Boston Notebook

fig. a: You don't know beans...

When M., our friend and Ultimate Boston Authority, titled her extensive run-down of the food scene in Boston "Beans & Tweed," we weren't exactly 100% sure what to make of it.  I mean, yeah, we all know about Boston baked beans, but are they still just as central to the local imagination as they once were to the national imagination?

  fig. b: Uncle Sam + Sitting Bull

And, sure, I guess I can see the tweed connection, but what kind of Boston Tweed are we talking about?

 Ivy League?

fig. c: boss tweed


 fig. d:  bros. tweed

Retrosexual?

   fig. e:  tweed ride

fig. f: tweed rides again

Or this kind?

  fig. g:  Boston tweed cat carrier

Well, in the end, we didn't encounter a whole lot of beans or tweed.  No beans, because we placed our emphasis on scoring some premium seafood.  And no tweed, because it was somewhere close to 85º F when we arrived in Beantown.  But M.'s "Beans & Tweed" guide to Boston was a treasure trove of tasty and tantalizing tips nonetheless.

Unfortunately for us, our trip to Boston (Michelle's first!) was exceedingly short, and the stated purpose of the visit had to do with attending a conference, but we still managed to squeeze in some great outings...

Toro

We were dead set on going to Toro for our first dinner in Boston.  We'd heard great things, we were in the mood for top-notch tapas, we were thirsty for wine, and we were on another one of our crazy cross-border missions.  This time involving a bread delivery (?).

When Michelle's colleague and fellow Twitterer Jeffrey Finkelstein heard that we were heading down to Boston, he asked us if we could do him a favour--drop off a batch of his exceptional Hof Kelsten bread to a friend of his:  Ken Oringer, the owner and one of the co-chefs at Toro.  We told him we'd been thinking about visiting Toro anyway.  He told us that he'd make sure that he got us hooked up if we did.  Right on!

So that's how we wound up hauling an industrial-size bag (literally) of bread from Montreal to Boston.  This time the customs officials didn't even bat an eye.

Dropping off a load of bread didn't help to get us seated at Toro--it was Friday night and that joint was hopping!--but it did score us some attentive service and some lovely extras when we did.

Everything (and I do mean everything) we had was simply outstanding, but the highlights included the cauliflower a la plancha (with pine nuts and golden raisins), the whole salt-encrusted Mediterranean sea bass stuffed with herbs, the griddled garlic shrimp with Romesco, and their house special Latin American-style grilled corn with aioli, aged cheese, and espelette pepper.  I know, I know:  corn in March?  Like Michelle says:  just order it.  It was totally off the hook--the very best grilled corn either of us had ever had.

Verdict:  Olé!

Mr. Bartley's

Mr. Bartley's actually has a rather extensive menu, but their reputation rests on their assortment of "gourmet burgers."  You might think the "gourmet" label might scare some people off, but, no--Mr. Bartley's burgers are unbelievably popular.  The line-up outside stretched down the block at 2:30 in the afternoon.

When we saw the size of this queue, we figured we'd have to come up with a Plan B, but there were only two of us, so we decided to ask how long the wait was anyway.  After all, we were both majorly jonesing for a burger.  When the host told us "about 15 minutes" we thought he was having us on, but we decided to stick around to find out.  Sure enough, 15 minutes later, we were seated, waiting for our gourmet burgers.

Mr. Bartley's isn't exactly a fast food joint--the burgers are much too generous (7 ounces!) for that.  But it's pretty much as fast as it could possibly be, and it's an impressive operation to see in action.  They take your order outside, when you're waiting in line.  When you actually enter the premises, your order is set into motion, and is matched with your seating assignment.  No time is wasted on customers lollygagging over the menu, and the ritual of ordering has been seriously streamlined.  You still have a bit of a wait on your hands after you get seated, because these are big burgers and they're prepared with care, but Mr. Bartley's system allows them to cycle customers through the restaurant highly efficiently (hence, the miraculous "about 15 minutes" wait time).  More importantly, they make a tasty, perfectly cooked burger, and the place has all the character you'd expect of a Harvard Square burger institution of its vintage (since 1960!).  Plus, if it's good enough for the likes of Johnny Cash, Jacqueline Onasis, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Bill Belichick, Al Pacino, Adam Sandler, Tom Werner, and Katie Couric, it's good enough for you.  It was definitely good enough for us.

Verdict:  Rah!  Rah!  Rah!

Neptune


 fig. h:  Neptune

Easily the single biggest food highlight of the entire trip.  Neptune was definitely a bit of a splurge, but it was absolutely worth it.  We sat at the raw bar and took our sweet, sweet time, and when everything was said and devoured, Michelle proclaimed the meal one of her Top 5 restaurant meals of all time (!).

One of the reasons the meal was so much fun was because we avoided the main courses, and, instead, placed our focus on the raw bar and on a selection of accompanying appetizers and other side dishes (in retrospect, I guess we were still in tapas mode from the night before).  We ended up doing two platters from the raw bar--both of them à la carte, both of them consisting mainly of New England oysters--and even that wasn't enough:  Michelle ended up having an extra Jonah crab claw "for dessert" at the very end of our meal.

