign-ups.

That wasn’t hard. In the end, we actually got about 20 people, I think. But other than the convenience of ocean-to-door service and a huge walk-in fridge to store the fish until the end of the workday, it turned out that there were a bunch of folks interested in sharing shares, which made the whole program very doable for a lot of people, myself included.

The other appealing factor: This season CAFC offered three different types of shares—all whole fish, all fillets, or alternating, in which you get whole fish one week and fillets the next. Seemed like a perfect opportunity for a beginner like me who wanted to learn how to work with whole fish, but didn’t want to be committed to that kind of project every week.

This season is about 13 weeks long, and I think we’ve just passed the halfway mark. Happy to report it’s been working out really well. On Tuesdays around 3 p.m., my coworker who organized the relationship with CAFC gets a call from the delivery guy when he’s getting close to our office. She and I grab a huge cooler and meet him outside, crosscheck our lists of how many whole fish and how many fillets we need, and then haul the cooler upstairs and everyone can take their share. Fortunately, some the America’s Test Kitchen staffers have a good bit of experience filleting whole fish and they’ve been kind enough to give a few demos on how it’s done. (CAFC also offers a how-to video that’s very informative.) Oftentimes a week’s share is one whole fish, so those of us sharing shares often grab a knife and fillet at work to divvy up dinner. We also chat each other up about what’s on the menu that night: cod and corn chowder, baked fillets with romesco sauce, Thai fish curry, whole fish stuffed with fennel and citrus and grilled…

My personal go-tos have been ceviche and fish tacos.  The first couldn’t be easier—citrus juice, fresh chiles, red onion, garlic, herbs, a little extra-virgin olive oil mixed with chunks of raw fish for an hour or so until the meat “cures.” I find it’s a forgivable preparation for those of us who are still less than savvy with a fillet knife (it just takes practice, I keep telling myself), fast, and delightful to eat in the summer.  Fish tacos have been a rotating preparation for me; most times I dip them in beer batter and deep-fry them, but this past week I broke out my new charcoal grill, slicked down a piece of aluminum foil with vegetable oil, and threw the fish (on the foil) onto the grates. Sort of a lighter take that I’d wanted to try for a while, and the fish took on some good smoke flavor from the hardwood. Anyone has other good suggestions what to do—especially for whole fish—I’ve still got about 6 weeks worth of fish to go!

Many people know of pesto as a basil-based green sauce commonly served over pasta.  The classic pesto (pesto alla Genovese) originated in the Liguria region of Northern Italy and consisted of fresh basil, fresh parsley, crushed garlic, grated parmigiano cheese, pine nuts, olive oil and salt.  The ingredients were traditionally crushed into a creamy consistency with mortar and pestle.  Modern-day food processors make pesto-creation quite easy.

What many people do not know is that pesto can be thought of as a food form, with innumerable variations.  Think of pesto as a creamy green sauce with the following ingredient combination:

• Green Leafy Herb
• Allium
• Nut
• Hard Cheese
• Oil
• Salt

Though basil pesto can be quite delicious, it is not necessarily the most nutritious form of pesto.  The basil can be replaced (partially or completely) by other more nutritious leafy greens, such as young spinach, tatsoi, kale, chard, or broccoli greens. To create a creamy consistency typical to pesto, it is important to use baby greens that are still tender.  The result is a delicious raw sauce, rich in vitamins, mineral, and phytonutrients, typically found in the brassica (broccoli) and chenopod (spinach) plant families.  Other herbs may be used to enhance the flavor and nutrition of the pesto.  Parsley, thyme, oregano, cilantro, and mint are a few of the many possibilities that come to mind.

The most common allium used in pesto is garlic.  Personally, I’m a huge fan of garlic and cannot imagine making pesto without it.  Plus, it is very healthy.  However, if raw garlic is too much for you, you may substitute it with other alliums such as shallots, chives, or leeks.

Pine nuts are traditionally used to make pesto, but by no means are they the only nuts that will work.  Try cashews, walnuts, pecans, brazil nuts, or macadamia nuts in place of pine nuts, and you will find that other nuts taste great and effectively add to the creamy consistency of pesto.  In addition, incorporating different nuts into your diet will help diversify your intake of various nutritional elements, especially essential fats.

