A granita may sound like a fancy word for something obscure, but it’s really the lazy cook’s sorbet. It’s crushed, slushed, slurried, partially frozen ice with flavorings often involving fruit. If you’re a fan of shaved ice or sno-cones, this is more or less the same stuff, only you can make your own version with much better syrup and fresh fruit. Skip the high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavor — besides, these are much harder to find ingredients than a couple of good pears.

ripe Bartlett pears

and overripe ones from the budget bin

There’s good pears, and there’s bruised, soft, overripe pears, and the latter is actually better for almost anything you want to do with them besides eating them as is. It’s these pears that were my target at the Greenmarket, a barrel of slightly blemished Bartletts next to the crisp green version. Don’t go overboard and buy ones with deep, squishy craters on their sides, but choose ones that are fragrant, and yellow instead of green. These will have the most flavor, and since we won’t be cooking the pears in this recipe, you’ll want as much sweetness from the get-go. Bonus: these pears are usually sold at discount.

peeling pears reveals a clear complexion

Call it what you will, granita, “Italian ice” or something simpler (my dad always threw overripe fruit with ice and sugar in the blender to make “slush”), but you won’t need any equipment other than a freezer to make it. It’ll take some patience and good timing, as you want to remove your mixture from the freezer every twenty minutes to stir. The resulting texture is grainy, with flaky bits of ice about. But you don’t need to worry about perfecting any texture — stir more frequently to make it smoother, less if you’re caught up doing something else.

vanilla bean

I don’t know why, but I added vanilla simple syrup to this batch. Making simple syrup, and having it on hand whenever you want to flavor your iced coffee or whathaveyou is an easy fifteen minute’s chore. Simple syrup is just equal parts water and sugar, heated and stirred in a saucepan until dissolved. I split a vanilla bean and threw it into the mixture to make it vanilla — simple as that.

food-processing the pears

To retain the flavor of fresh pears, I just pulverized the peeled and cored pieces in a food processor. Cooking the pears down for a bit in a saucepan will increase the intensity of their flavor, of course, but rather than jammy-tasting, this granita is decidedly crisp. Once baby food-friendly, the pears were mixed with the cooled simple syrup, a squeeze of lemon, and chilled together. After following the rest of the directions below (and clearing away some hefty real estate in the freezer to do so), the dessert was ready to serve. Here’s to summertime, and the cooking easy.

Vanilla Pear Granita
(makes about 1 quart, or 6-8 servings)

3 large, very ripe Bartlett pears, peeled and cored
2 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Split the vanilla bean along its length. Heat the water, sugar and vanilla over medium-low in a saucepan, stirring occasionally, until dissolved. Let cool completely. Remove vanilla bean.

Pulse the pears in a food processor a few minutes, scraping down the sides with a spatula occasionally, until smooth. Combine with the cooled simple syrup and lemon juice in an airtight container and chill in a refrigerator about 30 minutes.

Pour mixture into a large casserole or baking dish (9 x 9 or larger) and cover with plastic wrap. Place in freezer. Stir every 20 minutes until mixture is uniformly crumbly (about 3-4 intervals, depending on how cold your freezer is). Serve in individual glasses.

Cost Calculator
3 large pears (at $3/bag of about 10 from the Greenmarket): $0.90
vanilla bean: $.70
juice of half a lemon: $0.17
sugar: $0.15

Total: $1.92

Health Factor

Three brownie points: Short of eating pears fresh, having them in frozen concoctions like this is a sweet alternative to heavier desserts, indeed. However, this has a lot of added sugar, which makes it decidedly decadent. You can eat just a scoopful and be sated, though, with its intense flavors.

Green Factor

Five maple leaves: When life gives you pears, make pear granita. This recipe is essentially local, seasonal fruit spruced up with a few foreign flavorings (vanilla, lemon). Surely, you could go without the latter and just have water and sugar suffice.

On the latest episode of Let’s Eat In, four of the five food bloggers I’d asked to take the Week of Eating In challenge came on air as guests, and we had a powwow about how it had gone. At one point, upon being asked what was most difficult about eating in for a week straight, Marc from No Recipes said that he felt like, “we were all in this together.” And that had helped him bluster on. From our separate kitchens, separate blogs, and separate lunches, dinners and breakfasts (only if there was time), a team mentality was forged, and it was encouraging. But even though this challenge was a very deliberate, controlled experiment, with us subjects making it a point to not eat out, a community of cooks who prefer doing so at will is growing steadily, it seems.

This observation, of course, is coming from a source distinctly slanted in favor of more everyday home cooking, for no other purpose than just to eat. But I will say that the Week of Eating In was not my idea — it was Huffington Post Green’s. When Katherine Goldstein and Adam Estes wrote eloquently about the eco-conscious potentials of cooking and eating in, and called on readers to take the pledge for a week, we didn’t really know how it would go. But more than 1,500 people signed up, and several other bloggers wrote about their week. An innocuous slideshow of winter recipes from my archives was compiled for the Green page, and it received a wild number of hits and comments — for a brief moment of Zen, appearing in the top five most viewed column on the site, below Pamela Anderson’s “barely-there jumpsuit.”

who knew HuffPost readers were such foodies?

The chorus continues, as I view my incoming links, and I’m deeply humbled as well as inspired by these tales from other kitchens. From Serious Eats cooking three recipes from my book (and quite well, from the photos of that bread!), to blogs like Forking Tasty and The Young and Hungry making others, or taking up brown-bagging cues, or writing about the merits they’ve found most beneficial to eating in, I’m feeling the team effort, indeed. There is a not-so-quiet revival in home cooking, for the unlikeliest set: young, busy urbanites. And beyond: even my Aunt Amy, one of the few family members who was spared of mention in the Art of Eating In, fell in love with her homemade version of san bei gi, according to Facebook photos that she tagged me in (no, that was not me chopped up and sprinkled with Thai basil), and she doesn’t cook too much normally. Perhaps the craziest compliment to home cooking that’s come my way recently was from an acquaintance who’s in a band in Brooklyn, and as such doesn’t have much time to cook in between practice and travel. But, so compelled to “stop spending and love the stove,” he decided to start writing a blog himself “documenting my continued denouncement of restaurants.” I can’t wait to check that one out.