The oysters were simultaneously out of the world, and very much of it.  They were so plump, so juicy, so sweet, and so wonderfully briny.  We ended up having most of Neptune's East Coast offerings, including Cotuits (Cotuit, MA), Island Creeks (Duxbury, MA), and Wellfleets (Wellfleet, MA), but our favourites were the Ninigrets (Ninigret, RI) and the Thatch Islands (Barnstable, MA).  Michelle had never had Jonah crab claws before, so she insisted, and I was all too happy to comply.  I'd never had cracked crab without drawn butter, but those claws were pretty damn fine au naturel, and they were even better with a dab of Neptune's horseradish-laced cocktail sauce.  Finally, I insisted on adding some clams to the mix, and I was pretty glad I did, because their cherrystones were the sweetest, most tender clams I've ever had.

Other delica-seas included the Wellfleet littlenecks steamed in Vermentino wine, with garlic and parsley, the Neptune Caesar, whose combination of lolla rossa lettuce, pecorino, lemon, and boquerones (yes!) may have made it my definitive restaurant Caesar salad, and Neptune's crudo special.  Their crudo-of-the-day was striped bass from Virginia dressed with olive oil, chives, sliced red grapes, and verjus, and it was utterly masterful.  It blew us away, and I'm sure it would have made Dave Pasternack proud.

Next time (and, let me tell you, there will be a next time) we're definitely going to split one of Neptune's lobster rolls, but, otherwise, I'd go about things pretty much exactly the same way.

Verdict:  Ahoy!

Deluxe Town Diner

 fig. g:  deluxe!

Sunday we were in the mood for a deluxe diner breakfast, and a deluxe diner breakfast is what we got. In fact, that was the name of the diner we went to:  Deluxe Town Diner, in nearby Watertown, MA.  New England still has its fair share of authentic early- to mid-20th-century diners, and the Deluxe Town Diner is one of them.  And though the owners are clearly aware of their diner's retro charms, they haven't gone all Wowsville with it.  Instead, the focus is on the food.

We were lured by rumours of honest-to-goodness, homemade Johnny Cakes, and they were truly excellent (especially when drizzled with their 100% pure Vermont maple syrup), but so was everything else:  the corned beef hash, the home fries, the bottomless cups of coffee.

Verdict:  Hubba hubba!

Mystery Train

 fig. h:  all aboard!


On our way back to the Great White North, we made a detour to Cape Anne to eat some more seafood, buy some saltwater taffy, and experience the charms of coastal New England, but the best stop of this jaunt was one of our first:  Mystery Train Records in Gloucester, MA.  (M. didn't steer us wrong [she never does].)  Now that's what I call a record store.  Definitely one of the best I've been to in years. Such a crazy hodge-podge of a collection, such reasonable prices, and such a great shopfront window.  Classic record store dudes, too.

Verdict:  Kick out the jams!




Toro, 1704 Washington St., Boston, MA 02118 (South End), (617) 536-4300


Mr. Bartley's, 1246 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138 (Harvard Square), (617) 354-6559


Neptune, 63 Salem St., Boston, MA 02113 (North End), (617) 742-3474


Deluxe Town Diner, 627 Mount Auburn St., Watertown, MA 02472 (617) 926-8400


Mystery Train Records, 21 Main St. Gloucester, MA 01930, (978) 281-8911



aj

DIY cabane à sucre

fig. a: maple sugaring in the northern woods again

Those of you who've been reading AEB over the last few years will know that we've long had an affection for scenes such as the one above: old prints of homesteaders practicing the alchemy of turning maple sap into maple syrup and maple sugar. You'll also know that we're big fans of the cuisine--yes, cuisine--of the traditional Québécois cabane à sucre: the beans, the ham, the cretons, and all the other assorted pork dishes, the ketchup aux fruits, the tire d'érable, and so on. You might also have noticed that Michelle's birthday is around this time of year, right in the thick of sugaring-off season. What you might not know, however--especially if you don't live in this region--is that if you wanted to take a sugar shack fanatic out to celebrate her birthday with a group of people at a traditional cabane à sucre, you'd have literally dozens upon dozens of establishments to choose from within a 100-150 km radius, but you'd be hard-pressed to find one of exceptional quality (top-notch ingredients + top-notch technique). Believe me, we've tried, and though we've found some good cabanes à sucre, ones worthy of a casual, slightly kitschy weekend outing, we've yet to find one that's worthy of a birthday party. Which means that as much as the idea of taking a group of people out to a traditional, rustic, intimate, backwoods sugar shack for Michelle's birthday appeals to us, it's never really been in the cards.

Now, rewind, if you will, for just a moment or two, to about three weeks ago. We were strolling down Ste-Catherine W. on our way to a movie when we looked in the window at Westcott Books and saw this handsome book:

fig. b: The Maple Sugar Book

The store was closed at the time, but the cover left such an impression on us that the very next day we made a special trip back to that part of town to take a closer look. And when we did, we liked what we saw, so we took that first edition of Helen & Scott Nearing's The Maple Sugar Book (1950) up to the front counter, chatted up the owner about his numerous bookstore cats, paid for the book, and took it home with us.

