Sufferin' Succotash

Summer vegetable soup with the flavors of succotash. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 Or maybe I should say “Thufferin’ thuccotash!” in honor of Thylvethter, one of my favorite Thaturday morning cartoon characters? (Thorry.)

In these days of 24/7 cartoon networks and kids’ programming, the ritual of Saturday morning cartoons is lost. My kids can’t believe that I grew up with less than a dozen t.v. channels and that cartoons only came on Saturday mornings, ending with “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” at noon, then it was time for lunch and being rushed out of the house by my mom. “Go ride your bikes!” “Go see your friends!” we were admonished. (and we obeyed.)

This summer, we took the girls to Saturday morning cartoons at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, a Looney Tunes festival, and my girls were introduced to Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Tweety Bird, Yosemite Sam, the Martian and all the gang. Sitting on the balcony, watching the Merrie Melodies reels, I wish I had worn my p.j.’s and brought my favorite blankie. 

And now in September, summer is persisting and so has the harvest. Before the markets are overtaken with cool-weather greens and winter squashes, I’m putting everything together in a soup. This summer vegetable soup is based on a recipe given to me by my friend Julie. Her mother makes it every summer with homegrown tomatoes, corn, okra and butter beans. I started off the same, but switched out the okra for green beans. The combination of tomatoes, corn and lima beans made me think of succotash. Cheers, Sylvester!

Summer vegetable soup with pimento cheese sandwiches. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Succotash Soup (Summer Vegetable Soup)

Peeling and seeding tomatoes is a pain in the patootie, but it really improves the final soup. After all, you’ll probably only make this soup once a year, when the last of the summer tomatoes are filling up your kitchen counter. It may seem odd to add the cobs to the soup pot, but my feeling is the cobs will give up the last of their corniness to the soup. Just skip the step if you think it’s weird.

2 tablespoons butter

1 onion, peeled and chopped into ¼ inch dice

8 ripe tomatoes

2 ears of corn

½ pound green beans, washed, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths

½ pound butter beans, shelled (I used frozen)

Water

Salt and pepper to taste

 
1.       In a soup pot over medium heat, melt butter and add onion. Add a pinch of salt and stir until onions are softened.
2.       Meanwhile, put a pot of water on to boil and have ready a bowl of ice water in order to peel and seed the tomatoes. Have a third bowl ready with a mesh strainer placed over it. Cut an X into the bottom of each tomato and place in the boiling water, being careful not to crowd the pot. After a minute or two, place the tomatoes in the ice water. Repeat until all tomatoes have been blanched. Using a sharp paring knife, peel the tomatoes, then slice in half ,and over the bowl with the mesh strainer, squeeze out the seeds. Use your knife and fingers to finesse the remaining seeds out of the tomato flesh. Chop the remaining tomato flesh into ½ inch dice and place in soup pot with onion. Add the strained tomato juice to the soup pot and discard the seeds.
3.       For the corn, when shucking the corn, be sure to remove all visible silks. Place the cob horizontally on the cutting board and working on each side, shave the kernels off the cob. Rotate cob to get all the kernels off the cob. Stand the cob upright and use the back of the knife to scrape the remaining corn juice off the cob. Place corn in soup pot. Use your hands to snap the cobs into 2 pieces and add to soup pot.
4.       Add green beans and butter beans to soup pot, followed by enough water to cover, usually about 1 cup or more. Cook for 30 minutes. Remove the corn cobs from the soup. Taste the soup for seasoning and adjust. Butter may be added to each serving for additional richness. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Text and images copyright 2012, Lucy Mercer.

 For more ways to use up the last of the summer tomatoes, see:

Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce

Incredible roasted vegetables (Briami)
Tomato Gravy & Biscuits

Sparkling strawberry lemonade



Sparkling strawberry lemonade by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Here's a cooling taste of summer for a Fourth of July holiday weekend: Fill a tall glass pitcher with Fizzy Strawberry Lemonade, easily assembled from ingredients from your freezer and pantry.

