off to the shore...

Summer weekends in Rhode Island were never complete without a loaf of banana-chocolate chip bread. We'd pick it up at The Last Stand, which sits just short of Swamp road, where we'd turn left on our way to Zach's family house. It never lasted long, usually not even to breakfast the next morning, but it makes a wonderful appetizer and a great pre-bed snack. I have a sweet tooth (have you noticed?) but Dave, my father-in-law, has a love for sweets that even rivals my own. Between the two of us the banana bread doesn't have a chance.

In the spirit of summer I decided to make a loaf today. But this loaf is different. It's gluten free. I'd never baked gluten free before, but this loaf is traveling to 'The Shore' with me this afternoon to Alex and Kerry's weekend getaway house and since Alex has celiacs it was only appropriate. I'll let you know how it goes, and if it's yummy I'll be sure to share the recipe next week.

Happy weekend everyone!

blue potatoes

The rest of the the summer promises to be full of flights that arc from the Eastern edge of North America, over Nova Scotia and the barren islands of Greenland and Iceland and down over Northern Europe and into the valley that waits at the foot of the Alps. And then back again. I think there will be at least six such flights between now and the middle of September. Perhaps my 29th (!!!) birthday will usher in a more peaceful existence, where I stay put, in Zürich, for more than a week, even a month, at a time. Until then I will be in limbo-land, neither here nor there.

Limbo-land stinks. It's easier when I'm in Zürich, where my days seem to fill up without even trying, but for some reason it's a bit harder when I'm in the states. I think it is in part because life is a bit more straight forward when I'm in Zürich - shop, cook, clean, catch up, read - and here I feel a bit aimless. I'm sure I'd find a routine if I was here long enough to try, but with only a little more than a week each visit it's tough to settle in. It's also hard to blog from the states. My parents kitchen is dark making it tough to take photos and we tend to eat out a lot, which makes cooking less of a priority.

In trying to conjure up the simple joy I feel in Zürich, here in the states, I realized that what keeps me happy and moving when I'm abroad has a lot to do with this blog and to all of you. So this morning I set out to find a little bit of routine with the help of a potato salad.
I bought a bundle of pre-mixed potatoes at Whole Foods - red, yellow and blue. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting the flesh of the blue-skinned potato to be indigo. Of course it tastes the same as a normal potato, but there is just something special about it. It was one of those times when I realized just how beautiful food can be, pure and simple, a blue potato.

I am reading Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and really enjoying it. I've read a lot of the recent food-nation books, notably Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilema, which I devoured, stunned by the current agricultural standards in this country. What Kingsolver's book brings to the discussion is the application of organic, local eating. Her family vows for one year to live solely off of food produced in their immediate area. That means no strawberries in January, eggs from their own chickens and a Thanksgiving dinner where the star of the night is one of the Turkeys raised on their property, stuffed and dressed appropriately. It's an easy concept to consider in theory, but to actually go ahead and apply it would be difficult. Just yesterday I went to Whole Foods and eighty-five percent of the produce is from California. There wasn't a single item from Connecticut. Not one. Anyway Kingsolver frequently touches on the subject of rare-vegetables; vegetables that haven't made it through the streamlining processes of the markets and are on the verge of extinction. These heirloom varieties, such as blue potatoes, are slowly making a comeback among small family-run farms - thank goodness, because they are beautiful!
I'm not sure we've touched on the subject of what I don't like to eat. We've talked a lot about what I do like - pizza, peach cobbler, bratwurst!! My list of dislikes is very small and I'm sure all of my friends and family would be able to tell you off the top of their heads the three foods that make Talley go ICK! In no particular order those foods are mayonnaise, hard boiled eggs and tuna fish. Combine them into something like egg salad or tuna salad and oh my gosh I think I'd run from the room. Actually that's the thing that makes me hate tuna and eggs, the smell really does clear a room - pee-eww.

