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Sometimes the old, simple recipes are just what the doctor ordered. For me, that often begins with a trip to the farmers' market. This time of year in the pacific northwest is known, with some rue, as Juneuary - for those who don't know, spring and summer ar rather relaxed about when they decide to arrive. It's the time of year when from day to day it could feel like winter, spring, or summer, and so it's the right time of year for food that incorporates flavours and textures from all of these seasons. And it's at this time of year that we start to get tender young asparagus and the first morel mushrooms of the season. 
Asparagus, in some ways, is the very symbol of spring: the first energetic shoots of a plant that fly from the ground just when the weather is warm enough and the days long enough to spur the first imaginings of summer picnics. At the market this week the asparagus were particularly fine and fresh and so I bought a small handful. A old reliable spring dish is blanched asparagus with Hollandaise sauce - tangy, bright, aspirational. Though to me, Hollandaise is also very much a winter food; it's a part of big breakfasts on cold, rainy Sundays and its cousin, Sauce Béarnaise, is peerless as companion to a fine steak, preferably cooked over a fire and eaten while watching at fresh snowfall. So you see, I already had the makings of a lovely Juneuary dish. And then I passed the wild mushroom stand. And saw (and smelled) this year's first morels.
Morels taste of the loam and forest - at once reminiscent of both musky, humid summer and also earthy, hearty winter food. The first morels are exciting - as asparagus ushers in spring, so do morels usher in summer. The fact that these milestones appear simultaneous here in western Washington, well, I suppose that's Mother Nature's sense of humor. But it does allow for some delicious combinations. In short, this evening for dinner I had fresh asparagus with morel Hollandaise sauce. Simple, easy, but it almost defines luxurious eating. Warm, beguiling, at once crunchy and velvety, tangy like the spring weather, rich like a winter feast, and bright like the summer sun. You may have heard of truffled Hollandaise before - this similar, but not as wintery. The only thing you have to do is cook the morels in the butter you melt for the sauce and then whisk them along with the sauce as you slowly thicken it. I used the Joy of Cooking recipe for "Whole Egg Hollandaise" as the base.
Happy Juneuary, everyone!
Have you ever been walking down the street and suddenly been bowled over by an irresistible smell, one that absolutely, positively requires you to find the source? Common examples are butter, bacon, barbeque, coffee, bread, curry - you know, smells that just grab you by the nose and pull (rather than those opposite kinds that push you away and make you feel ill...)
Well, the small and oft-overlooked country of Belgium is famous for a few foods but the one that carries the name and flag far and wide is the waffle. Now "Belgian Waffles" in an american diner are not terribly Belgian, and certainly not the kind that you can buy on the streets of Brussels and munch as you walk along. These are called Gaufres de Liège, are ragged-edged, dense and chewy, and have a slightly crispy, caramelized sugar crust that comes from the particular kind of sugar crystals which must be used in the batter (or else it's not the real thing, of course.)
In Brussels, the widely-regarded best gaufres can be found in little yellow vans parked at random places around the city. Despite the fact that, a) I did not know this to be the source of the quintessential gaufre, nor b) did I (or anyone) know where such a fount of waffly gastronomic pleasure might be found on a particular day, find one I did - entirely by nose. I had just finished touring the European Parliament building (which is large) and was hungry. All of a sudden I was practically knocked flat by a wave of caramel, yeast, butter, and chocolate. Dazed and stumbling I looked around, but didn't see anything that might be emitting such an intoxicating cloud. I kept walking - one block, two blocks - towards a square, and then I saw it. Like the sun peeking over the horizon in the morning, bright yellow and with the huge word "Gaufres! " emblazoned on the side. I almost couldn't make it to the window, such was the glorious aroma. But make it I did, accepted my freshly made gaufre with chocolate sauce, and then proceeded to eat with messy abandon, all the while making slightly obscene noises and grinning like an idiot. I didn't notice until days later that I had chocolate sauce on my pants.
The natural world is full of things that resemble other things, sometimes in look, sometimes in smell, and sometimes in taste, too. And after all, human description of food often resorts to simile: "It tastes like chicken." Of course, this gives rise to the joke that God, when defining the tastes of things, ran out of ideas when it came to chicken so just made chicken taste like everything. But I digress.
Lobster would seem to be one of those very delicious, prized, and, above all, unique tastes that is not found anywhere else. Well, whether by reality of the tastebuds or by sheer power of suggestion, a non-lobster lobster seems to exist. The lobster mushroom is so named because it is the speckled orange color of a cooked lobster and also has been described as having a taste that is both earthy and lobster- or shellfish-like. I should clarify that the lobster mushroom is not actually a single species of mushroom in itself, but rather is the result of a parasite fungus colonizing a host mushroom - mushrooms on a mushroom, as it were. 
The parasite responsible for the unique coloring and flavour is Hypomyces lactifluorum and it colonizes various host species, most of which are edible. (The Mushroom Expert) This presents a challenge when determining if a bright orange speckled mushroom you happen across on a hike will make a good mushroom fry-up followed by a pleasant afternoon nap or by agonizing pain and death. In short, DON'T PICK THEM YOURSELF UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. 
Identifying the host (and therefore the edibility) can be very hard since the parasite causes the mushroom to deform a lot as it matures. In France, you could take your mushroom to a pharmacy and they'd tell you if you could eat it, but I think bringing a muddy orange blob to your urban neighborhood pharmacy might cause some consternation. Some universities may have people in the mycology department willing to help determine if a mushroom is edible and these folks also occasionally have mushroom festivals, usually in later autumn or spring. 
But, lest we get carried away with the fear-mongering, more important is that when you find lobster mushrooms that are edible, you should eat them. They really are quite fabulous and different from other mushrooms I have eaten. My favorite mushroom preparation is to saute mushrooms in a little butter with a pinch of sugar, salt, and pepper until the mushrooms are cooked and the edges are starting to brown. Many mushrooms I have tried cooking like this have become soggy because I have messed up in one of many ways, but the lobster mushrooms did not. They stayed meaty and springy the entire time, so much so that I had some trouble determining when they were done. Finally I poured them and the chantrelles I had cooked with them out onto a bed of spinach, tossed a little salt over the top, and ate. The taste surprised me as I did not expect them to taste at all lobstery, but they did. Perhaps it had something to do with the preparation - buttery with a little salty sweetness? I like to think that somehow the mushrooms are imbued with the aura of lobster. The texture was also surprising, striking me as more bamboo-like rather than mushroom. They were not fibrous, but definitely toothsome - as in "al dente" like pasta. A little meaty even. And really really satisfying.
Not long ago, a remarkable man and dear family friend passed away. Illness prevented Gene from frequently indulging in decadent gastronomy, but I imagine that made him appreciate those experiences all the more. As it happens, I sent cookies to my mother one day and she took them over to Gene and Wendy's house for dinner. And the cookies promptly disappeared. Freed from a restrictive diet, Gene could eat what he loved and happened to love my cookies, and so did Wendy. Not only did this bring them pleasure, it made me feel good, too, to be able to help keep up their strength and spirits.
Later, as Gene's condition worsened, I told my mom how to make the cookies so she could maintain a ready supply. Gene was no longer eating very much, but apparently he kept consistently eating cookies. As did Wendy, as she later told me, who joked that they were what kept her going as she wasn't eating much, either. She closely guarded them to ensure they didn't run out.
Gene died, and while I was not there in person, Wendy tells me that I was certainly there in spirit and I feel I was, too. And that's something that I value about the experience of cooking and eating: sharing is as much a part of the experience as the actual chopping or chewing. By sharing a recipe, a flavour, a technique, you can share so much more, even across continents, becoming part of the interwoven fabric of humanity.
I feel very fortunate to be woven closely with Gene, Wendy, and Eliana, and this one is definitely for you.
GENE COOKIES
A variation on the more common Mexican Wedding Cakes, Russian Tea Cakes, and Pfeffernusse that often show up among Christmas Cookies.
Note: These are basic proportions - multiply as appropriate.