The hard cheese element in pesto is optional.  You may use a hard Italian cheese such as parmigiano or pecorino, and you won’t regret it for the flavor it brings. However, if you prefer a vegan pesto, leave the cheese out.  You may use a small amount of nutritional yeast in lieu of hard cheese.

Olive oil has a wonderful flavor and you may want to stick with it for your pesto.  However, if you are feeling adventurous, you may try using grape seed oil, or flax oil to deliver other healthy fats into your diet.  Try replacing half of the olive oil with one of these other healthy oils.

Salt is a small, but very important ingredient in pesto, as it balances the flavor of the greens and fats.  I’d recommend unrefined sea salt, which is rich in trace minerals.  You can tell unrefined salt by its color:  If it is pure white, it is refined, and lacks mineral content.  If it is off-white, gray, or pinkish, it is unrefined, and much better. As an alternative, you may use tamari to provide the “salt” element to your pesto.

Here are a few recipes to help get the creative juices flowing:

Arugula Pesto

Spinach Pesto

Broccoli Pesto (this recipe calls for cooked broccoli, though you may also use raw broccoli micro-greens)

Once you begin experimenting with creating pesto, you will find that the possibilities are endless.  Not only that, but the possible uses of pesto are also endless.  Pesto may be used on pasta, yes.  But it may also be used on potatoes, in rice and other grains, as a sandwich topping, on meat, in eggs, or anywhere else you can imagine adding a savory and sharp-flavored creamy sauce.  You may even feel inspired to grow micro-greens in your garden, especially for use in making pesto, since ultra-fresh micro-greens are nearly impossible to find in grocery stores, yet are exuberant sources of vitality.  I do not know of a single nutritionist who would dispute that eating more fresh leafy green vegetables is the number one thing we could do to improve our diets.  Pesto secretly and delectably accomplishes this goal.   Use your creativity to go beyond basil and discover the possibilities of delicious nutritious pesto.

Sustainable living to me means fostering my local resources, and the most valuable resource we have is caring farmers and environmental stewards.  Find the people who practice what you care about, learn from them and support them, then pass that knowledge along to your children, your co-workers, anyone who has an interest.

A lot of what I try and put into practice is a way of living that was practiced generations ago out of necessity.  Eating fresh in the season and preserving for the rest of the year are the cornerstones. As a kid, we had cherries all year straight out of the root cellar.  A jar of cherries and a little cream makes a great dessert. We also had beef in the freezer. Granddad raised it and it could come in any form, for better or worse. This type of thing was done almost solely for economic reasons. A side of beef is much less expensive than buying corned beef, brisket, shanks, tenderloin, and everything else, throughout the year, plus you are able to control the source of your beef and how it was raised.

I just bought a 250 pound side of Dexter beef for $1000.  That makes it $4.00 per pound, and I use everything off of it. This was a 28 month-old 100% grass fed steer. Try and find even a grass fed beef flank steak at your best butcher in town for $4 a pound, let alone that awesome rib-eye that I’m dry aging right now. I’ve learned that there are ways to prepare each different cut so that it’s delicious, despite my childhood memories of chewing until my jaw was sore.

From that steer, I made a rich pot roast, short ribs, lots of “butcher” steaks, bresaola, basterma, pastrami, peperoni, shanks, dry aged steaks, and onion soup with marrow.  There are endless uses out there.  Start with the year’s worth of beef, or the cherries or pickled garlic scapes, then next year add a couple more items to your repertoire, and teach other people to do the same.

