{"id":14043,"date":"2017-10-26T17:22:05","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T21:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=14043"},"modified":"2017-10-26T17:22:05","modified_gmt":"2017-10-26T21:22:05","slug":"cooks-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/cooks-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooks\u2019 Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

November 2017 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

These beautiful Maine cookbooks <\/b>reflect the rhythms of the seasons.<\/span><\/h3>\n

By Claire Z. Cramer<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Nov17-Hungry-Eye\"There\u2019s nothing like fall weather and autumn\u2019s harvest of apples, squashes, greens, onions, and shallots to make cooking fun again. We look for inspiration from four Maine women\u2013Annemarie Ahearn, Erin French, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, and her daughter Sara Jenkins. All four make their livings cooking, and as cookbook authors.<\/span><\/p>\n

The books\u2013Ahearn\u2019s Full Moon Suppers at Salt Water Farm<\/i>, French\u2019s The Lost Kitchen<\/i>, and the Jenkins\u2019 The Four Seasons of Pasta<\/i>\u2013are good reads and gorgeous to look at. All three are written to correspond with the seasons and seasonal produce, vivid with terrific, original recipes using the fall crops available locally.<\/span><\/p>\n

TRANSFORMED TRANSPLANT<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Wisconsin native Annemarie Ahearn never planned to be a Mainer. She puts it right out there on the introduction page of Full Moon Suppers<\/i>: \u201cWhen I was eighteen years old, my parents decided to buy their own land on the Maine coast. My father was fulfilling a lifelong dream. I was, in a word, disappointed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But after college \u201cdid not feed my soul in the way that I was hoping,\u201d she moved to the family farm in Lincolnville. \u201cMy plan was to open a cooking school for home cooks and teach people how to grow a kitchen garden.\u201d In 2009, she did, naming her school Salt Water Farm after an essay in E. B. White\u2019s One Man\u2019s Meat<\/i>. She now offers classes and workshops from May to October.<\/p>\n

\u201cShaking cream into butter, pulling a carrot from the earth, making a loaf of bread, cutting apart a whole chicken\u2013it\u2019s the most basic skills that students find to be transformative,\u201d Ahearn says. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI find people trust recipes and the food media more than they trust their own natural ability in the kitchen. The only way to improve as a cook is to make mistakes and learn from them. The mark of a good cook is the ability to make a meal without a recipe and with limited resources.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>True enough, but I want to learn some new tricks from her.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I do. Each chapter in Full Moon Suppers<\/i> creates a complete menu appropriate to the calendar month, noting the Native American name for that month\u2019s full moon.<\/span><\/p>\n

We start in the September (Harvest Moon) chapter at a recipe for \u201cQueen of Smyrna Squash Soup,\u201d because local farmers are still offering many winter squash varieties, and because it\u2019s such a beautiful recipe title.<\/span><\/p>\n

No Queens of Smyrna to be found in Portland\u2019s farmers\u2019 market, though, so I choose a small green hubbard and a honeynut squash. This is a vegetarian soup\u2013you make your own vegetable stock with onions, carrots, celery, fresh herbs, and fresh fennel.\u00a0 <\/span>Lucky for us, fennel is now an easily found local crop. The squash is split (or peeled and cubed), rubbed with olive oil, and roasted with sprigs of thyme and whole garlic cloves. You whirl the tender flesh in a blender with the stock, adding dabs of honey and a pinch of red pepper flakes to taste, which gives this soup its spicy, haunting flavor.<\/span><\/p>\n

From November\u2019s menu (Beaver Moon) we tackle \u201cOven Tart with Sweet Onions, Pecorino, Anchovies, Caper, and Lemon,\u201d since local onions are so fresh just now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahearn\u2019s tart is made with a simple yeast bread crust rather than pastry. It\u2019s a variation of the traditional French pissaladiere<\/i> tart made with caramelized onions, grated hard cheese, and anchovies. She spins it by adding thyme, a few red pepper flakes, capers, and paper-thin slices of lemon. The onions are sauteed in butter rather than olive oil.<\/span><\/p>\n

