Edible Tulip

The Giant PuffBall Fungi

I was walking my parent’s dog on the Bruce Trail this afternoon when something big and white caught the corner of my eye. Underneath some wet leaves and beyond a link of fallen fence sat this gigantic orb. I went back for the camera, ran into mom and dragged her out too. She noticed two more “puff balls” in the woods before running into the original one I had spotted. Fungi like to stick together. You may have noticed several fungus growths on the side of a rotten log and they usually form a line. Well giant puffballs sometimes create something referred to as a "fairy ring" and it involves a vast circle of these giant fungi. A little surrealistic to come across on a peaceful forest walk but very fascinating.

Puffball is the common mycological name for a fungis otherwise referred to as Lycoperdon. Apparently the mature fruit emits a flurry of brown dust-like spores when a mechanical force like the weather, animal interference or curious food forages like myself make a hole in its flesh hence its name: puffball. While the fungi is still young and white (before spores have developed and the interior flesh remains pure white) the mushroom is edible but after it develops brown and yellow spores it should be avoided. My puffball was about 3 feet in diameter but they can grow up to a metre.

I didn’t have a sharp utensil to break open one of the puffballs to photograph its interior but after doing a bit of research I can see that it is very compact and fleshy and not like the usual fissures of tissue found on the underside of a morel. I found an interesting web site of someone who knows all about puffballs and has some interesting ideas of how to put them to use if you find them in your woods too. (Although you do wonder if some of these scientist types get a little LONELY perhaps? When I came across the puffball in the forest I really didn’t consider it a newfound friend however charming its random appearance in the woods was.)

The Gift of Good Land

This is a new category: diving ducks are a kind of duck that dives (well, obviously) for its food and it is derived of the Aythyini tribe which includes the pochard, scaup, etc. I wanted a free-wheelin' section where I could discuss food related trivia or topics. So this is it.

For anyone who ever thought, contemplated or dreamed of becoming a farmer (or marrying one!) this is a must read book. Wendell Berry, an Arkansas poet/farmer/agricultural activist/food essayist is just one of those critical people in a field of bell weather types. He's articulate, humourous, and unsettlingly truthful in his ruminations about the American land. I'm a Canadian but I still get 'it'.

I was very pleased to see a quote of his used in the introduction of a piece in July's Gourmet Magazine. He's become mainstream which is wonderful yet unsurprising. As I flipped through the produce issue of Gourmet as well as the cherry issue of Saveur I kept coming across the following key words: regional, back to the land, fresh produce, local produce, organic wine, organic food, the slow movement, harvests, cross pollinations, specialty produce, simple food, homey food, etc... woo hoo, I couldn't be more thrilled. Gone are the 80's, finally!

Now I like a decadent night out eating fabulous food as much as the next person but I still think the experience can be grounded in a sort of wholeness. I love it when I know the chef has taken care to find the best local cheese/meat/produce and matched it well with perfectly selected small producer wines.

Years ago, in 1999 to be exact, I lived on a trailer park in an old farm house with my then carpenter boyfriend. It was when I first became interested in a sustainable way of living: I read the Nearings' book on the simple life, I thought of taking up beekeeping, I wanted to excavate the basement so we could can and jar and live from the cellar all winter, I got all the old Harrowsmith trade books from the Perth library and read up on sourcing ancient agricultural equipment, we grew our first very large garden that had tiny chile peppers, long elegant French beans, perfect green and red peppers, tiny pop-in-your-mouth grape tomatoes, 4 foot tall lemon balm plants, etc... all bordered by giant Russian sunflowers. It was quite a summer. But life took hold of us, being in our mid 20s and restless and curious, and Dave moved to Yellowknife and I moved to Toronto and our lives unfolded in different directions.

Instead I took an urban beekeeping course at Field to Table in Toronto and I do as much as I can to sustain a healthy and wild window box garden of herbs when I'm there. Now I live in the country, if for only a short 4 month season, but it's my time to tour the back roads and chat with the folk who live in the hills and keep sheep or an orchard. And it's my time to read up on the people I admire the most like Wendell Berry. Not only does he believe in the ever lasting rewards of responsible stewardship on his Arkansas farm, he travels to remote places like Peru to understand the mechanisms of traditional agriculture.

If there were a Canadian Wendell Berry I fear I'd hunt him down and poison him with Cupid's arrow and make him my own.

Perfectly Hard Boiled Eggs

The hard boiled egg seems to be one of those great culinary mysteries of the world. It always appears to be only a matter of minutes or seconds before your egg goes from slightly gooey to hard and crumbly with a small shadow of grey/green circling the yolk. Lately I've been having great luck with hard boiling eggs. It might have something to do with the vast amount I'm doing at the same time (about 14) or it might not. I put 14 eggs on the bottom of a shallow pot and cover them with cold water. I then bring the water to a boil, let it boil for 5 minutes, turn off the heat, cover for another 5 minutes with a lid, and then drain and set the eggs back in the pot with cold water and ice cubes to cool. The yolk has been golden, flaky and slightly sweet while the white part remains tender and not too rubbery. The peeling of the hard boiled eggs depends on the freshness of the egg so when I order flats of eggs from the wholesale produce store or if I pick them up from Hamilton Brothers Farm Equipment then it means the shell comes off in miniscule messy bits leaving a rather tortured and scarred looking egg. It's really best to hard boil eggs that are at least 1 week old. Then the shell seems to literally fall away from the slippery whites.

