What is This? װאָס טוט זיך דאָ

I think this might be my fifth online self-portrait. Some wonderful prize to be determined goes to the best guess for how this image came to be.
Please post your guesses in the comments.

Grape Stomping

The sweet and dizzying aromas of freshly crushed concord grapes filled Union Square today, as dozens of discalced shoppers participated in the annual New York State grape-stomping demonstration. I was reminded of this unforgettable episode of I Love Lucy in which Lucy, hoping to "soak up local color" goes grape stomping at a vineyard. Watching it again today, I am impressed anew with Lucy's comic virtuosity. Every part of her body is working; she does not have one unfunny muscle.
But so much of the effect is in the sadness of the story; it is really a shame that she falls out with her vat-mate, and she will be too purple to appear in the movie role she so desires.

The grape guys advised me to go slow and try to find the whole berries. It is very satisfying when you get one. Wine grapes are nature's bubble wrap. Ah, bubble wrap.



Oh yes. Don't let the season go by without trying grape pie.

“It Wants to Come Sideways” Julia’s French Bread

The thirteen-page recipe for French bread in Mastering the Art of French Cooking is one of the landmarks of the genre, a recipe I talk about all the time, but never made. I was always a little suspicious of this recipe. Volume I of Mastering explains that no recipe for French bread is provided because it would be impossible to reproduce outside of France, and I was more inclined to credit this account. I was inclined as well to be intimidated by the notoriously detailed recipe in Volume II, but I need not have been. Having more details makes the recipe easier, not harder, and the writing is so intelligent and humane, it is really a brilliant analog to the wonderful bread itself. Some of my favorite crumbs:

[W]hen you tear off a piece, it wants to come sideways; it has body, chewability, and tastes and smells of the grain.

Use one hand only for the kneading and keep the other clean to hold a pastry scraper, to dip out extra flour, to answer the telephone, and so forth [to take photographs!]

It will turn into bread in the oven whatever happens, but you will have an easier time and a better loaf if you aim for ideal conditions.

This is the most wonderful stuff in the world. Many thanks Daring Bakers!

OK--It's Enough Already with the Resolutions. Come Into Eisenberg's and Get On With Your Life!

Sign outside Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop on 5th Avenue and 22nd Street, and, incidentally, my second-ever online self-portrait (here's the first). Where's the chocolate lady?

ETA: While one of the reviews on the site to which I linked describes the menu as "kosher comfort food," Eisenberg's, while a very good neighbor and a venerable landmark, is not a kosher establishment, and I do not mean to suggest that it is.

Seville Orange Marmalade with Bay Leaves and Chiles

Here it is! (my first marmalade, and my first online self-portrait)

I came dangerously close to not cooking my headily fragrant Seville orange. I had never made marmalade or any kind of preserves, and I wasn’t ready to bite into a whole new area of cookery, especially not one that involved straining anything through muslin, but then I read this comment from Lindy:

We never see Seville oranges in Pittsburgh. I am jealous, jealous, jealous.

In case you missed my answer:

First, don't be jealous; Pittsburgh is the only place I ever saw a vegetable called Jew's mallow, so that's pretty cool.
Second, this is for you. I was thinking I am so busy, and the holidays are so soon, and my writing project is so massive, that maybe it was enough just to get a few pots of orangeade out of Senora Sevilla, but having read your comment just a few minutes ago, I said, if they can't find Seville oranges in Pittsburgh, I just HAVE to make marmalade, so I fished my now thrice-poached orange out of the icebox, hacked it to gobbeties, mixed it with an equal weight of sugar (7 ounces) and cooked it with two bay leaves and three mild chile peppers. I am boiling the jar as I type these words.

And so I was. I stayed up much too late so I could try it as soon as the marmalade was cool enough to taste. This is a complex, wonderfully satisfying marmalade. I made a small quantity, which will be completely engulfed by the end of this week, but if you are planning to keep your marmalade for a while, do take the time to find out how to sterilize the jars correctly. My lid never made that pop, which I understand is the sound of properly made preserves. The chiles I used are very mild decorative peppers, mountain-grown in Colorado by my cherished friend Shmuel, to whom great thanks.

Seville Orange Marmalade with Bay Leaves and Chiles

1 Seville orange (7 ounces)

Sugar equal in weight to the orange

2 bay leaves

3 mild chiles (optional)

pinch salt

Cut the orange in quarters and boil it in three waters. Drink the orange water with or without sugar and/or spirits. Cut up the orange and remove the seeds and the coarsest bits of membrane at the very center. Grind half of the fruit, and chop or slice the rest. Combine the cut and ground orange in a stainless steel saucepan with sugar, salt, bay leaves and chiles. Cook until the color deepens to a darkish amber (I did not check the cooking time). Pour into a sterile jar, and boil the jar.

Enjoy on toast with tea, or in the tea, a la Russe.

Be sure to see Kalyn's roundup of this Weekend's Herb Blogging.

Food and Drink, Recipes,, Vegetarian, vegan, antioxidant-rich foods, Cooking, Food, Weekend Herb Blogging, whb