Yankee Pot Roast

1 cup of suet

1 bone in chuck roast

bouquet garni

1 each carrot, onion, celery, cut small

1 jar tomatoes (for acidity, doesn’t have to be exact)

salt and pepper

thyme, bay leaf

1 quart beef broth

Other seasonal vegetables to finish

Lightly render the suet in a cast iron pan.  Next, season the beef generously, gently sear the roast on all sides, work slowly and carefully.  I use a meat fork and tongs to handle the roast to keep a firm grip.  Remove the beef to a roasting pot with a lid.  Add the carrot, onion, and celery  to the cast iron pan and cook to lightly brown.  Transfer to the pot with the roast, add the bouquet garni, tomatoes, herbs, and cover half way with broth.  Cover the pot tightly and braise in a 300 deg. F (150 deg.C) oven for about 8 hours, or overnight.  In the last hour, you can add other vegetables like mushrooms, potatoes, parsnips, so that they give texture to the dish.  This is great if you chill the entire pot overnight.  The next day, remove the solid fat that settled on the surface, and reheat for and hour or so until hot and tender again.  You should be able to eat this with a spoon it will be so tender.  Add fresh vegetables like green beans and peas in the last 5 minutes or so before you serve.

One of the most sweeping irrationalities in our society is the broken fertility cycle.  Fixing it is one of the most basic and effective ways to impact the environment through your eating.   Here are 5 Easy Steps for Composting in a Small Urban Apartment – and having a lot of fun doing it!

By “broken fertility cycle”, I mean that we utilize huge amounts of fossil fuels to artificially generate fertility in soil, and then we seal off giant landfills to store all the food waste.  In those sealed coffins, food breaks down anaerobically, releasing huge amounts of methane, which is 25x worse than carbon.  Many municipalities report that up to 50% of landfill space is taken by food scraps.   This very same material, when composted and used as fertilizer, promotes excellent plant growth, puts nutrients back into the ground and your food, and generates living soil which actually breathes – sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.  This is the traditional way to create soil fertility, and it is what we will all end up doing again some day — one way or another.

This guide is inspired by a rash of wonderful articles on GoodEater about the importance and experience of composting. First, tea executive Stefan Schachter wrote Composting: Sustainability in Action. Then, James Beard award-winning author Deborah Krasner wrote: Worm Harvest. They bring various viewpoints to the table, and so I decided to create a practical guide to direct the energies they’ve stimulated among readers.

If you’re new to composting, you probably have a lot of questions.  How do I set up a compost in my little apartment?  How much does this thing cost?  Is it a lot of work?  What about the smell?

To answer these questions, I’ve been running thermophilic (traditional) compost bins and vermiculture (worm) compost bins side by side for months in order to learn best-practices and create this guide for GoodEaters:

5-Step Process for Easy Composting in a Small Urban Apartment

First, Decide Whether to do “Traditional” or “Worm” Composting

Traditional, or thermophilic, composting uses bacteria and fungi to break down food aerobically.  The food passes through a heated stage created by the bacteria (your bin will get up to 170 degrees) to aid in the digestion.  The benefits of this system are that you can create a huge bin, fill it with a large volume of stuff, including autumn leaves, grass clippings, etc., mix it with “greens” (kitchen scraps), and then virtually set it and forget it.  In the spring you’ll have your rich soil for the new year’s garden.

Worm bins use a certain type of worms called “red wigglers” to digest the foods more rapidly.  You can view the purpose of these worms as merely transports for efficiently delivering the bacteria in their stomachs to fresh food (of course, one could say the same for humans).  This system is favored for it’s speed, quality of compost (“worm castings”, which are actually their poop), and the fact that the fast digestion results in little anaerobic bacteria – the source of bad smells.  If you definitely need to compost indoors and/or have very little space, worm composting is the way to go.

Here’s a chart to aid in your decision:

Second, Decide Whether To Build or Buy

If you are setting up a traditional bin, I suggest buy one.  In a rural environment you can set one up cheaply with chicken wire far from the house.  But in an urban environment, you don’t want to attract raccoons, rats, or squirrels.  A professionally-made bin is pest-proof.  I use the classic Bosmere K767 Garden Compost Bin 11-Cubic-Foot Capacity, which was recommended to me by the folks at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and works like a charm. If you live in New York, you can buy this and other bins at-cost through the city.

On top of that, you’ll probably want a small little bin in your kitchen to collect scraps between regular trips to the outside compost.  For this I recommend the classic Norpro Grip EZ Stainless Steel Compost Keeper, which has an active carbon filter to stop smell.  It also looks nice.

