Pear-Caramel Ice Cream

It’s getting to be like the Iron Chef around here. ‘Cause you know, I’m constantly rushing around making six plates of bourgeois food with the help of my sous chef in under an hour. Yeah. What I am doing Iron Chef-like is throwing the secret ingredient into ice cream. Give me an ingredient, and I immediately think ice cream. Thankfully no one’s challenged me with eel or chicken feet.

My friend gave me the smallest, cutest, sweetest, most perfectly ripe pears from her pear trees, along with a jar of home made pear jam. I shamelessly tore into that jam, eating a quarter of the jar in two days. While doing so, I thought, “This jam would make a great ice cream topping…for pear ice cream.” I had to act fast. Those pears were about to melt and the jam was about to disappear.

I changed the original ice cream recipe to make it lower in fat; I substituted half of the heavy cream with half and half. The resulting ice cream is creamy, but not deadly. The best part about pear ice cream is the gritty texture. That is, if you like pear grit.

Pear-Caramel Ice Cream
Makes 1 quart
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Levovitz

3 medium ripe pears, peeled, cored, and diced into ¼ inch pieces
¾ cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1cup half and half
⅛ teaspoon coarse salt
a few drops of lemon juice

• Spread sugar in a large, nonreactive, heavy-bottomed pan. Cook the sugar over medium heat. Gently stir with a heat-proof spatula when the sugar begins to liquefy and darken at the edges.
  
• When the sugar is melted and turns deep amber, stir in the pear pieces. The caramel will seize and harden, but will melt. (This freaked me out and I thought it would never melt, but it did.) Cook the pears for 10 minutes.
• Remove from heat and stir in cream, half and half, salt, and lemon juice.
• Let cool to room temperature, then puree in a blender.
• Chill, then freeze in your ice cream maker.
  

Urban Gardening - Early August

The dog days of summer are upon us, and the vegetables are relishing the heat. Unfortunately, there's a bit of a drought going on, so watering every day is imperative.The tomatoes and cucumbers have grown to the top of the fence and are taking up real estate in the neighbor's back yard.
Mr. Stripey Tomoto, Juliet tomatoes, cucumber, and jalepeno pepper.

The garden plot has turned into a cucumber factory; we've got more cucumbers from one plant than we know what to do with. We just started harvesting tomatoes in the last week or so. We waited patiently for the first large tomato, but we were not the only ones with greedy eyes on the tomatoes...And to think, I fed you bagels when it was snowing outside. Good ones from South St. Philly Bagels, too!

We'd come home to find every large, juicy tomato we were waiting on to ripen half eaten and left in ruins on the ground. Squirrels! (Said how Seinfeld exclaims, "Newman!") There are double doors leading from the kitchen to the back patio, which we leave open to catch what little breeze there is. One morning, I came down the stairs and caught one of those ballsy little effers on the kitchen counter eating a banana. He actually peeled the banana, and dug right in; that's how intrepid these South Philly squirrels are!Only hire trained professionals.

That was it! We had to go on the defensive. I brought in the vermin control squad to install bird netting over the garden.Jailed tomatoes.

Thai Hot Peppers, and Chard.

Veggies currently kickin' in the garden: tomatoes, cucumbers, hot peppers, chard, eggplants, leeks, and carrots.

Still waiting on: Sweet peppers (the plant is four feet tall, but aborting all the fruit; could be heat and stress), okra (late start), and squash (late start).

Second crop: Do we want to bother with a fall crop? If so, we need to start acting soon.

Urban Gardening - Early March
Urban Gardening - Early April
Urban Gardening - Mid-April
Urban Gardening -Early May
Urban Gardening - Late May
Urban Gardening - Late June
Urban Gardening - Early July

Silk City Diner

Searching for Sunday brunch someplace new, we ended up at the newly revamped and reopened Silk City Diner on the edge of Northern Liberties. This decision was not influenced by the recent visit to Silk City by Food Network's bleached-blonde Guy, the winner of a previous The Next Food Network Star, to film for his series highlighting diners, but this visit was by default – the place we wanted to try was closed for vacation. Whaa? The whole staff of a restaurant is not allowed to go on vacation. You do it one at a time, so things keep rolling. Anyway...

I had never been to Silk City, a bar with connecting diner, before it changed hands and reopened this year for either dining or for late night binge drinking and dancing, so I can’t say if the "new" Silk City is better or worse than the "old" Silk City. I suspect in six months, if not already, people lamenting the death of "old" Silk City will have dried their tears.