1 C Butter, chilled but not cold.
1 C Flour
1 C Mixed Nuts, ground - a good mix is Hazelnuts, Pecans, Cashews, Almonds, and Walnuts. Grind them in a food processor until very fine and starting to clump.
1/2 t salt
1/2 C Confectioners Sugar, plus more for dusting.
1/2 C Candied Ginger, chopped - you can buy this in bulk in many stores now and the pieces are about 1/2 in cubes. Avoid the expensive stuff that is sold in little jars.
1 t Cinnamon
1 t Nutmeg
1/2 t Ginger, ground
2 t Vanilla Extract (NOT fake)
2 to 4 t Orange Extract
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Mix all ingredients in a bowl until well incorporated. (You can do this the quick-and-dirty "throw-everything-in-at-once" way or you can do the more formal "sift-all-powdered-ingredients-together-and-then-mix-in-butter-and-then-liquids-and-then-chunky-stuff" method but they end up coming out about the same.) The dough will be crumbly but will hold together when you roll it into a ball in your hands.
3. Roll dough into 1-inch balls and place on parchment-papered cookie sheets. They expand hardly at all and do not flatten so you can space them close together.
4. Bake for ~15 minutes (every other recipe seems to indicate too short a baking time - they should start to squat a little and turn golden, and have a dry exterior that yields to the touch only a little when hot.)
5. Transfer to cooling rack and dust liberally with more powdered sugar. Some recipes say when hot, some when cool. It's up to you.
Enjoy with a steaming mug of spiritual humanism.
The one thing that makes everything better, or so they say. But the thing that has always bothered me about that expression is that it never makes any reference to what constitutes "butter." So, as I'm discovering more and more that it's really the simple things that matter, here is my completely biased treatise on butter:
I find it ironic that "common knowledge" about butter has come rather full circle - it was good, then it was evil (as compared to things like margarine)and now it's good again. Well, not really GOOD good, but better than any possible chemically-devised, -enhanced, or -otherwise-affected substitute because it comes from a cow and, when you really get down to it, all you need to make it is said bovine and a little bit of elbow-grease (or a Cuisinart...) Without further ado, here's how to make butter, courtesy of a friend of a friend in whose debt I will forever be for passing along this knowledge.
BUTTER
1 Pt Heavy Whipping Cream
Flavour - to be discussed below...
1. Assemble Cuisinart with standard chopping blade - the one shaped like two scimitars.
2. Pour in cream.
3. Press "ON"
4. Watch cream turn into butter.
You'll know it's done when it turns into one big solid lump. Intermediate stages are whipped cream, stiff whipped cream, slight curdling, bigger blobs, drier but smaller blobs, and fianlly the giant lump.
Seriously, that's it. And there's really nothing that tastes quite like it. It's so very fresh it's almost indecent and it has the texture of silk - light and smooth - and the taste of sunshine. I know I'll be accused of hyperbole, but try it and you just might have to agree.
Now to launch into the most controversial part of this little monograph: to salt or not to salt. The arguments run deep and bitter over which is better and in what context. Some swear by salted, some revile it, and vice versa. But here's the thing, the only thing that really matters is what you prefer. It's the same with any flavouring you might want to add - garlic, orange, thyme, strawberry, the possibilities are endless. The challenge is getting that balance of the fresh butter with the additions so it all floats on the tongue rhather than plummeting like an anchor into the stomach. I hear that honey is tricky, so if you get it right, please tell us how.
If you're wondering about butter in the exact science that is baking, my advice (as always, I suppose) is to experiment. For example, perhaps a chocolate chip cookie recipe calls for salted butter. If you use unsalted butter and, instead, put a few grains of coarse salt on top of each cookie when you put the dough in the oven, you may be pleasantly surprised at the result.