What’s next for not eating out, if so many people were to adopt it that it’s no longer anti-mainstream? What happens if everyone else jumps off the cliff? (For the record, doing the opposite of what everyone else seemed to be — ordering in, and taking out for almost every meal — was what got this blog started in the first place.) I never imagined a paradigm shift might take place, and am sure that it still hasn’t or won’t yet for some time, at least not in New York. But for the time being, seeing others cook more at home has been empowering. We’re in it together, and that keeps me plowing on. And in the near future, I plan to expand the scope of making food to include growing it, too. More on that soon.

the start of a new season

Or maybe I just didn’t have a ham bone handy. In any case, I didn’t miss it with this version. It started with coming across a packet of daffodil-yellow split peas, from an Amish food market vendor on a quick trip to Philly. What are split peas, anyway? Simply, and whether yellow or green, they’re dried, round peas that have been shelled of its thin skin, so that they naturally split into half-orbs. They’re full of protein, like beans, as well as starches that help thicken liquid it’s simmered in, so it’s a natural choice for a hearty soup that nourishes without the help of meat.

blue popping corn and yellow split peas, colorful souvenirs from Philly

yellow split peas, pre-soaking

But we’ll miss that smoky aroma that simmering a pot of these with ham makes. So I added some smoked paprika to the otherwise simple spices. Using some vegetable stock that was homemade the same night the peas were let to soak (with parsnips, carrots, celery, onion and turnip), and a bunch of leeks just because they looked so fresh and springlike at the Greenmarket, this soup was done in a cinch. That is, if you count a couple hours of letting it simmer while you do other things.

smoked paprika

While talking to one contestant at the Souperama on Saturday, Patricia Clark, about her ribollita, she explained how the traditional Italian peasant soup was meant to be simmered over the course of many hours, a few days even, as the cook went about their business, maybe adding extra ingredients such as leafy greens or leftover rice as he or she wound up with them. It was passive soup-making, but it made for layers of depth in the end. This philosophy seems fitting for the busy urbanite, too, and as it turned out, I would leave my pot of split pea soup simmering intermittently throughout the weekend, as I went about my business entertaining houseguests from out of town. I hope that tonight, we’ll all get to enjoy the fruits of my non-labor together, before they take off.

I was also influenced by second-place Souperama winner (and three-way tie for first place winner in the audience vote) Karol Lu’s slightly smoky roasted sweet potato and parsnip soup that day. She had used pureed chipotles in adobo sauce as the secret ingredient to making her soup wildly delicious, while still playing a fully vegetarian card. I suppose we share some common ideals when it comes to cooking, because over chatting, Karol said it was her goal to win over possibly vegetarian and meat-eating voters in one pot, and making the best of local, seasonal produce. She had even made crispy, roasted parsnip chips for garnish that looked a lot like Bac-Os. (Since I still had leeks from making this soup, I roasted these for my crispy topping.)

fresh green leeks

slicing the leeks for a quick roast and crisp garnish

The whole results of the Souperama, and some great photos, can all be found here thanks to Metromix. Big applause to the first-place winner of the day — Sam Mason! Though not the famously inked chef you might think. This Sam hails from New Mexico and had used the last of his precious, frozen batch of the state’s famous green chiles from last summer in his creamy chicken corn chowder. Bravo. And for the record, we were all fooled at first by the name.

And on random note, for anyone who might have read The Art of Eating In already, Karol is the same one of many a mention in the book. And my out-of-town guests? Jordan and “Dan,” who are now married and live in Australia.

Yellow Split Pea Soup with Smoked Paprika and Crisped Leeks
(makes about 2 quarts, or 8-10 servings)

2 cups yellow split peas, soaked overnight and drained
6 cups vegetable stock (preferably homemade)
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
3 medium-sized leeks, white and light green parts only, 2 of them finely chopped and 1 sliced into roughly 1/8-inch thick rings
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
juice of 1 fresh lemon
1 bay leaf
small bouquet garni of fresh thyme, parsley and/or oregano, marjoram or tarragon
salt and pepper to taste

In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and add the finely chopped leeks. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, over medium-low heat until softened, about 6 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute. Add the smoked paprika and stir to combine evenly. Add the soaked and drained split peas, vegetable stock, bay leaf and bouquet garni. Bring to a boil, and reduce heat to a low simmer. Simmer, covered for at least 2 hours (this can be done over the course of however long it takes, starting and stopping, leaving and coming back), or until desired consistency and once peas are tender and have mostly broken down. Add the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove the bay leaf and bouquet garni.

For the crisped leek topping: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Coat the round slices of one leek with olive oil and place down evenly spaced on a roasting tray. Sprinkle with salt. Bake about 15 minutes, checking after 10 minutes. Once leeks are slightly browned all over, remove from oven and let cool. Garnish individual soup dishes with the crisped leeks.

Cost Calculator
(for 8-10 servings)

2 cups yellow split peas (at $1.99/lb): $1.75
6 cups homemade vegetable stock: $2.00
3 leeks (from a bunch of 4 at $3.50 at the Greenmarket): $2.63
1 tablespoon smoked paprika: $0.40
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil: $0.25
small bouquet garni of fresh herbs: $1.00
1 lemon: $0.33
2 cloves garlic, salt, pepper: $0.15

Total: $8.51

Health Factor

Two brownie points: Quite an accomplishment for such a savory dish, this one has almost no fat. Sure, you can add butter for a little richness at the end if you wish, or drizzle your bowl with extra olive oil. But the crispy leek topping seems satisfying enough alone. Not only protein, but split peas are really big on fiber, in a really big way, and that’s not common in too many foods. It’s also a great source of folate, B-vitamins and potassium, and have, like this soup, hardly any fat.

