Au Currant(s)

Wondering how to eat the berry of the season? The berry all the celebrities are raving about*? Over the weekend, I used a quart of red currants for three different dishes.



First, currants served as a garnish for Mark Bittman's fluffy pancakes from How to Cook Everything. Though they are too tart for some to enjoy raw, I think the sweetness of the syrup cut their tartness just enough that even currant newbies could enjoy them this way. Dan added lemon zest to the pancake batter, which complimented them nicely.



I also made a rhubarb and red currant tart using a recipe from The Paris Kitchen. I used this alarmingly simple (just watch the screamingly hot bowl) French tart dough recipe method recounted by David Lebovitz. I doubled the sugar in the tart recipe when I realized that it was described as "savory." I wanted something sweet and tangy, not savory. That was a good move. It was still very tart, which I like. I also found that it needed only 40-45 minutes to bake, which worked out well because any longer would have burned the tart crust.

You know how there are a zillion recipes online for strawberry-rhubarb pie? I love rhubarb, but I've always railed against pairing it with the traditional strawberry. I just don't think that baking it with strawberry adds much in terms of flavor or texture. Currant, on the other hand, gives the sour fruit more dimension (says I) and it only becomes a bit softer with baking, so there's still something in the pie or tart on which to chew. Rhubarb is also good with sour cherries, and I've always wanted to try baking rhubarb with cranberry, but don't forget that it's swell on its own.

I have now officially typed the word "tart" too many times. Where's my thesaurus?



Finally, after sharing a few raw handfuls with my 15-month-old, who apparently is as big a fan of currants as I, the remaining berries went into Ina Garten's fruit salad with limoncello recipe. I also used this week's CSA strawberries and blueberries, as well as a few bananas. Without the time (or multiple lemons) to make my own lemon curd (though I've done it in the past and recommend it), I mixed the yogurt topping with a spoonful of lingonberry preserves. This is an excellent summer dessert, side, or breakfast (I tested it three times, of course).

Currants! They're so now! They're so trending! They're so sassy! They're so you.

*Celebrity raves and currant trends may be fictional. I've loved currants since finding them growing on a bush near my childhood home in Dubuque, Iowa. A previous resident must have planted them, and I loved the novelty of being able to eat something right off a plant in my backyard, as well as their sharp, fruity, almost bitter flavor. I think I may also have enjoyed that they look a bit like they'd be poisonous.

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Not just for kids

[Seatbelt Carriage Satchel by Harveys; Uniqlo Boyfriend Jeans; We Who See Pleated Canvas Booties from Urban Outfitters.]

We toured a local pediatricians' office last week and made sure to take home a couple of the Yummy Earth organic lollipops from the reception desk.  The doctor who spoke to us said that they used to give out sugar-free suckers, but that they'd decided that organic ones with real sugar were a better, healthier idea.

Tastier, too, I'm sure.  Mine ("Strawberry Smash") was tart and sweet at the same time.  Delicious!

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The Accidental Patriot

My grandfather's birthday is July 4th (Happy Birthday, Grandpa!), so those holiday three-day-weekends during my childhood were often spent happily at his house (and especially, in his little above-ground pool), celebrating his birthday and the Fourth with sparklers and fireworks, grilled hot dogs or burgers, birthday cake, ice cream, and the festive wearing of red, white, and blue items of clothing. I took my fashion choices very seriously and tried to incorporate all three colors on the big day.

In high school, as I was stretching my coltish-yet-sarcastic-and-cynical legs, I still enjoyed Grandpa K's birthday and the relatives (and the pool, the summers before we totally outgrew it), but I began a tradition of making sure I was not wearing red, white, and blue on The Fourth of July. I continued to take my outfits seriously, but in a different sort of way. Clearly, I would have been the lamest of all lames if I coordinated my colors with a national holiday, you guys! Jeez.

Now look at me: a softened-and-aging adult, and I've almost come full circle. Here I am on July 4th, wearing blue, white, and green (I'm almost to Quacker Factory land, aren't I?!) and baking a fruit tart in the colors of the flag.

It's not my fault, cynical teenage Self! I have had a handful of blueberries languishing in the fridge for more than a week. Then I impulsively bought 2 pints of sour cherries at the farmer's market on Monday but have not had the time to use them in my cooking up to this point.

This morning I knew the fruit had to be used or I'd risk it rotting in the refrigerator. I found this recipe, which was originally written for pears but which Chowhounds said worked as well with sour cherries and other fruits. I threw caution to the winds and tossed the blueberries on top, realizing I was now creating (and planning to eat) a red, white, and blue dessert on Independence Day, of all days.

I used 1/2 tsp of vanilla and 1/2 tsp of almond extract in the batter and sprinkled brown sugar over the top before baking, but otherwise followed the recipe as given.



OMG, y'all. Moist, moist, moist. Yum, yum, yum. More, more, more!! Happy freakin' Fourth of July! I'm feeling kind of patriotic about this.