The front door to Silk City leads into a mosaiked and glassed foyer where one must decide to take the door to the lounge, the bar, or the diner. Too old and wise to even think about drinking at 11 a.m., we chose the door to the diner. Our ten minute wait was extremely reasonable, considering waits at other brunch hot spots (hello, Morning Glory and Sabrina’s). While waiting in the foyer we enjoyed eau de bar, otherwise knows as piss, vomit, and the soap used to wash it away. No worries, once you step up into the diner, the smell dissipates.

I must admit, having a diner connected directly to a club is absolutely genius. When I find myself famished from a night out, I can stumble up the stairs, nosh, still keep my alcohol level at party with the stocked bar in the diner, and then fall back down into the lounge for more dancing. It’s one stop shopping, really.

The long metal dining car is filled with racing-stripe leather booths lining the front and side walls, and a long, blue-tiled counter with a red Formica top and swivel stools against the back wall. The bar in the diner is stocked with beer and alcohol at the ready with your Lager or Mimosa.

The brunch menu has your standard breakfast and light lunch offerings such as pancakes, eggs, and burgers, but is taken up a notch, as most restaurants in Philly, and any where, are required to do to stay in the game. I saw some interesting things on the menu that I would have liked to try, like the French toast stuffed with scrapple and topped with an egg, if only there had been some way to turn that scrapple into tempeh. I did not see one mention of tofu or tempeh anywhere, as an add-on or in an already existing dish. My suggestion would be to keep a block of tempeh in the fridge (it keeps forever), list it as a side, and vegetarians will be able to eat 80 percent of the menu with this one simple substitution. (We always feel slighted when paying for that omitted meat.)

I decided to get the heuvos rancheros – no omissions required. The dish came out with eggs, beans, salsa, and cheese on top of two blue and red fried tortillas with lettuce, sour cream, and canned (?) jalapeños on the side. I requested the eggs scrambled, since I hate runny yolks, and scrambled and dry they were – to the point of rubberiness! There was nothing spectacular about these huevos rancheros, but nothing wretched either.

My partner ordered the corn waffles topped with salmon, eggs, spinach, and hollandaise sauce. I was interested in this dish, but skipped since I did not see a viable soy substitution on the menu, but I should have just sucked it up and omitted the salmon, because... this dish is the shit! (I know this because I took a bite off the edge without salmon.) The corn waffle is essentially corn bread batter cooked in a waffle iron, and fits the bill perfectly for when the devil sitting on your right shoulder tells you to get a sweet waffle, but the angel on your left shoulder tells you should eat something more substantial. My partner also requested his eggs scrambled, but, unlike me, he received eggs cooked perfectly. The mildly sweet cornbread, protein-rich eggs and salmon, and the fat-laden hollandaise sauce cover all your morning cravings. Oh, yeah, there's some home fries on the plate, too.

Silk City’s food scorecard – one great dish and one so-so dish – is even, but they pulled ahead with speedy and friendly service. In all fairness, I might need to give Silk City's food another try – perhaps for dinner or a late night snack after an apertif in the conjoining lounge.

Silk City Diner, 435 Spring Garden St., Philadelphia, PA 19123 215-592-8838
4 p.m.-2 a.m. (food from 5 p.m.-1 a.m.)
Sunday Brunch, 10 a.m-3:30 p.m.

What's For Dinner?

I don’t know about y’all, but this is what dinner has been looking like around here. With all of the fresh, local produce from weekend trips to Headhouse Farmers Market, the yields coming out of our own little urban plot, and baskets of fruit and vegetables from friends with gardens, I’m working overtime just to eat all the fresh food, but I’m not complaining one bit.

I’m not doing anything fancy with the bounty, because it’s all so fresh and tastes so good. I wouldn’t dare think of covering up the flavors with sauces and such; that’s what you do in the winter with grocery store produce. Minimal cooking (if even; it's too hot), and minimal seasoning (salt, pepper, and vinegar) is all I do to prepare the veggies for dinner.

I’m currently trying to eat my way through cabbage (I eat it like candy), corn (try it raw if it’s truly fresh), tomatoes (the king of fresh summer veggies), okra (slime is fun), beets (it does funny things to your poo), cucumbers (slice, add vinegar, and refrigerate), and yellow squash (ok, this one I like to make into a cheesy baked casserole).