The Nearings' book is divided into three parts--roughly, the history of maple sugaring, the practice of maple sugaring, and the philosophy of life that goes along with maple sugaring--plus an appendix on maple recipes of all sorts (from candied sweet potatoes to maple divinity fudge), and it starts off with the kind of bang you might expect from the people who more or less pioneered the 20th century back-to-the-land movement:

FOREWORD

We had three things in mind when we set ourselves to write this book. The first was to describe in detail the process of maple sugaring. The second was to present some interesting aspects of maple history. The third was to relate our experiments in homesteading and making a living from maple to the larger problem faced by so many people nowadays: how should one live?

[...]

What we have been developing here in the Green Mountains is a source of livelihood that leaves us time and room to live life simply and surely and worthily. Henry Thoreau wrote in his journal on February 18, 1850: "There is little or nothing to be remembered written on the subject of getting an honest living. Neither the New Testament nor Poor Richard speaks to our condition. I cannot think of a single page which entertains, much less answers, the questions which I put to myself on this subject. How to make the getting our living poetic! for if it is not poetic, it is not life but death that we get." Sugaring can bring one an honest living. And anyone who has ever sugared remembers the poesy of it to the end of his days...

We haven't exactly packed up our city-living ways, found ourselves a tract of hardscrabble land, and started homesteading (yet), but the Nearings' The Maple Sugar Book is definitely a great read for a book that devotes so much type to discussions of buckets, pipes, and evaporators, and we've been talking about it off and on for weeks.

In fact, it became such an important of our lives that when we started thinking about our annual sugar shack pilgrimage this year, perversely, the book actually inspired us to stay in the city and stage a full-blown cabane à sucre extravaganza ourselves. We'd be missing out on the fresh air and the woods, of course, but we'd be saving on car rental fees and gas, there'd be little risk of kitsch, we'd be able to guarantee that our food would be both tasty and of a high quality, we'd be able to control the stereo (i.e. we'd be able to play our La Bolduc records if we so desired, but we could just as easily play a Brigitte Fontaine & Areski record) and therefore the ambiance, and, who knows, maybe we'd be able to create some small-scale poesy right at home. We got so excited about the idea, that we decided to throw this sugar shack party for Michelle's birthday.

Now, before you get all hot and bothered because we left out the pea soup, the oreilles de crisse, and the pets de soeur, you should know that our menu was our own personal Dream Team: a few classics, like baked beans and ketchup aux fruits, alongside some dishes that you'd probably never find at a cabane à sucre but you'd be happier if you did (or, rather, we'd be happier if we did). The spread went as follows: two tourtières, two maple-braised pork shanks, two batches of baked beans (one with yellow eye beans, the other with soldier beans), a massive batch of cole slaw, ketchup aux fruits, cornichons, cheddar cheese with crackers and jerusalem artichoke relish, and a can of maple syrup for all those willing to add a little magic to the mix, plus apple crumble with maple frappé for dessert. The tablecloth was of the red & white checked variety, and Michelle had decorated the table with hay to give things a countrified feel (okay, so we threw in a little kitsch). The view from our specially designed AEB tablecam looked like this:

fig. c: tourtière de ville, ketchup aux fruits, sirop d'érable

Tourtière, of course, is the classic French-Canadian meat pie. It might even be the classic French-Canadian dish. Its roots stretch back to the days before the settlement of New France, but this is a dish which, in all of its varieties, became as French-Canadian as they come. The version we've been making since the fall of 2006 is a variation on the one found in Martin Picard & Co.'s Au Pied de Cochon: The Album, and it's the best tourtière recipe I've ever encountered. If you've ever had your typical modern, disappointing, bone-dry tourtière, this is not one of them. The PDC recipe is unorthodox but ingenious, using mushrooms, white wine, and a grated potato to keep the filling moist and flavorful. The PDC original calls for braised pork shank meat and 1 braised pig's knuckle because when they make them at the restaurant they've got a lot of braised pork shanks and braised pigs' knuckles on-hand and available. We've replaced the 200 g / 7 oz of braised pork shank meat with the same amount of ground veal for simplicity's sake, and it turns out famously every time. However, you could use some of the braised pork shank meat from the maple pigs' feet / maple pork shanks recipe you see below, if you so desired, and I'm sure your tourtière would turn out even more hallucinant. Note: when it comes to the ground pork, don't get it too lean--no need to go overboard, but you want a bit of extra fat content for tourtière. If that kind of thing concerns you, just go for a long walk or chop a little wood beforehand, but don't sell your tourtière short. Note #2: the added nutmeg is my touch. Again, this is very unorthodox, so go ahead and leave it out if you like, but I think it really makes a difference. Just remember to go easy on the spices. They should definitely be present, but you don't want to overpower the filling with either clove or cinnamon (or nutmeg, for that matter).

tourtière de ville

1 pie dough recipe
500 g / 1 lb ground pork
250 g / 1/2 lb ground veal
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
100 g / 4 oz mushrooms, chopped
100 ml / 1/2 cup white wine
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp butter
1 small potato, grated
1 small pinch ground cloves
1 small pinch ground cinnamon
1 small pinch ground nutmeg
salt and freshly ground pepper

In a large pot, sweat the onions and the garlic in the butter over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and continue cooking until the liquid released by the vegetables has evaporated. Add the white wine and continue cooking until the wine has evaporated as well. Add the ground pork, the ground veal, and the spices to the pot. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring to break up the chunks of meat. Add the grated potato and cook for another 10 minutes. Correct the seasoning, remove from the heat, and allow the mixture to cool.