Fizzy Strawberry Lemonade

• 1 pound bag frozen strawberries, slightly thawed

• 1 (12 ounce) container frozen lemonade concentrate

• 2 tablespoons sugar, or more to taste

• 3 cups club soda, chilled

• Fresh strawberries for garnish, optional



Directions:

1. Place frozen berries in glass container and defrost on 50 percent power for two minutes.

2. Place berries and lemonade concentrate in glass container and blend thoroughly together, about 30 seconds. Add sugar, taste and add more, keeping in mind it will be diluted with club soda. At this point, the mixture can be placed in an airtight container and refrigerated until ready to serve.

3. When ready to serve, pour strawberry lemonade mixture into glass pitcher and add club soda, in equal parts. Serve over ice and garnish with fresh strawberries.

Lemons by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Strawberries by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Lemon love affair continues: Lemon Ice cream

Lemon Ginger Ice Cream by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

If you're a regular reader of A Cook and Her Books, then you've already seen this ice cream - it's the melting blob in the puddle of Blackberry Doobie, a delicious old-fashioned and very Southern dessert. (Preserve a bit of Southern history and make it with the fresh blackberries in the markets now.)

Blackberry Doobie with Lemon Ginger Ice Cream by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

This ice cream makes me so happy that I just feel the need to give it its own post, its own little corner of the blogosphere. Because, you know, when life gives you lemons...

You haul out the Krups, the eggs and the half-n-half and make Lemon Ice Cream!

Lemon-Ginger Ice Cream
The ginger is optional, but quite delicious. Look for candied ginger near the Asian ingredients.(You can also make your own candied by ginger by cooking sliced ginger in a sugar syrup.)


3 lemons, zested and juiced

2/3 cup sugar

4 cups half-and-half, divided

5 egg yolks, whites saved for another purpose (angel food cake!)

Pinch of salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 2-inch slices crystallized ginger, finely diced, divided

1. In a saucepan over medium heat, heat 1 cup of half-and-half, the sugar, the lemon zest and ½ of the chopped, crystallized ginger. Stir with a whisk until sugar is dissolved and let it come to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool for at least 15 minutes.

2. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks until thick and lemony in color. Slowly add the half-and-half mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the mixture into the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture coats a spoon. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a large bowl.

3. Add ½ cup of lemon juice, the vanilla, and the remaining chopped, crystallized ginger to the strained custard, whisking until combined. Add 3 cups half-and-half, whisking again. Pour mixture into ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions. Store in airtight container in freezer.





Lemons by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.
 

Cumin-kissed sweet potato soup



Sweet Potato Bisque with Cumin by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


It’s hotter than H-E-double hockey sticks outside, and I’m in the mood for soup. Since the highs are in the upper 90s with Code Orange smog alerts, we venture out in the early mornings and evenings and soak up chilled, conditioned indoor air through the heat of the day. It may not be cool enough indoors for a sweater, but a bowl of creamy, light soup seems just right for lunch.

In honor of the Code Orange smog alert, (and I may be making that up, because it reminds me of the terror alerts, so I’ll just say that the outside air is bad), I made a creamy vegetable soup with roasted sweet potatoes, scented with cumin and finished with plain, non-fat yogurt. I really want to call this soup a bisque, even though a proper bisque uses a seafood broth. The milky, peachy hue is reminiscent of a shrimp bisque.

This soup comes together easily, especially if you use leftover roasted sweet potatoes. When dinner’s in the oven, I’ll pull out a few potatoes, prick them with a fork, place them on a baking tray (or in a foil packet) and let them cook alongside the meal, 30 minutes in a moderate oven usually does the trick. The cooked potatoes can be wrapped up and refrigerated for a few days before creating this soup.

Sweet potato bisque with cumin


The cumin gives it a little zip, but if you’re not a fan, just leave it out and perhaps experiment with something else from the herb garden or spice rack. Thyme? Cilantro? Lemon verbena?


1 lb. sweet potatoes

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 large shallot, minced

3 cups water

1/2 vegetable bouillon cube

1 teaspoon cumin

1 cup non-fat plain yogurt

1. Preheat oven to 350. Pierce sweet potatoes with fork or knife and place on baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 30 to 45 minutes, until tender. Test for doneness by inserting a knife or fork into the tuber – it’s done when completely tender. Remove from oven and let cool enough to handle.

