Thai Basil and Ice Cream - Afterthoughts

Thinking back to my post yesterday, it does occur to me that I rather ignored my vegan/vegetarian friends with my ice cream suggestion. My apologies. It also occured to me that, in the spirit of Thai cuisine, thai basil over non-dairy coconut milk ice cream would be a splendid combination.

Two Great Tastes That SHOULDN'T Taste Great Together...But Do

Vanilla Ice Cream and Thai Basil.

Just let that sink in for a minute.

"You've got to be kidding me" was my sweetie's immediate reaction (or something along those lines), as well as any friend I've mentioned this to thus far. At least until she actually tried a bite of it, and ended up having a small bowlful.

No, I wasn't kidding. The basil - a milder, sweeter variety than some, or so I'm told, with a gentle nip of anise/licorice flavoring, is a perfect contrast for the smooth, bland and sweet ice cream. I'm assuming - and perhaps shouldn't - that anyone reading this knows the difference between thai basil and the more-familiar Italian basil, which has an entirely different taste. (PLEASE do not think I've thrown that variety into my ice cream. I may be crazy, but I even I have my limits.)

It was a move born of desperation, I think - what to do with that handful of thai basil sitting on my counter, freshly picked from the garden? So, it was an early evening, that pile of excess basil that we didn't finish at dinner sat on the counter before me, and my sweet tooth was starting to kick in. I had vanilla ice cream in the freezer, but what did I want with it? Something different, yes. Well, what if...? Yes, this will do, very, very nicely.

This is our first year growing it and it's turned out to be hardier - and more productive - than the Italian basil. Perhaps thai basil doesn't mind less-than-ideal soil. Maybe it's a masochist that thrives under a bit of neglect. In any case, I've put it in every soup, salad, and entree I can think of. Not that my sweetie and I are tired of it, by any means (unlike, say, the bumper crop of squash two summers ago), but there are only her and myself here to eat it all, and unfortunately it doesn't dry well, unlike other herbs. I've read that you can freeze it, but that seems less than appealing; thai basil is very delicate, and I can't imagine it's flavor would survive a trip to the Arctic.

So, into soups and salads and entrees and, occasionally, a bowl of ice cream it continues to go, at least for a few more days. If we are lucky. A cold snap has descended rather quickly in Connecticut, and autumn is making it's presence felt and I suspect that my thai basil may soon end up making that trip to the Arctic, after all.

Fear no more the heat o' the sun...

There is, I have discovered, one (and probably only one) good thing about suffering 100 degree heat plus 100% humidity. (That's in the shade and a mile from the beach, mind you!)

All the fruit on my kitchen counter ripened in a single day. Lusciously, gorgeously - the grocery store produce that can often be an iffy proposition no matter how carefully I select it (I thump, I sniff, I gently press, etc) was suddenly a surfeit of perfect ripeness. Peaches, mangos, nectarines, pineapple. More than I know what to do with at one time - but luckily, I have very little difficulty coming up with ideas.

Even if this heat renders my brain essentially useless for any and all other functions.

Fig O' My Heart

"Is that a fruit?" the cashier at the check-out asked me, observing the four figs I've placed on the conveyor belt. "I've never tried it. I think you're the first customer I've seen buying it!"

"Ever tried a Fig Newton?" I asked.

"No."

Of course I'm in no position to judge anyone else's food experiences as I myself was buying a white chayote, which I had never tried and had no idea what I was going to do with. I bought it out of curiosity, and the fact that it's beautiful, sculptural, heart-shaped form looked like something My Sweetie* would include in one of her still-life paintings. (I did ask the cashier about preparing chayote; "my mother cooks with it sometimes" she said, with a shrug.)

But regarding figs, I'm willing to bet that a good many Americans have never encountered one outside of the aforementioned Newton. Which made me wonder: why it is that some fruits resist "molestation" by some corporate entity or another, but not figs? The fig seems a most unlikely candidate for being rendered unrecognizable in that way. It's naturally sweet, juicy but not excessively messy, compact and portable. The seeds are tiny enough to be unobjectionable, and it doesn't require peeling or coring. It's a neat little package ready to go.

