First I roasted some plums and peaches. Balsamic on the plums, red wine over the peaches and sugar sprinkled over all. Why the same pan? I was lazy.

Then I ate the plums. Scarfed them right up. So the project became the peaches. These got sliced and stirred around in their winey goop. Then I used the leftover polenta like flour and oats for a cobbler crust. All it took was some butter and sugar worked in for a nice spready hit that covered the peaches. Into the oven and then under the broiler at the very end to brown it up a bit more.

Voila! A lovely offering that comes from being thrifty, working in season, and not being afraid to be your own boss in the kitchen.

In the photograph above I used conventional mozzarella, unaware two years ago when I shot it, of the abuse factory farm cows are subjected to–ie not seeing the light of day for obscene time periods, basically turned into milk machines that stand with their 1500 pound girths on cemented barn floors as opposed to getting out to pasture daily where they can switch their tails and chew their cud.

Thus, exceptionally pleased am I to have discovered that the reputable people in the Organic Valley cooperative make a mozzarrella. It’s square not round, sorry to say. But it’s taste is all the sweeter since it helps connect the dots between our bioethics and our consumption habits. So if you haven’t connected with a local cheese maker who does mozzarella–or don’t make your own–know that Organic Valley has its products available nationally. The good stuff is ours for the asking–and for paying the extra price it costs dairy people to treat the mama cows well.

The neighbor around the corner can’t keep up with her plums so I went over and nabbed a couple baskets. Now they’re out there. In the kitchen cooking down in a big pot of mindfulness. Not sure just what will come of them yet. But it’s all fun. Actually, it’s all work. But it’s work I seem drawn to when harvest begins rolling around yet again. The gathering in of it all. The not letting food go to waste. The preserving for winter. It’s true. I’m smitten.

• The papery star of leaves capping the red fruit might be green, but the California strawberry industry has a way to go. At issue is the ozone-depleting biocide, methyl bromide, that berry growers sterilize coastal soils with prior to setting out young plants. The highly toxic gas is listed for worldwide ban in 2005 under the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement aimed at reducing dependency on ozone-depleting chemicals.

• Senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network North America, Susan Kegley, Ph.D., thinks moves toward organic farming are on target. “One of the things we’re trying to facilitate is for people from the EPA and USDA to talk with sustainable ag people who are farming without fumigants so that we can get research money for viable alternatives that don’t require toxic substances,” Kegley said. “Our government subsidizes so many things. If we’re going to put billions into energy bills, why not help our farmers transition away from chemicals and have subsidies go to those who reduce their use of fumigants.”

Nasty upon nasty methyl bromide is finally being phased out. But, as Kristen Ridley wrote on the Sustainable Food blog March 31, 2010:

“This would be good, except the fumigant that chemical manufacturer Arysta would like to replace it with is methyl iodide. Methyl iodide is used by scientists for the delightful purpose of intentionally inducing cancer in lab animals. Cancer is not just this chemical’s side effect; it’s its job. Astonishingly, the EPA under Bush approved this chemical for use, although California, where the majority of U.S. strawberries are grown, held off on approving the stuff. California is the second largest user of methyl bromide in the country, so now that it’s getting the boot, the pressure is on for the California Department of Pesticide Regulation to approve methyl iodide, known commercially as “Midas,” in its place.”

If you’re intrigued and more of the history, here’s my full 2005 E Mag piece:

“Strawberry fields…Are We Doomed to Use Methyl Bromide…Forever” 

The papery star of leaves capping the red fruit might be green, but the California strawberry industry has a way to go. At issue is the ozone-depleting biocide, methyl bromide, that berry growers sterilize coastal soils with prior to setting out young plants. The highly toxic gas is listed for worldwide ban in 2005 under the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement aimed at reducing dependency on ozone-depleting chemicals.

Yet, after a decade of success in rolling back global levels of consumption, the California strawberry industry that uses 40 percent of the nation’s production convinced the Bush administration to back pedal. While in 2003, U.S. consumption of the gas was down to 7446 tons, the Environmental Protection Agency received ‘critical use exemptions’ from parties to the Montreal Protocol to raise the bar to 10,472 tons for 2005.

“The phase-out was actually working quite well and along comes 2005, and the US asked for an exemption to both continue production and allow use at 39% of the 1991 levels upon which the cutbacks over the past 10 years have been based,” said David Doniger, senior attorney and director of climate center policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “But the EPA’s own data showed a total usage of only 31 percent of the baseline in 2003. So we’ve sued the agency on the basis that the exemptions for 2005 don’t conform to the Clean Air Act and Montreal Protocol requirements.”

