It all depends

Monster size okra.

What's the best okra? Chef get this kind of question all the time. We live in a culture that demands to know what the best is in every category and chefs, restaurants, and ingredients are not immune to this unnecessary need.

I acquired some okra from Trillium Haven because it was passed over. There was nothing physically wrong with it it just happened to be large in size. It seems that small tender okra is what everyone was interested in so those were quickly picked out leaving the older stuff that is commonly described as "woody".

The irony is that tender okra is easy to over cook. Extremely easy. So what would happen if one set aside common knowledge and took large woody okra and didn't bother coddling them with low heat and careful stirring for a gumbo?

Not only did the okra not turn to mush it maintained a tender texture that could be described as a little al dente. So what is the best okra. It depends. What are you making?

Ferry ring mushrooms

I'm not saying it's safe to eat these little guys but I have never had an issue. As the name implies the grow in a circular formations. Usually in grass.

To think tomatoes used to be considered poison

Final product. Heirloom tomato salad. Tomatoes, pistou, Cowslip Creamery Phocas, and cold polenta cut into cubes. 

Only the best at the market. Trillium selling the best looking tomatoes at the Fulton st. Farmer's Market.

I am not above using factory seconds when the flavor is this good. The Tom Waits of tomatoes if you will.

Not wanting to haul out the food processor to make a little bit of pistou the herbs were chopped with the garlic and oil was added to make a paste.

Cowslip's version of a gruyere style. I was warned that it was young and should age a bit but it was perfect in this salad as a young or fresh cheese was required. Thanks to Jana Houske Deppe.

When you're handed lemons.

This was not the post I wanted to write. In fact, this is not the food I wanted to cook but that's beside the point.

It has been increasingly popular for chef's to craft their menus around the concept of what food must have looked like "pre-refrigeration". Curing, canning, pickling, and fermenting to name a few of the techniques employed. I was one of those chefs and that was my culinary focus as well until I was forced to look at food in a whole new light.

Now instead of pondering a time without the ice box I was pondering a time without food (or at least the money to frivolously spend on food) and as a chef I felt compelled to not just feed my family ramen and mac & cheese but to find a completely new way to cook using what was cheap but in season and nutritious. Small bits of affordable meats and whole grains coupled with copious amounts of fresh vegetables. A whole new way to look at cooking.

That was when it hit me. I wasn't inventing a new way to eat I was simply joining the rest of the world (or a least the majority of it). Chefs are a tad bit full of themselves by nature but to think that I somehow invented eating like a poor person was taking it to a whole new level of arrogant.

All I was doing was rediscovering American peasant food at it's best. Its how most of the world has eaten for thousands of years and how we should eat now. Lots of vegetables and fruits in season, whole grains and beans, and small portions of meats and cheese raised humanly.

I have been humbly lead to
see food differently and it's likely in the near future others will as well. Large hunks of meat with small bits of vegetables served out of season is not sustainable financially or ecologically.

How about it? Lets turn lemons into lemonade.

Nappa cabbage, brown rice, mayacoba bean, ham bone.

Lentils, onion, and savoy cabbage with cayenne.

Stir fry of broccoli, beef, onion, scallion, egg, radish, and chicory

Ratatouille made with fresh picked squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and shallot.

Zucchini, mayocoba bean, brown rice, and tamari.