Green Factor

Seven brownie points: While it isn’t labeled “organic” or pesticide-free, the Amish farmers whom I bought these peas from took obvious pride in their crops, from the way they talked up these split peas they were selling. I can be sure they didn’t travel too far, from Lancaster County to Philly’s Reading Terminal Market, and furthermore, I understand that these folks really carpool to get there, but that’s another thing altogether. The other ingredients beside dried spices were mostly organic Greenmarket finds: the leeks, garlic, and vegetables that were in the stock. Only the lemon stands alone as non-local produce.

fennel bulb (left) and its stalks and fronds

I had just the dish in mind for it. This creamy slaw-like salad is simple to whip up, but it has just enough nuance to make it really stand out. It’s tart, sweet and licorice-hinted, thanks to the natural flavor of the fennel bulb. A drop of honey gives it a little more roundness while sweetening the deal for me. It’s totally delish, and it’s what I packed in my lunch tote my first day of eating in for a week. But I didn’t invent this dish, at least not in its entirety. I’m not sure if any one person did, and this is just how some of the best foods come about, it seems: by a collaborative effort, between two or more minds, and nature’s offerings.

A few weeks back, I held an “Aphrodisiac” singles-friendly dinner at Jimmy’s No. 43, and collaborated with the head chef there, Aaron, on the menu. It would be filled with mood-enducing, heartbeat-enhancing, stimulating foods that are thought to be aphrodisiac. And fennel is one. The menu was also inspired by an epic dinner party that I hosted for a number of single friends in my home, which is recalled in The Art of Eating In. Working with Aaron, we agreed on adding crushed cumin and coriander seeds to this salad, and giving it some creaminess with creme fraiche, or yogurt. I’d originally thought to add lemon juice and grated zest, from normal lemons, but he suggested Meyer lemon, and adding its sectioned wedges right in.

I’d never imagined this salad would be a serious contender for the best course of the night. But most of us agreed it was well up there. It may not have gotten anyone lucky with its aphrodisiac charms (at least, as far as I know) — and perhaps the curse of the all-too-elaborate feast had struck us again, because at the first aphrodisiac dinner at my home, there was no romance to speak of then, either. The best laid plans…

the fennel bulb is sliced, and spiced with cumin and lemon zest

So I wouldn’t chalk it up to chemical influence, but this crisp fennel salad is good to eat, and good to keep, a night before in the fridge, too. It was also the simplest course of the meal to prepare (although I bloodied my fingers and knuckles pretty well from slicing the fennel on a damned mandoline). But forget that death trap of a device — when you’re not cooking for twenty or more, using a plain old, good knife always works. The control is superior, and your finesse at slicing finely is something you can actually practice, when you do it this way.

if you don’t have a spice grinder, you can always crush coriander with a Chinese soup spoon

Recreating this salad at home a couple times, I’ve tried it once with yogurt instead of creme fraiche, and it was an okay, not-great substitute for the more luxurious ingredient. I also tried it with and without Meyer lemon, though in each case, I didn’t have the time to diligently cut away sections of the citrus, so just squeezed some juice and called it a day. If you can’t find Meyer lemons (it’s the right season to find them in specialty food stores), understandable. Just add some lemon juice and zest. But I wouldn’t try to throw in the sections of a regular lemon. Meyer lemons have an almost tangerine-like sweetness to them; they’re much less sour and won’t cause your cheeks to suck in. Since fresh fennel fronds are within easy reach when working with the ingredient, a handful chopped up add a nice, feathery garnish to sprinkle on at the end.

Spiced Fennel Salad with Creme Fraiche and Meyer Lemon
(makes about 2-3 servings)

1 large bulb fennel, cored and finely sliced (reserve stalks for making soup stocks)
2-3 tablespoons fennel fronds, chopped
1/2 teaspoon each whole cumin seeds and coriander seeds, coarsely crushed (with a mortar and pestle, or random kitchen-tool improvisation of which)
1 Meyer lemon, zest grated and cut into individual sections, without any peel or pith (skip this second part if substituting with regular lemons, and just add its juice to taste)
about 1/2 cup creme fraiche
2 teaspoons honey
pinch of salt

Combine the creme fraiche, honey, salt, lemon zest, cumin and coriander in a large bowl. Fold in the fennel and Meyer lemon slices until evenly coated. Add the fennel fronds and toss once more. Serve immediately or chill up to 1 night, covered.

Cost Calculator
(for 2-3 servings)

1 bulb fennel: $2.00
1/2 cup creme fraiche: $3.00
1 Meyer lemon: $1.00
2 teaspoons honey: $0.25
cumin, coriander, salt: $0.05

Total: $6.30

Health Factor

Four brownie points: Fennel is a fibrous plant, its stalks and bulb, and by that, I mean it has fiber, too — and folate, potassium and Vitamin C. It’s pretty low in sugars and calories, and not as high in natural sodium as celery, a similar-looking plant. Add to it a dollop of creme fraiche, and you’ve just got your cholesterol, but a bit of calcium, too. All told, this is an oddly rich yet refreshing salad, but one that should satisfy in a few dainty mouthfuls.

Green Factor

Four maple leaves: Not looking so good. While you can pat yourself on the back for using up all parts of a plant like the fennel (in this one dish both fronds and bulb), it’s not in season, locally. But so few things are right now. The creme fraiche and yogurt I used for this dish were both organic and hormone-free kinds, though neither were terribly local, artisanal nor amazing; something to seek out for next time, perhaps.

Join us at Jimmy’s No. 43 for a really warm charity event. The 1st annual NYC Souperama, to benefit Harbor Hope and the Fresh Air Fund, is going to be hot. What better way to escape the wintery mix of slush and snow than slurping up ladles of homemade soup, and craft beer? And, chefs are still welcome to sign up so get your stockpots out and throw in whatever’s leftover (my favorite thing to do on a winter weekend).