Foodies In My Family

Bear with me on this post – it’s a whole bunch of personal information as an excuse to run a photo of a very famous food guy. (Go ahead. Scroll to the bottom. I’ll wait.)

While I profess to be opinionated about food, I would never declare myself an expert on food. I don’t know everything there is to know about food, but I do know what I like, and have been exposed to some mighty good food since I’ve set foot on this earth. I have my family to thank for that. They’re all foodies, in a sense.

My mother’s parents were farmers – not the kind that grows a thousand acres of corn as a commercial commodity, but they were farmers in the more traditional sense. They grew a plot of tomatoes, a plot of corn, a plot of butter beans, and a plot of cucumbers destined for the local farmer’s market and the local folk's bellies.

My mother is an excellent cook. We ate a home-cooked meal every night, and school lunches came in brown paper bags packed with love by mom. When I was younger, the only time I set foot in a fast food restaurant was on school field trips when the bus pulled in to McDonalds – how pathetic of the schools. Of course, I’m not that sheltered; I was later acquainted with fast food restaurants in high school when I started getting out on my own.

My mom taught me how to cook by letting me stick to her side and help her in the kitchen; I was the pot stirrer, the cheese grater, the bean sheller, and, of course, the brownie bowl licker. Thank you so much, mom, for feeding me wholesome, delicious love cooked up every night.Granddaddy chefs it up while I keep his chair warm

My father’s parents were city folk. My granddad was the chef while he was in the Coast Guard; they asked who could make biscuits and gravy, and he raised his hand. Later, he sold restaurant equipment and designed commercial kitchens. I remember sitting at his drafting table, unrolling blueprints of the interior of restaurants and gazing at all the circles and squares.

Granddaddy was also famous for his catfish stew and hushpuppies, which were not only requested at home, but at large events where he would lord over the stew in a huge, cast iron cauldron set over a flame. My granddad taught me to skin a catfish (this requires nailing the fish to a tree and pulling the skin off with pliers) and pull molasses candy (Granddaddy had a fierce sweet tooth).

My sister has worked in the gourmet food industry since she was sixteen. She started at a retail gourmet food and wine store, and over the years has been a personal chef and a pastry chef. She even made the cover of the Chicago paper many years ago with a soup inspired by my Granddad, and has dined with the likes of John T. Edge. She currently is a wine and cheese buyer for a Southeastern competitor of Whole Foods . She’s has lived and breathed food since she was a teenager, and when she has her game on is quite the little food snob.

My brother has worked in the food industry most of his life, too, but as a server in restaurants. Don’t take serving lightly. Many are truly professionals in this field, and he was one of them. Unfortunately, you won’t be served by him any more. A life changing event led him to pick up and pursue his dream of sailing. Godspeed.

My dad is, the only way to put it, a wine and food connoisseur. We might have been the only family in our neighborhood that had a wine cellar back in the 1970’s. We might have also been the only family with a dad that kept the “good” chocolate locked in a safe (shit you not), so that the kids didn’t eat it all.

My dad is very opinionated, and it must have been from him that I learned to critique food. To everyone’s embarrassment at the table, he never hesitates to send food back at a restaurant and loudly voice what is wrong with the food and how it should properly be prepared.

My dad also has some weird talent or personality trait that I was not born with which enables him to envision, organize, and create festivals – I’m talking large festivals that thousands of people attend. This has been going on since I was a child, and embarrassingly leads to pictures of your dad in papers. He currently is the founder and president of the South Carolina Barbeque Association, a very serious association that does not take barbeque (ussage: noun, specifically pork; and transitive verb, "barbecued") lightly, and sentences like, “I have discussed going to all butts as opposed to whole hog and butt” are not a joke. Of course , he created a barbeque festival, and disseminates his trained troops to smaller festivals throughout the state. Anthony Bourdain, his camera person, and my Dad.

So, this all leads to the picture of Anthony Bourdain and my Father. The fourth season of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations begins July 30th, and my dad was filmed for a segment on the South Carolina episode coming up this fall. Being the go-to barbeque guy in South Carolina, my dad hooked Tony up with some real barbeque and schooled him on the way it’s done. My dad had a blast that day, and said Tony was down to earth, polite, funny, and an all and all nice guy – contrary to what you might imagine him like from his sarcastic side seen on TV and in his books. And, yes, he does smoke that much.
God knows what potentially embarrassing thing my Dad just said?

I can’t wait to see what snarky comments Tony edits in if my Dad makes it into the final cut. You guys will have to tell me about it (tape it), since the Travel Channel is not one of the one hundred cable channels I pay obscene amounts of money for.