Silicone Bake Ware

I saw these muffin holders high on a shelf and I just had to have them. My muffin tins are rusted with bits of batter burned into hard to get to places. I rarely buy myself baking supplies but these were robin’s egg blue, flexible, and made with an FDA approved silicone. Silicone, you say, isn’t that what goes into things like Pamela Anderson’s … and you’d be right… from breasts to bake ware, silicone has come a long way baby.

I give the muffin tins two thumbs up after multiple uses. There is a bit of discolouration but there is no odour or flavour retention. They had equal heat distribution and a fast cool down period. When the baked goods were still warm, I could pinch the bottom of the muffin cup and the muffin would just pop up out of its shell totally intact (silicone has a naturally inherent non-stick property but I use a bit of canola oil spray as well). The silicone can withstand freezer temperatures all the way up to 675 degrees F in the oven. It also wipes down easily and if you have a dishwasher well you can throw it in there too. No rust. No metallic aftertaste. Its best to put the bake ware on a cookie sheet because it is rubber and it does flop.

The Wehani Way

And you thought rice was just, well, rice. Think again.

While living in Toronto I was lucky enough to live in walking distance of both Chinatown (and therein Kensington Market) and Little Korea. This meant if ever I needed rice I had ample opportunity to buy large thatched bags of jasmine, basmati, sweet, sticky or wild rice. I also lived in amongst a few bulk and natural health food stores where once you could only find Uncle Ben’s converted or non-converted rice you can now pick from at least 15 varieties including the Lundberg Family’s organic products. These are my favourite specialty types of rice (especially good since they’re free of chemical contamination). The Lundberg Farm grows and nutra-farms rice varieties like black japonica, wehani, a wild blend, jubilee, country wild, long and short grain browns, and Arborio. I like their philosophy and it translates into the taste you get from the final cooked result. This family run farm originated in the Sacramento Valley in 1937. They use only sustainable farming methods that you can read about here.

One of my favourite types of Lundberg rice is the Wehani. It’s a reddish almost rust-coloured long grain rice that isn't milled and therefore needs to be cooked like a brown rice. The best cooking results for this rice is 1 cup raw rice = 2 ¼ cups water. Once the water is absorbed, the rice needs to stand untouched in its pot for another 30 minutes in order for the rice to firm up.

This rice is a little bit sweet and slightly nutty. Its texture is chewy and moist. I recommend using it in place of arborio when you can match its heart with something earthy like asparagus (roasted) or mushrooms (grilled or fried). Otherwise, it’s a great addition to something stewed and musky. Although it’s not what I call a summer rice, it’s been a cold spring where I live and I’ve loved the depth of this rice the next day as a salad tossed with cucumbers and fresh herbs.

The Rudiments of Rhubarb

If you happen to have dysentery then I have the perfect remedy for you: ingest the dried then powdered root of rhubarb (witch doctor recommended!). Luckily I have a patch of rhubarb already in full bloom that I inherited with the cabin I’m renting. So in case I ingest amoebic parasites from the river I can at least cure myself (I do hate going to the doctor's).

This morning in glorious 6:30 a.m. sun peering through the trees I decided to photograph my patch before butchering it for stewing. Rhubarb is such a blessed addition to a garden patch because while everything else straggles slowly out of the ground rhubarb’s large leaves act as a canopy (resembling gigantic elephant’s ears). Note the way the stalks erupt out of a small crinkled mass.

Rhubarb’s popularity incidentally rose with the decline in price of sugar. By the end of the 18th century cooked rhubarb stems were regularly featured in Europe and North America in dishes like puddings, custards and crumbles. This makes sense for any of you who have eaten rhubarb without sweetener – very tart indeed. Only the stems are edible with the leaves containing a substance called oxalic acid that is toxic when ingested (cooked or uncooked). The origin of rhubarb comes from the stretch of mountains called the Tien Shan range extending through Mongolia to western China. It is suggested that rhubarb has been used in Chinese medicine since 200 B.C. (this fact is yoinked from a pharmaceutical list of about 500 hundred traditional herbs used medicinally in the 1st century A.D.).

For most of the world rhubarb is considered a fruit and it was legislated by U.S. Customs in 1947 as such however, botanically, like the tomato, it actually is a vegetable. Rhubarb is most often used in desserts but some cuisines do cook it as a vegetable: In Poland rhubarb is considered a tart acidic accompaniment to potatoes and in Iran it is added to meat stews. The Italians, spirit enthusiasts that they are, use it in an aperatif called rabarbaro.

This is a SIMPLE recipe. Easy to make, convenient ingredients, and it’s just as good cold for breakfast with a bit of yogurt stirred in as it is hot.

Stewed Rhubarb

1½ lb. rhubarb stalks
½ cup sugar or honey
Juice and zest of 1 lemon (or 1 orange)
4 cloves

Wash and clean the rhubarb stalks. Cut into small (1 inch pieces) and put in a heavy saucepan with the sugar, cloves, zest and juice. Cook over low heat until the rhubarb mixture reaches a stewed consistency (about 15 minutes).