strawberry rhubarb pie | The Roving Locavore

Posts Tagged ‘strawberry rhubarb pie’

Summer Baking

Posted in Baking, Fruit, Ice Cream, Sweet Things, tagged Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, eat local Vermont, eat locally, eat locally Vermont, eating locally, local eating, local food, locavore, organic strawberries, pastry frissage, roving locavore, Shiro plums, strawberry rhubarb pie, Vermont local food, Vermont locavore, Vermont plums on August 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »

It’s summer. It’s hot. The fruit is ripe. But what the heck, let’s fire up the oven.

We have Shiro plums, the mild little yellow variety which grew originally in Japan, and now grows all over the place here.

shiso

These plums are from Dummerston, Vermont. (The name brings to mind Fort Dummer, near Brattleboro, where we used to go cross country skiing, and where my Dad would release the squirrels he’d caught in his “Have-a-Heart” trap. These were crazed, ferocious squirrels that chewed our wooden siding and clung to the screens of our dining room windows while we ate dinner.)

Back on topic here… plums make a scrumptious rustic galette. I had a helper this morning making pastry. A pinch of salt:

J baking

And a demonstration of the frissage technique, which spreads and flattens those yummy bits of butter, providing the basis for flakiness (push with the heels, fold with the fingertips, repeat):

frissage

We also have chopped rhubarb and strawberries in the freezer–remains from an earlier season. My sister, Bridget, has always loved strawberry-rhubarb pie. We always thought her red hair and freckles predestined her to be a strawberry lover: strawberry ice cream, strawberry shortcake, strawberry-rhubarb pie, strawberries on cereal, strawberry lip balm, the list goes on. She’s moving to North Carolina this week, where strawberries and rhubarb will be distant memories. I think I’ll make her that pie.

And serve it warm with local vanilla ice cream, of course.

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Bayside

Posted in Baking, Beer, Restaurants, Seafood, tagged Amy Campion, Bayside Restaurant, eating locally, Gorilla coffee, Green Restaurant Association, green restaurants, Indian pie, lobster rolls, local food, locavore restaurant, locavore restaurants, Martha's Vineyard beer, Martha's Vineyard IPA, Massachusetts green restaurant, Massachusetts local food, New England clam chowder, New England seafood, Offshore Ale Company, Offshore IPA, Rhode Island clam chowder, roving locavore, strawberry rhubarb pie, sustainable restaurant, Westport Mass restaurants, Westport Mass. local food on July 21, 2009| Leave a Comment »

We had to ditch plans for the beach when we heard the constant rain pouring down as we dozed this morning. But Jack’s Uncle Grady arrived just in time for a big lunch at Bayside, just off of Horseneck Beach. Bayside is an officially “green” restaurant certified by the Green Restaurant Association.

green cert
The greenness in evidence took the form of compostable soda straws and many local ingredients, including a range of seafood from lobster and crabs to cod and striped bass (which, around here, is called striper, and further down the East Coast, in Maryland, where we lived for a short while, is called rockfish). The local beer menu offered many choices; I had an IPA made on Martha’s Vineyard by Offshore Ale Company: it was amber and hoppy, as I like it.

IPA & chowdah

We quickly polished off a plate of fried calamari topped with spicy banana peppers. I tried the Rhode Island style, brothy quahog chowder, but remain a fan of “New England” chowder, with its cream and whole clams.

calamari
Grady and I ordered the lobster rolls, which in normative New England parlance means a warm, limp hotdog bun lined with a lettuce leaf, and a pile of lobster chunks and diced celery held together with a dollop of mayonnaise. Bayside serves a pared down version which gives the consumer more control (in the manner of the Starbucksification of to-go food consumption) and evokes the simplicity of “sustainable” eating. The bun lined with lettuce holds a generous heap of lobster meat, and a little dish of mayonnaise or melted butter sits on the side. I liked the lobster, of course, but missed the celery and mixed-up-edness of a traditional roll.

lob roll

Also on the table were fried clams, a salmon-asparagus wrap, and a gingery salmon salad.

We were full of good food, but had seen the pies on our way in. The Bayside bakers make at least four kinds of pie every day. Today there was lemon meringue, blueberry, apple, and strawberry rhubarb.

pies

We ordered “Indian Pudding”—a traditional New England custard made with milk, molasses, eggs, butter, and cornmeal, and seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg, alspice, and cloves, and topped with a spoonful of melty vanilla ice cream—and one slice of strawberry rhubarb, which, curiously, was spiced with cardamom. Now we were really full.

My first move when we got back to the house, was to brew a big pot of strong Gorilla coffee, a bag of which Chris and Kate brought us from Brooklyn. I finished The City of Falling Angels, Jack watched the classic version of Winnie the Pooh, others took naps, Peggy baked banana bread…

A satisfying rainy day.

I also looked into green restaurant certification. There are seven areas of greenness in which a restaurant must qualify:

1. Water Effciency
2. Waste Reduction and Recycling
3. Sustainable Furnishings and Building Materials
4. Sustainable Food
5. Energy
6. Disposables
7. Chemical and Pollution Reduction

For more information on this worthy cause, check out the Green Restaurant Association’s website.

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