How much so I prove to myself when I start putting my groceries in the car. One of the figs had gotten slightly squished in my basket; I nipped off the stem end with my fingernails and popped the rest into my mouth whole. (You can't do that with a pear.) The idea of taking these little gems, mashing it, adding white sugar and other ingredients, then wrapping it in a thick blanket of bland dough not only seems superfluous, it's absurd.

Perhaps figs just need a better marketing agent. (Is the person who used to represent raisins still available?)

My favorite way to have figs, however, is to warm them: baked or lightly broiled, drizzled with maple syrup or honey (or not), perhaps sprinkled with coriander (or not.) The other day I remembered I had a bit of goat cheese at home and, wondering "what if?" enjoyed a late-morning treat. Baked, in this instance; the juice from the figs melded with the honey and became a beautiful deep rose-colored sauce at the bottom of the baking dish. The goat cheese was the spreadable stuff, hardly first rate (and certainly not from France. New Jersey, perhaps?) but just "goaty" enough to provide a contrast to the figs when dabbed after letting the figs cool a little. Whole wheat toast triangles, from good, crusty, "peasant" bread, perhaps sourdough, would have been a perfect accompaniment, providing crunchy contrast to the softness of the cheese and fruit. Unfortunately, I didn't have any bread on hand, a rare occasion in our kitchen.

What will I do differently next time? My Sweetie* said that she might prefer maple syrup on them rather than honey, so I'll try that instead. What else? I can imagine increasing the salty/savory quotient and really make the sweetness sing. Wrap the figs and goat cheese in paper-thin slices of prosciutto, perhaps? Perhaps. Or sprinkle with a bit of finely-ground sea salt, which I'm more likely to have on hand? Why not?

Small pleasures, indeed.

(And yes, I realize I'm made a hypocrite of myself in claiming that figs are naturally sweet, and then topping them with a sweetner; but since I'm already in this deep I might as dive in all the way and confess that if I'd had agave syrup, I probably would have used that instead due to its viscosity but also it's relatively "neutral" flavor.)

*Not her real name. Of course.

A LIttle Crust of Wisdom...

"A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images pre-cooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish." - W. H. Auden


The above quote could probably be considered the guiding spirit of this blog, although obviously he is using food as a metaphor for life in general, and not writing about food or dining per se. But somehow that seems appropriate here as well.

Granted, it also represents a state I strive for, rather than one that I've achieved. Somehow it seems easiest lately to achieve it in that part of my life that takes place in the kitchen.

Wild Chives

There was a moment about a month or so ago - perhaps a little more than that - when my world was suddenly coming apart at the seams, or so it felt to me. Which sounds overly-dramatic in a "hand on the forehead diva in an MGM movie" sort of way, but it felt very true at the time. I had managed for several months to put off my life, in effect, to focus on a job, and then it ended and other "BIG DRAMATIC EVENTS!" occured all at once. Or maybe it was only my worry that made it so, but it was enough to send me out of the house, into the front yard in tears. I was going mad, completely insane, and this time, this time, I was absolutely certain of it.

Then I saw, for the first time this spring, the various clumps of wild chives that had sprouted up on lawn. When had this happened, and how had I not noticed this yet? While I was busy working and doing terribly "important" things, the chives had been going about their own business of simply being, without any help from me whatsoever.

I pulled up a piece and chewed it, appreciating the bitter grassy/oniony flavor on my tongue, and remembering that I did have a bit of cilantro in the kitchen, sitting in a drinking glass on the windowsill. What would the two taste like together gently simmered in that chicken broth I also had waiting, perhaps with some matchstick carrots and other thinly sliced vegetables?

I have plans for you, I thought, and suddenly tears and fears were banished alike. Not forever, mind, perhaps not even for 24 hours, but for one moment at least I was happy and full of questions and anticipation, and that was enough. Enough to get me to start thinking about making dinner that night, which turned out to be filling and satisfying on my than one level. Enough to get me excited about making granola in time to have for breakfast, scented of coriander as I pulled two trays of it from the oven. Enough.