Preheat your oven to 230º C / 450º F.

Roll out the pie dough and line a pie plate with half of it. Fill this with the ground meat mixture. Cover with the top half of the pie crust, brush it with the egg yolk, and poke or cut some holes in the top crust to allow the steam to escape during cooking.

Bake the pie in the oven for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 175º C / 350º F and bake for another 20-25 minutes.

Serve with ketchup aux fruits.

Two pork shanks from our friends at Porc Meilleur came in at under $5 and they looked and tasted great. This recipe is straight out of the PDC cookbook and it's typical of PDC's genius: take one of the lowliest cuts off one of the lowliest meats and redeem it with a cup of maple syrup and a lot of love.

maple pigs' feet / pork shanks

2 pigs' trotters or pork shanks
2 carrots, peeled
1 head of garlic, whole
1 sprig thyme
6 boiler onions
2 l / 8 cups pork stock
250 ml / 1 cup maple syrup
100 ml / 7 tbsp vinaigrette
15 g / 1/4 cup fresh Italian parsley
salt and freshly ground black pepper

brine: 2 cups of salt dissolved in 4.5 l / 1.2 gallons of water

Soak the pigs' feet or pork shanks in the brine for 4-6 hours.

Put the meat, the onions, the carrots, the garlic and the thyme in an ovenproof casserole. Pour the stock and the maple syrup over the meat (ideally, the liquid should come about halfway up the sides of the feet/shanks). Bake uncovered in the oven at 160º C / 325º F, basting the meat with the broth every 30 minutes until they are well-glazed and have developed a nice crust. Bake for a total of four hours; the meat should be extremely tender and come easilly off the bone. Remove the meat, the carrots, and the onions from the broth and set aside.

Strain the stock and drippings into a saucepan; you should have approximately 2 cups total. Dice the carrots finely and add them and the onions to the pan. Bring to a boil over high heat and reduce by half. Remove from the heat and whisk in the vinaigrette. Add the parsley and correct the seasoning as needed.

Serve the meat with a generous amount of the sauce poured overtop.

Vinaigrette:

1 cup vegetable oil
50 ml Dijon mustard
50 ml red wine vinegar

Whisk together the mustard, the vinegar, and a pinch of salt in a mixing bowl. Gradually whisk in the oil, stirring constantly to create a proper emulsion.

If you're all out of last summer's homemade canned ketchup aux fruits, here's a quick and easy off-season version.

ketchup aux fruits (winter version)

1 28-oz / 786 ml can of whole tomatoes & their liquid
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 apples, peeled, cored, and diced
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1 pinch of ground cloves
1 small pinch cayenne pepper
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

In a saucepan, bring the whole tomatoes, the onion, the garlic, and the celery to a boil and then simmer them gently for about 15-20 minutes, and gently break up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon. Remove the saucepan from the heat and using an immersion blender or a conventional blender, blend half the mixture, then return it to the saucepan. Add the apples, the maple syrup, the vinegar and the spices and simmer for another 30-45 minutes. Makes plenty enough for a DIY sugar shack bash, and you'll be happy to have the leftovers.

This last recipe is of the WWMD variety: "what would Maurice do." We considered a whole host of maple syrup-laden desserts--backwoods-style crêpes, pouding chômeur, etc.--before settling on something we'd never ever had before because a) we have a lot of faith in Maurice and b) how can you argue with a recipe that gets this kind of write-up?

Once in a while Hettie [the Brockways' Irish "hired girl"] would make what she called Maple Frappe. I was delighted to help chop the ice which Tommy, the handyman, would get out of the big icehouse located out beyond the vegetable garden under a huge maple tree. Every winter, when the river was frozen, Grandfather hired a local man and his son to cut the large blocks of ice and haul them on a sleigh up the long hill to the icehouse. They were packed in sawdust from the lumber mill, and there they lasted all through the long hot summer. Each morning a large piece was dug out of the sawdust--which served as perfect insulation--washed with the hose, then put into the icebox in the summer kitchen. We were extremely advanced as we had a drain from the ice chest instead of the large pan everyone else seemed to use to catch the drippings.

I was delighted also to turn the freezer crank for the privilege of "licking" the ladle. Try this, and soon: 6 eggs beaten until creamy, 1 cup of pure maple syrup, 1 can of condensed milk, 1 can of evaporated milk, 1 pint of heavy cream whipped, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Mix together and freeze in an old-fashioned ice-cream freezer--not in the refrigerator ice trays. This makes 3 pints of frappe which, by itself is pure nectar, but atop warm apple pie is a delicacy that must be tasted to be believed.