With soup, anything goes, and this cook-off has few rules: chowder, bisque, chicken noodle, minestrone, cream of seasonal vegetable X — as long as it’s soupy it’s good to bring. If it’s deemed one of the best, by a panel of judges that I’m souper excited to be on, then you’ll win gastronomical goodness like cookware, cookbooks and gift certificates, and of course there will also be a People’s Choice vote. Bring your friends, and let’s raise some funds.

First Annual NYC Souperama at Jimmy’s No. 43
Date:  Saturday, March 6
Time:  1:00pm – 5:00pm
Location: Jimmy’s No. 43 – 43 East 7th Street, New York, NY

$20 donation at the door will benefit Harbor Hope, a non-profit organization developing educational cooking programs for those with special needs, and The Fresh Air Fund, a not-for-profit agency, providing free summer experiences to New York City children from disadvantaged communities.

Judges:

Gabrielle Langholtz, Editor-In-Chief of Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn
Sherri Brooks Vinton, food writer, The Real Food Revival
Jake Schiffman, food buyer and general gastronomic expert from Food Network
Cathy Erway, yours truly (The Art of Eating In)

To compete, email foodkarma@gmail.com and feel free to ask any questions; you’ll receive a confirmation response soon.

Finally, a recipe for my latest pot of soup, which I polished off throughout the first half of The Week of Eating In last week (before taking off to Wisconsin). Now that I’m back home, the fridge is looking quite empty and sad. Soo looking forward to Saturday!

Everything But the Noodle Chicken Soup
(makes about 3-4 quarts)

1 small (about 2 lb) chicken
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 rib celery with any leaves attached, chopped
2 stalks fennel, chopped (or substitute with another rib of celery)
about 2 cups chopped root vegetables such as turnips, parsnips, celery root, rutabaga
2-3 cups dried cannelini (or substitute any dried beans), soaked overnight and cooked until almost tender, about 30-40 minutes, depending on the size of the bean
rind of Parmesan cheese
about 1 1/2 cups homemade tomato sauce (or substitute 1 small can stewed tomatoes)
about 1 1/2 cup leftover butternut squash soup (or substitute 1 small can pumpkin, or disregard)
about 2 cups chopped beet greens (or kale, collards, Swiss chard, spinach)
1 head garlic
1 bunch parsley
1 bunch thyme
any remaining fennel fronds (optional)
2-3 bay leaves
extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Submerge chicken in about 1 gallon cold water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 1 hour, occasionally skimming impurities that rise to the surface with a slotted spoon. Remove chicken and once cool enough to handle, pick and shred the meat. Discard the carcass.

Meanwhile, coat the chopped root vegetables in a thin coat of oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast in a preheated 400 degree oven until just crisped at the edges, about 5 minutes. Cut off the bottom of the head of garlic just to expose each of the cloves (but don’t cut off too much of them). Drizzle with a teaspoon or so of olive oil and wrap the head of garlic with foil. Roast at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Once cool enough to handle, squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins. Mash lightly in a bowl.

Cover the bottom of a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven with a thin layer of olive oil, and cook the onions, carrots, celery and fennel over medium-low, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the tomato sauce (or stewed tomatoes). Tie the thyme and half the bunch of parsley in kitchen twine to make a bouquet garni and add to the pot. Add the chicken, roasted vegetables, roasted garlic, bay leaves, Parmesan rind, almost-cooked beans and optional squash soup along with all the chicken stock. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Cover, and cook for about 30 minutes. Add the chopped greens, and cook another 10-15 minutes.

Remove bouquet garni, bay leaves and Parmesan rind and taste for seasoning, adding salt, pepper, and any additional spices as desired. Add the remaining half-bunch of parsley, chopped, and optional fennel fronds as garnish.

Ditching the blizzard in New York and being delayed twice thanks to frost on the planes, I finally arrived in Madison, Wisconsin Friday evening, well-fed from my carry-on meal. I was picked up at the airport by Jonny Hunter of the Underground Food Collective, and from that point on, taken on a whirlwind tour of one of the most inspiring food destinations I’ve been. It was also at this point that I decided to let things happen as they may — to eat, out or in, whatever was on the menu, so to speak. To be sure, my trip had a few eaten-in missions: I would be cooking for a collaborative dinner between three supper clubs, and leading a guest chef menu at Slow Food UW’s Monday night dinner series, too. It turned out I was the only member of Hapa Kitchen who could make it to Madison, but I knew that I was in capable hands.

Throughout the weekend, I was reminded of one of the reasons why I gave up “not eating out in New York” strictly in the first place: the food community I was becoming involved with was too close-knit to draw such divides. And in Madison, too, community is the operative word when it comes to consuming. Every other shop seems to be a co-op: there’s Nature’s Bakery, worker-owned and managed for decades; Rainbow Books, where I was thrilled to give a book reading Saturday (and whose food politics book section was massive); Just Coffee, which goes beyond fair trade by innovating ways to empower its farmers afar; and the Willy St. Food Co-Op, so vast it has everything one could need. At the Saturday farmers’ market, which is thankfully held indoors during the winter, volunteers organize a guest chef brunch series served right in the market, for peanuts compared to the proper restaurant plate. There’s Bradbury’s Coffee, a cafe that serves espresso and crepes by day, and every once in a while, supper club dinners to an RSVP-only crowd. The cooks of this series, called Glass House Supper Club (for Bradbury’s tall panes of crystal-clear wall) are cafe workers with a knack for home cooking, and the owners, Josh and Jill, were eager to let them run it and lend a hand at the cooking, too. In other words, drawing a distinction between “professional” and “amateur” cook was thorny during my time here in Madison, nor was it my utmost concern.

the interior of Bradbury’s Coffee, aka the “Glass House,” and a board with their food’s sources

Then there is the Underground Food Collective, a group that I’m not sure what to call anymore. A supper club, food consultants, caterers, underground chefs, and soon-to-be owners of a new restaurant and a meat processing business in town — let’s call it a cooking community with a passion for creating really good, unique food, from the region’s best sustainable-minded farms.