Anyway...your typical summer picnic potato salad is loaded with mayo, which was obviously a no-go for me. I much prefer the French style of potatoes with a little mustard oil and vinegar. This mustard - pickle potato salad was inspired by a recipe I spotted on Smitten Kitchen.

potato salad recipe:

- 2 pounds small new potatoes - any colors you can get your hands on, the more the merrier

- 5 radishes sliced as thin as possible

- 10-15 cornichons, or small dill pickles sliced into thin discs

for the pickled spring onions:

- 3 spring onions - I also threw in a few carrots, I mean why not.

- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar

- 1/4 cup water

- 1 tablespoon salt

- 1 1/2 teaspoon sugar

mustard vinaigrette:

- 1/4 cup olive oil

- 2 tablespoons whole grain mustard - I, like Deb, use Maille brand

- 2 teaspoons dijon mustard

- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

- salt and pepper to taste

Start by pickling the spring onions, and carrots if you threw them in. Cut them into very thin slices, all of the white and light green parts. Place them in a cup and cover with the vinegar, water, sugar and salt. Cover the cup with plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge until you are ready to use them, at least an hour for good pickle flavor

While the onions soaking in their vinegar bath boil the potatoes. Place them in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook for about 15 minutes or until you can easily stab with a fork. Drain the potatoes and leave them to cool. To speed up cooling you can also cover them with cold water or stick them in the fridge.

Add the sliced radishes and cornichons to the sliced potatoes. When the onions have pickled add those two. Make the vinaigrette by mixing the oil, mustards, vinegar and salt and pepper until well mixed. Poor over the potato salad and stir, coating all of the potatoes. You can eat it immediately or place it in the fridge. This is one of those dishes that gets better with age so be sure to save some for tomorrow.

Here's to planting some blue potatoes in your garden. And how about that blue rooster on the kitchen towel? I thought he was a good choice while reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I'd like to think I could slaughter a chicken in the morning and eat it, roasted with herbs and potatoes, that same evening, but I'm sure it would be harder than I think. My friend Crem's parents have two pigs each summer and they name them Pork and Chop. Pork's Chops and Chop's pork are currently sitting in Crem's freezer waiting for their dinner debut. mmmm

guiltless granola

Girls love granola. I think we must have a granola gene that turns on right around the time the comfort food gene turns on. There is something so satisfying about a bowl of granola covered greek yogurt with some fresh berries and a scoop of peanut butter. It has to be good for you right? It's made from whole rolled oats and nuts, which means it should be an A++ on the healthy scale. But what about all of those lurking ingredients, like sugar and corn syrup? My mom must have five different types of granola in her pantry and the one defining feature of all of them is that they are loaded with sugar. I might as well eat a bag of gummy bears with a side of peanut m&m's for breakfast. It really is like eating candy, and perhaps that is why she likes it, but there has to be a better solution to the granola craving crunch. I decided to stick to my 'why buy it if you can bake it' motto and set out to find a recipe without so much sugar. There are a ton of granola recipes out there and I perused a few and combined a bunch and came up with one that I consider pretty guiltless. Yes there is some butter and sugar in the form of maple syrup, but after all it's granola not muesli.
Granola is super easy to make and you can include any favorite ingredients that you want. It's almost like making a salad. Just throw in whatever ingredients you have on hand and you're good to go.

Orange-Pecan granola

- 4 cups whole rolled oats

- 1 cup chopped pecans

- 1/2 cup chopped almonds

- zest from two oranges

- 3/4 cup dried fruit of choice, I used barberries. It was the only dried fruit I could find that didn't have added sugar. Chopped apricots would also be delicious

- 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

- 1/3 cup of butter

- 1/2 cup pure vermont maple syrup - the real stuff, not aunt jemima

Preheat your oven to 300F and position two racks in the oven.

Mix the oats, nuts, dried fruit, coconut and orange zest in a big bowl. In a small saucepan melt the butter and then add the maple syrup, whisking until combined. Poor the butter/syrup mixture over the oats and stir well, making sure that it is spread throughout the mixture. Poor the oat mixture onto the two baking sheets, spreading out in a thin layer until covering the sheets. Place in the oven for about 40-50 minutes, but stir occasionally and check to make sure it's not burning. You want the oats to be toasted, but not too brown. I over toasted one of my sheets by accident, but it still tastes good.

