steps

Living in New York has its sacrifices, namely indoor space and a backyard. Yes, I know, the world’s tiniest violin is playing for me right now…the horror, such noble sacrifice. But we do get a whole lot in return – including two of my favorite pastimes, food and art.

The Museum of Natural History and The MOMA are the museums we visit the most, but the Met is also great for kids. It’s across town from us, which is why we don’t visit as often. But when we do, we try to spend at least a few hours exploring. Here are a few pictures from our visit last month:

sphinx

statue

We always hit the Egyptian gallery first so that the kids have a chance to walk through ancient tombs. On the way out of the gallery, Sam thew me his best sourpuss face. There is nothing that strikes fear into the hearts of parents more than seeing sourpuss in the early stages of a museum visit. Thankfully he was making it because he wanted to hold the map, not because I was about to drag him through a collection of ancient artifacts. And at least the kids could both agree on one thing: our next stop would be the knights.

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knights

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beets_sautee_FeedMeDearly

I’ve been meaning to address the topic of beets for some time because, like ramps, there seem to be divided camps: those who love them, and those who would veer across three lanes of rush hour traffic to avoid them.

I would plant myself firmly in the beet lover camp, although I do admit that they’re an acquired taste. They have an earthy mustiness that takes some getting used to, but once you’re there, rejoice. Because not only do they taste great, but they’re also one of the healthiest foods on earth.

A few of their benefits:

  • They help clear out BPA that resides in everything from your water bottles to your canned vegetables
  • They lower your blood pressure
  • They’re rich in all kinds of vitamins and nutrients like vitamins B and C

I’m sure there are more, but the purpose of this post is to talk about this beet dish and why you need to make it now.

What some of you may not know is that the beet greens themselves are also edible. And I do hate it when vegetables/vegetable parts are described as “edible” since it suggests that you caaaan eat them, but why would you want to?

Beet greens aren’t just edible, but they have a flavor profile on par with Swiss chard, kale, and other leafy greens. The problem is that when you see beet greens in the grocery store, the greens have often seen a few too many days and ill handling, and they end up wilted and yellowing. Sometimes you may scratch your head and think “do moths eat beet greens?”

Those aren’t the delicious greens that I’m referring to. Head to your nearest farmers’ market to find just-picked beets and you’re in for a treat.

In celebration of all things beet, I decided to make a dish that uses all parts of the beet, nose to tail. So put on your beet butchering hat, and take a look at what I’m calling my Jerry Garcia beets.

Alternate titles for this post included “Hallucinogenic beets” and “Meaty nose-to-tail beets” but to keep the vegetarians and non-drug users reading, “Jerry Garcia beets” seemed to be a good compromise.

I also liked the sense that I was naming my dish after an actual person. When I’m reading through cookbooks, I’ll sometimes come across a dish titled after someone special in the author’s life, like “Rinka’s mom’s beans” or “Aunt Julia’s salad dressing”, which makes me think: who is this Rinka and why is he or she so lucky to have a mom who makes such fabulous beans? And why don’t I have a dish named after someone?

I did think of referencing one of my favorite culinary folk heroes, my Dad, famous for his raw flour and red wine Thanksgiving gravy, poured through the beak of a ceramic bird called “the puking chicken”.

But unfortunately – or fortunately – he has no connection to beets. Inspiration needed to come from somewhere else.

By happy accident the beets turned out this color:

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Your reaction here might be “eeeew” (particularly if you’re a beet hater) or “awesome”. So I may be speaking to the minority of people who will agree with me, but multicolored creamed beets were the highlight of my day. And this isn’t joke food. This ain’t no Janet Jackson nipple cupcake, nor is it a cookie dough ice cream-filled taco. It’s real deal food; food that I would happily serve to friends and family, whether they live in California and can handle this kind of thing, or New York, where they’d have mild, wavelike panic attacks about all of that color.

It started as a simple idea. I set out to cook some creamed beets & beet greens, using all parts of the beet, from the vibrant stems to the lush greens.

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favabeans

Fava beans are one of those vegetables that I have to order anytime I see them on a menu. Yes, I love their delicate flavor, but the main reason is that I know how much prep work is required. What vegetable has to be peeled…twice? Once to remove their outer shell, as you would do with an English pea. And then once again to remove them from their inner shell. The good news here is that the kids were willing to do all of the work. The bad news? They hated them. One of our worst failures to date.

ME: Ok guys, this one is called…

SAM: Fava beans

ME: Fava beans.  Ok.  Now, you cannot eat them like this (in the shell).  Why?

SAM: Because it’s still the shell.

ME: Yes, these have to be shelled twice.  Isn’t that interesting?  So you shell them — Emma don’t eat them like that because you’re about to eat it with the shell on.  That needs to be shelled so you need to take off the skin.  See, Lauren’s doing it the right way.  You want to pull it out of its shell.  Who wants to pull it out of its shell?  Sam’s working really hard on his fava bean. 

