Stop Blogging and Cook

Life is all about timing:  the unreachable becomes reachable,
the unavailable become available, the unattainable . . . attainable.
Have the patience, wait it out.  It’s all about timing.  ~Stacey Charter

TODAYS PREPARATION

IT’S ONLY THE GOOD FRIDAY, AGAIN
While closing in on exhaustion once again, I’m taking a break from the gloomy news reports to bring you a breeze of fresh air cruising through a literal and luscious garden of earthly delights.  Got a hankering to wield a hoe?

SOWING SEEDS OF EATING ECSTASY
I was contacted by the New York Botanical Garden about their special exhibition in progress – The Edible Garden – that spans the summer and fall.  It sounds like a sheer delight.  The New York Botanical Garden is an educational institution, a museum of plants, and a scientific research organization.  Brining locally-grown seasonal food to the jungles of New York in their four spectacular kitchen gardens, they aim to instruct the masses in farming small plots as can be accommodated in the terraces, growing pots, fire escapes and rooftops of the city.  You can be sure they will leave no dirt clod intact.

The website calls our their mission to “celebrate growing and preparing great food,” as they “demonstrate the bounty, economy, and nutritional value of edible plants.”  Who could argue with that?   The purpose of the Edible Garden is to provide instruction for growing food at home, and proceeds benefit their Children’s Gardening program.  Celebrity chefs will be cooking up dazzling demonstrations on festival weekends, giving instruction for making the most of seasonal foods.  Their website offers photos and videos but there’s nothing like facing down an actual garden plot planting tomatoes.   It continues through October 17th, so those weekends with the chefs will not only help you fill your summer table, but your fall cooking pots as well.

The Conservatory Kitchen will feature cooking demonstrations, entertaining tips, and meal preparation advice using locally and sustainably grown fruits and vegetables, not only on the weekends but also during the week.  Check out the schedule on their website.  Value Weekday tickets can be purchased on-site for $10.  If you’ve ever thought to grow your own, this is the place.

OKRA!
I don’t grow my own, but I’m sure glad someone does.  My latest foray into the green market in the heart of New York City – and the heat of the summer afternoon – yielded a pristine basket of tender young okra.

Best cooked with tomatoes, vinegar or lemon, the acid in those foods helps to minimize the gooeyness when cutting into the seed pods.  Okra can also be put into soups as a thickening agent, and most everyone’s heard of filé gumbo: that potful of Creole veggies, chicken and sausage contains okra.  Eaten on every continent, okra can be served in limitless ways:  stir-fried, deep-fried, pan-fried, stewed, pickled and souped.  Leaves from the plant can be used in salads.

A while back I talked about fried okra.  Today is a very different preparation, stewed in fresh tomatoes and with little else.  Garlic, olive oil and about fifteen minutes will put an interesting vegetable on the table that you may not be familiar with.  Okra is one vegetable that needs to be cooked for more than a few minutes.  Not too long, now, just long enough to be tender but not so long that they’re mushy.  Unlike most green vegetables, cooked okra will not be bright in color.  Young okra, as you might imagine, cooks in less time than older, larger pods.

Try it! Especially when beautiful, tender, young okra is so readily available, like now.  Market hint:  when buying those beautiful, tender, young okra by the quart, be sure that there aren’t some large, tough, overgrown okras padding the basket bottom.