2. Meanwhile, in a saucepan, heat olive oil and sautee shallot until tender. Add water, bouillon cube and cumin and bring to a boil. Remove from heat.

3. Squeeze sweet potato flesh into bowl of a food processor fitted with blade. Process for 30 seconds, to create a smooth puree. Gradually add seasoned broth to puree, processing until smooth. Add yogurt and process for about 10 seconds. Adjust seasoning and serve. Garnish with fresh herbs – I used parsley from my porch garden.

I used vegetable bouillon, one of my favorite shortcut tricks to add flavor to soups. If you have homemade vegetable or chicken broth, go right ahead and use that. Water will work fine, too.

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Summer Squash Soup

Summer Squash Soup with Thyme by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

They're here! I waited patiently through January's snowstorms and April's terrifying thunderstorms and now the lazy, hazy days of summer are finally here. Well, with two active kids, we're not really lazy, but we're certainly more relaxed. No setting of alarms to get us out of bed before the sun rises, no afternoon carpool lines at the school. It's time to enjoy the summer and all the good stuff that comes with June: flip-flops, Mary Kay Andrews' beach books, and farmers' market tables full of produce. At my local farmers' market, I pick up a big ol' bag of yellow crookneck squash and make this only-in-summer soup. Some folks may think soup is just for wintertime, but I eat it all year long. This pureed soup reminds me of squash casserole, but without the cream-of-whatever soup and stale cornbread dressing crumbs. It's summer in a bowl.

Summer Squash Soup

 1 1/2 pounds summer squash

1 medium yellow onion, preferably Vidalia, peeled and roughly chopped

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

4 sprigs fresh thyme or lemon thyme

4 to 6 cups water

1/2 cube vegetable bouillon, such as Knorr, see note below

1 cup cream or half-n-half


1. Wash and peel summer squash, roughly chop and set aside.

2. In a soup pot, melt butter. When foaming, add onion and cook until melted and soft, but not brown. Add squash and continue cooking until soft.

3. Add enough water to cover vegetables. Season with vegetable boullion, two thyme sprigs, salt and pepper, going easy on the salt. I like a lot of pepper in this soup.

4. Let cook for about 20 minutes until vegetables are very tender and broth is flavorful. Using a slotted spoon, remove the thyme sprigs and discard. Scoop up vegetables and puree them in a food processor or blender. Stir puree back into the seasoned broth in the pot and heat over a gentle flame. Thin soup with cream or half n half. Season to taste and serve with a thyme garnish.

Note: I keep vegetable bouillon cubes on hand to add depth of flavor to soups and sauces. You could substitute chicken or vegetable broth for the water and bouillon, or simply use water. As the kids say, it's all good.

Summer Squash Soup with Thyme by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Granddaddy's Cast-Iron Skillet Fried Corn



Corn by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



One of the distinctive characteristics of living in the New South, cookie-cutter suburban Atlanta, is that the Old South, the rural, hardscrabble life that James Agee and others wrote about is never far from view. Reminders can be as vivid as the tar paper shack I drive by on the carpool run - rusted refrigerators and livestock in the yard, enclosed with a barbed wire fence. Or it can be the cast iron skillet that I keep on my cooktop, ready to fry up a pan of corn the way my granddaddy did. Used to be every family had a cast iron skillet, just as dear and useful as a family bible.

I wish I could say that my seasoned cast iron skillet is an heirloom handed down through the generations.  The truth is, as a newlywed 20 years ago, I paid $20 bucks at Wal-Mart for a Lodge chicken fryer skillet - it's a little bit deeper than a standard skillet, seasoned to a midnight black patina. I keep it on the stovetop so it's handy for vegetable sautes, tomato gravy, pineapple upside-down cakes and biscuits. (I save chicken frying for my enamel cast iron Dutch oven - less splatter.) And fried corn. This is not deep-fried corn, just the Southern term for fresh corn cooked in bacon fat, thickened with flour and seasoned with cracked black pepper.

