Sunday picnic at La Casa Narcisi

Rather than mope around the house on Sunday afternoon wishing the weekend wasn’t almost over, we packed a picnic lunch and headed up to La Casa Narcisi winery in Gibsonia yesterday for an afternoon of music, sunshine, wine, and food. Can’t really think of a better way to spend a late summer afternoon. Yes, late summer…1st grade starts for Katie in 2 weeks.

How’s that for a local spread? All procured on Saturday morning in the Strip. Thinly sliced raw zucchini and cherry tomatoes from Pucker Brush Farm (corner tables at the Farmers@Firehouse market), Clover Creek Cheese Cellar’s Galen’s Good Old raw milk cheese (think Gouda…procured from Crested Duck, likewise at the Firehouse market), Allegheny Mountain smoked provolone (available at Penn Mac), and hummus from Salem’s.

The wine: La Casa Narcisi’s summery Rosabella. Mrs. B and I thought it had an unoaked Chardonnay feel to it…a little butter, crisp acid, very appropriate for drinking in the blaring sun.

And a light post-meal snack…

Pittsburgh Popcorn Company’s Zesty Ranch. Addictive.

The kids, as our kids are apt to do, made fast friends with the bevy of little girls running about the grounds of the winery. The Mrs. and I finished the wine in under 45 minutes then rested off our buzz chatting in the shade.

If La Casa Narcisi wasn’t a horrid drive up construction-plagued, narrow-laned Rt. 28 away, I’d do this every weekend.

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You’re welcome…

Important information. Cherry season has started in the ‘burgh. I picked up this happy fellow in anticipation of this, the first day of cherry season…

That smiley cherry pitter will expedite my excessive consumption of cherries over the next few weeks. Local cherries are hard to find, but don’t let that dissuade you from finding this most delicious of all fruits. 

I’ve got your back.

My cherry guy, Frank from Paul’s Orchard, is the man you need to find and I’ll make this easy: Wednesdays and Fridays at the farmer’s market in Cecil, Wednesdays also at Mt. Lebanon, Thursdays at Upper St. Clair. Right now he’s selling Black Heart and yellow Queen Ann cherries. Sour to follow probably next week. Frank, if you are reading this, please feel free to comment with other places folks can find you.

Know what’s even more exciting than the beginning of cherry season? When apricot season overlaps with cherry season. About ten days from now according to Frank.

I’d tell you to overindulge, but I’m loathe to call it gluttony when you’re eating fresh fruit. Eat up, friends, and be happy like these kids.

 

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Scenes from a grill: Riff on a Philly sandwich

The third most famous output of Philly–after the cheesesteak and crime–is roasted pork sandwiches: seasoned roasted pork, sharp provolone, and broccoli rabe. Great concept with the greens right there on the sandwich, which is where the inspiration for this grilled Italian sausage (standing in for the roasted pork) and Swiss chard sandwich came from. And hooray! for the return of local greens–the ones below are from Goose Creek Gardens.

Pre-sauteed Swiss chard with garlic and red pepper flakes reheating on the Weber with some caramelized onions.

Pork and greens on a bun.

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Like the old days

In the free-wheeling, budget-be-damned days before kids, Mrs. B and I used to enjoy $100 dinners at restaurants on Fridays then scour the Strip for obscure and pricey ingredients to build a long and leisurely dinner at home on Saturday night lubricated with multiple bottles of wine. Switch to single income and crazy kids and our dinners out are few, far-between, and often budget-consciously assisted by a Groupon. Our romantic Saturday night dinners consist of things like the quite delicious but certainly not romance-inducing buffalo chicken rolls and antipasto salad from local pizza joint, Ardolino’s.

To break out of that rut, Mrs. B suggested a date night at home this past Saturday in honor of Valentine’s Day. We couldn’t celebrate last Saturday, mind you, because she was spending the evening with her real Valentine: Jon Bon Jovi. How can I compete with that?