We made an apple crumble instead of the apple pie recommended by Maurice, but it still ranked as "a delicacy that must be tasted to be believed." I don't know if I'm ready to wax poetic about maple frappé the way Maurice does--of course, we don't have an icehouse or a "hired girl" name Hettie, so maybe we didn't get the full experience--but it's got a really lovely, mellow maple flavor to it and I definitely have never had anything like it.

All in all: A+

aj

Relatively Quick Breads 2: Boston Brown Bread

A few days later, I was rereading John Thorne's wonderful chapter on baked beans from Serious Pig for the umpteenth time, when I suddenly realized that I'd never done anything other than gloss over his brief section on Boston Brown Bread that appears roughly midway through the chapter. I'd read the beginning of the chapter, of course, and the last several pages of the chapter--"A Note On Maine Bean Types," "First Find Your Bean Pot," and "Bean Hole Beans" (Thorne is nothing if not thorough)--but, inexplicably, I'd always just skipped over the section on Boston Brown Bread. Not this time, though. This time I read the Boston Brown Bread section closely and I could hardly believe what I was reading. The combination is an unlikely one, and Thorne draws attention to this: "At first, theirs seems a strange alliance. Brown bread, a chocolate-colored, raisin-studded soda bread made of whole wheat, rye, and "injun" [corn meal] is just as soft, dense, and carbohydrate-heavy as baked beans themselves--and yet, somehow, the two manage to paly off, even enhance, each other's goodness." But what really caught me by surprise was that Boston Brown Bread is traditionally a steamed bread--and one that's most commonly steamed in a coffee can.

fig. a: clean, empty coffee can

Like everyone and their brother, I knew about Boston Baked Beans. Like a lot of people, I'd heard of Boston Brown Bread. But somehow I never got the message that Boston Brown Bread gets steamed on the stovetop (in a can!) while your pot of Boston Baked Beans bakes in the oven. Talk about "Yankee ingenuity."

I'd already decided that I needed to make Boston Brown Bread that very night--after all, my Down East Baked Beans were baking in the oven and they still had a good 3-4 hours to go--but when Michelle got home I asked her what she knew about Boston Brown Bread. "What do I know about Boston Brown Bread?," she asked. "I've been wanting to make it since I was a kid, that's what." Turns out that at roughly the same age that I was obsessing over Johnny Cake down south of the border, Michelle was north of the border, dreaming of Boston Brown Bread. When I told her I was thinking of making it that very night, she got pretty excited. I had no problem convincing her to run off to the health food store for rye flour while I went to the supermarket in search of molasses, buttermilk, and a 1-pound coffee can.

15 minutes later we reconvened and Michelle started to assemble the dough while I got to work on the coleslaw (the third part of Thorne's baked beans trinity).

Boston Brown Bread

1/2 cup rye flour
1/2 cup cornmeal, preferably white flint
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp fancy molasses (not blackstrap)
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup raisins or dried currants
butter for greasing a 1-pound coffee can

About 2 1/2 hours before your baked beans will be ready, bring a large kettle of water to a boil. In a mixing bowl, stir together the rye flour, cornmeal, whole-wheat flour, baking soda, and salt until well mixed. Pour in the molasses and buttermilk, and work into a smooth batter. Fold in the raisins or dried currants [raisins are traditional, but Thorne prefers currants]. Carefully butter the inside of your empty, clean 1-pound coffee can (a 14-oz can will do). Pour in the batter and cover the can with a doubled piece of aluminum foil. Press this down so that it stretches tightly across the top and reaches partially down the sides, and secure it in place with a sturdy rubber band.

Put a small wire rack (if available) on the bottom of a deep pot. Set the filled coffee can on the rack or simply set it on the bottom of the pot. Pour the boiling water around the can

fig. b: adding the boiling water to the pot

until it reaches a little more than halfway up the sides. Bring the water back up to a murmuring simmer, cover the pot, and gently steam the bread for 2 hours, or until a straw inserted in the middle of the bread comes out clean. Remove, set on a cake rack, and let cool until the beans are ready to serve, then unmould the bread and serve warm. Brown bread is traditionally cut with a string, but dental floss works well too.

fig. c: still life with Boston Brown Bread, a coffee can, and dental floss

Serve buttered, alongside--or, if you prefer, under--the baked beans.

Makes 1 loaf of delicious Boston Brown Bread.

Total time: about 2 1/2 hours.

John Thorne has never let us down. Fresh, hot Boston Brown Bread with butter + baked beans was a revelation. I'd always been partial to sourdough with my baked beans previously, but now it's going to be hard to go back. And Boston Brown Bread is much more than just a sidekick to your baked beans--it makes for an ideal loaf of morning bread too. Again, all you need to do is toast it and add butter, the bread does the rest.

With a cooking time of 2 hours, Boston Brown Bread can hardly be accused of being the quickest quick bread, but it's one of the easiest, most satisfying bread recipes you'll ever find, and it's hard for me to imagine a better recipe to get kids interested in cooking. Think about it: piping-hot homemade bread in only 2 1/2 hours. Plus, when was the last time you steamed a loaf of bread? In a coffee can, no less.

aj

The Land of Milk and Honey and Bacon and Cheese and...