Doniger underscores problems with the EPA’s calculations. “We’re saying that there’s so much puffing that’s gone into figures that things aren’t adding up. Also in our suit is that the EPA has allowed the big bromide companies to keep producing even though we found that the United States already has at least 10 tons of the chemical stockpiled which is more than the alleged need.”

“Methyl bromide is one of the major chemicals still allowed that degrade the ozone,” said Ray Chavira, scientist in the EPA’s San Francisco pesticide office. “Byy the end of summer the re-registration process listing about 6 alternatives, though, should be complete. Then the EPA will focus on getting commodity groups to transition over to those chemicals, a process that will probably take 1 to 3 years. So what we’re trying to do is pace ourselves in moving away from methyl bromide.”

Rodger Wasson, president of the California Strawberry Commission said, “We in the strawberry industry have been in full cooperation on the Montreal Protocol process and our growers have funded research to find alternatives. I’m not sure who if anyone has done more to find alternatives to methyl bromide. But it’s difficult, complicated, and expensive experimenting with these other chemicals and conducting field trials. You can have farmers right next door to each other have different outcomes, so you have to feel your way along. It’s both a science and an art—not a slam dunk.”

Another point that underlies the debate is competition in the global market. While parties to the Montreal Protocol established on a 2005 ban for developed nations, they agreed that 2015 was appropriate for developing countries. In a congressional report, Wayne Morrisey wrote that “of particular concern were consumption allowances for developing countries some of which compete directly with U.S. produce markets.” A Sacramento Bee editorial that pointed to Mexico as an emerging competitor echoed that the lack of a level playing field amounts to “the equivalent of unilateral disarmament for the California strawberry farmer.”

Although the USDA spent over $172 million from 1993 to 2004 researching alternatives to methyl bromide, the agency says it needs more time to come up fumigants that are as effective. “We have reduced the use of methyl bromide in this country by 65 percent from 1991 levels and I think that’s quite notable,” said Vicks. “Telone is one of the more promising alternatives, but a known carcinogen and under severe restrictions, so short of quitting growing strawberries, we may not get to a complete phase out for some time.”

That said, Wasson estimates that farmers grew 30 percent of the 2003 berry crop without relying on methyl bromide and that once the data from 2004 is compiled the figure should reach 40 percent. In addition to other toxic chemicals and new application techniques switches to organic growing are responsible for declining dependency.

Senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network North America, Susan Kegley, Ph.D., thinks moves toward organic farming are on target. “One of the things we’re trying to facilitate is for people from the EPA and USDA to talk with sustainable ag people who are farming without fumigants so that we can get research money for viable alternatives that don’t require toxic substances,” Kegley said. “Our government subsidizes so many things. If we’re going to put billions into energy bills, why not help our farmers transition away from chemicals and have subsidies go to those who reduce their use of fumigants.”

Owner of Pacific Gold, Larry Eddings, who leases 1000 acres for farming berries and currently has a tenth of that in organic production says it’s not that easy. “The truth in the berry business is that on the conventional side, we’re making very little money. It struck me 8 years ago that there was a lot of talk in the organic world, so I’ve been turning some of my production that way. It’s turned out pretty well and I like it a lot. We grow lovely berries, not gnarly little things with worm holes it them like I thought organics were before we got into this.”

“Still, in my opinion, methyl bromide is a whipping boy,” Eddings added. “The amount from commercial agriculture that goes into the atmosphere is a very small percentage of the overall amounts, some of which come from natural sources. Also there’s very little science that says our practices are doing damage,” Eddings said. “Having said all that, I know I’m on the wrong side of the politically correct spectrum and methyl bromide will eventually go away. It’s going to be really hard on the strawberry industry, though.”

Sacramento Bee editorial agrees with Eddings, but underscores the need to move in a more earth-friendly direction. “Absent a technological breakthrough, strawberry farming without methyl bromide would mean higher costs for farms, which means higher costs for consumers….If every farmer in every country has to live by these rules, however, it ought to be a price consumers should be willing to live with. Earth can’t live without its ozone layer.”

Cooking Beyond Measure, p. 72.
On Roasting Vegetables—

Vegetables roast marvelously well from low to high temperatures. On highs around 450 F, colors are preserved but you have to watch things like a hawk. Medium ovens of 350 work well too, and depending on what you’re roasting, munchies will be yours in a half hour. Then again if you’re going out for a walk you can turn the oven to 250. When you return, you’ll have the sweetest caramelized morsels a soul could ever ask for.

