Category: Food

In her Little House books Laura Ingalls Wilder made a big deal out of the changing of the seasons. Fall was an obvious one with all the emphasis on the harvest, etc., but springtime was also a really big deal for her.

In one of the books — I don’t specifically remember which one — she goes into a four- or five-page reverie about her mother making the first salad of the year. She describes the lettuce that she grew, and how her ma would make a dressing out of bacon drippings and vinegar.

“Oh, Ma!” the barefoot kids would cry, “Salad!”

“Hooray! Salad!”

“By gum, Caroline,” her Pa would say, “You beat everyone else all hollow for making salad!”

And Ma would blush, and admit that while it wasn’t perfect, it was, in fact, a pretty good salad.”

And I, as a child of the ’70s, would stop reading briefly, and shout at the book.

“Seriously, people! It’s a salad! Get over it!”

What I didn’t or couldn’t realize at the time was that this frontier family had just come off a winter of living on potatoes, salt pork and hardtack, and now even the potatoes were gone. They all had early-stage rickets and scurvy. Fresh, leafy greens must have hit their systems like a vitamin A speedball.

Now, while we haven’t spent the winter locked up in a one-room shanty on the prairie, we are coming off a long takeout and frozen dinner jag. Many of us have spent the past week or two standing in our gardens, hands on hips, staring down at the seedlings and going, “WELL?!”

The big stuff — the cucumbers, tomatoes, and corn — is still a long way off, but we are starting to get a few tiny things, vegetable flirtations, if you will, from our gardens.

Springtime Cocktail #1

Peas and mint are a classic combination. My question was a matter of ratios — how much mint to how many peas?

I looked through many, many recipes and found very little agreement. But Martha Stewart advised 10 ounces of peas to 1/3 cup of mint leaves, and if there is anyone I would put blind trust in on this matter, it would be Martha.

The great thing about this recipe is that aside from washing the peas and mint, you don’t have to pluck, chop or process them in any fussy way.

Preparing the gin:

• 1/3 cup (8 grams) fresh mint — Don’t worry about plucking the leaves. The stems will work well here, too.
• 10 ounces fresh sugar snap peas or snow peas in their pods
• 10 ounces (285 grams) medium-quality gin — I used Gordon’s

Measure all three ingredients into a blender — a kitchen scale is excellent for this.

Blend thoroughly for a minute or so.

Leave the mixture to steep for an hour.

Strain with a fine-meshed kitchen strainer.

Your yield will be about a cup (8 ounces) of Bright Green Gin — enough for four cocktails.

The cocktail itself:

• 2 ounces Bright Green Gin
• 1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
• ¾ ounce amaretto

Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker.

Shake.

Strain into a chilled coupe glass.

This is what I call a classic Utility Cocktail recipe — two parts alcohol, one part citrus juice, ¾ part syrup or liqueur.

Amaretto has a reputation of being a bully and taking over any drink it’s a part of. When used judiciously, it is an excellent team player. Peas go extremely well with mint – that’s a given. They also go with lemon and with almonds. All these ingredients play extremely well together.

The first thing you notice, of course, is the color, a bright vibrant green that even the amaretto won’t dull. The pea flavor is distinct but not overly assertive. The acid of the lemon juice brightens everything up.

It is startlingly delicious.

And holds off scurvy. There’s no sense in taking chances.

(One observation: The Bright Green Gin has a short shelf life. It will start losing its vibrant color and flavor within a couple of hours, so it is best to drink it right away. This is a perfect before-dinner cocktail to share with friends, or for two of you to have two apiece.)

Featured photo. Springtime Cocktail. Photo by John Fladd.

Two reds that show off the diversity of French grapes

France is the largest country in western Europe. In the continent overall, it is second only to Ukraine and Russia, located at the eastern edges of the continent. However, the country is slightly smaller in area to the combined square miles of Colorado and Wyoming. It is smaller than the state of Texas, yet it has some of the most diverse terrain and climate of any of the wine-producing European nations. The terrain ranges from the mountainous edges of the Alps and Pyrenees to the rolling hills and plains to the north of Paris. And climate is influenced by these extremes, from the warm Mediterranean sun on its southern shores to the cool, sometimes rainy northern shores. Given this diversity of terroir, we are blessed with a full array of wines to sip or enjoy with our friends at dinner.

Our first wine, a 2019 Pascal et Alain Lorieux Chinon Red Loire Wine (originally $54.99 at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets, reduced to $24.99), is a creation of 100 percent cabernet franc grapes. These grapes are grown worldwide and are principally used for blending with other varietals, such as in Bordeaux-style wines, where they are blended with cabernet sauvignon and merlot. Cabernet sauvignon and merlot grapes can trace their beginnings to cabernet franc grapes. This wine comes from the Chinon appellation, along the Loire River Valley. This appellation has been vinifying cabernet franc wines since sometime in the 17th century. In general the cabernet franc grape is similar to the cabernet sauvignon but buds and ripens at least a week earlier, allowing it to thrive in cooler climates than cabernet sauvignon, such as in the Loire Valley.

This grape adapts to a wide variety of vineyard soils. We have said before that terroir affects the grape, the color and the notes of a wine, and this is certainly true of cabernet franc. The soils of the Chinon appellation are a chalky limestone and produce a heavier, more full-bodied wine. Cabernet franc coming from the Finger Lakes Region of New York, with its gravel-based soils, tends to be a bit “thinner” than this Loire Valley wine. However, it has nonetheless taken off in the region because it produces wines of better quality and because of its ability to ripen more reliably than other reds.

The wine has a beautiful deep garnet color, producing notes of red cherries and raspberries, along with some slight undertones of plum and blackberries. The tannins are slight, with notes of cedar. This is a rich, soft wine that we paired with hamburgers, grilled to be very rare and then loaded with blue cheese and mushrooms. This wine turned the simple meal into one of elegance.

Our next wine comes from the south of France, only about a seven-hour drive from Chinon, but a world away in climate and soils. The 2020 Réserve des Diacres Châteauneuf-d-Pape (originally $39.99 at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets, reduced to $23.99) is a classic southern Rhône wine. The color is a slightly transparent purple; to the nose there are plums and blackberries. These notes follow through on the tongue, with a solid, dry presence, not “jammy” but still full of fruit and bold. There is alcohol at 14.4 percent, but it doesn’t burn your nose.

To look at the label, one would think this is a winter wine. While not a sipping wine, this is an excellent accompaniment to grilled lamb, or low-fire grilled rustic vegetables in olive oil. The wine is blended by Baptiste Grangeon, owner and winemaker at Domaine De Crista, a vineyard and winery situated on some of the best soils in the southern Rhône valley. To create an affordable wine, he sourced grapes from three different terroirs within the region, with a sand and limestone base, topped by the famous river-washed rock that holds the heat of the midday sun. The grapes are principally grenache, blended with syrah. The grenache is high in sugars, thus producing high alcoholic wines. The syrah introduces just enough “jammy” fruit to soften the grenache. This is a beautiful wine to enjoy with a backyard barbeque.

Two different wines from one country, offering widely different notes to the palate, provide one with an opportunity to enjoy a wide spectrum of experiences. Enjoy your barbecue!

Featured photo. Courtesy photo.