june’s chef’s kisses

strawberries, chilled desserts, a granita recipe, and kisses

june has been a month full of many *chef’s kisses* moments (aka lovely, wonderful things that are usually food-related but not always). yes, some of it is the rose-colored glasses i’ve been wearing ever since getting married and being on vacation in paris after our civil ceremony, but it’s also summer, which means it’s my favorite time of the year to prepare food. i’m so excited to be sharing more of the things i’ll be cooking next month. 

speaking of cooking (or rather blending in this case), i have developed a quick recipe for you inspired by all of the lemon and sage combos i had on my trip. i’ve written up a lemon and sage granita recipe which you can find towards the bottom of the newsletter.

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strawberry season enjoyed lots of ways, but all raw

strawberries were truly one of the best parts of my month, and maybe yours too. 

i ate them out of my hands a lot: cold from the fridge and standing in my kitchen for a snack, at the dining table with coffee while doing emails in the morning, or in a hotel bed pre-nap during a warm afternoon, etc. they have a special way of making a mundane moment so sweet. 

i also ate them by simply having them with desserts. i featured them in the strawberry cake recipe i posted recently, at sessions art club in london over fig leaf panna cotta, and served atop vanilla ice cream while watching tv at the end of the day.

i also brought a whole bunch of strawberries home from the market the other day and made strawberry freezer jam. unlike regular jam, which requires you to cook the fruit with sugar and lemon juice, stirring constantly until the fruits’ natural pectins have been released, the liquid has reduced, and it is (for lack of a better word) jammy, freezer jam just requires you blend the strawberries and combine it with some pre-packaged pectin that has been boiled separately. while i know a lot of people love a roasted strawberry, i prefer the brightness, acidity, and floral notes you get when they are fresh from the farm, and thus, i prefer making freezer jam (you also get a larger quantity of jam because you’re not reducing the liquid in the berries). if you haven’t made it before and are interested in trying it, i recommend using pomona’s pectin (which requires less sugar, meaning your jam doesn’t need to be all that sweet). i follow their freezer jam recipe online with fresh local berries and one caveat: they say to add pectin/calcium water until the jam is set, which i would absolutely not recommend. the jam will continue to set up for 24 hours in the fridge, so just add the pectin/calcium water until the jam is starting to set, but is a fair bit looser than you would like. then let the jam sit in the fridge for a day to set up and thicken, check it the next day, and if you like the consistency then you can transfer it to the freezer for storage (defrosting some as needed). 

once my jam was finished, i tested it out on a pb&j, and then again once more on some biscuits and butter just to double check and make sure it truly was perfect. 

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farmers market report 

speaking of market strawberries, the farmers market is full of produce right now. so much so that i am a bit overwhelmed by all the things i could be making and have not yet. The standouts right now are cherries, cucumbers, squash, squash blossoms, green beans, and all the herbs. if there are any savory dishes you’ve made with the produce i just listed, one that is a favorite summer dish (anything from a salad or a side to a full-blown meal), tell me about it in the comments, i’d love to be inspired.

on my first trip to the market this month, i got lots of herbs and some beautiful potatoes, and felt inspired to make the jonathan waxman roast chicken with salsa verde recipe. his salsa verde has a lot of herbs in it. while you don’t need all of them, it really does make the dish extra delicious. i started by roasting the chicken (not following his recipe). i put butter under and on the skin and added a bunch of salt on top, roasted it at 425f until the skin browned (about 40 mins), then added tented foil and a halved lemon face down in the pan, and roasted some more until juicy (~40 more mins). while that was cooking, i whipped up the salsa verde. I substituted with herbs i had on hand, tarragon and thyme instead of cilantro, and i never soak the capers or anchovies, i only use 3 anchovies instead of 4, i rinse off some of the extra salt on the capers, and i never add the raw sage (the flavor of raw sage is just a lot). i made some crispy potatoes (used this great recipe but omitted the rosemary topping situation, and instead threw the garlic in the pot with the boiling potatoes and roasted it with them as well). It was delicious. i had leftover chicken and salsa verde, so for lunch the following day i blanched and shocked some green beans, cooked up some wheat berries with a few radicchio leaves (not necessary, but i had them), diced up the leftover chicken, and used the salsa verde as a dressing. so good on a hot day.