Backing up: I attended a dinner that the UFC hosted last winter in Brooklyn, called “The Pre-Industrial Pig.” The group brought along a farmer whose pig was the focal point of the dinner, featured in each of the family style-served courses in numerous ways. I would attend dinners each time the UFC came again to Brooklyn, teaming up with local food institutions in New York such as Added Value, Sweet Deliverance, and most recently, the Meat Hook and The Brooklyn Kitchen.

I was fairly aware before arriving in Madison that I’d be getting the best guide to local food by tagging along with the UFC. But I didn’t know quite the extent that brothers Jonny and Ben Hunter, in particular, were heroes of a certain food scene. Immediately, it became clear: the greetings and intimate chatter with every single farmer at the market, the fact that every food in the group’s commercial kitchen space seemed to have an origin not so far from Madison, and a name attached (“those are so-and-so’s chickens”). Using all parts of whole animals in their cooking, the members have recently expanded the meat processing part of their work and plan to make much more cured, preserved, aged and offal delicacies for the community in which they’ve been a hit so far. And that’s not such a small feat, educating consumers to eat all the nasty bits of an animal by making them delicious.

Elsewhere, I would find touches of UFC’s influence: at Ironworks Cafe at Goodman Community Center, Ben oversees the farm-to-table menu and helps train the teens that play every role at the restaurant. The cafe has a partnership with a local high school’s alternative program, and the kids are excelling at cooking, according to the Hunters. The pastry program is practically run by a fourteen-year-old girl named Zola, who’d stepped up to the plate and really found a passion for baking. We went there for breakfast the next morning, and Ben stepped outside the kitchen to sit down and chat.

a short rib hash brunch platter at Ironworks Cafe

I ordered a short rib hash entree from a small handful of choices on a blackboard, from one of the kids at the cash register. Served with a salad of spicy mustard greens, pickled radish and dripping with a conspicuous red wine braise, the dish was delicious, and just the perfect portion for brunch. I also grabbed a day-old cookie, sold at discount at the counter, and was given a tour of the kitchen, where I met everyone who’d just made my meal by name. Somehow, I didn’t end up paying for any of it, and I’m guessing that Ben made our table gratis. So if that counts as eating out this Week of Eating In, a farm-sourced breakfast made by kids who were connecting with food, and friends who were teaching them, free, no less, then I’m proud of breaking the rule.

the indoor farmers’ market in Madison

I paid visit to the Saturday farmers’ market that day, where Jonny and I loaded up for the dinners. Held in a seniors center, the winter market was packed thanks to the brunch special of the day, a tomatillo sauce-drenched fried egg platter with some crisp greens and cherry cobbler prepared by Tory Miller, Executive Chef of L’Etoile. We stepped into the kitchen to say hi to the chef, and watch his operation a moment. The kitchen was expansive, and it was bustling with volunteers (“there are always volunteers to help cook” they explained). We also met some of the organizers of the brunch series, and I began wondering if there wasn’t a seniors center — or some sort of place — where a copycat project could take place for Greenmarkets in NYC.

L’Etoile chef Tory serving brunch at the farmers’ market

After gathering crates and recycled boxes full of produce, eggs, meat and dairy, we made a few last stops at the market to meet and greet. At the table for Fountain Prairie Farm, Jonny bought a ruby red strip of dry-aged hanger steak, for a homemade family dinner that night. I got some goat milk soap from Scotch Hill Farm; Jonny picked up a precious 15-year aged cheddar for me to deliver especially to Anne Saxelby (who’d hooked him up big time at UFC’s last NYC dinner); and I grabbed a bag of “squeaky cheese” curds, a true Wisconsin treasure, for my plane ride back home, if they’d last that long.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent prepping in the Underground Food Collective’s kitchen for the next night’s dinner. It would be the Hapa Kitchen-written menu at Bradbury’s, with the Glass House Supper Club co-hosting. Our menu had finally been pinned down, after making final choices based on what was at the market. We’d start with three appetizers: a Chinese soup dumpling with lamb, mint and cilantro, and jellied pork aspic to make it explode, a Hong Kong-style steamed bun stuffed with a confit of kidneys and other organs on hand, and Korean barbecue sauce-drenched chicken wings served with a silken and fermented tofu “blue cheese” sauce (pictured at top). The first course would be a salad, of fresh, yet slightly leathery (at this time of year) spinach, cut into chiffonades and served with a bacon vinaigrette, lardo strips and one of my Taiwanese tea leaf eggs. The main course was a handmade udon-style noodle dish, with duck sausages, soy-pickled shiitakes and a meaty, black peppery sauce. For dessert, we decided on sweet cream ice cream with apple and candied ginger tempura pieces, a take on the classic a la mode.

a kitchen with makings for a homemade meal

Once prepwork was done for the day, Jonny, his partner Sarah, and their newborn and I headed over to Ben’s place for dinner. After checking out the chickens, ducks and geese pecking away in a coop in the family’s backyard, we entered the kitchen, where Ben had a bunch of half-cooked things and some stock bubbling away on the stove. Probably the best meal I’d enjoy during my entire trip here was this one. With Ben’s three toddlers scurrying about below our knees, I watched as the brothers held various conversations amongst themselves, about their business, classes (Jonny was completing a graduate degree in public affairs), and other goings-on of the day, simultaneously and nonchalantly making a magical meal appear before eyes. They cut up chunks of a beautiful loaf of sourdough rye baked by their friend Jeff, of Cress Spring Bakery, to crisp on a pan as huge “croutons.” I almost gasped when a piece of the hanger steak fell off the butcher block of a kitchen island, but the brothers, assured by the quality of the meat, brushed it off and smeared it with a garlicky lemon marinade with a shrug. I pitched in by making dressing for a salad with warm chicken and shiitakes that were leftover, slicing a shallot thinly and whisking it with homemade mayonnaise, red wine vinegar and oil. With a tray of roasted carrots and parsnips warmed up, and a couple bottles of red wine uncorked, we all sat at the table to dig in. Halfway through the meal, their sister, her husband and their baby appeared, as they happened to be driving by, and made good use of the extra food at the table. It was a packed table, what with the three siblings, their partners and children gathered ’round, a friend of the family’s, Stina, sitting in, and me, and it was a comforting meal far beyond the great food.