Here’s how: four courses of home-cooked food selected by my one-and-only Valentine. I did most of the shopping solo on Saturday morning in the Strip, where I was reminded just how expensive it can be to put together a multi-course menu for two. All of this served after the kids went to bed. We even busted out the china we registered for when we got married.

First up were chorizo puffs, a celebration of Spanish flavors: rounds of Parma’s excellent Spanish chorizo and shredded Drunken Goat Cheese wrapped in puff pastry and sprinkled with smoked paprika. Spanish, of course. All this Spanish flavor hearkens back to those early days of courtship when I could rattle enough Spanish off from the 35 credits I endured as an undergrad to make the then Girlfriend B think I was both intelligent and intriguing. Sucker.

Look at that...I even garnished with some chopped green onion. Classy.

Salad was next: baby arugula tossed with a hastily made white balsamic dressing topped with chunks of goat cheese and toasted almonds. Last second inspiration came in the way of a slice of Parma’s new prosciutto made with meat from humanely raised Berkshire hogs. Well done, Parma. A beautiful product.

 

I am truly the worst food photographer of all time. Pardon the blur...we were deep into a bottle of wine by now.

Main dish: braised short rib pappardelle, inspired by a dish Mrs. B had at Lidia’s many years ago that I’ve quite successfully replicated at home. Seven hours of braising the meaty beef short ribs from Clarion River Organics at 225 in red wine, homemade chicken stock, tomatoes, and aromatic veg makes for an amazing pasta sauce. The fresh egg pappardelle from Penn Mac takes this dish from delicious to sublime.

 

Candle light and our good wine glasses were my Valentine's romantic touches.

Sadly the wine was a letdown across courses. To start I opened up an ages-old half bottle of Finger Lakes unoaked Chardonnay that I’m pretty certain was meant to be a dessert wine. Thick and sweet, it didn’t hurt the first two courses it was served with, but it added little in the way of interest. The red I poured with the pasta was regionally appropriate and in line with my attempt to use as many local ingredients as possible (no small feat in the waning days of Pennsylvania winter). However, the La Casa Narcisi Cabernet Sauvignon was thin and boring.

Dessert was a big scoop of mint chip ice cream from Clarion River atop a bittersweet brownie from Sustenance, making our entire dessert Pittsburgh Public Market-procured. And damn delicious.

 

The biggest downside to this gluttonous meal, complete with almost two bottles of wine? Mrs. B got very sleepy after we’d finished eating (which, in her defense, wasn’t until after 9:45 since we’d waited till the kids went to bed to start eating) and promptly fled to bed soon after she finished her dessert. I can’t be angry, though, seeing as I’ve fallen asleep during roughly 95% of all movies we’ve ever sat down to watch together.

We’ve made a pledge to have these late night date nights in at least once a month from now on. Next month we’re going a little more casual with a giant antipasto tray. No need to track down babysitters, no need for a designated driver, and complete control over the menu makes for a great way to spend time with the one you love.

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Tuesday Morning Poll: Meat

Last week I finally made it down to the new Pittsburgh Public Market. Quite a nice little set up they’ve got down there. Still a looooooong way to go to get something that beats Cleveland’s spectacularly awesome West Side Market, mind you, but the groundwork is set with some really excellent vendors at the PPM.

They’ve got beer and wine, high-end cured meats and down-home BBQ, and all manner of hand-crafted items. Some of the region’s premier farms show up on weekends (Goose Creek and Pucker Brush, to name two), and there’s a guy selling produce and cheese who has the most definitive Amish beard I’ve ever seen. Sustenance, with a prime location just as you enter the front door, makes fantastic baked goods, many using products from other vendors at the market. We tried the hefty fig bar (a grown-up’s Fig Newton) and butternut squash bread (made with squash from Clarion River Organics).

Ah, Clarion River Organics. My new favorite local farm…or rather farm cooperative. Their corner booth not far from the front entrance holds all varieties of fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy products, making Clarion River Organics a one-stop-shop for everything you might need from a farmer.

