be your own Italian grandmother
Slice the small citrus and simmer them in a simple syrup (ratio of 1 sugar: 2 water) for ten minutes or so (the kumquats will flavor the syrup, making a nice cocktail ingredient) and you will have softened the fruits into sweet, flexible discs.
Like the kumquats, the air was sparkling as I walked back from yoga last night, and I woke to inches of snow outside my window.
I have the enviable task this morning of deciding which leftovers to heat gently from a dinner on Monday night with my friends Jean Marc and Danny, who were visiting from Miami, and my friend Solana, who has returned from a trip to Germany.
I met Jean Marc and Danny at a Slow Food Miami event last year, and I knew immediately we would be friends beyond the love we share of thoughtful food.
Knowing their culinary tour of New York included many stylish Manhattan restaurants, I decided to make what an Italian grandmother living in Brooklyn might, simmering sauce for hours until it cooked into a pork sugo that I baked with orecchiette.
I’ll reduce the wine less next for more liquid in the sauce as I make the sugo my own, although the dish still won’t photograph well—it’s about the beautiful moment where you close your eyes and really taste the pork shoulder and oregano and carrots.
For the next course, inspired by a raw salad at the recent Underground Food Collective dinner, I cut fractal cauliflower and peeled purple haze carrots, tossing the colors with oil, then a gremolata to wake the cauliflower.
We finished the Barbera d’Alba and opened a Vin Santo to toast to Danny’s birthday on Tuesday, and the candied kumquats adorned a torta della nonna (grandmother’s tart) with a ricotta filling and pine nuts and Fior de Latte gelato from Brooklyn Larder.
I rarely have dinner guests on Monday, so having Jean Marc and Danny over was an especially nice way to begin the week. Letting the dishes soak, I felt like an Italian grandmother as I cut another slice of tart late that night and peered at the kumquat rinds with beautifully large pores from the candying.
This past weekend, I also leaned in to see the detail on the membrane of flounder roe I found at the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket from Seatuck Fish (I bought skate from them the weekend before).
Crispy and with a scallion sauce, the pieces of roe started a mysterious night of revelations over drinks with Liza and then an underground party, where I wore a vintage Jonathan Logan and antique earrings that belonged to my grandmother.
See more of my dresses on The Serendipity of Boise blog.
The crab salad appeared again during the weekend, with pea shoots,
and on Sunday night, Solana came over before I candied the kumquats, in the middle of the sugo, and we made what I am craving again this morning: cooked ramen noodles with sliced pork, shiitakes, a poached egg, a Momofuku mother sauce of ginger and scallions
(2.5 c sliced scallions, 1/2 c minced ginger, 1/4 c neutral oil, 1 1/2 tsp usukuchi or other soy sauce, 3/4 tsp sherry vinegar, 3/4 tsp salt—let it sit for 20 minutes),
and quick homemade pickles (very thinly slice 2 Kirby cucumbers and coat with 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt—let sit for ten minutes).
Without noodles, I have instead a delightful dilemma of how to allay the chill of the morning: savory slow-cooked pork? Cake and kumquats? Or, as I glance up at the window,
gather snow from the steps of the fire escape,
pour a little milk, cream, vanilla, and kumquat syrup over (try maple syrup, honey, or agave nectar instead of sugar),
and stir: snow ice cream, the resolution in an embrace of this icy day…
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Posted Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010, 8:20 am * Filed in Entertaining, Food, Market, brooklyn. * Tags: Italian, kristen, kthread, taylor. Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 3rd, 2010 at 8:37 am
great post and great subject matter! The entire meal that was ever so special will make your fans jealous ; ) LOVE the snow ice cream! XO
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:41 am
Thanks so much for coming over, Jean Marc. Always so much fun to eat with you and looking forward to visiting Miami (where we can’t make snow ice cream, but we’ll cook other, tropical things) :)
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Damn, Kristen.
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:23 pm
:) thanks, Holly.
February 4th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
I love that you made snow ice cream. I attempted this in 4th grade, but a friend knocked the bowl of fresh snow over, thus ruining my plans.
Every time I see kumquats, I think of you because it was in your kitchen/great room in C’ville that I first had one and said “Man, these are tart.”
February 5th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
I’m just seeing this post, and the timing is so weird; yesterday a colleague brought a large basket full of kumquats for public consumption, which led to a group of us standing around and alternating between wincing at their tartness and delighting in their sweetness. It’s weird to eat the peel (which you wouldn’t do with an orange), and yet wonderful to pop one in your mouth like a grape or cherry tomato. Love the snow ice cream!
February 5th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
Mica, I think you should try again with snow ice cream! I remember the face you made when you tried the kumquats :) might be like Bodger in the snow. Beautiful pound cake the other day–
Ben, the size of the kumquats is so wonderful, I think–and you can eat the peel because the whole fruit is that right size. Making ice cream was the best part of the snow; we should have done that in Charlottesville…
February 6th, 2010 at 5:27 am
candied kumquats, yummmmmmy!