All this adds up of course.  But if you are going to go with worms, it’s so easy to build a worm bin.  It cost me $5 in materials and took less than 30min.  I watched a dozen of YouTube videos, and this one is the best for building the most basic and inexpensive worm bin. This one can go right under your kitchen sink:

The cost of worms is your main expense in this system: usually $20-25.  In New York City, to get your worms, contact the Lower East Side Ecology Project, phone: 212-477-4022, email: oreinc[at]earthlink.net.  Order your worms, and they’ll have them for you at the Union Square Farmers Market.

Of course, there must be a workaround?  Yes.  Check Craigslist and Brooklyn Free Cycle.  People often give away free containers of red wigglers, as they are quite prolific and everyone wants to promote composting.  I got my colony started thanks to two give-aways from friendly folks.

Third, Bag It Up for Vegetable Stock

Now that you have your bin, the fun begins! The last three steps are is actually my secret 3-Phase Process for getting the most out of every ounce of food purchases.

Keep a plastic bag in your freezer.  Throw kitchen scraps that can be used for vegetable stock into the bag as you go – e.g. stalks, stems, mushroom stubs, etc.  Everything else – e.g. eggshells, teabags, coffee grounds, etc. – throw right into the compost.

The secret ingredient to many dishes – from soups to stirfrys – is not in fact butter, but homemade stock.  Once your bag is full, throw it in a big pot with a head of garlic, an onion, a couple of bay leaves, and maybe some thyme or parsley.  Bring to a boil and then simmer for an hour.  Finally, skim out the solids and throw them into the compost.  I refrigerate some of the stock for short-term use and freeze the rest in ice-cube trays for later use.

Fourth, Make Your Compost Pile

See here for a list of what you can add to your compost and what you can’t.  The three main principles you need to know are:

1. Add roughly equal volumes of browns (cardboard, bread, etc. – all rich in carbon) and greens (veggie clippings, etc. – all rich in nitrogen).
2. Keep it moist, but not sopping.  Like a damp sponge.
3. Don’t add meat scraps, cheese, or anything oily.

Also, if you have a traditional bin, you should stir/rotate your compost around as much as possible so oxygen gets in there and you don’t get too much anaerobic bacteria.  For worm bins, the critters do the work.

Fifth, Harvest and Add to Your Plants!

To harvest from a worm bin, follow this example.  To harvest from a traditional bin, just take from the bottom.

Mix a scoop of compost right into the top of the soil in your potted plants or vegetable garden.  For new plants, mix at about a 1:3 ratio with the cheap “garden soil” from the nursery to make your own, super rich potting soil.  Lastly, you can steep a couple scoops in water for 24-hours to make compost tea, a super rich liquid fertilizer full of beneficial micro-organisms.  When poured over plants, this will create that living soil that sucks carbon out of the air, makes veggies go nuts, and fixes micro-nutrients to the plant roots for your own healthy consumption.

Who needs MiracleGro?

And if all this is really beyond you, no problem.  Every city has organic waste drop-off points which you can look up online.  In NYC, there’s some right in Union Square, as well as at all the major parks and gardens.  Just a warning, however, that you’ll be missing out on lots of fun, as well as a huge ego boost when you crown yourself “Master of the Bacteria”.

This is going to be a quick and dirty installment of GoodEating involving one of my favorite cuisines (Thai), one of my favorite animals (pig), and one of my favorite body parts (belly).

The challenge is this: Can you take one of the fattiest cuts of meat available, deep fry it, and create a dish light enough that you can actually feel good after eating it?

The answer is yes! And here’s how it’s done:

Start with a few thick pieces of pork belly. Ask far enough in advance, and your local butcher should be able to get it for you.

Once you’ve found good pork belly, the hard part’s over. Now take that belly, cover it in water and vinegar at a ratio of 2 parts water to 1 part vinegar. Season the liquid to taste with salt, then bring the whole thing to a simmer.

Allow the belly to simmer for around 45 minutes until it is just beginning to turn tender. Once its done with its hot vinegar bath, let it rest on a rack for at least 20 minutes until it’s cool enough to handle and completely dry, then pick it up and score the skin with a sharp knife or razors into a 1-inch cross-hatch pattern. The idea here is surface area to volume maximization. Scoring will give it more places to crisp up, and crispy = good.

