the apple report

yesterday was national apple day, which means we are now well into british apple season. there were many varieties at the marylebone farmers market, all glistening in the persistent and irritatingly chilly rain. and later, when i ducked into la fromagerie, i discovered box upon box of antique apples from brogdale, home of the national fruit collection. i may have bought too many apples.

the bramleys that no one here buys as an eating apple are firm and crunchy, very very tart—i like the slightly floral aroma of the rose-flushed ones that have been exposed to a lot of sun. very fresh, they are infinitely superior to granny smith. there was also a single box of blenheim orange, an old variety with a spectacularly rich, spicy, winey, high-acid flavour and crunchy-crisp bright white flesh. there is also more flavour variation through each individual fruit than i've noticed in any other apple. the crown gold is a type of jonagold (itself a cross of golden delicious and jonathan) on which the internet is mostly silent—the flavour is mild with moderate acidity but with a refreshing tinge of tannin not often found in the sweeter table apples and the texture is brilliant, lightly crisp and snappy. the grower claims that this is an apple with a long harvest period and which keeps well. one can hope but only time will tell. and i can report favourably about the flavour and texture of the new hybrid crimson crisp apple developed at purdue. not only is it a lurid and saturated crimson as advertised, its crispness is robust (unlike the friable crispness of a fuji or the noncommittal crispness of a red delicious) and the flavour intense and deep.

often what is called progress turns out to be merely a movement in some odd and ultimately fruitless direction; sometimes, it is an apple.

le coffee report parisien

when coffee comes to paris it comes not single spies but in battalions.

last time i was here, more than five years ago, good coffee could not be found and no one knew what a micro-roaster was. today, it is a new coffee landscape. last week's was a short work visit focusing on the unusual innovation landscape of parisian fine dining (closest city sibling: tokyo), permitting only a limited coffee reconnoitre guided by emperor norton and their unnervingly pubescent dog, fergus. so: two coffee shops that serve good—in fact, excellent—coffee in carefully considered spaces.

in the 1st, télescope has many of the mechanical trappings of the very serious coffeeshop, including the fancy new mahlkönig ek43 grinder (which no one seems to really have figured out yet) and a marco über boiler. they make a finely balanced café creme (= capp; espresso from has bean in london) and their small but light, high-ceilinged space is a good place in which to drink it.

in the 3rd, the broken arm is a select shop with the predictable selection (limited edition nike frees, raf simons, expensive and laboriously designed periodicals). it is attached to a plywood-paneled coffee shop that could be in stockholm and, in fact, the coffee is from solberg & hansen in oslo.

the beans come from Far, Far Away because paris roasting infrastructure is still emerging. i was to visit two roaster-cafés the day i left town—belleville and lomi—but was unavoidably delayed by the extensive calvados collection at caves augé, including a green calvados on which the internet is mute. stay tuned for next time.

drinking high and low

the beck's you already know about for its quenching quality and sweet malty lageriness. the 2004 vintage of martin müllen's krover letterlay spätlese riesling is what's currently available on the UK* retail market and is considerably less expensive than numerous rieslings that are significantly less delightful. it is thoroughly mosel in the nose—delicately ripe peaches—round and substantial, yet light in the mouth and with apparent (but i think almost no actual) sweetness. when unpacking, it is critical to remain thoroughly hydrated in order to not become disoriented among the mountains of newsprint.

* i've moved to london, fyi. and the müllen wines are only available in london through david motion's quite fine wine store, the winery, located conveniently close by.

the scabbard is worth ten of the sword

the food at marianne—almost, but not quite, the smallest fine-dining restaurant i have ever seen—is what you eat every day if you are the clean plate ranger scion of an old british family for whom Upholding The Standards is of Paramount Importance, Crassness is to be avoided At All Costs, and Money is No Object. being of peasant stock, my favourite things were the potatoes: 1) a slab of fondant potato, edges precisely chamfered, browned in butter, then   s l o w l y  cooked in chicken stock, and 2) a velvety stiff purée of maris pipers liberally emulsified with brown butter. above, you see a porcelain plate containing some veal reduction, a sorrel leaf and stem, and no potatoes whatsoever.

an excellent establishment to which i intend to return when someone else is picking up the check.

the heel of the boot

waiting at the bar, i hazarded a glass of this, a inky red made from grape varieties i have despised in the past, from the very southern tip of italy: salento in puglia. the 2008 "calassu" from cascina leuzzi is concentrated and intense, all freshly washed dark red cherries and dark blue plums with dry and chewy tannins, yet clean, fresh, light on its feet—a marvelous balance and a joyous wine. a natural wine for the natural wine haters.

sticking a toe into the pool of tradition

the last of a half-case bought after three markdowns. lots of variation among the bottles, with some clearly damaged by heat. but this was quite nice. beautifully integrated wood, white flowers and white flower honey, a little creamy—but nothing a chill can't fix. and then, a bit warmer, rich enough for pumpkin puttanesca.

how it's done

diana kennedy, who knows a lot about mexican regional and vernacular cooking, shows us how it's done.

