The Mulberry Tree

My grandfather, born in a mountaintop village in modern day Turkey, planted fruit trees in his Delaware home. He planted peach trees, pear trees, apple and mulberry trees to ease his homesickness for the dripping nectars of his youth. When I was much younger, I’d always beg my mother for stories of her childhood. She’d tell me about her school plays, her tennis matches, the time she dug up a colony of slugs, but she never retold any of these stories more often than she retold the mulberry tree story.

Every June, the mulberry tree in the backyard of 403 Crest Road, Wilmington, Delaware, would drip with bleeding, deep purple ornaments of fruit. The mulberries attracted flocks of birds, who’d happily peck away amidst the branches of the tree, singing many pitched songs: the offbeat symphony of the mulberry tree. My mother liked to climb the branches and join in. The mulberry tree was the only tree in the garden with its own personal love song. My mom loved how the mulberries dropped to the earth’s surface and created a carpet of vibrant, sticky syrup. She loved the tree so much that she decided to preserve the mulberry syrup. With the help of her friends, she collected, crushed and jarred the fruit. Like her ancestors in the ancient mountains of Armenia, she was making kini, wine. She stored her mason jars away in a dark corner of the kitchen cupboard. Two months later, she opened the jars only to find a moldy mass collected on the top of her “wine.” As disheartening as this was, she never stopped loving her tree. The fruit never disappointed. Never mealy, always sweet and slightly crunchy, mulberries were the best treat of the summer. This all changed, however, one summer day, when my grandfather announced to my mother that termites had infested the tree. It needed to be cut down. My mother was stricken. Termites? How could this be? The tree seemed perfectly healthy! She silently said goodbye.

Years later, my grandfather told her that there were never termites in the tree; he cut it down because of the mess it made. My mother was angry. The “mess” was part of the mulberry’s charm, its own celebration of existence. She never understood why my grandfather would cut down a tree that he loved in his childhood.

When I was five years old my parents and I moved to a new house. In the backyard were two mulberry trees. However, the branches were barely reachable. Sometimes if we strained and stretched our bodies, we could grasp the sweet fruit, but that wasn’t very often. The stained ground below was simply a reminder of the delicious gems that we were denied by our own shortcomings in the height department. However, I do remember clipping off the leaves and bringing them to my friend every day one spring when I was about nine years old. She kept silk worms as pets, and silk worms being the picky eaters they are, only eat mulberry leaves.

A couple of weeks ago, my mom and I went on a bike ride along the river. About thirty minutes into the ride my mom, who was ahead of me, pointed towards a tree on her left and pulled over. I hopped off my bike and went to see why she was pointing to a tree. She handed me a pump, purple berry. No explanation necessary. We proceeded to stuff our faces with mulberries. It turned out that next to the tree, were two more mulberry trees. One tree bore the common purple fruit, while one bore pink fruit and the other white.

Mulberry season has just ended here in Massachusetts, but if you are lucky enough to find a tree bearing fruit in your neck of the woods, please indulge in this often overlooked summer delicacy!

Recipe:

Mulberry Juice

I don’t have exact measurements for this one, as I’ve actually never tried making it, but I thought I’d include it just the same because it sounds like an interesting experiment. Apparently my great grandmother would gather the mulberries in Delaware and make this beverage for the whole family.

-Boil a heap of mulberries and some sugar
-Cook the fruit down until it becomes a sticky sap
-Strain the syrup through mesh or cheesecloth
- Pour a bit of syrup into a glass, add water and ice

Enjoy!

Rum Balls Revisited

After my family's wild and crazy vegan festivities of the New Year's Eve, our fridge was stocked with all sorts of vegan leftovers. Everything was quickly eaten; everything except for five or six squares of rather dry vegan brownies. For some reason my friends and I had decided to bake a low-fat version of vegan brownies, with only applesauce as the binding ingredient. Unfortunately, the brownies were dry and uneventful- the one leftover that my family refrained from.

A few days passed by and the applesauce brownies continued to dry out. I decided to experiment and make rum balls out of them. However, I didn't have chocolate chips or cream to melt together and add to the brownie crumbs. Instead, I omitted the melted chocolate, threw in a couple of hefty tablespoons of cocoa powder, generous splashes of rum and a spoon or two of jam. Although it tasted great, the batter was far too wet to be shaped into balls. I threw in some chopped walnuts, but they didn't help much. I then realized we had a handful of Italian butter cookies and almond macaroons leftover from the holidays. I crumbled the macaroons and butter cookies and threw them into the bowl. The mixture became dry enough to handle and the results were delicious!

The rum balls had a decidedly almond flavor and a slight crunch. I even rolled them in pistachios because I ran out of walnuts. The bright green of the pistachios against the deep color of the chocolate added a festive touch to a revisited favorite.