So, that’s my family, and why I am the way I am. Sue them, not me.

Roasted Grapes

Well, I’ve got more grapes hanging around here after the harvest last week. Besides make grape pie, I wanted to roast grapes – all new things to me. I saw an article in a newsletter that mentioned roasted grapes as an accompaniment for cheese – just toss grapes with vinegar and roast for fifteen minutes. I can do that.

Of course, I took it a bit further. I had six types of vinegar in my pantry: rice vinegar, ginger infused rice vinegar, cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, white balsamic vinegar, and strawberry infused balsamic vinegar. (Some cooks take hits from extract bottles, I take hits from vinegar bottles; I like vinegar so much.) It turns out that it really doesn’t matter what vinegar you use; the differences are subtle. Just use what ever vinegar you have.

After fifteen minutes of roasting in the oven, the grapes soften, release juices, and caramelize a bit. The homegrown grapes I was using were very tart, so these roasted homegrown grapes mixed with vinegar were too tangy for most people to handle.

This ain’t gonna work! I reached in the fridge and pulled out the store bought green grapes I bought before the grape harvest came in. (Yep, it’s grapey over at my house.) I tried it all over again with store bought green grapes. Much better. These grapes ended up being sweet and only slightly tangy from the vinegar. These guys can go on a cheese plate without arresting your taste buds.

Roasted Grapes

1 bunch of grapes
a few tablespoons vinegar (your choice)

• Wash and dry grapes.
• Toss grapes with vinegar in a bowl.
• Place grapes in an ovenproof dish or on a baking sheet, and cook in a preheated 450°oven for 15 minutes.

Green Grape Pie

Growing good-looking grapes is not easy. As with most fruit crops, grapes need loads of chemicals sprayed on their foliage and fruit throughout the growing season in order to get anything you would even consider sticking in your mouth. (That’s why grapes are high on the list of foods with residual pesticide.) Organic or non-organic pesticide (go argue amongst yourselves), thin-skinned table grapes need pesticide if you want to be rewarded by fruit.

Efforts have paid off, and we managed to salvage about fifty percent of the fruit growing from two Lakemont grape vines growing on a pergola with a minimal, but regimented, spray program. Previous years had very low percentages (lucky to get a handful), so I was quite pleased to take home a heavy plastic grocery sack of grapes. My partner took home a bag, too, as well as the not so pretty grapes, which were crushed to make grape juice.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my bounty of grapes – make grape pie! I know. WTF? I’ve never eaten grape pie, much less heard of it, until I saw it on some show somewhere (Food Network, god bless 'em) and thought, “Gotta try that sometime.” Well, the time has come. And gone. As has the pie. I ate it in two days. I’m quite efficient.

I would have to say that my favorite fruit pie is cherry, but after eating this grape pie, I questioned the ranking order of my fruit pies. Grapes are round and cook down like cherries, and, if you had blindfolded me, I might have guessed this pie was a tart cherry pie.

This grape pie was tart due to the fact that these homegrown grapes were tarter than store bought grapes, but these fresh grapes were not tart to the point of making your face squench up. I’m not sure what a pie made from store bought grapes would taste like, but I’m guessing good, as there are plenty of recipes out there for green or red grape pies.

This pie is not the prettiest thing I’ve made. Make grape pie and serve it to your family; buy some puff pastry and make grape tarts to serve to your friends. Your family already knows you’re a screw-up, but you’ve worked too hard making your friends believe you’re perfect, so make pretty little tarts to impress the friends. Give it a go. Try something new. Your disillusioned friends will think you’re a genius.

Green Grape Pie

2 pie crusts
7 cups green grapes
1 1/2 cups sugar (adjust according to sweetness of grapes)
zest from 1 lemon
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons butter

• Crush 3/4 cup of the green grapes in a saucepan.
• Add remaining grapes, sugar, lemon zest, salt, and cornstarch to the crushed grapes.
• Heat fruit on stove, stirring occasionally until the juice has thickened.
• Fill pie crust with fruit. If there is excess juice, use a slotted spoon to transfer the fruit, so the pie will not be a wet mess.
• Place pats of butter on top of pie.
  
• Top pie with the second crust, crimp pie edges, and cut slits in the top of the pie.
• Place pie on a foil-lined baking sheet to avoid cleaning headaches.
• Bake in a preheated 425° oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown.