Blog de Puree » food and dining

Yankee Fisherman’s Coop Will Sell Catches Locally, Like a Farmshare

paul — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:41:04 +0000

This is a new one for me—a fish-share.

The Yankee Fisherman’s Coop of Seabrook, NH will sell locally caught fish to local retail establishments and to any customer interested in weekly shares of shrimp and lobster.

At this time, it looks like they only have shellfish packages for landlubbers like us or 20 pound packages of a broader fish assortment for retail establishments.

I would love to see them offer shares of more than just shellfish for the average shopper. A five pound selection of fish per week would be fantastic! It’s fresh, it’s easier on the environment and we’d be supporting local fisherman who have been fighting an uphill battle against fishing legislation and regulation in the last few years. A win-win in my book. (An added bonus would be a 2 pound selection of sushi-grade fish cuts)

Read more about it in our local rag, The Daily News.

Until then, there are a couple options for super-fresh fish in the area. We recommend David’s Fish Market of Salisbury, MA on Route 1 for a decent selection of fish just off the boat and held in massive holding tanks on their premises. (We’re not sure where they get the fish from, whether it’s local fisherman or beyond.) You can also occasionally get lucky if you’re hanging out at the pier/boardwalk in Newburyport Harbor near the end of the day when some fisherman will walk about trying to sell you fish straight from their catch. (Be sure to ask when they caught it, how it was preserved in the boat and to see the fish first.)

Protected: M learns to feed himself

paul — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 12:13:13 +0000

Protected: Happiness is snacktime with Mommy and Daddy

paul — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:20:03 +0000

A Sushi guide for the iPhone

paul — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:25:14 +0000

Shogakukan’s illustrated sushi guide for the iPhone can answer your sushi identification questions.

Back in November of 2008, Randye and I discovered another local sushi restaurant in Newburyport, Hana Japan.

It’s a nice, clean restaurant situated in a back corner of the Port Plaza off of Rt. 113 as you get off Interstate 95, heading into Newburyport. Inside, you are greeted by a zen water fountain and the decor includes lots of bamboo and lots of modern Asian-style furnishings.

Every time we go, we are greeted by the same bowing, friendly and attentive hostess/waitress (and we presume owner) who loves children; she brings special tidbits for our son to snack on during dinner. Each time we’ve ordered the chirashi dinner entree and each time the fish was fresh and tasty. In fact, we found it to be the freshest we’ve found in the greater Newburyport area.

We love ordering chirashi because it’s a goodly amount of fish and rice for the price, and it comes with a small bowl of miso soup, a small salad and a personal pot of green tea. (Hana Japan’s green tea is awesome!) The other fun thing about chirashi is that it’s often a selection of fresh fish that the sushi chef has on-hand, and sometimes there are bits of fish you typically don’t see. For example, chirashi typically comes with tuna, red snapper, salmon, shrimp, squid or octopus and mackerel. And there is often a few pieces of fish that are not easily identified by the typical American. Here’s an oft-heard conversation at an American sushi restaurant:

“What the hell is this?” the man asks poking at a white piece of glistening fish with his chop stick.
“”Dunno,” his wife replies. “Eat it and tell me if it’s good so I can try it.”

That’s where this new illustrated sushi guide comes in. For those of you who love sushi and wonder what those mystery fish bits are, the sushi neta zukan (illustrated sushi guide) is likely to answer your questions. Made available in December of ’08, it will cost $5. Although it’s in Japanese, the developers promise that it will have an English appendix. The guide will have photos and descriptions of 82 different types of sushi.

I’ve been looking for it in the App store in iTunes and have been unsuccessful in finding it. If anyone knows where to find this baby, other than the Shogakukan website, which is in Japanese, I’d live to know.

Le Grand Aioli

randye — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:08:27 +0000

Late September and into October is when the harvest really peaks here in Northern MA and this week’s farm-share had the most variety yet. I celebrated our veggie bounty by making “Le Grand Aioli,” something I have been dying to try since I read about it in Domino Magazine last year.

Some flounder poached in wine and lemon, a crusty baguette and a crisp white wine accompanied this:

Tomatoes, beans, purple peppers, new potatoes, corn, red peppers and celery were just part of this week’s pick-up!

We ate until our nose hairs were singed from the garlic and still barely made a dent in the platter! I suspect I will be making vegetable soup with the leftovers.

Our first Arrowhead Farm CSA meal

paul — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:30:16 +0000

We picked up our first share of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) produce from Arrowhead Family Farm in Newburyport, Mass today and consequently cooked our first, delicious meal from locally grown food.

A bird’s eye view of the Arrowhead Family Farm along the
Merrimack River in Newburyport, Mass.

Take that big chain markets and national (and international) food distribution conglomerates who spend stupid money on resources, pollute the Earth and provide sub-quality food! (I mean c’mon, how pathetic is it that Stop & Shop and Shaws markets provide apples from Washington State in the fall when they are literally falling off the trees here in New England!)

(Green tirade over, Randye reminded me of a wonderful quote from Nigella Lawson in her book “How to Eat” where she states, “Don’t believe everything you’re told about the greater good of eating foods only when they are in season. The purists may be right, but being right isn’t everything. If you live in the Tuscan Hills, you may find different lovely things to eat every month of the year, but for us it would mean having to subsist half the time on a diet of tubers and cabbage, so why shouldn’t we be grateful that we live in the age of jet-transport and extensive culinary imports? (Nigella lives in England and the same applies to New England.)) (Check out her books on her website. And buy them!)

It was early in the season for New England, so the bounty was a bit light, but we picked up one pound of rhubarb, a pint of strawberries, a head of red lettuce, a head of dark green lettuce, and a generous bunch of sweet pea shoots. We could have gotten chives, but our personal garden runneth over with them. The added bonus of our pickup was that my 8+ month-old son was able to meet and pet a friendly Hereford cow named Delilah who is a resident at Arrowhead Farm. (Young boys + animals = smiles. Usually.)

This week’s bounty.

So, tonight’s meal was a light and delightful, Vietnamese inspired shrimp and rice noodle salad with the CSA lettuces and pea shoots, some leftover parsley from a previous market purchase, plus fresh mint and chives from our own herb garden, rice noodles, frozen shrimp and a chili lime dressing that Randye adapted from a spring roll dipping sauce recipe. To wash down the meal, we imbibed in a sweet, buttery Gewurztraminer wine from Gundlach Bundschu (2003 vintage).

Not bad for coming home at 5:15 p.m. and sitting down to eat at 6:00.

Protected: My first Father’s Day and our fifth anniversary

paul — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:02:13 +0000

Ovedia: Amesbury’s secret sweet spot

paul — Sat, 31 May 2008 23:51:42 +0000

Nestled behind the brick building at 36 Main Street in Amesbury is an artisan chocolate shop called Ovedia that is sure to soon be known as Amesbury’s sweet spot.

I discovered the place a week before Valentine’s day in 2007 in a frantic search for sea salt caramels (One of my wife’s favorites) and I didn’t want to pay the stupid amount of money that Crate & Barrel was charging. (And shipping was almost as much as the product!) Granted, my time and options were running short, but I was loathe to throw unnecessary money at big chain stores instead of supporting local merchants. That’s when I found Ovedia online.

It was obvious by the copy on the site that folks at Ovedia see candy as passion, and weren’t in business just to hawk chocolates. Artisan chocolates, no doubt!

I called from work and found out that I would not be able to get to the shop before it closed, so I inquired about delivery. The proprietor asked where I lived and as our house was so close to downtown Amesbury, she offered to drop them off with a note as well. I’m proud to say that I was the shop’s first delivery customer. But whether the shop delivers regularly, I couldn’t say.

Well, the sea salt caramels, with milk or dark chocolate, were a huge success. Every night for about three weeks, my wife would, chew, smack her gums, lick her fingers and thoroughly enjoy her confections while I sat watching her, with my jaw agape and drool slowly collecting at the corner of my mouth. She was almost through the entire box before she finally gave me one. I could see why she didn’t want to share.

Ovedia makes its own candy, as well as some of the best hot chocolate my wife and I ever had. You’ll always see a couple cars parked by the front door—no doubt someone enjoying a cup of hot chocolate or some coffee with a few sweets. Aside from a sure win with Valentine’s Day treats, I highly recommend Ovedia for any special occasion, a perfect hot drink and accompanying treats to warm you on cold days or for a quick morsel to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Ten Center Street: Our new favorite restaurant

paul — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:58:04 +0000

Randye and I spent the Friday after Valentine’s Day at our new favorite local restaurant, Ten Center Street–now that Theory has closed its doors.

What it lacks in Theory’s ultra-coziness (I think it sat no more than 30 people), Ten Center Street makes up for in sumptuous culinary delights by Head Chef Harley Smith and wicked seasonal and imaginative cocktails. Here’s the story of how we came to know what we call our favorite restaurant in Newburyport.

A couple of years ago, late one summer afternoon, we and some friends were looking for a place to eat and tried to get into Ten Center Street, but the wait was too long. We told ourselves we would be back because the menu looked verrrrry interesting. Fast forward a year-and-a-half and we discovered Theory, a little bistro on State Street. A flash in the pan, this restaurant was so good—and tiny—that we didn’t want to tell anyone about it, as a past blog post explains. But all good things must come to an end and the little place on State Street closed its doors by late summer of 2007. A tragedy.