My preferred roasting vehicle is—or was—Jessie Branom’s extra large cast iron skillet. The iron and the sides of the pan cradle the vegetables in a cocoon of heat that caramelizes, and the veggies y turn out sweet and golden. Baking trays work too, but as you’ll discover if you use both vehicles like I usually do, the results cast iron produces are decidedly superior. Yet at this writing, a new over-sized cast iron skillet is on my shopping list. Here’s why.

Jessie Branom and my mother were close friends in Phoenix during the early 1960s where they raised their families. Jessie had two children; Mom had four. So the women reasoned that my mother should have the big frying pan Jessie owned, and Jessie should have my mother’s medium sized skillet. The swap was made, and much later after Mom passed away Jesse’s skillet came to me. I used it for years but as a historian who thinks in terms of centuries, I’m aware of how numbered our days are—and how things can get lost in the shuffle at the end of life.

So it was that Thanksgiving of 2007 when Jessie’s first granddaughter married, I posted the skillet swathed in wedding wrap. As I wrote to the young bride, Jenny Branom Patberg, “Great scratch cooks have used this skillet for a half century. May its journey go on.”

Postscript: I have by this time, 3 years after the above was written, purchased a new skillet which has definitely earned its keep and love as a new member of the kitchen family.

That’s why I’ve been smiling since watching Meryl Streep bring Julia Child alive once again on the big screen. Ah, yes. Wasn’t our Julia a grand dame.

And the Sole Meuniere scene. No way but that writer-director, Nora Ephron, would include Julia Child’s epiphany. That moment, when seated across from her debonair husband in Rouen, France, Julia Child tasted her first morsels of Sole Meuniere:  dover sole boned tableside and decked out in a buttery wine sauce.

It wasn’t more than two days after I saw the movie that I queued up at the fish counter. No dover in sight so I bought some cheap little Rex sole fillets. A quick dredge in flour (whole wheat of course, since the white stuff is sooo paste-y) and a quick pan fry. Then the sauce, which was the real reason for all this business. And I made so much of it that there was plenty leftover the next day to spoon on some zucchini.

Tak, Julia. Tak. Beurre Blanc made my eyes roll, too, right here at my own table.

You were right. We Americans do need to splash the wine about more in our kitchens–and get the butter out, too.

Olive oil’s good, definitely. But butter and wine? Mais oui!

At least that was the take home message I got from this latest film dedicated to your refined, magnanimous, brilliance.

Tak, Julia. Tak.

But, once you’ve messed about with Edouard’s Mother’s Tomatoes, I think you’ll find as I have, that it’s not easy to have enough of the fat, bold August bounty left for putting up.

The history on Edouard’s Mother’s Tomatoes is laid out in all its glory in Cooking Beyond Measure along with my observation that the dish is hands down the most luscious one in the book. I’m not alone in thinking tomatoes fixed this way is worth more than passing notice. The recent issue of Gourmet Magazine featured them under a different name, adding a sexy spin by drawing on anchovies instead of the usual white crystals for the salty element.

So there’s a sprinkling of salt in Edouard’s Mother’s Tomatoes. Also a grind of fresh pepper. Beyond that, here’s a hint. Miss Swishy, or Little Iris Johnson as she is known formally, thinks Edouard’s Mother’s Tomatoes are very meow-meow.

You’re right if you guessed cream. Warmed tomatoes laced cream. Totally decadent. But Edouard’s mother wouldn’t just plop some tomatoes into a skillet of cream now would she? Perish the thought. First she warmed the halves nicely in some lovely country butter she probably churned herself from contented pastured cows.

Historically, of course, my affair with blended things began with smoothies in the Sixties–the old faithful banana-yogurt-honey-wheat germ routine. Given such a sagacious history, it hasn’t been too much a leap to start riffing around on Cucumber Melon Soup.

I’ve got a recipe for Mango Mint Ice coming out in Hippie Kitchenand at the moment I’m playing with a Strawberry Mint Ice that most likely will make the pages of the third in the measurefree trilogy, Grow Your Own: From the Garden to the Table But Grow Your Own won’t be out until next year, and it’s strawberry season right now. So here’s the skinny.

That’s it except for the Spicy Watermelon Ices I’ll be sampling out for Fourth of July down at Whole Foods in The Pearl. I could spell out my approach to this number as well, but I’m thinking that if it gets hot and you’re in the mood, you’ll come up with something pretty cool on your ownsome. Yes?