Bradbury’s/Glass House Supper Club cook John serving the steamed buns

Ben Hunter, plating extraordinnaire

lamb, mint and cilantro potstickers for a pre-dinner friends and family meal

The next day, and the last day of the Week of Eating In, was spent cooking virtually all day, making dumplings and noodles all morning with members of the Glass House Supper Club. By the time five o’clock had rolled around, we were serving a special friends-and-family meal at Bradbury’s, to friends and family of the cafe and UFC who didn’t get a seat to dinner (it had sold out weeks ago). By seven, we dropped the first dumplings into the steamer, and with all the hands we had helping in the kitchen, continued to serve the six-course, collaborative dinner without much delay between any one of them. It was the most streamlined supper club event I’ve ever helped pull off, and it’s all thanks to the great folks at Bradbury’s, Glass House and UFC — as well as the kindly guests, who were more than eager to eat things they had never seen before nor really knew what they were. Explaining the tea leaf eggs, and how they were so common in Taipei that every 7-Eleven sold them as snacks, the guests nodded appreciatively and clapped after we spoke.

Though my time here in Madison is not yet over — there’s going to be a dinner for 150 at Slow Food UW tonight, apparently a record attendance number for the Monday night feasts — the Week of Eating In is. It’s funny that I seem to be leaving this eating in-only period with much the same feelings as I did back in 2008: some things, like cooking with and for the community, and supporting small farms going against the industrial agricultural grain, are just more important than choosing sides, eating out, or in.

For all their convenience, though, I don’t see anyone raving about the great choices of readily available food at roadstop food courts and airports, or least of all, on planes — if they have any food there at all. The relationship we have with airborne and roadside food is entirely made of convenience, for dry, fill-yourself-up functionality rather than taste or nutrition; it’s often heavy, and processed instead of light and immune-boosting, which is what sitting travelers in confined places could really use. And for some god-awful reason, it’s shockingly expensive, too. I stood beside one man at a coffee shop in Laguardia Airport as he watched the attendant ring up his two bags of potato chips and two bottles of waters. “Ten-fifty,” he scoffed, shaking his head none too politely about the price. “Is that right?” he implored. The attendant made what looked like a sympathetic shrug.

So instead of being a curmudgeonly acquiescent member of the airborne food-buying set, you can make your own meal to bring on the plane, or in the car, or bus or train. Not a revolutionary idea by far, but here’s a convenient factor: a carry-on bag that keeps your food cool and easy to tote. This reusable, insulated, snazzy looking tote has been helping me get through the week eating pretty well. It’s from KOKO by Cosmoda, a line of lunch bags that inconspicuous pass for a fashion accessory, in PVC-free materials. I got it from my brother for Christmas, who found it at a craft fair in Providence. Thanks, bro!

an insulated tote filled with provisions for a day of travel

And what did I pack it with? In a scramble to leave NYC in a blizzard, and just after a book reading the night before, I packed it with leftover things, and dashed out. It took all of ten minutes to make: a leftover half-baguette, unused from making crostini for the reading at WORD bookstore, sliced open. Inside I slicked the last remaining schmears of chevre goat cheese (a sort of more gamey tasting cream cheese), and packed the sandwich with some sauteed beet greens, cooked for a minute in a pan with olive oil, salt and pepper. In fact, all of these ingredients were leftover from the crostinis I served at WORD.

The crostini for the reading had goat cheese, sliced beets and a balsamic reduction drizzle. So the greens were leftover from the bunch, as was the cheese, and the bread, which I’ll admit, I overpurchased by design just so that I’d have something to make an airport sandwich lunch with. The dish of inspiration for that book reading hors d’oeuvre was the first-place audience win from my book launch party a week ago. Trish Tchume and Kim Hendler’s crowd-winning crostini actually had goat cheese, roasted red peppers, peaches and a balsamic reduction sauce. At first, I was considering swapping apples for the stone fruit, which were still in season locally. Then, noticing the bunch of golden and red beets in my crisper, I decided to roast those and slice them in oblong slivers instead of apple, which would travel better pre-sliced. Though I didn’t grab any photos of the finished platters, the glistening golden beets, drizzled with an enamel-like balsamic reduction, actually looked a bit like peach slices. A bastardization from the winners’ original, but still a good party platter filler, either one. Thank you, ladies, for the great inspiration!

lightly salted chevre from Patches of Star dairy farm for a book reading appetizer of crostini, and leftover airplane sandwich lunch

apple, goat cheese and balsamic reduction crostini, inspired by a Crostini Cook-Off winner’s entry

And where am I going? Why have I left NYC, in the middle of the Week of Eating In, no less? I went to Madison, Wisconsin, in the heart of the dairy state, and so much more happening with food. I’ll be cooking two dinners, one with Glass House Supper Club and the Underground Food Collective, for a Hapa Kitchen-written menu. And on March 1st, a co-chef stint at Slow Food UW Madison’s Monday night dinner series. How will I navigate this great culinary destination, when I’m not cooking, and trying to stay true to eating in? That’s another question, and I’m not quite sure the answer to it yet.

