With June, strawberry season comes into full swing in Ohio. I love this… As with most produce, locally grown is so much better than shipped in, as the produce can ripen before being picked. Plus, I like that I can talk to the farmer that actually grew the food.

I got strawberries on the way home from work this year, at a farm north of Xenia, Ohio, from Doug Anderson of Anderson Farms. I took a photo of him for a Flickr project called ‘100 Strangers’, where participants agree to take photos of 100 people they don’t know, but they have to ask the people for permission first. For some, it’s an exercise in talking to unknown people; for me, it’s just trying to take better photos of people quickly.

Back to the strawberries… The strawberries I picked up with small and uniform in size and color. Obviously not big, commercially grown berries… a good thing! They were ripe when I got them, unlike grocery store berries typically are.

The shortcake recipe is simple and easy. I prefer biscuit-style shortbread, though my wife prefers something lighter. I think the thicker texture soaks up the strawberry juice really well. The basic recipe is:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp cold butter, cut into small chunks
• 4 tbsp cold water

Put the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and add the chunks of butter a little at a time, either cutting in with a pastry blender or mixing by hand until the texture is kind of like cornmeal. Add in just enough water to form a stiff dough.

I baked this on my Big Green Egg, so I had it fired up already and running at 425 degrees F. I formed it into individual shortbreads, but it can be baked as a rectangle, and I put it on parchment to make it easier to take on and off the stone on the egg. To sweeten the shortbread, if desired, it can be topped with a bit of sugar after it comes off the cooker, after being brushed with melted butter (optional). The shortbread takes 12-15 minutes to bake.

While the shortbread was baking outside, my wife came up with a great way to prep the strawberries. Instead of slicing each berry by hand, I used an egg slicer to evenly slice the berries. They were so sweet and juicy, I didn’t macerate them with sugar; I just left them as they were… sweet and juicy from the farm market!

To top the strawberry shortcake, I put heavy whipping cream in my stand mixer with some vanilla syrup, like what’s used for cappuccinos… about 2 tablespoons for a cup of cream. With the whisk attachment, I whipped the cream until it was nice and thick and formed soft peaks on the whisk when removed. Then I piled it on top of the strawberries.

This is one of the great things about summer in Ohio… The seasonal foods are great!  I can find decent strawberries other times, but they’re nothing compared to locally grown berries that are handpicked when ripe.

I have to say that I’m a really lucky man. Not only did my wife want to fix dinner for me, but her gift got to my office after I’d had to leave for the day. She could have been furious with me; instead, her response was, “I get to have Valentine’s Day two days in a row!” How many women out there would respond that way?

For the gifts, though, she made me this:

Psalm 37:4 has special meaning to us, and she had a friend help her emboss it onto paper, then fit it to the frame. And she got, finally, this (not a great pic, but I was in a hurry:

As it turns out, we each made part of dinner. I made her something she requested… bacon wrapped shrimp with peppers and cheese. I made something similar a few weeks ago, and she wanted it again. The only real differences were that I cooked the prawns on the stove and I wrapped the shrimp much better with bacon so they stayed together better.

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I remember my first introduction to weird forms of sea salt. It was a few years ago while watching Napa Style with Michael Chiarello; he sells grey salt via his show and website. It’s actually great stuff. From there, I’ve learned that there are several forms of more natural sea salts that include color from other things, like pink Hawaiian salt or more moisture like grey salt.

Fleur de sel (flower of the sea, I think) is a French salt that’s supposed to be the best of the best, and it’s tough to argue with that once you try it. It’s better as a condiment than to use just to salt a dish that’s being cooked. And it goes great with sweet stuff.

I love caramel, so I thought I’d try making some caramel with fleur de sel. I’ve found it all over the place on blogs and recipe sites, but I used a standard caramel recipe that I think I found in Gourmet. I just changed and added stuff to try something new. The original recipe called for kosher salt, just a touch, unsalted butter and white sugar. I used fleur de sel, French butter and turbinado sugar, along with some vanilla.

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I’m like just about anyone else… Grey winter days make me crave comfort foods. Yesterday could have been colder (I think it hit well over 60 for the day), but it was drizzly and grey all day long, so it seems like a comfort food would fit just right for the day.

January in Ohio can be almost depressing. I almost wish we got the snow they get in the Cleveland area; having just grey, miserable days can really get to a person. Comfort foods are a great way to fight that grey-day-feeling, though. I think comfort foods lift our spirits on their own, bringing back memories of our moms taking care of us on those days when we have to stay inside, or reminding us of the smell of Grandma’s kitchen when she was making our favorite dinner.