Experiment with your rum balls and see what you come up with. You really can't go wrong.

New Year's Eve Rice Pudding

A little over a week ago, my parents and I were discussing the pros and cons of new year's resolutions. We realized that we could barely remember our resolutions from past years. Our resolve was never as exemplary as the resolutions themselves.

As a result of this conversation, my parents decided to stir up their usual New Year's routine. Instead of an evening of over indulgence and declarations to sleep more, exercise more, eat less (etc.), they decided that their last celebration of 2009 was to atone for their excesses of the decade. They hosted a vegan potluck. We spent December 31st cooking up a vegan storm: Roasted asparagus and roma tomatoes with toasted bread crumbs, pine nuts and garlic. We nestled a sautee of paprika-bathed cabbage, portabella mushrooms and walnuts in flaky filo dough (brushed with oil). For dessert, we made dense, fudgey vegan brownies glazed with raspberry preserves and rice pudding made with almond and coconut milk.

The days leading up to the party we received countless phone calls from our guests. They wanted to add eggs, cheese and butter. "Does it really have to be strictly vegan?" they asked. We were adamant. No eggs! No cheese! And certainly NO butter!

Although we had to survive lots of grumbling and complaints, our friends brought very creative and flavorful dishes. Our dining room table became an array of homemade bread, japanese pickles, coconut rice, cashew curry, linguine with garlic and olive oil, chickpeas and eggplant...(the list keeps on going)

All the food was delicious, but the dish that I grabbed from the refrigerator the next morning was the rice pudding. I have a special place in my heart for rice pudding. My grandmother would make it for me every time I went to her house for dinner. Her rice pudding was made with whole milk, a dash of cream and a sprinkling of rose water. Being the butter embracing Armenian grandmother that she is, she'd probably disapprove of this vegan version of my favorite dessert, but hey, there are times for heavy cream and there are times for almond milk.


Rice Pudding

1 cup short grain rice (I use arborio)
1 cup coconut milk (light works well)
3 cups almond milk
dash of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or a dash of rose water)
1/2-3/4 cup sugar or maple syrup
ground cinnamon for sprinkling on finished rice pudding
chopped pistachios for garnish

Bring 2 cups of almond milk and one cup of coconut milk to boil with rice and salt. Once boiling, lower the heat of the stove. Rice should simmer for 30 minutes or so. Stir constantly! Add remaining almond milk or coconut milk throughout the process, as the rice will absorb the milk. If an additional cup of milk is not enough, feel free to add more. When the rice is tender, and you have your desired consistency (anywhere from soupy to firm), stir in your flavoring and sweetener. Taste the pudding and adjust sugar or extract to your personal preference. Pour into a bowl and chill till ready to serve. I like rice pudding best after it has been refrigerated, but it is also delicious at room temperature.

Remember to decorate your pudding with the ground cinnamon and pistachios!

Rum Ball Ruminations

My father has always been a rum ball enthusiast. When I was younger we would make biweekly pilgrimages to the Blacksmith House, the only bakery (at least to our knowledge) that made rum balls within a one hundred mile radius. I loved eating those dainty, moist treats sitting next to my father on our special park bench. Our tradition, however, only lasted a few years. By the time I reached third grade, the Blacksmith House had closed.

My father loved the rum balls from the Blacksmith House, but for him, nothing could compare to the rum balls that we ate in Quebec City. I don't remember the name or location of the bakery in Quebec City, but I do have fond recollections of their dense, chocolaty confections. Unlike our own local bakery, this particular bakery made very large rum balls, the size of my five year old fists. The pastries only contained a hint of rum and chunks of toasted walnuts. To this day my father will declare the Quebecois rum ball to be the most delicious in their category.

However, it has been many years since our family has made a journey to Quebec and my father has gone rum ball-less for many years. We've tried a few recipes, but we could never get the texture quite right (we realized that the bakeries used chocolate cake as a base, not cookie crumbs or wafers).

This Christmas, I decided to give my father the gift of rum balls. I looked far and wide for a recipe, and ended up creating my own. He claims that they were just as he remembers.

The measurements aren't exact here, so feel free to play around till you get the consistency and flavoring that you like.

Rum Balls

1 9x12 inch chocolate sheet cake (or the equivalent)

1/2 - 3/4 cup dark rum

2/3 cup liquid from a jar of apricot preserves

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup roughly chopped walnuts(optional)

chocolate sprinkles or chopped walnuts (for rolling the rum balls)

First, break the cake with your hands until it becomes a mountain of crumbs. Meanwhile, heat the cream in a sauce pan until it is just about to reach its boiling point. Add the rum and preserve liquid to the cake crumbs. Taste the mixture and add more rum or preserve liquid according to your taste. When the cream is warm, pour it over the chocolate chips and stir till the chocolate is melted. Add the chocolate mixture a little bit at a time to your cake crumbs (I barely used 1/4 of it, but if you are a chocolate fan, feel free to add more). If you are adding walnuts, do so at this point.