Like goat.

I’ve never had goat. Some of my Greek friends tell me it’s just like lamb, only tastier. So when I saw goat on the meat board at Clarion River’s booth I had to give it a go. Mrs. B was given the choice: ground goat for goat burgers or goat stew meat for, well, goat stew. She chose the latter so now I’ve got a pound of locally raised goat stew meat in the freezer. The day got extra goat-y when the kind man from Clarion River threw in a sample bottle of goat’s milk yogurt for me to try. Goat-ilicious.

So this brings me to this week’s poll question:

The cow gives us many great things: short ribs, T-bone steaks, and brisket are all glorious. Chicken’s simple pleasures–roasted or fried–make it a quite acceptable response (though I prefer their poultry cousins, turkeys, for their superior flavor). The pig’s utility on the plate is unmatched, as demonstrated by Homer Simpson:

Homer: Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute.  Lisa honey, are you saying you’re *never* going to eat any animal again?  What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad!  Those all come from the same animal!
Homer: Yeah, right Lisa.  A wonderful, magical animal.

Yes, the wonderful, magical pig is most definitely a front-runner for me in this poll. My love of all things porcine is well documented. But I have to go with the lamb. Nothing beats a grilled lamb chop. Except maybe Greek-style roasted leg of lamb. Or lamb burgers, lamb stew, lamb shish kebab.

Lamb can do no wrong.

Please leave a comment explaining your selection, or let me know what the most unusual alternative meat you’ve ever sampled was. And if you have a goat stew recipe, I’d welcome that as well.

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Count ’em yourself!

There’s a great exchange in one of the great movies of the 1980s that goes like this:

Pete: Is grits! Grits! Hominy grits!
Rizzo the Rat: How should I know how many? Count ’em yourself.

This, of course, is from the third best Muppet movie, The Muppets Take Manhattan (but you knew that, right?). I love the Muppets, but I typically can’t stand second generation Muppets like Rizzo despite this amazingly funny line. Anyone who doesn’t appear in the opening credits to the original Muppet Show is suspect. Let’s take Skeeter, for example. She shows up as Scooter’s twin sister in Muppet Babies and then…? Did she go to an early grave with Granny? Did she find the Lord and swear off show business?

OK, where was I going with this? (Mrs. Burghertime thought tonight was a good night for Ina Garten’s margaritas…please pardon my digressions.)

Hominy. That comes from the Powhatan word for “maize.” Did you know that in 4th grade I played the part of Chief Powhatan–the role with the most speaking lines, mind you–in Stephen C. Foster Elementary’s epic production of Pocahontas? Yeah, I’m the thespian in the family (sorry Aunt Kristen). OK, no more digressions.

Itching for something new to make for dinner, I found a recipe in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian for a baked hominy dish. We’ve toyed around with hominy in the past but sadly haven’t incorporated it into our weekly rotation. Because, really, who doesn’t want lye-soaked corn every single week? I certainly do, and you should, too. It’s amazingly tasty, slightly corny stuff. You know the greatness that is hull-less popcorn? Think that, only not so overly processed.

I shan’t bore you with the whole recipe (if you want it, please comment and I’ll pass it along; or you can pick up Bittman’s most excellent book and thank me later), but in short what ended up on our table was something not far removed from a perfectly al dente mac & cheese with sweet sautéed banana peppers mixed in and melting slices of tomatoes on top.

That’s not a very flattering picture, I know. But Mrs. B. devoured her serving…and then another…lickety-split. And I scraped the baking dish clean. The kids enjoyed the hominy straight from the can and the raw banana peppers more than they enjoyed the finished version of the dish. Overall, though, it was quite well received by the whole clan.

Gilding the lily was dessert: Paula Dean’s buttermilk pie with fresh whipped cream (buttermilk and heavy cream from local dairy, The SpringHouse) and I guess you’d call them macerated strawberries (from here).