Now, my family loves roasted ears of corn on the cob and I've been known to turn out a corn salad or two, but if I'm going to write about what's true in my heart, I have to tell you that the best corn I ever ate and later learned to cook was the skillet fried corn turned out by my paternal grandfather in Alabama. I guess I can say that Granddaddy was an ornery old cuss - a grumpy old man who handed out Kennedy half dollars to his grandkids before settling in his recliner with a Bud in his hand, ready for an afternoon of Auburn football.

Well, that’s one memory, I do have another, better remembrance -  Granddaddy cooking fried corn in his cast iron skillet. Each summer the extended family would gather for a meal in the dining room of the house in Birmingham, grateful to escape the Alabama heat and ready for a feast. The oval, cherrywood dining table would be covered in a white linen cloth and loaded with the platters and bowls of Grandmother's bone china. The menu was  the same for each gathering - sliced ham, sliced tomatoes with mayonnaise, potato salad, devilled eggs (Hellmann's mayonnaise being something of a religion in my family), green beans cooked with ham, and Granddaddy's skillet fried corn. The corn, creamy white and rich with bacon fat, was pretty much my favorite thing on the plate. I remember once my mom asking Granddaddy how he made his fried corn and he smiled, actually smiled, and said you gotta use white corn, what folks called field corn, and a cast iron skillet.

Corn and cast iron skillet by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

When I eat my granddaddy's skillet fried corn, I can’t help but think of the Gudger family in James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” - the sharecropper family in rural southern Alabama in 1936. Their house smelled of “corn and lard” and when I fix my own version of this dish, I remember the families whose lives depended on corn, for their livestock and themselves. My grandfather wasn’t a sharecropper, but he came from humble beginnings, and I guess he knew a thing or two about putting together a belly-filling meal on the fly.

Skillet-fried corn with bacon by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Skillet Fried Corn with Bacon

I make this in summer, and I try to use a variety of corn - yellow and white. Gardeners will tell you that Silver Queen is the best, so if you see it, be sure to bring it home.

4 slices bacon

6 ears corn, shucked

½ medium onion, chopped

2 tablespoons flour

Water, about a cup, maybe more

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. In a cast iron skillet, fry bacon until crispy. There are two ways to accomplish this: 1. Messy: on stovetop, fry for about 20 minutes. 2. Not so messy: in 350° oven for about 25 minutes. When bacon is crispy, set bacon strips on paper towels to drain and pour bacon grease into metal container.

2. While bacon is cooking, prepare corn. Remove the corn from the cob thusly - hold cob upright and with a sharp knife held parallel to the cutting board, cut the kernels off one “side.” Place cob horizontally with the flat, cut side on the cutting board and slice off kernels, rotating cob. Do not discard cobs - you will use them in a minute.

Cutting corn by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

3. Place skillet over medium heat and add two tablespoons bacon grease to pan. Add onion and saute until softened. Add flour and cook for a couple of minutes. Toss corn kernels in pan and saute. Take each cob and hold upright in the center of skillet. With the back of your knife, scrape the corn “cream” into the pan. Now you can discard the cobs. Stir.

4. Add water slowly to pan while you stir, until you get the desired consistency. I prefer thicker but some may like it thinner, like a chunky gravy.

5. Crumble bacon and stir into pot or top individual servings.

Text and images © 2010, Lucy Mercer.

"Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" is by James Agee with photographs by Walker Evans and published by Houghton Mifflin. It's a challenging read (at least for me), but if you love the South and the English language and compelling photography, it will reward.

True Love and Home-Grown Tomatoes

There's an old Guy Clark song about home-grown tomatoes that is stuck in my head.

"Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes,
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes?
Only two things that money can't buy -
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes."

Back when the world was young, I was a gardener and like many gardeners, I prayed for summer rains, juicy homegrown tomatoes and raised garden beds. A few years of vegetable gardening on my hands and knees, combined with successive drought years, cured me of these grand illusions and I got a CSA subscription instead. For those who don’t about a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) subscription, it’s kind of like the best of the farmer’s market packed up just for you each week - including homely home-grown tomatoes - without all the work.