1. Shelburne Farms maple-cured, cob-smoked bacon
2. Dakin Farm maple-cured, cob-smoked bacon
3. Shelburne Farms honey
4. Flag Hill Farm Cyder
5. Amish butter
6. Ayinger Ur-Weisse Dünkel Weizen
7. Stratford Organic Creamery whole milk
8. Celebrator Doppelbock
9. Dakin Farm cob-smoked bacon odds and ends
10. Dakin Farm Maine blueberries, packed in water
11. Shelburne Farms smoked cheddar
12. Dakin Farm yellow-eye beans
13. Lazy Lady Farm "O My Heart"
14. Orb Weaver cave-aged farmhouse cheese
15. Orb Weaver Vermont farmhouse cheese
16. Bee Haven Honey Farm pure Vermont honey
17. Dakin Farm buckwheat pancake mix
18. Vermont Common Cheddar Crackers
19. King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour
20. Jasper Hill Bayley Hazen blue cheese
21. Gore Dawn Zola blue cheese
22. Jasper Hill Constant Bliss cheese
23. Black Gilliflower apples, a.k.a. Sheep's Nose apples
24. Stevens Lady apples
25. Cabot Creamery salted butter

Yep, you guessed it. We just made another one of our famous cross-border shopping expeditions to Vermont. Actually, we went down on a weekend getaway, to get out of the city, go for walks, and have another nice meal at American Flatbread, but one thing led to another. "...An endless banquet" is digital proof that we've found Montreal to be nothing if not rich (in at least two senses of the word) when it comes to its food culture, but there's something about our friends to the south and the landscape they call home that never fails to impress us. And somehow this admiration of ours has a way of turning into a lot of little food expenditures. The reason for this has something to do with our weakness for dairy. Good dairy, that is. And what, exactly, is so special about Vermont's dairy? Well, that has something to do with the kind of pasture land you find in Vermont, with the fact that Vermonters, to a degree that's almost unheard of these days, continue to hold on to their farms, and with the fact that the number of people who keep cows in Vermont (even just one) is so much higher than the average. Noel Perrin said so much back in 1978 in First Person Rural: Essays of a Sometime Farmer, his account of small-time farming, and life among small-time farmers, in Vermont, and this situation has continued to hold until now. In fact, in Perrin's mind these factors helped explain why Vermont was better looking than its neighbor to the east, New Hampshire.

QUESTION: Why is Vermont more beautiful than New Hampshire? ANSWER: Because of Vermont farmers. Remove the farmers, and within ten years New Hampshire would surge ahead.

This is a serious argument. If you just consider natural endowment, the two states are both fortunate, but New Hampshire is more fortunate. It has taller mountains, it has a seacoast, it even owns the whole northern reach of the Connecticut River, except a little strip of mud on the Vermont side.

But New Hampshire's farmers mostly quit one to two generations ago and started running motels or selling real estate. The result is that most of New Hampshire is now scrub woods without views. Dotted, of course, with motels and real estate offices.

A lot of Vermont farmers, however, are holding on. Almost every farmer has cows, and almost every cow works night and day keeping the state beautiful. Valleys stay open and green, to contrast with the wooded hills behind them. Stone walls stay visible, because the cows eat right up to them. Hill pastures still have views, because the cows are up there meditatively chewing the brush, where no man with a tractor would dare to mow. (That's the other argument for butter besides its taste. I once figured that every pound of butter or gallon of milk someone buys means that another ten square yards of pasture is safe for another year.)

Sure, Vermont is suffering from sprawl and free-market economics these days in a way that it wasn't 30 years ago, but not nearly to the extent that most every other corner of North America is. And some things may have even improved over the last three decades, like the farmstead cheese scene. And the strength of the farmstead cheese scene has everything to do with the fact that Vermont has so many cows, and especially so many cows raised on small farms. And there is something to be said about Perrin's argument. I mean, as much as we love mountains and forest and that kind of thing, there's something to be said for pasture land and the views it affords. So maybe it all does boil down to this: four legs good.

You'll notice that we brought back a lot of Vermont dairy: organic milk, artisanal butter, and lots of farmstead cheese. We've hardly worked our way through our treasure trove of cheeses yet, but so far standouts include Lazy Lady's O My Heart, which is as creamy and as delicate as they get, and Orb Weaver Farm's cave-aged cheese, which has a wonderful caramel side to it. And let's not forget those Vermont Common Cheddar Crackers, made with real Grafton Village cheddar. Who needs Smartfood when you've got something as classic and as versatile as your Vermont Common Cheddar Cracker. Plus, who can argue with 175 years of experience? So cheese and cheese-based products were a hit.

But the other major discovery was Vermont bacon. Now, as much as I like bacon, I'm certainly not an all-out bacon fetishist, not the kind of person who left vegetarianism behind for bacon, not someone who'll take bacon any way they can get it. I've got some standards. Luckily, it's easy to get very good, high-quality bacon around these parts. Even our two local grocery stores--Sa & Fils and P.A.--have truly excellent bacon available behind their counters--throw in some of the city's premium boucheries/charcuteries, like La Maison du Roti or La Boucherie du Marché, or the city's amazing Eastern European charcuteries, like Charcuterie Hongroise or Slovenia, and you're laughing. But, believe me, you've never had anything like the bacon we found down in Vermont. Cob-smoked (as in corn cob-smoked), maple-cured bacon. Thick-cut, succulent, smoked and cured beyond perfection. I still can't get over it. We bought a couple of packs for our own personal, breakfast-time consumption--one pack of Shelburne Farms, one pack of Dakin Farm--and then we bought a couple of 1-lb. packages of Dakin Farm cob-smoked "odds and ends" just to cook with. We're talkin' heaven.

