WINNER: A Call To Write: All-American Summer & Lobsters

I hope you've been having a nice, relaxing holiday weekend. I celebrated the 4th with family and friends and LOTS of delicious summer food; hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, steak, cold beer, margaritas and salty brownies. Your responses for ultimate summer foods made my mouth water! I'm looking forward to the weeks ahead where I get to revel in the summer's bounty. 

Now for the winner of the June stationary & stamps giveaway. This response included one of my favorite dishes to make and something that epitomizes summer vegetables for me. It was Hannah's comment about ratatouille!:

            Ratatouille, from The Art of Simple Food. One of the first things I'd ever cooked, 

            from the first cookbook I'd ever bought. 

            I'd moved to Pittsburgh for grad school, out of college dorms, out of home, and 

            knew I 

had to start cooking for myself or else I wouldn't eat. It was the very end of   

            summer, a couple of weeks to adjust to the city and a new climate before classes 

            started. I knew the dish by name from the movie, knew all the ingredients could be 

            purchased locally, knew that it'd be delicious. And it was. Whenever I make it, I     

            think of summertime, and how I began to learn to take care of myself.

I love Alice Water's Art of Simple Food, too, and I'm looking forward to picking up the new edition when it comes out in the fall! Hannah, please email me the address you would like me to send your stationary and stamps: theculinarylibrarian[at]gmail.com. 

In a couple weeks I will be posting July's giveaway and I am very, very excited for it! One word: glitter! Keep an eye right here for it! 

Wednesday Haiku: Remy's Dish

purple green red red

garlic onion olive oil

stew summer's bounty

$5 Challenge and Melissa Clark's Genius Ratatouille

When I heard about the Slow Food USA $5 Challenge I immediately started thinking of what I might be able to make and what I could easily share with friends on September 17th. I knew whatever I made would be primarily vegetable based and that meat would probably not be included. Soups, salads, pastas and sandwiches all came to mind and then passed. When the October issue of Food & Wine arrived in my mailbox I flipped through it like I always do but was stopped short on Melissa Clark's "Speedy Ratatouille with Goat Cheese" because it looked so enticing I wanted to eat it off the page. At this point, it was less than a week away from the 17th and I realized how perfect ratatouille would be to for the $5 meal; all the vegetables it uses would be in season and at the market, I knew just who to buy goat cheese from at Union Square and a lovely locally made baguette would go great with the stew.   Also, since I wanted to picnic in the park, for serving, ratatouille would travel well and be easy to serve alfresco. I had found a winner! 

Saturday morning I headed to the Union Square Greenmarket in the crisp pre-autumn air to find all the ingredients I needed for the ratatouille. After dropping off my compost I tend to start out on the Saturday market by heading directly to Migliorelli for some zucchini, maybe some radishes or greens and then carry on. From Migliorelli I bought the eggplant, zucchini, summer squash, plum tomatoes, and basil. 

Next I made my way through the crowded market in search of those elusive red bell peppers. I found a good one at S&SO Produce Farms and the onions I needed, too. (And filled with the excitement of fall's onset I picked up a small acorn squash which got curried for dinner this week.) Next I needed some goat cheese so I headed straight for Patches of Star Dairy and picked up 4 oz. of lightly salted chèvre (which FYI is seriously amazing). At home I already had garlic that I probably bought from Paffenroth at Union Square and the only two non-local (but still pretty "slow") ingredients I used were olive oil I'd bought at Stew Leonard's and a lemon from Fairway Market. On my way home I picked up a baguette from Bread Alone at the East 82nd street greenmarket (they are at Union Square on Fridays). 

When it was time to start cooking I took everything out of the fridge and set out to do a complete mise-en-place. Melissa Clark's recipe is so wonderful because she cooks all the vegetables in shifts to keep them bright and fresh tasting and only at the end does everything stew together for about 15 minutes. So it was very important that I had everything set-up to go into the pot one at a time.