to make chapulines, which everyone keeps a bag of in the freezer, all you need is a dry pan. salt the pan lightly, toast the grasshoppers until lightly browned to achieve a chitinous crunch and to kill off those pesky nematodes you don't want in you. then add lemon juice off the heat. liberally dispense thoughts about the authenticity of most so-called mexican foods (low) and the future of indigenous mexican edibles (dire). separately, have your cadre of starstruck minions begin to make the sauce. to do this, they will de-seed dried chiles into a bus tub, reserving the seeds for maximum flavour. pan-toast the chile seeds and chile flesh separately, then crush together into a paste with salt, raw garlic, and water. it helps to have a michelin-starred chef from ireland with a sense of humour operate the pestle.

the chapulines would have been great in a soft corn tortilla with finely diced onion and cilantro but copenhagen, for all its virtues, is not a taco town.

bror

sam and vic left noma and nearly instantly (by restaurant standards) opened their own place. it is not a hushed temple of gastronomy, nor does it stake its identity on precious ingredients. instead, some of the techniques of the new nordic kitchen, lusty cooking, a healthy sense of humour, lots of organs and what would, in a less thoughtful kitchen, be trash. expect an eyeball or two. in both food and service, bror shows where it came from and how it is different.

calm before the storm

here we are again, at refshaleøen for MAD3. the tent is up and there is a log full of young corn. now let's hope it doesn't rain.

the scallop reveal

chopsticks peel back a flap of raw scallop to expose an avocado cube, scallop roe, a shaving of not-overripe mango, and a drop of pique—a class of fruit and chili vinegars from puerto rico: new style, new world crudo with the finesse of old-school sashimi, from saison. before, a little bowl of egg custard, topped with gently cooked turnip slices and a tiny ball of wrung-out shungiku. and after, a barely warmed piece of lamb dry-aged for 60 days, lying on a pile of minted grilled eggplant and salt-cured lemon filled with the mediterranean scent of fire, scrub, and preservation.

go for the first courses, the fish, the furniture, and the extensive collection of exquisite glass and ceramic servingware. note: for those who have not yet exited their startups, the wine list may prove hard to swallow.

一期一会

bread to use up the remnants of many small tubs of assorted flours, a bag of frozen walnut pieces, and a bundle of scallion tops—and not incidentally my last loaf, for now, as a resident of cambridge, mass. of course, this irreproducible, haphazard bread achieved the texture i plan and hope for but always, until now, have fallen far short of.

the yellow peril

one of new york city's extensive network of chinese tortillerias. the observant eye will detect a distinct visual similarity to your regular chinese restaurant takeout menu.

the land of legendary fruit

san francisco was wreathed in fog this morning but the sun broke through in walnut creek and it was in the high 80s with clear skies by the time we got to brentwood. thanks to friends in high places, we had the deluxe edition tour of frog hollow farm, a 140-acre tree fruit paradise containing, among other things, mind-altering apricots and a dazzling array of peach, plum, and pluot varieties that i have not yet tasted. i love fruit, and i especially love tree fruit: orchards are about the only form of agriculture that comes close to being genuinely sustainable.

alfred and sarah, co-owners, showed us around the farm. we saw: the new and fancy 10,000 case/day packing line which bruises their fruit because frog hollow picks riper than most growers do. the fragrant cold room, stacked high with cases of ripe fruit. the farm dog, which is an attention-seeking black labrador-esque animal with a cold nose. rows of alluring but unripe peaches, pears, plums, pluots, apples. a team of pickers on their third pass through a row of zee lady peaches (red-skinned but yellow-fleshed, with a rich flavour and good acid). moth pheromone emitters that interfere with moth sex and thus prevent moth larvae (good for the fruit, not so good for the moths). their full-time and seasonal staff, many of which have been with them for decades ("they're the best around: PhDs in picking and packing, every one of them"). many rows of superior-grade house-made organic compost, heavy on horse manure, chipped up old trees, and overripe peaches (managed by a consulting compost expert, turned over by a special compost-turning machine, and moistened by an 1100-gallon water tank on wheels). many fruit culled for not complying with arcane and pointless-seeming appearance guidelines—such as the peach in the picture third from the top, which suffers from "excessive cleavage." gopher holes (they like to chew on the roots of apricot and cherry, but not those of peach; a staff hunter prowls the property picking the varmints off with a shotgun). the aromatic bee gardens designed to attract the native terrestrial bees which nest underground. the neighbour's automated canning tomato harvesting machine in the adjacent field (it sucks up whole tomato plants and pours out the side a cascade of thick-skinned tomatoes at the rate of 150 tons/hour, many still green and underripe). a pickup truck destined for the farmer's market, bed completely filled with cases of ripe peaches and pluots gradually warming in the midday sun.

like a fool, i forgot—until it was far too late—to buy a case of peaches at the farm.

harvest of the cold months*

a heat wave grips the northeast in its sweaty palm. pastis (lots of ice) is one way to show the heat who's boss. strawberry mascarpone and pistachio ice cream is another: pale pink and vegetal green are the colours of summer. from toscanini's, of course.

*

piki bread

piki bread is a hopi ceremonial wafer made from a fine batter of nixtamalized blue cornmeal and cooked on a lightly oiled sandstone griddle. there is much to explore in the process. for one thing, the wafers, despite being both lean and ultrathin, are flexible enough to be folded and rolled into various shapes. for another, the nixtamalization is done on fine-ground cornmeal instead of whole kernels. this video of the process is instructive.