The next best discovery was beans, real New England baking beans, yellow-eyes and soldier beans. 2006 harvest. I know. You're thinking to yourself, "Beans?" You wouldn't believe what a difference it makes. They cooked to perfection in a fraction of the time the last batch I made did, and instead of being a characterless vehicle for the baked beans' other ingredients, they had a real flavor of their own, and cooking them created a rich pot liquor, just like it's supposed to. I can tell you one thing: I'll never use supermarket-bought navy beans ever again. That's it. It's over. Why would I ever go back? Together with a 1/4-pound of those Dakin Farm "odds and ends," I made the best damn batch of beans I've ever made. Seriously. Forget about "world-class." These were otherworldly.

Then there's the honey. Fantastic stuff, and at a fraction of what honey costs here in Quebec. I've still never quite understood the Great Price Hike of 2002 (or was it 2003?), the one that jacked up the price of honey by at least 60-80%. Whatever the cause, it doesn't seem to have affected Vermont's beekeepers.

And if that wasn't enough, we found apples, too. Somewhat rare stuff. Stevens Lady Apples, a tiny, perfectly colored, perfectly formed, slightly flattish variety, that, it's said, was kept tucked away in ladies' bosoms for safe-keeping until needed as a breath freshener. And Black Gilliflowers, a.k.a. Sheep's Nose apples, a cooking variety prized for its slightly spicy flavor.

Some people go on a trip and buy t-shirts and snoglobes and keychains, and that's cool. Other people go on a trip and buy milk and honey and bacon and cheese and beans and apples, and that's cool too. Trust me.

aj

[You can find out all about Shelburne Farms and Dakin Farm, etc. via the miracle of the Internet, and you can even order some of this stuff online, but wouldn't you rather go for a nice drive?]

lumberjack special

lumberjack special
Originally uploaded by ajkinik.

"If you want a sure formula, open a can."--John Thorne

Remember that talk of baked beans, eggs, and ketchup aux fruits from a couple of weeks back? Well, this morning our lumberjack special finally came together. Almost a year to the day since the last time I wrote about baked beans, here I go again.

We'd decided that Saturday was going to be the day to make baked beans. I was a little worried about the weather towards the end of the week, because the forecast was for partly cloudy/partly sunny weather and 14 degrees C and I wanted it to be a little chillier for baking beans, but I soaked my beans anyway on Friday night, and when I woke up on Saturday morning it was foggy and downright raw, perfect for baking beans. So I got out of bed, let Michelle sleep a little longer, and stole her copy of John Thorne's Serious Pig so I could bone up on baked beans, Maine-style. You might recall that we used John Thorne's recipe for Down-East Baked Beans last year for our entry on baked beans. We got that recipe from Saveur Cooks American and it was in the pages of Saveur that we first heard of John Thorne and his food writing. I made a mental note to track down a copy of Serious Pig, and when I was in New York in August I finally found a copy at the Strand. When I got back to Montreal I gave it to Michelle with the disclaimer that the title was in no way meant to be a bit of editorializing on her or her eating habits. She laughed, accepted my gift, and has been regaling me with tales of potato stands and orchards in Maine and Dirty Rice in Louisiana ever since. Anyway, I'd been meaning to sneak a peek at Thorne's lengthy chapter on Maine baked beans ("Knowing Beans") for some time. I figured I owed it to myself and to my beans to do so before making this next batch. Pick up a copy of Serious Pig, read the chapter on baked beans, and you'll learn everything from the particularities of Mainers when it comes to firewood and front doors, to the great variety of native beans used in the making of Maine baked beans and the seismic difference between Down-East Baked Beans and Up-North Baked Beans, to how to choose a proper bean pot and the lumberjack camp origins of the Maine tradition of baking beans. Thorne is a truly excellent food writer, and his food writing covers a great deal of ground. Armed with a deeper understanding of Maine baked beans, I whipped up another batch of Down-East Baked Beans, the addition of 1/4 pound of lardons fumés being the only alteration I made to Thorne's superb recipe. Once again I was struck by the perfect balance of flavors that result from following Thorne's method. Once again I was struck by the genius of adding 2 tablespoons of rum in place of some of the additional molasses or brown sugar you find in other recipes.

Later that night, after the beans had baked in a slow oven for some 6-7 hours, we had a very satisfying baked bean dinner with our fresh batch of Down-Easters, a hearty loaf of sourdough, some ketchup aux fruits (as per the Quebec tradition), and a delicious beet salad (with heirloom beets from Patrice's street sale). What I was really excited about, though, was the lumberjack special we had planned for this morning. The spread:

eggs over-easy
fried ham à l'ancienne
baked beans
toast
coffee
ketchup aux fruits
maple syrup (Quebec medium)
hot sauce

The only thing that was missing was a fresh batch of cretons maison. Next time. Otherwise, it was a perfect breakfast, one that fulfilled all our expectations.