EMMA: Yucky.

SAM: She said yucky.

ME: Yeah.  If you’ve got a little piece of bean, you put it into this shelled bowl.  Don’t put the wrappers in the bowl, because we want to be able to eat these later.  Ok.  Who wants to smell the fava beans? 

SAM: I’m working really hard!

ME: You just got it out.  Good job, high five.

SAM: But I broke it.

ME: Yeah.  That’s all right.

ME: Ok.  So, who wants to try their fava bean first?

EMMA: I don’t want to try it Mommy.

ME: You what?  You don’t want to?  Well, let’s smell it first.  Smell it.  What does it smell like?

LAUREN: Ooops. 

SAM: [burps]

ME: Oh Sam, what do you say if you burp?

KIDS: [laughing]

SAM: Thank you.
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If you read my Mother’s Day post, you’ll know that plans for this weekend centered around the home. No McDonald’s this year. Just lots and lots…and lots of cooking and baking. If you don’t like to eat butter, sugar, bacon, or stinging nettles, avert your eyes. I’m sure that most of you would say that you don’t like to eat stinging nettles, but if I can convince you to read on, I’ll try to make it worth your while.

On Saturday morning, before we headed up to the lake, the kids put in a pancake request. “Actually, I already made a big pancake with cherries” I was thrilled to announce. “It’s called clafoutis. It’s French.”

clafoutis_FeedMeDearly

Lauren stared at it and then said “um, mom, you made pie”.

Which nobody wanted to eat. Kids. So I made regular pancakes. Lauren had the brilliant idea to make a DIY pancake bar where each kid could top their pancakes with fruit, chocolate and sprinkles. Not the healthiest breakfast, but not an everyday treat either. And I’d already made dessert for breakfast so it was probably my fault for setting the high water mark for a morning sugar binge.

We got up to the lake around lunchtime, and no surprise, the kids were hungry again. I figured that I’d serve something a little healthier this time around…

blackberries_FeedMeDearly
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It’s that time of year when all rational behavior falls by the wayside. Ramps are here. Home cooks and chefs alike elbow each other out of the way in order to return from the market with a few bunches of these highly prized vegetables, triumphant.

They’re delicious.

Black truffle delicious? Pork belly delicious?

I don’t know if I’d go that far. But they’re pretty fantastic, owing in part to the fact that they’re only around for a brief window in the Spring. Then they’re gone, hidden from view until they can serve as next year’s bright indication that that Spring is back, and that Winter has been banished for 9 more glorious months.

Some of you may be scratching your heads at this point, either never having heard of a ramp, and/or reflecting on your extreme distaste for pork belly. Let’s focus on the first issue, which is the topic of this post. Pork belly will be saved for another occasion when I muster up the confidence to cook it at home.

If I’m to use my Instagram account as a laboratory of sorts, there seems to be a lot of confusion about ramps.

Are they overpublicized and overpriced?

Or are they unsung heroes, with iffy recognition at best? The kind of fame often reserved for cultish authors, who slip by unrecognized by the masses but are adored by a passionate few.

Here are a few of the comments that led to my confusion after I posted a few dishes that contained ramps.

First, there is a large and vocal group of ramp lovers….

  • “RAMPS, my fave!”
  • “Ramps!!!!” (inclusive of a bright green leaf emoji)

Second, there seems to be a strange sleeper cell of ramp haters….

  • “I’m suffering from ramps overload”
  • “#savetheramps”

Lastly, there are those, with whom many reading this post will identify, who have never laid eyes on a ramp:

  • “Wait, what’s a ramp?”
  • “Are those ramps?”
  • “How have I never heard of these?”

Because educating the ramp unaware population is far more critical than appeasing the (likely) minority of (ornery) ramp haters, here we go: a short tutorial on where to find ramps, and what you can do with them. I’ve tried to make this visual so that you can see for yourself how versatile this simple green root can be….

Sourcing:

For some reason, I have never seen ramps in a Whole Foods or for that matter, any store with four walls and a ceiling.

The only place I’ve found ramps is at the farmers’ market, where you can find them in bunches, looking like this:

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Season:

Although it depends on seasonal temps, ramp season (in the Northeast) runs from late April into early June.

Preparation:

Use them just as you would any fresh herb, or if you want a milder flavor, give them a quick sautee or grill.

Just go easy on them at first – their flavor packs a punch.

Here are some suggested uses:

1. Snip them raw like chives over anything that loves oniony things – omelettes, ricotta cheese on toast, or as my kids like to do, just eat the leaves plain.

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(That was, for the record, ramps scattered over homemade labneh; harass me about writing a post on labneh because it’s ridiculously easy and so delicious)

2. Sautee them and add them to baked foods, like fritatta…

ramps_fritatta_FeedMeDearly

Stir them into a bubbling pot of mussels…

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