I just love peeking into other people’s kitchens, see how they chop and dice and scurry about. This time my voyeurism has a very particular angle: to see how they cope with a Week of Eating In. And what I’ve seen from other folks doing that, at the blogs The Eaten Path, No Recipes, Relish Austin, Goldilocks Finds Manhattan and eating-sf, makes me want to come pounding at their door.

When I asked these five other food bloggers to take the Week of Eating In challenge with me, I had a pretty good idea that they’d each have interesting tips and recipes to share. Not only that, but through their food, and thoughts, and in one case so far, failure (don’t take that the wrong way, James) I’ve come to understand the meaning of eating in so much more. And I’m totally inspired by what they’ve put on their plates.

Here’s a quick look at who they are, and what they’ve been up to this week, as we cross into the home stretch:

At Relish Austin, working mom Addie has recreated the Parisian treat, croissants, in her Austin, Texas apartment. Though she spent a whole Saturday doing it, the way they turned out makes a compelling case against one major reason for eating out: to enjoy a delicacy, crafted with a certain skill and artistry that’s seldom found in the home kitchen. Plus, she made a whole rack of them, at what could not have cost too much more than the average $3 price of just one from a bonafide bakery. She goes on to make shrimp and grits with her toddler, weighing the pros and cons of both going out to eat and cooking at home with grabby, antsy kids around. And while cooking may not be for everyone (like the young Julian, who seems more intent on disturbing Addie’s mis en place than pitching in), once the beautiful meal is set on the table, it’s family time for everyone.

At Goldilocks Finds Manhattan, Ulla has been making a lot of tasty meat! And lemon pistachio linguine (pictured at top), the kind of dish that’s probably oh so simple to prepare, but takes just a few touches of know-how to make its few ingredients really soar. My kind of food. She also reflects on bonding with family over food, and since her family operates a livestock farm, touts adventurous cooks as a farmer’s allies: “It’s easy to sell rib eye but beef shin?” Check out all her tips on how to cook it, cooks and would-be small family farm allies! (They don’t look like the dog’s dinner that’s for sure.)

In San Francisco, Kasey of eating-sf has found a new place for matzo ball soup: in front of the TV, watching the Olympics, staying in from the cold and rain. Sounds way too cozy for words. She also gives tips on easy and easier ways to make chicken stock, good to note this time of year, and shows how seasonal eating in the dead of winter doesn’t have to be boring with this tahini butternut squash and chickpea salad.

Onto the menfolk, Marc at No Recipes shows us how to make a spice-crusted roast lamb with mint sauce in forty minutes, start to finish. This meal is the definition of date caliber eating, only Marc had simply made it because he’d been slammed with work, exhausted, and the hunk of grass-fed lamb in his fridge seemed to beg to be eaten each time he opened it. His vibrant mint sauce is far from the conventional version, too. No Recipes is about the philosophy of cooking creatively rather than following instructions word-for-word, and here Marc proves you can do it deliciously on a busy weeknight.

James at The Eaten Path has chosen to take (or eat) a path of his own this week. Alright, I won’t come down on him too hard, after all, he’s always game for eating anything, it seems from his blog, and that includes eating everything in for a week. But with every intention set on continuing his fast, on Day Four, while waiting for a bus in Brooklyn, James got struck with a very New York City-centric disease: the uncontrollable lust for “an edible token of whatever neighborhood I happen to be in.” So, he ate a babka. And through photos and prose about the excellence of this particular bakery’s babkas, it’s clear that he enjoyed it more fully than anything I’ve probably eaten this week. Maybe anything I’ve eaten. And that’s saying something… for eating out.

And in the middle of a very busy week, I really needed this down time, too. So I headed to the Union Square Greenmarket that morning with the goal of making lunch for a big bunch. This time, I had a specific recipe idea in mind. Working Class Foodies, the online cooking show that I had the pleasure of appearing in an episode for, had just made a video that inspired me to run to the market for some mushrooms. And polenta, the coarse-grind, flavorful kind that can be found from Cayuga Organics‘ Greenmarket stand. Working Class Foodie Rebecca cooked a simple wild mushroom ragout in the video, and served it with this polenta, and it made my mouth water.

I hope it does for you too, here’s the video above — and be sure to watch it through to the end, because the show is doing a giveaway of The Art of Eating In! See how to win a copy, and the recipe, too.

oyster mushrooms, sliced portobellos and a shallot for a mushroom ragout

I found just the mushrooms I was looking for, some gnarly clusters of oyster mushrooms at Madura Farms‘ stand. I grabbed a couple of portobellos there, too, just for variety, a shallot, and a bag of the polenta cornmeal. I’d also run into Annie Novak from Growing Chefs and Rooftop Farms at the market, as well as Mike Betit from Tamarack Hollow Farm, before my shopping was through.

Although I was off work Wednesday, I was making lunch for some very hard-working foodies: the brewers at Sixpoint Craft Ales, where my boyfriend is founder and president. There’s a kitchen I’ve been tinkering around in upstairs at the brewery, and once I arrived in Red Hook, I settled my things on the counter to begin.

A platter of all manner of roasted root vegetables was in store, since they were flooding my fridge. Carrots, turnips, celeriac, sunchokes, parsnips, sweet potatoes, even parsley root (which I’d found at Madura Farms two weeks before), were all chopped up to equal size, with their skins on, and roasted at 375 degrees in a coating of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, I followed Rebecca’s instructions for the mushrooms, with a slight adjustment because I didn’t have any vegetable stock handy. No worries, beer was here. I slipped in some Bengali Tiger IPA to the sizzling mushroom sautee and watched its froth slowly subside.

beer is added to the mushroom ragout; polenta bubbles in another pot

The kitchen was soon filled with a decidedly sophisticated, delicious smell, and one worker even asked, inhaling deeply over the stove, “Is that white wine in there?” So with polenta, mushroom ragout, a roasted vegetable platter, and a loaf of bread on the table, the crew came upstairs for a communal meal, followed by a birthday cake celebration for one brewer, whose thirtieth happened to be that day. You can bet I’ll be doing more cooking (and with beer and other brewery stuff) here again.