Such read the text message I received one Sunday morning from a friend attending the Broadway Farmers' Market here in Seattle. There is a friendly, laid-back guy at the market who sells baked goods - delicious ones - representing Heavenly Pastry & Cake. And he's resurrected his german grandmother's soft pretzel recipe (or something like that), in my opinion for true benefit to the general public. The pretzels live in a brown paper bag that advertises their buttery goodness by looking buttery itself. The pretzels themselves are smaller than expected, golden-brown and irregular. Covered in flaky kosher-style salt, they're chewy and dense and a little bit sweet, too. And oh so buttery! A squeeze of yellow mustard and you're off to pretzel heaven.
I'll post a picture next time I go get a pretzel. While eating the two I bought last weekend I forgot about basically everything else.
UPDATE:
I went to the market today and arrived just after all of the pretzels were eaten. Damn. But instead I made do with something called a Big Cheezy, a cross between a biscuit and a scone made with cheese and jalapeños - rich and tangy and a little salty, but good for breakfast because there's still a bit of sweetness in the dough in addition to all the savory goodness.
This story begins with a hat. The particular hat is wide-brimmed and made of straw, in the Panama fashion, with a black ribbon band, and is slightly discolored here and there because it is certainly the hat of a working man. And this particular working man is certainly good at his job and loves what he does at least as much as he loves and is inseparable from the hat. So inseparable are the two that Thierry Rautureau is known, simply, as The Chef in the Hat.
The chef and his omnipresent hat appear in various places in and around Seattle food culture - he has a restaurant, Rover's, and shows up weekly or so on local radio (I can only assume the hat is there, too.) But occasionally he shows up in random and unexpected places, like demo-cooking in Whole Foods one afternoon a while ago. I happened to be walking by the fish counter while he was setting up at a table nearby, preparing to make something I only assumed would be delicious (despite the fact that, at that time, I had no idea who he was!) The whole situation was quite amusing becasuse he seemed to have been left completely on his own with none of the staff to either aid or accompany him. When he needed a utensil, he went rummaging through the supply drawers behind the fish counter and generally had the run of the place.
He was in a rather jovival mood and, thus, seemed happy to put up with me hanging around pestering him with questions for the half-hour or so it took him to create Halibut with Bacon, Ramps, and Morels. More on the recipe in a minute, but I would first like to thank the man for sharing his love of food and his other random stories, like about his old pan, the knife someone made for him, and the rest, all while working with a single electric burner and an eclectic set of utensils to create something that tasted all the better because of everything besides the food (which, itself, was excellent.) He is evidently a man who loves food, loves making food, and loves making food for other people - all of which I appreciate very much.
But the fish, the fish!
First, butter is a wonderful thing. Eating too much of it can get dangerous, but, by and large, it is good for you. Second, bacon is also a wonderful thing. Health benefits debatable, but flavour incomparable. Third, the morel is a wonderful thing. (See a pattern?) Mushrooms plucked from the forest floor have a rather nasty reputation for causing conditions that generally tend toward death, but the ones that don't, such as the morel with its deep and complex taste, can be magnificent. Fourth, the ramp is a wonderful thing. The bastard child of the leek and the garlic, with a growing season of about 2 minutes, use them if you can get them or you'll be seriously missing out. And halibut is a wonderful thing. Cooked well it embodies all of those qualities of which other fish rarely attain but few - it is light and flaky, but at the same time soft and moist, rich and meaty. Perhaps a seeming piscene contradiction-in-terms, but I do not jest.
The sample cooked that day by The Chef in the Hat was delicious and clearly well-practiced - the halibut flaky, the sauce rich and buttery, with the smokiness of bacon, the earthiness of the morel, and the savory tang of the ramps. Unfortunately, I was only permitted one small mouthful (maybe I snuck a second - I cannot recall...) Fortunately, I was given the recipe and, better yet, had seen it made by practiced hands - almost like cooking with your grandmother, though in that case you rarely get a recipe, just the eternal answer, "When it's enough."
I've tried this recipe twice now. The first time I overcooked both the fish and the sauce, so while the taste was right, the texture was off. The second time, being a bit more gentle with the heat and a bit more thoughtful about why each step in the recipe was proposed, success! Try it. You'll like it.