Yeah, a good food night at the Burghertime residence.

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Do I dare to eat a peach?

Yes, I do.

I measure out my life not with coffee spoons, but rather in produce. Peaches surprise us with summer and are only worth eating in-season from local farms. Today, with temps hitting the mid-90s (way too hot to be wearing white flannel trousers), is certifiably that time of year and peaches are falling from trees. Let us go then, you and I, to the farmers market. For indeed there will be time, there will be time to enjoy these juicy gems for at least a month or two till fall’s voice wakes us and we drown.

Huh?

Free dinner at a sawdust restaurant with oyster shells for anyone who has any idea what I’m talking about.

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Apologies

I really should have mentioned two weeks ago that cherry season is A) happening right now, B) very short, and C) pretty elusive here in the Pittsburgh area with only a handful of local farms growing cherries. Now it’s just about over. For future reference, cherry season–all stone fruit season, really–mean’s Frank. That’s Frank from Paul’s Orchard, the friendliest orchardist you’ll ever meet. You don’t see him much until cherries and apricots ripen, but from mid-June through the tail-end of market season he shows up at various markets with an incredible array of fruit from trees: plums, then peaches and nectarines, then apples and pears.

Frank’s cherries are what shine brightest. Red or white, you can’t go wrong. Last night we sat on the front porch while it was still 80+ degrees at 7:30 and cooled down with cold cherries. We also disappeared some plums and a pluot (the liger of the fruit world, a pluot is a cross between a plum and an apricot) because Frank is a master of marketing and knows that his fruit speaks for itself: if you buy cherries, he’ll often throw a couple samples of other fruits in the bag with your purchase. It’s good to get to know Frank well. He’ll hook you up.

There’s a chance you can still grab a pint or two of cherries this week (if you get to Mt. Lebanon’s Wednesday market before I get there and buy whatever is left). After that, though, they’ll probably be gone. I’ll try to remember to mention the start of the season next year so you too can have cherry-red lips:

And be this happy:

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Spatchcock! (and Lesbos Lemonade!)

I spatchcocked last night. Relatively unsuccessfully, actually. The upfront spatching of the cock went quite well, but it took quite a bit longer to heat it up than I’d imagined it would. Mrs. Burghertime seemed pleased with the results, though, so I guess I did something right. 

I’m talking chickens, people. Banish your dirty thoughts. Spatchcock is just a fancy way of saying “cut the backbone out of a whole chicken, then flatten it out.” You could say “butterfly a chicken,” but how much fun is that? None. “Spatchcock” is a guaranteed laugh line at BBQs. Try it. 

Here’s a picture of a cooked, spatchcocked chicken so you know what it looks like. With its little wings all tucked in towards the chest, this guy calls to mind Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. 

"Excellent!" (though the torn skin shows my heavy hand with a pair of tongs)

Spatchcocking is supposed to save time cooking a whole bird, as more of the chicken is exposed to heat at any one time. However, in practice it still took way too long to cook. Chicken always gives me problems, spatchcocked or not. That 4-pounder took well over an hour, much of it over direct heat on the grill. That’s just silly and it’s probably the last go-round for chicken on the grill this summer for me unless we’re talking grilled wings. I’m full-speed ahead on those. 

Now that I’ve had my fun with words, let’s get to the most fun part of the meal: the baby fennel we picked up at the Mt. Lebanon Farmer’s Market from Goose Creek Gardens. We’ve known Margie, Mark, and Katie from Goose Creek ever since we started frequenting markets many moons ago. They are wonderful people and they grow incredible produce. By far the best selection of fresh herbs in the region–their market tables groan under an amazing array of mints and basils and thymes and countless other ultra-fresh flavor enhancers. Want some Goose Creek of your own? I know for certain they are at Lebo on Wednesday nights and Farmers@Firehouse in the Strip on Saturdays. Can’t miss them there; reflecting their reputation as one of Western Pennsylvania’s premier farms, they occupy a place of esteem at the left-hand corner entrance to the market. 