If you’re the kind who likes to do things in steps, you can leave it in the fridge overnight uncovered and finish it off the next night.

Now pull out your perfectly seasoned, supremely versatile cast-iron wok and fill it with a quart or two of vegetable oil. You want enough oil to submerge the pork belly by about an inch. Heat it up until around 325 degrees (hot enough that if you dip a corner of the belly into it, it sizzles gently, not violently).

Put your pork belly in there, give it a quick stir to make sure it’s not stuck on the bottom, then place a loose lid or a piece of foil over the top. These things’ll spit and sputter like a cat in hell.

The trick here is to remember the directions on the back of a bag of microwave popcorn. Listen to the sputtering. Once it’s gone about 30 seconds without producing a big pop, it’s (probably) safe to open up the lid and probe around to check for doneness. This’ll come at around the six to seven minute mark, but as always, your eyes and ears are a better indicator than any timer.

Once the pork looks just like this, I.E. golden brown and super-crisp, it’s done. Transfer the pork back to the rack and salt it immediately. See how many minutes you can go without cracking off a bit of the crunchy edge to sample. Count the minutes, and give yourself points according to the fibonacci sequence. If your total comes to more than zero, you are more stoic than I.

The only thing that should stop you from eating the whole thing is that it’s much better with a bit of sauce.

I’ve never made this sauce the same way twice, but here are some approximate values. Like all Thai food, the balance between the sugar, chiles, fish sauce, and lime juice is all important. Adjust everything to suit your own taste. And remember—Thai food is very forgiving.

Combine equal parts fresh squeezed lime juice, fish sauce, and palm sugar (yes, white sugar, brown sugar, jaggery, etc. will work here), along with half as much soy sauce in a bowl and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Now add a handful of chopped herbs – cilantro, culantro, mint, basil, or chives all work well here – as well as as many finely chopped Thai bird chiles you can stand.

Slice the pork, dip it in the sauce, eat, and swoon.

Thank you to all who participated in the “Best Seasonal Grilling Ideas Contest“ for a signed copy of Deborah Krasner’s James Beard award-winning The Flavors of Olive Oil: A Tasting Guide and Cookbook.

There was an outpouring of delicious and creative early summer grilling ideas put forth by readers, ranging from pesto shrimp to jerk sweet potatoes to grilled watermelon!  We drew randomly to celebrate all the contributors, and the prize goes to:

Lew Miller with his “Adult Taco”. Recipe as follows:

INGREDIENTS

• Soft flour tortillas
• Marshmallow creme
• Chopped banannas and strawberries
• Crushed 1 cup each pecans, chocolate chips,chocolate graham crackers
• 1 cup Kaluaha

INSTRUCTIONS

• Spread marshmellow creme on shell
• Down middle add fruit
• In bowl mix chips,crackers and pecans in bowl and mix with Kaluaha and 2 tables spoons over fruit and fold over shell in half
• Place in tin foil on grill till soft (3 minutes)
• Serve with scoop of ice cream drizzzled with kaluaha

Definitely a show- (and heart-) stopper.  Thanks Lew!

Following Kenji’s lead, I would like to confirm your meta-pantry is going to set you free.  But, as soon as you begin growing much of your own food and really begin to control what you feed yourself and your family, you are going to discover one reason why we pay farmers: They get stuck with all the abundance we don’t know how to handle.

Through learning to stock your meta-pantry, no more will you dread having too much basil or summer squash.  And even better, no more will we be at a loss for that creative touch at a special dinner.  Creativity becomes picking a jar off the shelf and enjoying the unique flavors that have come from your own work.

Candying is one great way to preserve a huge variety of vegetables, fresh spices, and herbs.  Here’s a basic method which works for many tough plants as well as squash and melons.