apologies all of the food photos in this section are abysmal, i was too hungry and the food was too delicious to try and get good pics

i am a garlic girlie and i get very excited about garlic scapes. if you don’t know, garlic scapes are the soft stems that flower before hardneck garlic appears. i attempted a creamy garlic scape pasta this month, but honestly, it was very mid. if you have any recommendations for an easy garlic scape pasta dish, please send them my way. 

while not veg-related (but pasta-related), i made a clam pasta after developing a craving for it in italy and not getting it while i was there. it’s such a summer favorite of mine. i picked up clams at the green market and made them in the style of one of my favorite pizzas, clam pizza (speaking of, where is your favorite clam pie in nyc?). i started by boiling some water for my pasta, while that was warming in a separate pot i crisped up some guanciale in a pan, removed it, quickly toasted some pepper in the hot fat, deglazed the pan with clam juice and white wine, and added the clams. i popped on a lid and let them steam, and dropped the pasta into the boiling water in the other pot. i then removed the opened clams from the cooking liquid and chopped up the clam bellies, adding them back to the pot of clam broth. at this point, the pasta was al dente. i stirred it into the clam broth with some pasta water until reduced and glossy. i finished with some parm. it hit the spot.

truth be told i am not someone who loves blueberries raw, but i go absolutely bananas for cooked blueberries in sweet things. there are so many perfect ways to eat cooked blueberries cobblers, pies, crisps, coffee cake, upside down cake, muffins etc. but this mornings was a singular dinner-plate sized (approx. 10”) blueberry pancake per-person. last night i made a batch of my vanilla bean sourdough pancake recipe (maybe one day i’ll share it, it is genuinely one of my fav recipes i’ve ever developed - they are almost certainly the best pancakes i’ve ever had), and just cooked them up this morning in clarified butter dropping blueberries into the batter as they were frying. the pancakes were simply topped with room-temp browned butter (after making the clarified butter i toasted up the leftover milk fat solids, and mixed this in with room temp butter), and maple syrup.

stay tuned this summer for *hopefully* more appealing photos of cooked blueberry dishes.

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ice cream/gelato/sorbetto/glace 

not much to say here other than ice cream really is the best summer dessert of them all, and i was fortunate enough to eat a lot of good ice cream this month (on a few occasions i had three cones in a day). you can read about the gelato and sorbet i had in florence here. but there was more i didn’t write about: in paris i picked up three scoops from gulato – hazelnut, butter caramel, and chocolate. they were all so dense and creamy, and the caramel flavor was particularly fantastic. and while i didn’t have time to go on my most recent trip, the rumors you have heard are true the ice cream at folderol is really really fantastic. They nail both texture and flavor on all their offerings. if you’re in paris, go.

then, i had some not so good ice cream yesterday, please send me your fav nyc ice cream spots as i have a feeling i will be eating a fair amount of it this summer.

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loretta caponi

speaking of my trip to italy, i saw my new friend, guido caponi, while in florence. i met guido at a dinner held for loretta caponi in the fall and after mentioning that i may be going to florence for a few days this summer, he kindly invited me to see the shop his grandmother founded. so i took him up on the offer while i was in italy and received a wonderful tour about the history and artistry the brand has championed from its beginning through to today. 

the shop is beautiful, with such a range of amazing pieces: including the cutest children’s dresses and christening gowns, slinky silk and lace nightgowns, robes and linen pajama sets, and the most beautifully sewn and embroidered cotton summer dresses, shirts, and skirts.

while guido and his mother currently run the business, it was started by guido’s grandmother in 1924 when she was nine years old. over time the company grew to the extent that they were making nightgowns for jackie o and grace kelly alongside ready-to-wear collections of beautifully embroidered pieces. during this time, loretta had been collecting antique lace and embroidery from the 17th-20th centuries which she used as a reference for her creations. over the years she amassed a massive collection – arguably one of the largest in europe, which has been documented in the book per raffinare i sensi (see a picture of one of the pages below). some of these pieces are on display in the shop, a personal favorite of mine was the french menu from 1908 (yes, an embroidered menu on fabric) pictured below.