One of those comfort foods for me is post roast. Reading the title of this entry was a pretty good give-away, huh? Being who I am, though, I have to try to change it up just a bit from what I’d consider ordinary.
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There’s a great grocery in Hamiton, Ohio, called Jungle Jim’s. The place is several acres under roof, with huge selections of wine, beer, cheeses, meats, seafood and all kinds of ethnic foods (arranged by region/country). My wife and I stopped by over last weekend, and they had a special on some wild caught sockeye salmon that I couldn’t pass up, along with a cart full of English beer and hard cider. You’ve got to love a grocery that has a sign outside saying, “Foodies Welcome”!

My wife and I don’t really celebrate New Year’s Eve. It’s not that we’re old and boring (I am, she’s not); it’s just that it’s never been a big deal to either of us. But we don’t have to go to work the next day, so I usually try to make something good.

Sometimes I feel like I’m something of a rut with salmon, but my wife requested that I cedar plank this, so I did. It’s easy to do and tastes really fantastic! I use the simplest of recipes for this; I’m a believer in using good ingredients that don’t need to be covered up with spices and sauces all the time (though now and then is good). For good salmon, all I use for seasoning is grey salt, black pepper and brown sugar. That’s it.

So here is the list of ingredients:

• 1 salmon fillet
• 1 1/2 teaspoons grey salt (this is along the lines of Fleur de Sel)
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• enough brown sugar to liberally cover the filet (maybe 1 cup)

Two hours before cooking, I put a cedar plank in water to soak. An XL kitty litter box (unused, please!) works great for this. I lay the salmon out to let it get to room temp, about a half hour before putting it on the grill. I don’t season until just before I put it on though.

I also get a chimney of coals going, so they’re good and hot when it’s time to grill. This also simplifies the fire in that there’s no need to worry about making a 3 zone fire; the cedar plank makes all the heat indirect. When the coals are ready, I put them in something of a rectangular shape, right below where I’ll put the cedar plank.

About 5 minutes before I put the salmon on, I spray the smooth side of the cedar plank with veggie oil spray and put the plank on the grate of the grill, about 6″ directly above the fire. It’s ready once the cedar wood starts smoking.

Once I see the smoke coming out of the grill, I put the salmon fillet right on the plank, doing my best to not let it hang over the plank. The lid comes down, and all there is to do is wait.

I don’t really time this too much, but I usually start looking at the fish after about 15 minutes. Depending on how hot the fire is burning and hot thick the fillet is, this is about the earliest the fish will be ready. This time, it took just under 20 minutes.

The brown sugar melts all over the fish, and the plank, and into the fire… which is ok. It forms a bit of a crust on top of the fish, adding some sweetness, but not as much as you’d think. I’ve had non-fish-eater friends decide salmon was good stuff after having this.

A trick I’ve finally taught myself is to have an already-charred plank from before that’s clean and dry. When the fish was done, I transferred it to this plank and served it. If you try to serve on a smoking plank, you’re going to empty the dining room! Only do this if you’re outside and won’t catch anything on fire!

The presentation ends up really nice, and the fish is well worth the effort. As with many things, the quality of the fish really makes a difference. The idea is not to overseason or overcook the fish; medium rare is great for this. If you can’t get wild caught or Scottish salmon, using spices more like dill or tarragon may be a better way to go. But this is so good, it’s worth a splurge when/if you can find good wild caught salmon. The planking also works for other fish, pork chops and chicken, and scallops are really great this way.

By not having to watch over the food too much, this also makes a great winter grilling exercise.

First of all, Happy New Year! I’ve been a bit preoccupied, but I’m finally posting again. My preoccupation has been Bucky McKatt (registered name is Congocoon Where Are My Buccaneers)

This is another in my ‘best ever’ line. My wife makes really good oatmeal cookies, but these are my favorite. That’s partly due to history, probably. I remember helping my mom make these when I was a kid. Keep in mind, when I say ‘best ever’, ‘best’ is subjective, and it mean the best ever whatever-it-is to me only. Your opinion may differ, and I’m okay with you being wrong (that’s a joke, people).

My Great Aunt Irva (pronounced Irvy) gave this recipe to my mom. Mom thinks the recipe may be over 100 years old, and may be from her grandmother. Aunt Irva was 99 when she passed away, so it’s not hard to imagine the recipe is that old or older. This is one of those oatmeal cookie recipes that uses powdered sugar and a glass to flatten the cookies before baking… When I was a kid, I got to help with that part.