Angelica is an Apiaceae, an aromatic vegetable related to celery, cicely, fennel, and lots of other stalky vegetables.  The leaves make great tea, but can also be preserved as jelly or used to flavor a neutral spirit as one would make limoncello.  Yet the stems are the treat for which you will grow this aggressive plant.  The first year you plant angelica it will just give you leaves.  In the second year, it will come back on its own with tall fast growing stalks as one of the first plants in your spring garden.

Don’t have access to Angelica? Try this same recipe with the stiff green stems off of a fennel bulb, or even stalks of celery.

Candied Angelica

- makes 1-2 cups preserved stalks -
1 bunch Angelica stems
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups sugar

1. Cut the stems into lengths and remove the leaves.  Bring 1 gallon of water to a boil over high heat, add the baking soda (alkalinity helps green vegetables retain their color), and blanch the angelica stems until they just begin to soften, about 2 minutes.  Remove to an ice bath and chill.  Remove the strings around the outside of the stems with a pairing knife or vegetable peeler.

2. Combine the sugar with 1 1/2 cups water and bring it to a simmer, stirring until the sugar is fully melted. Add the blanched angelica and allow it to soak over night.

3. The next day, drain the syrup off and into a sauce pan.  Cook the syrup to 225 deg. F (107 deg C) as measured on a candy thermometer. Pour it back over the angelica and chill overnight. Repeat this process for the next two days as well (you’ll pour hot syrup over angelica a total of four times)

4. On the last day, drain the syrup into a sauce pan and cook it to 245 deg F (118 deg C) as measured on a candy thermometer.  Add the angelica to the pot and boil until the stalks look translucent.  At this point, either chill and store the angelica in the syrup for long term storage, or remove the stems to a drying rack and sprinkle them with sugar to crystallize them.

Even though this is a recipe that takes days to make, it only takes five or ten minutes each day, so don’t be put off. It’s easy.

The candies are lightly floral, beautiful. . . great for decorating cakes, making straws for home-made sodas, serving next to your cup of tea, folding into ice cream — you name it.

It’s the first week of June! We’ve had a glorious Spring, and although it’s too early for fresh tomatoes and eggplants, it’s not too early to rock the party with your grill skills.

To enter the contest, all you have to do is give us a short description of your favorite dish to grill in the early summer—you can even embed an image by adding a link to it in your comment.

The prize is a copy of Deborah Krasner’s book “The Flavors of Olive Oil: A Tasting Guide and Cookbook”

Deborah is a star Author at GoodEater and has generously donated a signed copy of her James Beard award-winning book.

The winner will be chosen at random out of all of the entries and announced next monday.

Let the grilling begin!

N.B.: this is a reblog of a post written last summer by Larissa Zhou

Living in Paris is both a boon and bane to my culinary ambitions. On one hand, walking through the city means an inevitable tour through the panoply of markets, specialty stores and artisanal shops. On the other hand, it’s expensive. Coupled with the fact that I’m on a tight student budget and previously had been living in the cheapskate heaven that is China, I’ve become slightly neurotic about spending money.

Thus, even though the Carrefour supermarket down the street has a 5 meter long display of yogurt, I’ve begun making my own. It’s simple economics: a 500g jar of plain yaourt brassé costs €2.49, but 2 liters of milk costs costs €1.75, and unlike making cheese, where a gallon of milk might yield a pint of curds, yogurt is a zero-loss project. Granted, I also like the feeling of je-ne-sais-quoi that I get from saying the phrase “I make my own yogurt.”

For those who haven’t read Harold McGee’s article on yogurt-making in the NY Times, the concept may seem impressive. But in reality, it’s quite easy. For mine, I heat up some milk until steaming and slightly bubbling, but not boiling, then pour it into jars and let it cool to the point that I can comfortably hold the jars. Hot, but not scorching.

Next, I drop a couple spoonfuls of active-culture yogurt into it, wrap it in kitchen towels, and wait. McGee recommends waiting for 3-4 hours for the bacteria to do its work before putting it in the fridge, but I’ve eaten yogurt cultured for a full 8 hours at room temperature, and I’m still alive. This is good to know for times when you’ve heated your milk at 11 pm and don’t feel like leaving bed in the middle of the night to check on the warm jar. It may be swaddled in cheesecloth like a baby on your couch, but it’s only yogurt.
Picture
Back in high school, I took the concept of “frozen yogurt” literally and stuck a carton of strawberry Yoplait in the freezer. Though true frozen yogurt needs to be churned like ice cream while freezing to give it a smooth and creamy texture, I discovered that I could achieve a whole range of textures that are interesting in their own right depending on how much time I let it freeze. The best was half frozen, the point when spiky ice crystals just start to form, creating a refreshingly abrasive texture on the tongue.