My biggest and best garden was the summer that I was expecting my first daughter and the nesting urge manifested in the garden - I planted 30 pepper plants, 60 tomato plants, countless cucumbers and zucchini, corn, green beans, pumpkins, watermelon. There was just one little problem - my due date was July 21, right at the height of harvest. When friends and family came to our house to visit the baby, we instructed them to go into the garden and take everything they wanted - ripe tomatoes - Big Boy, Better Boy, Green Zebra, cherry tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes; cukes and zukes as big as Louisville Sluggers; bell peppers; jalapanos; scotch bonnets. Everything went somewhere else - as new parents, we were too discombobulated adjusting to a baby to deal with a vegetable garden, too.

In the intervening years, I've played around with a garden, but not too seriously. Until last year, Georgia was in a severe drought and growing vegetables with water restrictions wasn't really viable. This summer, I’m a gardener again. In a spot by the house that gets full sun and blistering heat, my husband built raised beds in a structure that he calls the Ultimate Garden Tub - three sections, each containing a tub filled with soil, and irrigation to boot. My husband is the kind of guy you can give a box of toothpicks to and he’ll create a scale replica of the Taj Mahal. In the spirit of the second part of the mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle” he took three Harvest Gold hexagonal concrete bathtubs and built a surround for them, adding irrigation and posts for a trellis (that's phase II).

The raised beds limit my seedling-shopping splurges, which is a good thing. Here are the tomato and pepper plants - we’re looking at another few weeks ‘til harvest.

One of the glories of summer tomatoes, homegrown or farmer's market, is using the fruit in a light tomato pasta. Chopped beefsteak tomatoes, creamy Fontina cheese and basil from the herb bed are tossed with warm pasta. One pot and one bowl, light cooking and housekeeping.

Spaghetti with Summer Sauce

I adapted this recipe from a clipping from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in the summer of 1995, three years before the summer of Laura. I know the year because of the Alka-Seltzer coupon on the back that expired 7-16-95. I used three beefsteak tomatoes in this recipe - they totaled 2 1/4 pounds. 

3 large, ripe tomatoes, cut into rough chunks
8 ounces fontina, cubed
½ cup rough-chopped basil, plus more for garnish
3 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 pound spaghetti
1 to 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, or to taste
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1. In a large shallow bowl, combine the tomatoes, fontina, basil, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. Put this together an hour before you plan to eat and set aside at room temperature.

2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta 8 to 10 minutes, until al dente. Drain the pasta and toss with the sauce. Season with salt, pepper, red wine vinegar and additional basil. Serve at once, sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese.

Text and images © Lucy Mercer, 2010, unless otherwise noted.

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How to Choose a Georgia Watermelon

Watermelon, perfect for a picnic. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Watermelons fresh from the truck by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

In Georgia, we know a thing or two about watermelon. Crisp, juicy, sweet watermelon - green striped exterior, magenta interior. Things like how Cordele, in south Georgia, a drive-by on Interstate 75, is the Watermelon Capital of the World. Just ask any native of Cordele, and they will happily tell you that the best watermelons come from Cordele in the month of June. Is it serendipity that Cordele is the county seat of Crisp County?

Well, here in north Georgia a few weeks into July, good quality watermelons can still be found. Here’s how I choose a watermelon:

1. Find a pick-em-up truck by the side of the road. Look for the signs that read “Two for $5” or “Watermelons $2 each.”

2. Park my minivan and insist the children stay in the car DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING AND BEHAVE FOR 10 SECONDS, PLEASE.

3. Sigh resignedly when the girls insist on getting out of the car and choosing the watermelon.

4. Engage the watermelon guy and remark about what a good year it is for watermelons. All the rain in the spring and hot days in summer.

5. Look over the melons, lift a few and then start thumping. That’s right, go all Ginger Baker on those melons, thumping and drumming, listening for that solid, heavy thrum that means you’ve got yourself a sun-ripened, belly-filling whopper of a watermelon.