In the past year, food and cooking have become for me something other than a chore; in the kitchen I've discovered a place where I can be calm and centered and useful. What was once a chore for me has become more than that - it's not the activity but the attention to it that's the thing for me. It becomes a prayer, a meditation, an act of lovemaking. It also becomes an artist's canvas, a scientist's laboratory and something of a child's sandlot, where experiments and messes are allowed and even encouraged, while occasional failures are tolerated without shame.

Even though I may feel still, at times, as though I am going insane, there's still dinner to cook and a wild herbs to gather or to simply notice, and it's ok to put the insanity - mine or the world's - aside for a few minutes, not worry about where the next dollar is coming from, and find real happiness in moments like that.

Anise on my fingertips

I've hated anise my entire life. Or rather, I've hated "licorice" (black licorice, of course) and was certainly that my dislike applied to both the synthetic and the natural versions of the flavor.

There are certain flavors I have had an actual physical revulsion towards. (Just the smell of "artifical banana flavor" gum made me literally nauseous back when I was in high school. Anyone else remember BubbleYum Banana?) Rye is one of them, although for decades I assumed it was the caraway I actually disliked, and cilantro used to be another. I first tasted cilantro in a fine Vietnamese restaurant in Greensboro, NC as a college student, hated it immediately, and picked every bit of it that I could find out of my order of Buddha's Delight. Until one day, a few years ago, I suddenly decided I liked it. Not only liked it, but positively adored it, and found myself actually requesting it be sprinkled atop the braised mussels served at one of my favorite local Asian restaurants. There's a pot of it in my kitchen as I type this, in fact.

I don't know why, after years of successful avoidance, I thought to throw a couple of anise stars into my apple butter last October. Boredom, perhaps? We have a bit of anise in the kitchen, along with other strong, savory/sweet spices awaiting the first ever batch of root beer (that I doubt I'll ever get around to making.) Might as well use it for something.

This was my first ever batch of apple butter; although I've made apple sauce for years on and off, I'd never attempted apple butter, imagining it would be too hard, too time consuming, etc. However, after having made jam, jelly, chutney, pickled this and pickled that the last two harvest seasons, anything else suddenly seems a breeze. It's only time, and that I had plenty of.

I thew in the anise stars along with the cinnamon stick and so forth, and fished them out some time later. The flavor imparted in the apple butter was spicy and sweet and savory all at once, and far more subtle than I could have expected. The real pleasure came, however, when I sucked on the stars themselves - all the flavors of the apples themselves plus the anise itself were intensified on my tongue beautifully. Not only my tongue, but the anise left it's perfume on my lips and fingertips and lingered on my skin as pleasurably as it lingered in my memory hours afterward.

I was surprised to discover, sucking directly on the star-shaped pods and the seeds, that the most intense flavor came directly from the pods, not the seeds. Every recipe I've ever read directs you to put the seeds in - is it understood that the pods are included as well? It reminds me, again, of cilantro, in that every recipe I read calls for the leaves when I have found that the most intense flavoring is actually in the stems, not the leaves.

I made another batch of apple butter later tried the same experiment and discovered that two anise stars is perfect, three is one too many.

I've been wondering lately why tastes change. Why do I now appreciate anise, love cilantro, and even - goodness me - enjoy my old nemesis, carrots? (Albeit cooked to a just-so state of tenderness and sweetness, with the appropriate amount of olive oil, or back in the pot you go.) I'd love to think it has something to do with "increasing sophistication" leading to increasing adventuresomeness, but I fear that there are more mundane explanations: chemical/hormonal changes, perhaps? Or, worse yet, decreasing taste buds? Are these new favorites, these changes in taste, really the first sign of deterioration of the taste buds that happens to all of us? If that is the case. I had better enjoy anise and cilantro now, and all the other flavors that come my way, before even the hottest chunky salsa is as bland and flavorless to me as oatmeal.

I very much doubt, however, that I shall ever learn to love the taste of rye, although I may be in for a surprise there, too, someday. I've learned to welcome and enjoy such surprises lately. (The day I find myself complacently chewing on a piece of BubbleYum Banana, however, is the day I can call it quits.)