When I bought the baby fennel (pictured here on Goose Creek’s Facebook page…become a fan after clicking the link), I figured I’d just grill the bulbs and toss out the rest. As I was trimming it down, though, I had a couple ideas. 

1. The chicken was marinated in garlic scapes and lemon…lemon and fennel go together great…I’ll use the fronds for basting the chicken. The basting liquid–water and ouzo–didn’t add much to the flavor of the dish, and the finished product carried little to no anise-y kick from the ouzo or the fennel fronds; the basting did, however, keep the meat succulent. If nothing else, it was a fun way to use the feathery fronds before tossing them out. 

 

2. I’d made a mint/lime basil simple syrup on Sunday and was planning on using that to sweeten up fresh-squeezed lemonade to go with dinner. The grown-ups’ topped off with some vodka or cachaça (Brazilian rum), of course. But those stalks from the fennel looked to me like swizzle sticks and I had the anise-flavored ouzo out for basting…let’s call this a Lesbos Lemonade (Lesbos is the traditional center for ouzo production in Greece). 

 

Lemon juice, mint/lime basil simple syrup, water, and ouzo with a long stalk of fennel for stirring (and garnish). Seriously refreshing and delicious. 

And since this is what I’d bought it for, here are a couple grilled fennel bulbs next to some finally-done chicken. Great flavor, though a little tough to navigate. We ended up eating these like you’d eat an artichoke: pull the stalks off by the tough top edge, then gnaw off the tasty and more tender bottoms. 

 

My lesson learned: think before you throw stuff out. That chicken backbone you cut out during your own spatchcocking adventure? Freeze it for stock. Even if you don’t have anything to baste with fennel fronds, shower some of them over whatever you’ve just cooked to add a little extra flavor. I could go on…for instance, those greens on top of the beets or radishes you got at the farmers market? Don’t toss them out…chop ’em and saute ’em with some garlic for a side dish. 

(The beets themselves you can throw away. Yuck.)

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Strawberry Fields Forever

Took a super-early lunch hour today to run up to Soergel’s in Wexford for a quick strawberry picking session. It’s the very tail end of the U-Pick strawberry season, which we missed entirely at our go-to fruit picking farm, Simmons. Soergel’s appears to be the only place around with U-Pick strawberries still available, but if you blink you’ll probably miss it. Very few quality berries left on the plants.

Not to worry: blueberries and raspberries are in the pipeline and will be ready to pick at various farms in the region in the next week or two. Great summer family activity and an excellent way for kids to see where their food comes from.

Luke was more interested in strutting around the strawberry field looking cool than he was in picking berries.

Our haul: just under 5 pounds of some of the best berries of this generally disappointing strawberry season. That doesn’t count the handful (or two) of berries each kid snuck while picking.

"One for me, one for the box..."

Evidence of strawberry theft in the field...

(For those who care about these things, the best berries we found this year were from Dawson’s Orchards, one of the “anchor” farms at the Original Farmers Market on Rt. 50 in Bridgeville. Their excellent nectarines and peaches will show up in a month or so.)

Where will these end up? A goodly number will be eaten out of hand in the next two or three days. Half will be frozen for use in smoothies or muffins. A couple bunch will be cooked down with rhubarb–assuming we didn’t overshoot that season as well–for pancake and ice cream topping.

We snagged a dozen free-range organic eggs on clearance for $1.49 at Soergel’s new natural foods store (a haven for all foods natural and gluten/allergen free) and walked out with our first pint of local blueberries of the season.

A word of warning for those going to Soergel’s…it could turn into an all-day affair. Between the U-Pick, kids play area, natural food store, farm market, and greenhouse, there’s enough to keep you and any little ones you might have along busy for a couple hours. It’s my new favorite farm market.

Do you have a favorite U-Pick farm? Let me know where in the comments.

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