My grandfather started his career as a cook in a lumberjack camp in the woods of Quebec. I'm not sure if he ever baked beans in a massive cast-iron pot buried in a "bean hole" the way Thorne describes, but he made his fair share of beans in his time. This meal was dedicated to him.

aj

ketchup aux fruits

ketchup aux fruits
Originally uploaded by michelle1975.

OK, you've gone out apple-picking, you've picked a bushel or two of apples and another half peck of pears, you've brought them back home, you've made your crumbles, you've served them with cheese, you've developed a 4-6 apple-a-day habit, and still you've got dozens and dozens of apples left. If you had a proper pantry and if this year's crop was heartier it might not be a problem, but you don't have a proper pantry and the unseasonably warm weather of the last few weeks has left this year's apple crop susceptible, to say the least. The question is, what do you do? Well, you start canning [I know, I know: "That's your answer to everything!" Just bear with me.]. I did my part by making a batch of ketchup aux fruits today. I wanted to use a classic Quebecois recipe, so I turned to a recipe I got from my Tante Huguette. I love homemade ketchup, I'm especially fond of ketchup aux fruits, and ketchup aux fruits with baked beans is a true classic in my book. With temperatures starting to dip a bit finally, I've had baked beans on the brain [sounds dangerous, I know, but this condition is easily remedied, I assure you]--naturally, I started to long for ketchup aux fruits, too.

The recipe I used looked like this:

Ketchup fruits et légumes

2 cups tomatoes, blanched and peeled
2 cups onions, chopped
1 1/2 cups apples, peeled and chopped
1 cup pears, peeled and chopped
14 oz. peaches, peeled and chopped
7 oz. celery, minced
1 tbsp salt
1 1/2 tsp dry mustard
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 cup vinegar

Put all ingredients in a saucepan and simmer for one hour. Can in sterilized jars.

Yield: 6 cups

Now I had decided that I wanted to make it more seasonal and therefore replace the peaches with additional apples and pears. I also made a few other changes: I used 3 onions instead of the 2 cups; I used 2 celery stalks instead of the 7 ounces; I used freshly ground "true" cinnamon (from Philippe de Vienne, of course) instead of commercial cinnamon; and, finally, when I adjusted the flavors, I found that the mixture was too vinegary, so I also added 1/4 cup of sugar. I must have changed the recipe fairly substantially, because when all was said and done I wound up with 8 cups of ketchup, not 6 (all the better!).

The ketchup turned out amazingly well, but I have to admit, it looked a little lonely without a batch of baked beans for it to accompany. When I'd gotten the ketchup à point, I turned to today's taste tester--my Dad--and said, "Do you think this would go well with baked beans?" He replied, "Yeah, it would be great with baked beans. But, you know, it'd be even better with baked beans and eggs, the morning after." I like the way this man thinks.

aj

Fèves au Lard

Saturday we warmed up the house with a batch of baked beans. Mom was in attendance, so we could have used the family recipe, but we opted to try a new recipe. Our family recipe always has some tomato in it and it also usually includes maple syrup. Mom has also taken to replacing the salt pork with ham hocks, or even going vegetarian. This time we went traditional. Serving ketchup aux fruits (usually just called "ketchup" or "ketchup maison") with fèves au lard is a must in Quebec. No self-respecting cabane a sucre meal would be complete without it. We highly recommend it.

2 lbs. dried navy beans
1/2 lb. salt pork
2 tsp. dried mustard
1 cup fancy molasses
4 tbs. bourbon
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Soak beans overnight in a large pot. Drain. Put soaked beans in a large pot with enough water to cover by 2 inches. Bring to a simmer, then turn down to medium and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes. Drain beans, reserving the cooking liquid, and transfer them to a large bean pot or casserole.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Place salt pork in a small pot, add water to cover, and bring to a boil over high heat. Drain the pork and add to the beans. In a small bowl, dissolve mustard in 2 tsp. warm water. Add dissolved mustard, molasses, and bourbon to beans. Season with pepper and mix gently but thoroughly.

Pour enough of the warm reserved cooking liquid (about 3 cups) into the bean pot so that the beans are moist but not floating. Reserve remaining cooking liquid. Cover pot and bake, checking occasionally to ensure that beans are not drying out, adding reserved cooking liquid as needed. Cook until beans are soft and the bean liquor has turned rich and hearty. This will take 5 hours, or so, although we recommend baking them for 7-8 hours if at all possible. The beans will be that much tastier; your house will be that much more aromatic.

Remove cover, gently stir beans, and return to oven. Bake uncovered until cooking liquid thickens into a sauce. Season to taste with salt (you'll need very little salt as the salt pork will have provided the beans with plenty of salty flavor). Serve with a crusty loaf of bread, ketchup aux fruits, and a salad. My family has always sworn by coleslaw.

(adapted from John Thorne's "Down-East Baked Beans" as found in Serious Pig (1996) and Saveur Cooks Authentic American (1998))

aj