6. Act all demure and girlie hoping the watermelon guy will offer to carry the watermelon to the car. Ignore the preschooler who offers to carry the watermelon. Continue to ignore the preschooler who is saying repeatedly “I can carry it! Let me! Let me! Let me!“

7. Carry the melon to the car, trailing baby ducks. Place watermelon carefully in seat, place seat belt around it. Buckle all children into their respective car seats. Admonish everyone to “PLEASE BEHAVE! IT’S ONLY A SHORT DRIVE HOME!”

8. Arrive home and remind the little angels “you know that watermelon is no good unless it's cold, we’ve got to put this guy in the fridge for a few hours so it will be good to eat.”

9. Get all the kidoodles out of the car, and lastly the precious watermelon and heave it into the “watermelon fridge” the extra refrigerator that seems to exist for restaurant leftovers, bottles of IBC root beer, the Thanksgiving turkey in defrost mode and watermelons in the summer. Offer kids popsicles from the freezer.

10. Forget about the melon for a day, maybe two, and then have at it - wash and dry the watermelon first, then cut it in half across the equator. Quarter the halves, then remove the flesh from the rind. If you’re clever, cunning, resourceful or cheap, or maybe have just read “White Trash Cooking” by Ernest Matthew Mickler, then save the rind for watermelon pickles. Otherwise, save it for the compost heap.

We eat a watermelon a week each week from June through July and into August. Mostly, we keep the slices in the fridge and eat them as snacks, but I’ve been known to serve watermelon alongside a supper that may not pass muster with the kids. (“Sweetheart, give me three bites of cauliflower, and then you can have watermelon.”)

I’ve mentioned before that my children are culinary savants - wanting to try strange concoctions that sometimes taste good - a rich double butter peanut butter toast and a sweet-sour marmalade concoction deemed “marmadip” are two memorable inventions. My children’s creativity with food doesn’t come from me, however - I’m a big fan of recipes and cookbooks. They get the inventiveness gene from my husband, who, upon finding out that this week’s Salon Kitchen Challenge category was watermelon, said “You know what I’ve always wanted to try. Now, you’ll think I’m crazy, but hear me out. I want to try making ahi tuni poke with cubes of watermelon.”

This sent me scrambling to Google to figure out what poke is, and it’s not Gumby’s faithful sidekick. It’s pronounced “poh-kay” and it’s a Hawaiian tuna tartare, part of the great fusion of Hawaiian cuisine. Fresh sushi-grade tuna marinated in a gingery, garlicky soy sauce with a wallop of pepper and chile offset by crisp, juicy sweet niblets of watermelon. Well, we gave it a try, and all I can say is that they laughed at Picasso. Maybe, like his 1906 painting of Gertrude Stein about which a viewer remarked that the portrait looked nothing like Stein, Picasso famously responded “she will.“ My taste buds have grown to crave this - all contrasts- sweet, crisp melon; salty, soft tuna.

Watermelon ahi tuna poke by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Georgia -Style Ahi Poke with Watermelon

Tell the nice person at the seafood counter that you’re making sushi and ask for the freshest ahi tuna available and watch them as they go to the back. Be sure to smell the fish before you buy - if it smells even remotely fishy, ask for another fish or go to a different store.

1/2 lb. ahi tuna, cubed

¼ cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon grated ginger

2 teaspoons green onion

1 teaspoon white pepper

1 teaspoon sesame seed

¼ to ½ jalapeno, minced no seeds

Salt to taste

½ cup diced watermelon, in pieces the same size as the tuna

1. Combine all ingredients except for salt and watermelon. Taste for seasoning before adding salt. The dish needs a bit of salt, but remember the soy and sesame contribute to the sodium load.

2. Make sure the marinade completely covers the fish, place in a sealable container and put in the coldest part of the fridge for a few hours up to a day. Before serving, fold in watermelon. Serve with chips, avocado, pickled ginger and sriracha, or like me, chip-sized slices of watermelon.

Text and images © 2010, Lucy Mercer

Aubergine: Eggplant by Another Name

Aubergine, or eggplant by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

If soft, luxurious silk were a food, it would be eggplant. Maybe not just eggplant, but aubergine. American English can be harsh to the ear; I like the way the Brits use the French aubergine, it even sounds silky. Like silk, the regal eggplant, which is botanically classified as a fruit, is classic in many cuisines: The French have ratatouille, the Italians have Parmigiana, the Greeks have moussaka.