Here in Paris, I’ve discovered that French yogurt works even better because of its lower moisture content. Even though I could dish out €5 for ice cream or gelato from one of the 3 shops (Haagen-Däazs, Amorino, and Grom) within a three minute walking distance from my apartment, I instead freeze my homemade yogurt for a few hours, stir it up, freeze again, and then eat. Here’s another great texture: I let completely frozen yogurt thaw at room temperature while I go out for a run, then come home and stir it vigorously with a spoon. The yogurt becomes melty, creamy, and slightly frothy, just like the melted ice cream that forms around the perimeter of the ice cream carton. Exactly the way I like it.

If plain yogurt gets too boring, I place a heap of grated coconut and sliced almonds on top, or big fat blond raisins too if I want some chew. For something closer to dessert, I lace my yogurt with spoonfuls of crème de marrons (cooked chestnut purée with sugar); the yogurt’s sourness provides a welcome contrast to the super sweetness of chestnut puree.

But yogurt is just the tip of the dairy iceberg in France. There’s crème fraîche, fromage blanc (commonly served with a pool of honey at the end of a meal), and of course, cheese itself. And here’s what may surprise you even more than my making yogurt in this land of yogurt-plenty: I don’t enjoy cheese. At all. When I first moved to the US, it took me a while to even accept cheese on pizza. In fact, cheese is so intimidating that here I am, about to mark the end of 3 months in the land of Roquefort, Comté, Emmental and Brie, and stepping into a fromagerie is still an experience that I steel myself for and ultimately chicken out of. But that’s another story for another day…

In 1880’s Boston, Fredrick Law Olmsted began the design of the Emerald Necklace.  This series of linear parks and slowly meandering streams was created to connect various parts of the city and clean up the marsh lands of which so much of Boston was made.  Japanese Knot Weed was one plant that Mr. Olmsted is thought to have introduced to Boston.

Today this non-native plant grows wild and is considered invasive. I consider it delicious. This and other wild plants, delicious and annoying, are growing all over the Boston area and are worth seeking out for their health benefits, interesting flavors, and just the beauty of their diversity.

As one of the most invasive species in the world, Japanese knot weed isn’t hard to find if you know where to look. It usually grows in moist areas between streams and land, so look for it around local waterways. You’ll often also find it around old building plots and overgrown backyards, but it’s wise not to pick it from areas that may have contaminated soils.

Within the span of a morning walk, I was able to harvest a nice bit of self-propagating produce. To accompany the naturally raised free range veal I serve at Beacon Hill Bistro, I made a spring vegetable stew with Knot Weed, Jerusalem Artichoke Sprouts, Wild Onions, Fresh Juniper Berries, Local Asparagus, and brand new Burdock Stems.

Below is a recipe for preparing the Japanese Knot Weed. The flavor is very close to that of rhubarb and any recipe can be done with an equal exchange of the two. Use it wherever you’d use candied rhubarb, such as to accompany a rich paté, a meat course, or even an ice cream dessert.

Ingredients

2 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean, split
1 tsp whole cloves
1 whole star anise
12 black peppercorns
1 teaspoon whole fennel seed
2 tablespoons armagnac
1 quart trimmed Knot Weed

1. Add sugar to medium saucepot and top with enough cold water to form a wet sand, about 1/4 cup. Add vanilla bean, cloves, star anise, peppercorns, and fennel seed and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula until sugar turns a light caramel color, about 10 minutes.  Remove from heat and carefully add the armagnac (mixture will bubble). Pour over the trimmed knot weed in medium bowl.  Allow to cool at room temperature.

2. To serve, remove spices and reheat knot weed in small sautee pan until hot.