Some things I learned from and about this recipe:
1. When finishing this sauce (and others like it) only boil the sauce for a moment at the very end to make all the flavours and textures harmonize - too much boiling at the end will make the sauce oily and lumpy.
2. Halibut especially, but I would guess other fish as well, cook very well when partially poached and partially baked. I used vegetable broth with the butter and few bits of bacon for twice as much fish as the recipe dictates and it still came out really well.
3. Don't underestimate your dutch oven (or similar) pot - it can work miracles.
4. Be gentle.
BAKED ALASKAN HALIBUT WITH MORELS, RAMPS, AND SMOKED BACON BUTTER SAUCE
Transcribed from the recipe leaflet I picked up that day in Whole Foods.
The Chef in the Hat also has a book of recipes, if you like this one.
5 oz Applewood Smoked Bacon, cut into quarter-inch pieces
8-10 oz Ramps or Small Leeks
8 T Unsalted Butter
4 oz Morel Mushrooms, cleaned and halved (or quartered, if large)
2 t Shallots, minced
½ t Garlic, minced (or 1 t if using leeks instead of ramps)
¾ t Thyme, minced
1¾ C Fish Stock (I used vegetable stock and it worked well, too.)
1 lb Halibut, skinless fillet, cut into 4 portions
Salt
White Pepper, freshly ground
2 t Chives, minced
Garnish: Beet Oil
1. Cook the bacon in a medium skillet over medium-high heat until crisp and brown, 5-7 minutes. Drain bacon and set aside, reserve the fat if you like.
2. Trim the root-ends of the ramps and cut each ramp in half where the white gives way to the green leafy tops. Cut the white portions into ¼-inch pieces and leave the green leaves whole. (If using leeks, trim to the white and pale green portion, halve crosswise and then cut into ¼-inch-wide strips.)
3. Preheat oven to 350°F.
4. Heat 2 T butter (or you can include some of the bacon fat) in a medium skillet over meduim-high heat until melted and slightly nutty-smelling. Add the morels and sauté for 30 seconds. Add the white of the ramps (or all the leeks) with the shallot, the garlic, and ½ t of the thyme. Sauté, stirring often, until the ramps begin to soften, 2-3 minutes.
5. Add ¾ of the bacon, the ramp greens, and 1¼ C of the stock. Bring just to a boil and then turn down to a simmer to reduce the volume by three quarters, 8-10 minutes.
6. Add another 4 T of butter, swirling the pan so it melts creamily into the sauce. Keep warm over very low heat.
7. Put the remaining ½ C of stock in a large ovenproof skillet and warm over medium heat. Whisk in the remaining 2 T butter and add the remaining bacon and ¼ t thyme.
8. Season halibut with salt and pepper and place them in the skillet. Spoon some of the cooking liquids over the fish and bake until the halibut is just nearly opaque through the center, 5-10 minutes depending on thickness of the fish, basting with cooking liquids once or twice.
9. Pour halibut cooking liquids into the pan with teh sauce and bring just to a low boil. Stir in the chives and season with salt and pepper.
10. To serve, spoon some of the bacon, ramps, and morels onto warmed plates. Top with halibut pieces and spoon the remaining sauce over top of the fish. Drizzle beet oil around and serve immediately.
My notes:
1. Cooking times took a little longer, but that might be my range and oven, and the fact that I used twice as much fish.
2. It reheats marvelously.
Asparagus, in some ways, is the very symbol of spring: the first energetic shoots of a plant that fly from the ground just when the weather is warm enough and the days long enough to spur the first imaginings of summer picnics. At the market this week the asparagus were particularly fine and fresh and so I bought a small handful. A old reliable spring dish is blanched asparagus with Hollandaise sauce - tangy, bright, aspirational. Though to me, Hollandaise is also very much a winter food; it's a part of big breakfasts on cold, rainy Sundays and its cousin, Sauce Béarnaise, is peerless as companion to a fine steak, preferably cooked over a fire and eaten while watching at fresh snowfall. So you see, I already had the makings of a lovely Juneuary dish. And then I passed the wild mushroom stand. And saw (and smelled) this year's first morels. 