Of course, I can't think of eggplants without remembering the charming writer Laurie Colwin, who wrote an essay entitled "Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant" nearly 25 years ago. In "Home Cooking," her collection of essays, many of which appeared first in Gourmet magazine, in between "The Low-Tech Person's Batterie de Cuisine"and "How to Fry Chicken," she extols the versatility of eggplant and how she cooked it in her Greenwich Village apartment "approximately the size of the Columbia Encyclopedia." She did this without a kitchen, just a two-burner hot plate.


"When I was alone, I lived on eggplant, the stove top cook's strongest ally. I fried it and stewed it, and ate it crisp and sludgy, hot and cold. It was cheap and filling and was delicious in all manner of strange combinations. If any was left over, I ate it cold the next day on bread."

She goes on to write "I ate eggplant constantly: with garlic and honey, eggplant with spaghetti, eggplant with fried onions and Chinese plum sauce." (Hmmm, eggplant with garlic and honey...)

Just a few years after I first discovered her books, Colwin passed away suddenly at 48 years old. She was known primarily as a novelist during her lifetime, but her food writing has endured, with "Home Cooking" and "More Home Cooking" remaining in print nearly 25 years later. Colwin's homey style lives on in the current trend of food blogging - read Colwin, then Molly Wizenberg on "Orangette" and you see that the apple fell off the tree and kept rolling. Although I majored in journalism and wrote all kinds of stories, it was when I read Colwin that I said to myself "this is what I want to write." Marcel Proust relived his past as he contemplated a madeleine; I read about Colwin's eggplant and imagined my future as a food writer.

Back to eggplant: it's a little early in Georgia for the Asian varieties to make it to my supermarket, but the globe variety is plentiful, with the characteristic burnished patina. The Asian eggplants are smaller and have fewer seeds, thus not requiring the salt "degorging" treatment to release the bitterness.

I use the smaller Asian eggplants in late summer to make redneck ratatouille when the overripe homegrown tomatoes threaten to spill their juices all over the kitchen windowsill. Eggplant, peppers and other tasty items from the crisper drawer round up to yield their goodness to the pot. This early in the season, without a tomato worthy enough of the ratatouille ritual, I turn to other preparations, this time to the tried and true Southern Eggplant Souffle. This recipe takes advantage of eggplant's texture, subtle taste and adaptability.

Forgive me while I tell a brief story about my initial encounter with eggplant souffle. When I was a young woman with a promising future, I worked for six months for a hot-shot p.r. firm in Buckhead, the tony business district in North Atlanta. Actually, it was on the outskirts at the time, in an area called Brookhaven and it was right next door to a Mary Mac’s to Go where sweaty ladies in white aprons and hairnets scooped Southern classics into styrofoam boxes. The food was divine. As I pointed out my selections, I came to an unfamiliar casserole. “What’s this?” I asked, pointing to the yellow, quivering mass. "Why that’s eggplant souffle," the cafeteria lady replied. It didn't look like eggplant, at least not what I was used to - gray or fried. I’d never heard of it, but it had to be ok, because everything in this building was good. I remember a lunch of eggplant souffle, turkey and dressing, and corn. At the conference room table, I opened my clamshell to reveal all yellow food. And it was delicious.

To this day, I can close my eyes and see down the hallway of B/H/Y Public Relations towards my boss' office. The hallway was lined with sliding glass doors, and every now and then, if the planets aligned properly, someone would ping off a closed door, like a bird trying to attack his reflection. And if I I put my mind to it, I can smell the chicken frying next door at Mary Mac's.

Eggplant Souffle by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Southern Eggplant Souffle

Imagine my joy upon finding Mary Mac's eggplant souffle recipe online. This is my adaptation and you'll notice that the recipe is more of a custard than a traditional French souffle. Here in JAW-ja, seemingly everything is a souffle, pronounced SOO-flay.

1 medium eggplant, peeled and cut into 2-inch cubes
2 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1 slice white sandwich bread
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon grated onion
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon salt
Pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350°. In a medium saucepan, bring to a boil water and salt.