After the chocolate addition, the crumbs should be completely moistened, with a somewhat gooey texture. Taste the goo and adjust the flavors accordingly. Grab a a small handful of the mixture (it really depends on how large you want your rum balls to be) and roll it into a ball. Then roll the ball in the sprinkles or chopped walnuts. Place finished rum balls on a plate and refrigerate until ready to serve.

May your new year be as sensational as these rum balls!

Boston and Bulgur

This past weekend Kaitlin and I loaded up another rental car with our suitcases (well, she brought her suitcase, I brought my hamper) and headed back to Boston. This time around, however, we brought our friend Dale. Dale happens to live a floor below us, but I first met her in Italian class, where our teacher insisted on calling her by her last name: Tonozzi! Dale is only partially Italian, but our teacher got a kick out of her surname.

Because Dale and I have ambitions to study abroad in Rome junior year, we are incessantly trying to practice our Italian (probably to the annoyance of Kaitlin who is currently taking Chinese). We decided to eat dinner on Saturday night at Gran Gusto in Cambridge because, at Gran gusto, if your reservation is past eight o’clock, you are bound to hear just as much Italian at the tables as English.

Pizza is one of my favorite foods. That being said, I rarely eat it. Perhaps it is because when I was 12 years old my parents took me to Naples, and eating their belle pizze at least three times daily spoiled me for life. Or perhaps it is because most pizza I get in college just tastes the same – puffy and greasy. In Naples, we drooled over their pizza. I do not come from a family of subtle eaters. We are loud about our food. My mother and father will find ways, even if it is in the most broken Italian, to strike up conversations with our waiters and gush about everything we’ve eaten. The Neapolitan waiters, being very proud of their tourist-avoided city, were more than happy to extol the benefits of the nutrient rich soil of Mount Vesuvius, that, they informed us, grows the sweetest tomatoes and most pungent basil in the world. And we Americans, they would exclaim, had little appreciation for the miracles of true buffalo mozzarella!

Gran Gusto tastes like that trip to Naples. Perhaps it is because, as Antonio (the owner) informs us, all the ingredients are shipped from Italy – including the yeast and the flour, or perhaps it is because they don’t try to Americanize their food. Their pizza margherita single-handedly makes me homesick for Cambridge. The crust is thin and charred and the toppings are applied very lightly. The cheese spreads over the sunny-red surface like the filmy streaks in marble, and tiny pools of fragrant olive oil gather in the crevices of the delicate basil leaves. The pizza tastes fresh and bright; the flavors meld together perfectly, yet are clean and distinguishable all at once.

Of course Antonio insisted on kissing our hands. We didn’t mind; we were too lost lingering with the flavors on our tongues. We even laughed it off when he repeatedly called Kaitlin, “Michelle, my belle.”

We also did some of our own cooking at my house. Kaitlin has never had Armenian food so we planned to make dolma (stuffed vegetables with lots of onions, meat, rice, Aleppo hot pepper and a touch of cinnamon). Yet as much as I love dolma, it is not my favorite Armenian food. My father, a dolma devotee will argue with me, but I put bulgur pilaf at the top of my list.
Every time I come home, I make bulgur pilaf (which is one of my ultimate comfort foods). There are many ways to make bulgur pilaf and they are all delicious and easy to prepare. Bulgur (coarsely ground) should not take over half an hour to cook. I use olive oil to sauté the bulgur, but feel free to use butter or a combination of the two. This recipe is very lenient, so please feel free to substitute any dried fruit for the golden raisins or any nuts for the pine nut and pistachio combination I’ve recommended. Also, adding some chopped onions to the bulgur while it is toasting would be lovely.

Bulgur Pilaf
(Serves 4-6)

1 cup coarse bulgur
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
3 large onions (sliced)
A handful of golden raisins
A small handful of pine nuts
A small handful of pistachios
Olive oil
Allspice
Salt
Pepper

In a large pot, sauté the bulgur, a pinch of allspice and the raisins in plenty of olive oil over medium heat, until it begins to smell fragrant and the bulgur looks toasty. Then add the stock. When the stock begins to boil, cover the pot and turn the heat down to the lowest setting. (The bulgur should take no more than 30 minutes to cook- all the stock should be absorbed).

Toast the nuts in the oven or in a pan over the stovetop (make sure they are nice and golden, but not burnt!).

In a separate pan, caramelize the onions. Fill the pan with a splash of olive oil, and cook the onions until they become a deep golden color. This should take about 20 minutes over medium heat.

When the bulgur is cooked, scoop it out onto a bowl or platter and top it with the nuts and onions.

The French Egg

I just returned from a family road trip in France. Although we visited scores of historic sites and cathedrals, I admit that the primary focus of our vacation was culinary. We ate local boletus mushrooms and pates in the Perigord region, mussels in La Rochelle on the Atlantic Coast and aioli and bouride (a fish soup) in Provence. We made sure to try the local and regional specialties of every town we stopped in. I was blown over by the oysters, truffles and delicious chocolates we ate throughout the trip, but in the end, I was the most enamored of the humblest food: The Egg.

Before my trip, I never gave the egg a second thought. I've always considered it a rather uninteresting food- a vehicle for other flavors and spices at best. I'm not fond of the hard-boiled egg with its rather gray, powdery yolk, and my experiences with rubbery, bland omelets have not been much better. The only eggs I ever truly liked were scrambled ones, but I would only touch the ones my mother made.

After a bite of my first omelet in France, however, I swore I would never again think of eggs in the same light. The texture of the omelet was incredibly silken and the flavor was rich, but clean tasting. There wasn't the same heaviness that I often associated with omelets in the United States and the taste of the eggs came through without being weighed down by the addition of excess ingredients. I continued to eat omelets all the way through France.

Maybe it is the quality of the eggs or the butter that they use, but the French are incredibly gifted in their omelet making capabilities. I was also impressed by the mayonnaise that we ate while we were there. In fact, all egg based dishes that I tasted in France were nothing short of incredible. Mayonnaise is a condiment that I avoid at all costs at home, but in France, I eagerly jumped to order anything that included it on the menu, especially the rouille sauce, a specialty of Provence, which is a bright red, spicy version of mayonnaise and is traditionally served with the local fish soup.

Now that I have returned a transformed college student, I have not only vowed to treat the egg with more respect, but to learn how to prepare the perfect omelet and homemade mayonnaise. Today, I destroyed my lunch while attempting to follow the instructions on Gourmet magazine's website for the "Classic Omelet". Somehow I ended up with a half- scrambled, half-moon shaped disaster. However, I have high hopes for tomorrow and another day of omelet making. I even promise to include some egg based recipes on the blog (but only after I have slightly better results).

End of Finals Guacamole

I am snowed in. Well, at least temporarily - my bus was postponed till tomorrow morning. There is something eery, yet thrilling about having the entire campus to yourself. At least Kaitlin is still here tonight so the room doesn't feel so deserted. Currently, we are listening to holiday music and Kaitlin is packing. We still don't know how to dispose of our mini Christmas tree (evergreen in the dorms is considered highly contraband).

Last night in celebration of our completion of the first semester of college, our friend Lena treated us to Wegman's pasta. We in turn offered to make guacamole for dessert. Ever since Lena learned of Kaitlin's expertise as a guacamole maker, she has been asking Kaitlin to make it for her. Up till now, we just haven't found the time. We have made two dinners at Lena's house, but guacamole just didn't fit with the theme of either event. (Our first dinner was a fall feast with roast chicken, squash and mashed potatoes, while the second dinner was a Texas barbeque complete with brisket, baked beans and corn bread.)

Kaitlin is from Texas (hence the Texas barbeque night) and takes her Mexican food seriously. A month ago, when my parents learned of her skills with guacamole (and my fondness for eating it), they special ordered eight avocados from a farm in California to be delivered to us in our dorm. They were the most perfect avocados I'd ever seen, not to mention the tastiest. The inner centers of the avocados were a bright yellow that deepened into a warm basil green around the edges. They were almost too beautiful to eat, but when they all ripened at once we realized we'd have to act soon or they would spoil.

I made my first batch of guacamole with these avocados. Kaitlin had decided it was high time I learned to make it. She walked me through the steps of the recipe as I she instructed me to chop onions and squeeze limes. Kaitlin's recipe is simple, but there are some tricks. First, do not go crazy mashing the avocados. You still want the avocados to be a little chunky when you stir in the other ingredients. Second, chop the tomatoes in your hands over the guacamole bowl (it is important that all the juices from the tomatoes get mixed into the guac).

Last night we used conventional supermarket avocados and the results were still delicious. I realized as we sat around Lena's Christmas tree, enjoying our "dessert", that the red of the tomatoes against the green of the avocados makes the dish seasonally appropriate. Feliz Navidad!

Guacamole

3 Avocados
1/2 a medium white onion (finely chopped)
2-3 small tomatoes (or one really big one)
1/2 a lime
salt and black pepper to taste

Using a fork, roughly mash the avocados in a large shallow bow. Add the onions and gently stir them in. Chop the tomatoes over the bowl and fold them into the mix. Then squeeze in the lime and add the salt and black pepper. Be gentle stirring in the final ingredients (you don't want mush)!
Serve with tortilla chips.