Flash forward a couple of months to September. Randye is due with our son in a few weeks and we decided to get one last great meal before the uncertainty of parenthood sets in. “Hey, we always wanted to give Ten Center Street a try, let’s go there,” Randye suggested. The plan was sound and we sallied forth.

The best and worst part about our meal that night was that the menu contained sushi, oysters, steak tartare, soft cheeses, foie gras and insanely delicious looking cocktails—all the foods that Randye loves but couldn’t eat for being off limits to pregnant women for a myriad of reasons. But that didn’t stop me from sampling the oysters and cocktails.

Randye had the lobster mac & cheese and I don’t remember what I ate, thanks to the drinks, but I remember being more than excited about the sumptuous repast that evening. We vowed that evening that Ten Center Street would be the location of our first date night after our son was born and we were able to find a proper babysitter.

Special thanks goes to Randye’s folks a few months later for visiting and watching our son one evening as we made are way back to the scene of the crime. This time for a delicious refection, no holds barred. Randye went the tapas route, eating:

Roasted seasonal wild mushrooms over a creamy herb polenta, truffle oil & shaved asiago
Roasted Fuji apple with a brulee of Hudson Valley foie gras stuffed with duck confit, pinenut spinach & cider horseradish demi
Ham and four cheese tortellini antipasto salad with proscuitto, olives, artichokes, bell peppers and parmesan dressing

I had oysters on the half shell and the duck special with salty, crispy skin (Yum!) that was close to the best duck I’ve ever had. Desert was a chocolate-banana tiramisu that was not to heavy, not too sweet and the perfect way to end our meal.

However, this last meal was the best yet. It started it out with a pinot noir from our favorite Sonoma winery Gundlach Bundschu, which by the way, we were excited to finally see on a wine list in the area. A first, I think, and a special golf clap goes to the individual who decided to carry it. The chef then “gifted” us with a maple carrot puree in small cups. An amuse bouche. For appetizers we had Hudson Valley foie gras Monte Cristo with wild Maine blueberry preserves, fried cinnamon bread and creamy fluff, and lobster wasabi shumai with lemon grass chili sauce, pickled cucumber and toasted cashews. For the second course, we ordered a sushi roll of miso marinated organic salmon sashimi with Hawaiian poke salad and insalata mista with beef bresola, carpaccio of portabella mushroom, house cured olives, gorgonzola dolce and pepperoncini. The main course consisted of Randye’s bone-in Angus beef rib eye steak with chopped salad, crispy onion strings and gorgonzola dolce and my Tandoori-spiced New Zealand rack of lamb with potato paneer, spring peas, mint oil, toasted cashews and fig preserve.

And then there was dessert. A deconstructed pecan pie with vanilla ice cream that was a big plate of orgasmic yummy mush.

To say that we were fat and happy after this meal would be an understatement. If I were on death row, this would be the where I’d want my last meal to come from. And to anyone looking for a culinary adventure that befits the style and uniqueness of Newburyport, Mass, this is the restaurant to visit.

Homemade fruit smoothies

paul — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:40:35 +0000

Rather than going to a market, health food store or local coffee shops for fruit smoothies that cost upwards of $4 to $5 dollars, we’ve started making them at home.

Even better, for the price of a smoothie out in the world, we can buy enough ingredients to make at least eight to ten smoothies at home.

Here is what you need to start making home-made smoothies:

One bag of assorted frozen fruit. We like bags with assorted strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries.
Some pre-frozen sliced banana chunks. The perfect use for bananas that are starting to brown, and which you may not want to eat whole anymore. Just cut them up and stow them in the freezer in a Ziploc bag.
Orange juice–brand and style of your choice.
An immersion blender. You can get a decent one for under $20 and it will pay for itself within a month or two.
A tall plastic container, such as a juice container to mix it all together.

Directions for two: Take the frozen fruit and dump a goodly handful from each bag into a bowl. Defrost the fruit for a minute or so in the microwave. Take the partially defrosted fruit and put it in the container and blend as desired. Pour in 1 cup of orange juice. Mix with the immersion blender until all the fruit is ground to a smoothie-like consistency. Add more orange juice to ensure enough for your two servings. Mix again briefly, pour and serve.

These smoothies are great if you’re fighting a cold and need some extra nutrients, want a healthy drink alternative or if you’re looking to add some fruit to your diet.

I’m very excited that my wife showed me how to make these. In essence, she succeeded not in feeding me, but taught me how to fish. Thanks, sweetie! [Glug, glug] Mmmmm, fruity goodness.