This combination sings in unanticipated, complex ways. I\u2019ve already made it three times and committed it to memory, the better to whip it up in a pinch, Ahearn-style, without a recipe.<\/span><\/p>\n

LOST AND FOUND<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Chef Erin French\u2019s restaurant in Freedom is the stuff of legend since it\u2019s all but impossible to get a reservation. No matter now, thanks to the book.\u00a0 <\/span>Her motto is to \u201clearn to trust your instincts\u2026and if all else fails, remember that there are few ailments that butter and salt can\u2019t cure.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

French\u2019s ability to find magic in the simplest ingredients shines in these recipes. Take Waldorf Salad. You think of the retro-cafeteria sugary mess of apples and mayo. Forget that.<\/span><\/p>\n

French starts you off making your own candied, oven-toasted walnuts, which you sprinkle with flaky Maldon sea salt as they come hot out of the oven.<\/span><\/p>\n

While they cool, you toss cubed apples\u2013pick something crisp and local\u2013with sliced fresh fennel, sliced celery stalks, lemon juice, and zest. Stir in a modest dab of mayo, parsley leaves, and the cooled nuts. Garnish with fennel fronds, celery leaves, perhaps a few torn pink radicchio leaves, et voil\u00e0<\/i>, a sophisticated autumn salad.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also try my hand at \u201cRoasted Buttercup Squash Cups,\u201d which are made decadent with a spoonful of butter in each quartered squash cup during roasting. Her garnish of Maine autumn slaw is created by cutting crisp apples into matchsticks and dressing them in a rice-wine vinegar and shallot vinaigrette that\u2019s laced with thyme leaves and maple syrup. Sounds simple, tastes exotic. Put little heaps of this slaw on a few arugula leaves in each warm squash quarter and arrange on a platter.<\/span><\/p>\n

I found myself imagining these creations as alternative side dishes at a Thanksgiving dinner.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

THE DYNASTY<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Camden native Nancy Harmon Jenkins is a food and cookbook writer with few peers. Her cookbooks include The Essential Mediterranean<\/i>, The Flavors of Tuscany<\/i>, and The Flavors of Puglia<\/i>. She splits each year between homes in Camden and Tuscany. Nancy\u2019s daughter, Sara Jenkins, has also lived, written, and cooked in Italy. She is the chef\/owner of the Porsena and Porchetta restaurants in New York City; in Rockport, her baby is Nina June. \u201cBastions of all that is good: simplicity, freshness, and harmony,\u201d is how Chef Mario Batali describes the Jenkinses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although The Four Seasons of Pasta<\/i> is overwhelmingly Italian in tone, dedicated to Mita Antolini, Sara\u2019s \u201cadopted grandmother\u201d in Italy, you\u2019ll nevertheless find pasta recipes that call for sturdy Maine autumn produce, including brussels sprouts, chard, cauliflower, and winter squash. \u201cI think Maine and Tuscany share an austere and frugal approach to cooking,\u201d Sara says. <\/span><\/p>\n

I opt for \u201cPasta with Crumbled Sausage, Sage, and Winter Squash.\u201d This is supreme comfort food. Using freshly made Italian sausage from Portland\u2019s Otherside Deli; sage from the garden; and local onions, garlic, and coarsely chopped pieces of peeled squash\u2013any \u201chard winter squash\u201d will do\u2013I saute as directed until the squash is tender and pieces start to fall apart. Just as the pasta finishes boiling, I add a scoop of pasta cooking water to the sauce before draining the pasta and putting it in a serving bowl, topping it with the sauce, and showering it with a blizzard of grated parmigiana-reggiano.<\/span><\/p>\n

Talk about Sunday night supper\u2013this is what you want when the nights draw in. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nov 2017
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