When I eat one of these cookies, it makes me think of being a kid, no responsibilities, things were simple. These are just what God meant oatmeal cookies to be!

This is the unadulterated version; adding some butterscotch and chocolate chips is good, too. I’m not a fan of anyone trying to sneak raisins in my food, so I don’t opt for them, but if you like raisins, they can be added, too, or even some pecans or walnuts. But, just as with chocolate chip cookies being just chocolate chip cookies, there’s something pure about the base version that’s hard to beat.
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Now that Food Photo 101 is started, I still don’t want to stop cooking and talking about cooking. With that, I realized I still haven’t posted about the bread I made for the wine party we had a couple of weeks ago.

The foie gras I made gave me the opportunity to try a new kind of bread, brioche. What is brioche? For those that don’t know that it’s a little slice of buttery heaven, here’s a formal definition:

bri·oche /ˈbrioʊʃ, -ɒʃ; Fr. briˈɔʃ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[bree-ohsh, -osh; Fr. bree-awsh

n. A soft, light-textured bread made from eggs, butter, flour, and yeast and formed into a roll or a bun.

Really, that lists things in the wrong order; butter should be the first thing, because this bread is loaded with it! There’s almost as much butter as there is flour in this recipe.

I made the Rich Man’s Brioche, though there were 2 other versions, each with different levels of butter, adding other dairy to compensate (and be less costly when butter was harder to procure).

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I can hardly believe that my trip to Pittsburgh was only 2 1/2 weeks ago; our October has been really full! When I was there, I got a great candy bar that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, from Chocopologie, that was dark chocolate with burnt caramel and sea salt. Great stuff!

If this is the only entry you’re reading here, you haven’t yet heard about the wine party we had last weekend, but it was not only a great party, it also has provided me with all kinds of stuff to write about. I made a dessert for the party to mimic the candy bar I got in Pittsburgh.

The dessert started with something I saw as I flipped through the channels a while back. I found a recipe for chocolate creme fraiche pot; I don’t really care much for the show it came from, but then Alton Brown is about the only food show host I really like, but the dish looked interested because it 1) sounds good, and 2) is really easy to make. So for a big party or just when you don’t have time, this is pretty cool to try, especially with my additions.

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When we have our wine party every year, I try to do a variety of food for the party. Sometimes, I make whatever I want, but I’m trying to get better at following the theme of the wines. I select the wine theme in advance so guests can get wines that fit. We’ve done American wines that aren’t from California, southern hemisphere wines that aren’t from Australia, and anything goes.

This year’s theme was French wines, if you haven’t read anything else I’ve written about the party. Each couple was asked to bring two French wines, one red and one white. They were also asked to look up something about the wine to share, whether it’s about the vineyard, the grape, that particular wine, the appellation, whatever. (Appellations are distinct areas were grapes for wines are grown). It wasn’t anything too difficult, and Vince helped some by looking up their wines on his iPhone connected to our household wireless!

I talked about the foie gras I made for the party yesterday. Today, it’s grilled steak au poivre.

I’ve made steak au poivre in the past. It’s basically steak with a pepper-cream sauce, and it’s fun because I get to play with fire. Traditionally, though, it’s a dish made in a skillet on the stovetop. I wanted to mix it up a bit, though, and push it outside onto the grill. I thought the addition of wood-grilled steak would be a benefit.

There’s one problem with this approach… The fond! Fond is the stuff left in the pan after pan-frying, and grilling a steak means no stuff in a pan. What to do, what to do? I realized that, for the sauce, beef is beef, so I got a couple strips of cubed round steak and used that in the pan. It worked great!

So here’s the whole process:

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Last night was kind of exciting. I got home to find a package waiting for me.

That’s right, my duck liver had arrived!

As I opened it, the first thing I saw was a bunch of those horrible styrofoam peanuts. I hate those thing! But lurking just below the peanuts, under ice packs, was a load of good stuff! I got the foie gras; a 1.65 pound duck liver, from Hudson Valley Foie Gras. This was suggested because they feed with soy mixed in with the corn, and D’Artagnan feeds with only corn. The soy mix results in a firmer liver, which lends itself well to pan searing. Also in the delivered treasure were 4 tubs of duck fat, duck sausage and wild boar sausage and bacon. Good stuff to be trying over the week!

The one item I got into for the party last night was crepes. They refrigerate very well, so I took the opportunity to get them done before Saturday.

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