As I walk along, I wonder...

One of the things I wonder is if by "red orange" the ice cream shop (Sundaes and Cones on 10th Street) meant "blood orange." Was it another sort of fruit flavor entirely, or were they afraid I wouldn't like to associate the word "blood" with a sorbet flavor?

Either way, my scoop of "red orange" did taste like blood orange -- nice and tart and tangy. As a bonus, the sugar cone had an extra flavor, as if there were cinnamon or something like that throughout.

I tried their ginger ice cream made into a milkshake on a previous trip to Sundaes and Cones. Delightful.

A week's worth of tasty

A new brand of yogurt called Rachel's (made in Broomfield, CO) caught my eye at Whole Foods. I bought 5 flavors for a total of $3 and commenced to the taste-testing each morning at work. Good news! I kept notes for you.

1. Marionberry Guava - First of all, I learned that a Marionberry is a type of blackberry. I learned that from the internet, not from the yogurt. This is pleasingly tart (a word I use a lot because it's a flavor I seek out) and fruity. The texture is smooth with just a hint of lumpiness. I could tell right away that this was not the yogurt of my youth. It's much more sophisticated and, well, delicious.

2. Pink Grapefruit Lychee is another nicely tart flavor, I detect layers of both types of fruit in there. It really tastes fresh and special.

3. Mango Pineapple Passion Fruit is my favorite of the five I picked out. A pineapple sweetness peeks through the richness of mango, while a banana back note adds a smooth and creamy depth.

4. Exotic Cherry Black Currant has a familiar "cherry vanilla" yogurt color but a much more intensely fruity flavor. The lids have started spitting a good deal of yogurt if I don't tear them off carefully, but that's a minor concern.

5. Pomegranate Açai, which was the first flavor on whose label I noticed the trademarked phrase "Wickedly Delicious," is an "Essence" flavor (as opposed to the other category of "Exotic" yogurts). This yogurt is extremely aromatic, which is apparently part of the "Essence" experience. Unfortunately, I think the company sacrificed something to get at this aromatherapy-in-yogurt concept. This was my least favorite flavor. For one thing, it was an unappealing old salmon pinky-brown. It also tasted the most artificial of the yogurts I tried, bringing to mind harshly fruity candy. ETA: However! This is Kevin's favorite flavor so far, he told me. So don't skip it on my account if you're into the tart and the scented and the yogurt.

Yogurt is a pretty straightforward snack, even with such unusual flavors. One of the few confusing things about these yogurts is that there are so many variations on the packaging. I do think they all said they were hormone-free with probiotics and omega-3 DHA "for the heart, brain and eyes," but otherwise there were too many names, categories, and trademarked slogans.

Some of the yogurts are marked "Exotic" (Marionberry Guava, for one). Others are "Vitality" (Pomegranate Açaí) or "Refresh" (Pink Grapefruit Lychee), but I gather those are "Exotic," too. I guess each flavor is either "Exotic" or "Essence," but beyond that some of the flavors have "catchy conceptual" names in addition to the names of the fruit flavors they capture.

There's a page on Rachel's website that explains the categories, but I think what they've come up with is a little more complex than necessary, especially as most people do not seek out the website of the yogurt they found at Whole Foods. They could have just had "Essence" and "Exotic" and left it at that. Or just name the flavors after the fruit represented inside!

One could argue that these yogurts are a bit overwrought, but that's a small quibble after what I feel was a delicious discovery. I'll certainly be seeking out more flavors.

Street Smartie

I will now admit that one of the reasons I liked Smarties (the sweet and tangy USA version, not the chocolate kind known abroad) as a kid was because I thought that they kind of looked like pills and I could pretend I was taking some sort of illicit medicine when I snuck them out of my desk at Hoover Elementary (go hornets!).

Other things in my desk around that same time: a small vial that had once held lemon-scented perfume and could still be used for sniffing (I had not heard of aromatherapy back then, but I love the smell of citrus to this day) and a paperback copy of Black Like Me (I can still smell that lemon perfume whenever I think about this book).


p.s. Valley of the Dolls is too classic to miss.

Wows.

Sour cherries + rhubarb make strawberries + rhubarb cry with shame at knowing themselves the lesser couple. The former are the guys you want to hang out with. They're the pair you know has a thousand inside jokes (but not in a superior way) and wear each other's clothes in really interesting combinations and are the perfect dinner companions and never stay angry for long. You know you'll celebrate sour cherries + rhubarb's 50th anniversary someday with an awesome pool party and sparkling lemonade drinks and witty music, while strawberries + rhubarb might invite you over to stand looking off into other people's lawns or sit on their slightly uncomfortable chairs and watch by-then incredibly old episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos (with the sound off, at least; they're not all bad) and drink beers and not talk to each other and you'll all be wearing boring shoes.