admittedly, before the tour, i thought they made all their designs by computer and had them sewn with a computer-linked embroidery machine. i was so wrong. guido demonstrated the process for me. first, the designer draws the pattern on transparent paper. she then places the piece of paper with the design on top of another piece of paper and runs a tool that punches little needle-sized holes along the outline of the design, in essence transferring the design (through little hole punches) from the marked paper to a new one. then the paper with holes is laid on top of the fabric that they will embroider, and colored dust is rubbed over the paper which goes through the holes and onto the fabric creating a dotted outline for the embroidery design. then, finally, the design is embroidered onto the fabric. this is the very same method used for panel painting, fresco making, and pattern developing (in design) – so the fact that they do this same process for their custom embroidery is so (for lack of a better word) *wow*. 

thinking about the embroidery and lace garments guido’s grandmother collected and how those silhouettes and styles are still present in their contemporary designs (the loretta dress was the first dress she designed), the tradition and artistry in creating the embroidery designs, and them continuing to produce their garments within 80km of florence – my mind was blown. it was beyond special to see how they have maintained the traditions guido’s grandmother started in 1967.

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lemon and sage granita

in paris i had a lemon and sage sorbet dish (which you can read about here) and then saw the combo again the following week at a sorbet shop in florence. i loved the combo of bright, sweet, tart, and refreshing lemon with the musky, earthy notes of sage.

i got home and made myself a granita of lemon and sage. no ice cream machine is required, but this recipe was developed to be made in a blender (you could also do the fork scraping in a dish method)!

this recipe does not require much active time, and you will only need to turn the stove on briefly, but you’ll have to be home for some hours to make sure you get the right texture. 

*keep in mind that there are large variables in the timing of this recipe, depending on whether you pour the hot liquid over ice or water, what material your blender bowl/dish is made of, and how chilly your freezer is.

lemon and sage granita

750-800g water (less water = more intense flavor) 

250g sugar

3g sage leaves 

250-300g lemon juice (approximately the juice of 6 lemons) + zest of 1 lemon (more juice = more intense flavor)

place 250g of water in a pot with the sugar, sage leaves, and the zest of 1 lemon. stir until warm and all the sugar has melted. fish out the sage leaves and set them aside on a cutting board. pour the liquid into your blender bowl and add 500-550g of cold water (or ice cubes if you have) and the lemon juice. 

transfer the blender bowl to your freezer for about 2-5 hours (see note above). once you see ice crystals developing, transfer the blender bowl to your blender and blend until there are some broken-up ice crystals floating around. place it back in the freezer and repeat the whole process 3 more times, setting timers for approximately 1-hour intervals in between each blend. if, by the final blend it doesn’t feel frozen enough, repeat one more time (freezers are different temperatures and the warmer ones will take longer to chill the liquid). after the final blend, finely dice your sage, mix it into the granita, and serve immediately. 

integral to a good granita is the serve temperature (mine quite frankly was a bit too cold because i didn’t serve it immediately after making it). i recommend serving it as soon as you have made it, and if you need to make it in advance, transfer it to an airtight container in the freezer, and then move it to the fridge for about 10-15 minutes before serving. use a fork to break/stir it up before serving.

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kisses 

maybe it is just love on the brain, but it does seem fitting to be writing about kisses in the chef’s kisses newsletter. please allow me to briefly be a bit gushy and sentimental.

i noticed a lot more kisses this month. it started with the brancusi exhibition at the pompidou (an excellent show, and if there’s one show i suggest you see if you go to paris this summer, this would be it). there was a section on his kiss sculptures, which were so tender and showed the kissing couple as one compact unit. then at the cluny museum a few days later, a stone the capital of a column (the top bit) decorated with a couple (seemingly) kissing jumped out at me. and in florence too, a single piece of stone was used to depict a swan and a woman kissing. 

i loved seeing how in all of these sculptures, the two beings were carved from a singular stone block and then connected through their kiss. it was almost as if, through their kiss, they were united as one. all these sculptures reminded me of the power of simple loving acts, and the connection they can bring.

i was thinking of omitting this section from the newsletter, as it felt gratuitous and sappy, but then i lost my grandfather this week and cried while re-reading this section. so i wanted to keep it. it’s a reminder to kiss or hug your loved ones, you never know when it will be the last time (i certainly didn’t).

a xx (virtual kiss) to all of you, thank you for being here.