2. Add eggplant, bring to a simmer and let cook, covered, for 10 minutes. Drain eggplant and mash, yielding about 1 1/2 cups pulp.

3. In a medium bowl, tear bread into small pieces and soak in milk. Add eggs, onion, melted butter, salt and pepper. Add eggplant, mixing well, and pour into 1-quart buttered baking dish.

4. Bake at 350° for 35 to 45 minutes, or until "set" in the middle. Serve warm.
adapted from Serenbe Style and Soul with Marie Nygren.

Aubergine, or eggplant by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I've written before that my world is small, but my kitchen is big. By that, I mean that I know I'm not particularly well-traveled or well-educated, but I can explore new worlds and learn new techniques in my kitchen. If there's anything I learned from Laurie Colwin's essays, it's that there's magic in the everyday foods that we prepare for our families and that sharing food and recipes builds bonds of friendship.

After making the souffle, I had three additional eggplants and decided that the world of aubergines deserved more exploration. Enter Cookstalk Classic and Evelyn/Athens. This is a message board that I began participating in about three years ago. Most of the members started at Fine Cooking's Cookstalk board and migrated to Delphi forums. This is a generous group of cooks willing to share their lives and their knowledge - there is a staggering amount of expertise between the professional and home cooks. I could name a few friends and many impressive cooks that I've met through Cookstalk, and I will someday soon, but today I want to mention Evelyn/Athens, a former Canadian now living in Greece. I've never met Evelyn face to face, but this much I know: she is a devoted mother and a first-class cook. She posts her recipes on Recipezaar and they are inspiring and reliable.

A search of Evelyn's eggplant recipes revealed 17 different preparations. I chose Hunkar Begendi, which translated to "Turkish Eggplant Cream," and essentially, it's an eggplant souffle, down to the thick, buttery roux and cheese. Greek cheeses other than Feta are hard to come by in my corner of Georgia, so I subbed Parmesan, with Evelyn's blessing.



Hunkar Begendi, or Sultan's Delight by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



Hunkar Begendi (Turkish Eggplant Cream)

This is Evelyn's headnote for the recipe: "This literally translates as 'the Sultan's Delight', and it is that! The first time I had it, I fell in love. Mild, rich, buttery - it perfectly complemented the braised beef (in tomato sauce) that it was meant to accompany. This is a very subtle dish. If you want FLAVOUR, look elsewhere. This is flavourful in a more refined way, and also a lesson to our overly-spiced palates." I agree.

3 medium eggplants
Juice of one half lemon
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup to 1 cup hot milk, as needed
Grated fresh nutmeg
Grated fresh Parmesan cheese (1/4 to 1/2 cup)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Wash eggplants and using a paring knife, prick the skin all over each vegetable. Place on baking sheet and let roast for up to one hour. The eggplants will look like giant shriveled raisins when ready. Remove from oven and let cool.

2. When vegetables are cool enough to handle, peel off the skin, remove the seeds and chop up the remaining
pulp and place in a saucepan.

3. Add lemon juice to eggplant mixture and simmer until very soft, stirring often, about 10 minutes. Remove from pan.

4. In saucepan, melt butter, add flour to it and stir to make a roux. Add eggplant and stir to combine. Slowly add hot milk until mixture resembles mashed potatoes. Season with freshly grated nutmeg, salt and pepper.

5. Correct seasoning, adding more lemon juice and nutmeg, if desired, then stir in Parmesan cheese. (Kasseri and Kefolateri are Evelyn's Greek cheese recommendations.) Serve warm with additional Parmesan.

Text and images © 2010, Lucy Mercer.

The quotes are from "Home Cooking" by Laurie Colwin, published 1988 by Knopf. Buy it. Read it. Often.

"Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant" is also the title of a food writing collection edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler. It's a delightful book that includes Colwin's story and another by her daughter, Rosa Jurjevics. Published 2007 by Riverhead.

Goodbye, Summer

This was the beginning of summer at a Braves game in June.

Lindsey is 2 and Laura is 9.

School has been in session for a month and the leaves are already falling.

Goodbye, summer 2008!