My mom just got home and before even sitting down she made herself a bowl of granola. I told you, granola runs in our genes.

I've been home for about a week now and I go back to Switzerland a week from today. Of course I love being home, but I miss the flow of life in Zürich. I miss walking to the grocery store and anywhere else I might want to go. I miss that the produce in Zürich is all from Switzerland and not shipped 3000 miles from California. And of course I miss Zach.

ps - Mayer family...did you see that the granola has Barberry's in it, like Barberry Hill, your old home and your soon to be new home?!

girls weekend on Martha's Vineyard

It was quick, but it was wonderful. We gathered 'up island' at my friend Hannah's family house in Chilmark and settled in for a restorative weekend of beach walks, porch chats and delicious meals. Once upon a time in college (it really was like a fairy tale) we used to see each other all the time - in class and out of class - but now we only see each other sporadically, a few times a year and only ever for a weekend at most. It's always hard to gather the whole group, and we weren't even able to do it this time, but next summer we want to plan a week long getaway! These little scattered reunions are just holding us over until we start our commune, a dream that we've been thinking about ever since we had to part ways at graduation. We're not sure where the commune will be but we talk about it frequently and consider it advantageous to communal living that we are all pursuing different careers: there are two doctors (essential), one lawyer, one architect (me!), a professional chef, a lover of the land, and a few business-marketing-entreprenuerial experts who will be essential in helping us make the commune profitable. Now all we need is some land and agreeable spouses and we're ready to go! Until then, just wonderful weekend getaways to keep us together...Martha's Vineyard is an island, a fact that makes it nice to be there but frustrating to get too. Poor Hannah, our host, was supposed to leave on Friday afternoon, but her flight was cancelled due to rain and fog, stranding her in New York City until Saturday morning. The four of us who did make it on Friday traveled by ferry, a safer, but slower way to get there. I took the fast ferry from New York City with Kerry. By fast they mean five hours. I kept joking that we could have had the reunion in Iceland for the same amount of travel time. Thankfully Kerry packed dramamine for the ride since we certainly didn't want to contribute to the 'vomit comet' nickname of the ferry.

Before picking Hannah up at the airport Saturday (where we spotted Chelsea Clinton and her hubby) we had a peaceful morning and a delicious breakfast of chocolate chip sourdough bread with strawberries.
That's Rosie Marie, a shelter dog that Hannah's family adopted last summer. Isn't she cute? It's almost as if she's talking to you with her ears.

Farmer's markets and farm stands are scattered all over Chilmark, making it easy and enjoyable to eat local while on vacation. Some think of vacation as a time to get out of the kitchen and into restaurants, but there aren't many restaurants in Chilmark and the produce is so fresh that it's nicer to cook simple farm-to-table meals at home. Kerry bought a bunch of kale at the farmer's market and introduced us to her favorite summer snack - kale chips.

We bought sword fish at the local fish market. It's probably not local fish, but it still felt good to support a local market.

Aside from the beach walk, dinner was really the main event of the trip. It was fun to gather together in the kitchen and prep the meal and then gather on the porch for a cocktail while we waited for the swordfish to cook. True to fresh summer ingredients, the meal was quick and easy to prepare while we chatted about anything and everything. There was steamed squash, a leafy salad, caramelized onions from the grill, pasta with pesto, freshly baked bread and soy glazed swordfish. To top it all off we had a blueberry crumble. It was heaven, but even better than the meal was spending an evening with some of my favorite people. I'm often lonely in Zürich, but I never forget what amazing, wonderful friends I have. Now if I could only get them to move to Zürich...
In all honesty I would have been happy sitting on the porch all weekend. The view over the pond to the ocean is so peaceful and soothing and there are so many different little groups of chairs to sit in that I think I would have been content for a few days. Fortunately there was a push to go to the beach because it was incredibly pleasant and breezy there as well. The best part about going to the beach is the little canoe ride over the pond.
Here are the girls - Hannah, Katie, Kerry and Crem. Crem's a little fuzzy standing there in the background, but I still love the photo. It was such an amazing dinner, one of those dinners you just don't want to end. That is where the commune comes in...dinners that don't end, but are simply paused until the next night.