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September 04, 2005

Late summer dinner

Last night, Labor Day weekend, we had a lovely dinner here to celebrate the arrival of Joelle, Marshall, and Sarah to NYC for the year, and our dear friends from Australia (Paul and Peter) and New Zealand (Ian). We wanted everyone to meet Brigitte and Jeffrey and Stuart. We were the beneficiaries of flowers, wine, Jewish cookbooks, and Argentinian honey, straight from the source.

Since we just got back from Toronto--what with KlezKanada, working with Mayer, and a day after getting home flying right back to Toronto for a funeral--I've been away from my desk and email for almost two weeks, so rushed off to the laptop repair shop, Man and Machine, to pick up my computer and got to the Greenmarket late in the day with my great big shopping cart. The market was in full swing, with the last of the corn and peaches, and start of the roots. Inspired by Avinadav and defaulting to some of my own personal favorites, here is what we had:

• Corn and peach salad: Cut the kernels from the cob, then quickly boil them. Drain, cool, combine with ripe and intense peaches sliced into thin wedges, finely diced red onion, and dress with lots of lime and fresh chopped mint.
  
• Fava beans: Quickly boil frozen green favas (wish I could find nice fresh ones, in the shell), drain, cool, and dress with finely chopped preserved lemons, lots of lemon juice, salt and pepper, fresh thyme, and toss and top with thinly julienned red radish. Gorgeous on a bright yellow platter.
  
• Roasted Yukon Gold potatoes: Scrub potatoes and cut into chunks, toss in olive oil, and roast with a head of garlic, cloves separated but not peeled, sprigs of fresh rosemary, coarsely ground salt and pepper. Roast in a hot oven and turn periodically.
  
• Roasted white roots: Scrub and if necessary peel the roots (white carrots, parsnips, parsley root, turnips). Cut into chunks. The long thin tails on the roots are delicious, so don't throw them away, and you can leave a little of the green tops on the roots too, which looks nice. I added yellow carrots too and if I had them I would have included celery root and fennel bulb. Toss in olive oil, add whole garlic cloves, and fresh oregano. Roast in a hot oven and turn periodically.
  
• Roasted beets: Scrub medium sized beets, wrap three at a time in tin foil, place on a pan, and roast in a hot oven for about an hour. Let cool, peel, cut into 3/4 inch cubes, and toss with lemon, fresh dill, thinly sliced rings of white ciopollini onion, salt and pepper. Sometime I toss the beets with a little raspberry vinegar and fresh raspberries or with pomegranate molasses (and for a festive touch, pomegranate seeds), plus fresh mint or cilantro.
  
• Green salad: Red romaine lettuce and arugula, tossed with julienned carrots in five colors (orange, yellow, rose, purple, and white), and dressed with a simple olive oil and Italian red wine vinegar, coasely ground sea salt and pepper.
  
• Roasted red peppers: Got a bag of big meaty red peppers. Cut them in half, seeded them, and set them under the broiler to blacken the skin. Peel them and just serve as is. Wonderful flavor and texture.
  
• Tri-color tomatoes: It is the height of the tomato season, so I simply sliced big vine-ripened red field tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, and green tomatoes, layered them, and dressed them with nothing more than a few sprigs of opal basil.
  
• Dessert: Turkish delight with pistachios, Pete's chocolate-covered espresso beans, and ground cherries, which are not cherries at all, but delicious. They are also known as cape gooseberries and husk tomatoes. They are a member of the nightshade family (Physalis heterophylla). They are native to this area. There is also confusion about the names, some of which are also applied to the tomatillo, to which it is related.
  

Posted by BKG at September 4, 2005 06:35 PM

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