My night’s plans afterward found me out of the kitchen, but inside the Mind Kitchen, a new game show on Heritage Radio Network. Hosted by Matt Timms, my favorite Chili Takedown host, it’s a loopy challenge of the imagination, in which three guests are asked to create a three-course menu, verbally, using only a handful of ingredients that Mr. Timms stipulates. It was the second episode for the show, and as it was on Heritage, and based at Roberta’s Pizza, this would be my third night in a row where I would be taunted by readily available, really good pizza, which I was supposed to be eating with everyone else! Make it stop, please!

Scott Gold the Shameless Carnivore, Angus Vail the Kiwi rock manager, and Matt Timms taping Mind Kitchen

I managed to ward off the temptation, and we had a really fun taping. I won’t tell you how the outcome of Mind Kitchen went (listen Tuesday to hear), but I will say that there was a surprise guest judge, who wandered into the station to appear on the next live show, Eat to the Beat. It was Andrew Carmellini, renowned chef of Locanda Verde, and the other contestants and I on Mind Kitchen took turns trying to sell our imaginary meals to Mr. Carmellini as he thought and nodded.

In a final convergence of the food community for the day, I headed to Barcade that night (after a quick dinner at home that wasn’t pizza), for a five-year anniversary party for Sixpoint. Bumped into Rebecca Lando, from Working Class Foodies, whose recipe had just made my day.

Preparation is everything, whether it’s for entering a meeting or meeting your daily caloric intake. How odd that for many of us, we’d more eagerly prepare for business relationships than the relationship that we have with food, and hence, our bodies? I was reminded of all the extra measures I took every day to prepare this, my food, while not eating out for two years straight: I couldn’t leave the apartment until finding that I had both my keys and my lunch. And how, in the year or so since I’ve quit the straight not-eating-out routine, I’d frequently feel like I’d forgotten something when dashing out. It’s an everyday feeling of responsibility and self-empowerment, eating in, and it all came back to me acutely during this week.

Ordinarily, an assortment of vegetables, or even just carrot, onion and celery, the basics, were fine for making a savory vegetable stock for me. This I’d keep frozen for later uses like in soups, braises and risotto, and I’d just run out of a batch of it before the Week of Eating In. But something told me this week called for something special. So I took out the last chicken from the freezer, and simmered it for a couple hours into a hearty chicken stock.

a chicken simmers into homemade stock

Yes, there were chickens in my freezer, and this was the last one remaining from a shoot-out on Queens County Farm Museum almost a year ago. At least, I think that’s what kind of birds they were. You see, I used to date the director of agriculture there, Michael Robertson, and one day he decided to get rid of a bunch of stray birds (yes, there are stray birds like chickens, roosters and geese in NYC) that were hanging out on the farm, with the help of Tom Mylan, butcher from The Meat Hook. I was spared what I’m sure was a horrific scene — Tom, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth wielding a BB gun, and Michael trying to keep the squawking birds in a contained space so as to be easy targets — but I was not spared their hunt, which Michael gave me shortly afterward, in frozen packages. We had a horrible dinner party in which I tried to cook some of them (not horrible because the company was, but because the food was, a first — those birds were pretty old and their meat incredibly tough). And then I left the last few birds tucked away in the fridge, almost forgetting about them.

the fennel bulb was shaved into a salad, while the tougher stalks chopped up along with celery for a soup

Once I had about a gallon of chicken stock, I quickly got started on making soup. In a separate pot, I sweat some onions, carrots, celery and fennel stalks (leftover from the day before’s salad), and cooked some cannelini beans that had been soaked overnight until almost tender. Into the soup also went some diced turnips, parsnips and leftover fresh parsley and thyme, some homemade tomato sauce, and I’m sure many other things I’m forgetting. Oh yes, a couple Thai chiles from a class I taught at The Brooklyn Kitchen a couple weeks ago; a rind of Parmiggiano-Reggiano Karol gave me on my birthday. Some chopped olives, from a container that I’d been snacking on ever since the Moroccan cassoulet, and the last cupful or so of honey butternut squash soup. Isn’t soup-making fun? It’s like all your recent life, in a pot.

It turned out I made enough soup for an army, so I kept about a pint to myself before freezing the majority, and giving another pint away to friends. But, to make room in the freezer, I removed from it another food find: a single-portion sized container of leftover coq au vin with buttery mashed potatoes. I’d made this meal on a quick getaway with friends over Valentine’s Day weekend, and even though there was only enough remaining after a big meal together to feed about one, I brought it back in any case, and immediately stuffed it into the freezer once home. So when I left home for the office on Tuesday, I brought this along with an apple, and some soup and bread for a quick dinner, later on. I knew I wouldn’t have time to stop at home before having to go to my commitment that night, co-hosting a food documentary screening called Hungry Filmmakers.

a tasty winter vegetable and bean soup, leftover’s delight

The coq au vin was defrosted and reheated up for lunch; not too shabby indeed (pictured at top). It was rich and satisfying, but then so was my early dinner of soup, and slices of whole wheat no-knead bread. No, I wasn’t too sad at all when I couldn’t enjoy the refreshments at the film event, which happened to include a last-minute sponsor, Slice pizza, which I had never tried. For the second night in a row, the temptation of readily available pizza was right before me. But I was plenty full by then, and kept myself occupied with the schmoozing and sipping during the reception. And when the party moved on to Jimmy’s No. 43, where I was promised there’d be plenty of snacks floating around by Jimmy himself (before clasping a hand over his mouth, remembering my week-long fast), I politely declined; for the second night in a row, this just sounded too delicious an event to pass up on the food should I be taunted with it, before my face. So I took the subway home instead, and called it a night. Day Two of Eating In, done!