Banh cuon for lunch

I'm on a Thai/Lao cooking binge ... again! Maybe it's because Bounthong's birthday is coming up, and my strongest association with her is this wonderfully fragrant and flavorful cuisine; maybe it's because the food is just damn good, and work is slow!

Today, banh cuon (savory rice-flour crepes with pork filling) were on the lunch menu--and I took play-by-play pics for your voyeuristic pleasure!

First, I whisked the crepe batter (rice-based baking mix, coconut milk, salt, and oil) and set it aside. (Note: My homemade gluten-free mix contains almost the same ingredients as called for in the recipe, so I used it.)

Next, I started the dipping sauce: dissolved the palm sugar in water and rice vinegar on the stove. Then, I heated up coconut oil in the wok to cook the filling: shallot and garlic, ground pork, rehydrated shiitake mushrooms and the eponymous Dried Black Fungus, bean sprouts, cilantro and green onion, salt, and fish sauce. Meanwhile, I finished up the dipping sauce (added fish sauce, garlic, chiles, and lime juice) and set it aside to "steep" and cool.

Finally, I started making the crepes. As usual, the first couple of crepes were not beautiful ... but they still tasted damn good. I made two Thai-/Lao-style (white) and three Vietnamese-style (yellow, with turmeric) crepes. I prefer the turmeric version, even though Bounthong didn't and said it wasn't traditionally Laotian (désolée, mon amie!) -- and FWIW, the yellow ones show up better in the pictures. :-)

I just may have to make green papaya salad to accompany my leftover banh cuon for dinner ...

Huge Tag Sale!

For this holiday weekend, I have planned a twofer of themed festivals and a farm camping experience that promises convenient, cheap accommodation with environmental value-added. Dubbed "Garlic and Gaelic," this minibreak is intended to provide me, Karin, and Ann some good food, fun times, many musical interludes, and maybe—just maybe—a bit of relaxation.

After more than our share of delays this morning (surprisingly, none due to the numerous self-professed HUGE TAG SALES that line Vermont's Route 9, which never were huge by our estimation), Karin expertly piloted us to the Garlic and Herb Festival in Bennington (c'mon, everybody say it: "Where Vermont begins!") midafternoon. We all agreed that "Garlic" was a bust—it totally didn't live up to its website description—but the garlic ice cream and garlic kettle corn were surprisingly good. We don't regret attending but wouldn't recommend it or go back.

To round out the anticlimactic Garlic Festival experience, I took uninspiring pictures of the Battle Monument (at 302 feet, the tallest structure in Vermont, sez the AAA guide, but I was too far away), then we piled back into the car. We traveled about 2 hours northeast to South Royalton (about as central in Vermont as you can get), which would be our home away from home for 2 nights.

Four Springs Farm is a working organic farm and CSA (which stands for Community Supported Agriculture—a way for customers to purchase a share of the farmer's harvest before the growing season begins and receive harvested produce through summer and fall) where owner-farmer Jinny Cleland grows vegetables, berries, herbs, and bedding and ornamental plants; raises pasture-raised laying chickens, meat chickens, and turkeys (Bourbon Reds and another); offers educational programs; runs an off-season bakery; and rents space to tenters or even offers "farm vacations" to families or groups. The farm was a nice alternative to the usual campground, and Jinny is a wealth of information!

La ville de Québec

What can I say? On a eu du fun! It was a blast! The weather was perfect, the architecture was amazing, the best music was free, the cheeses were plentiful and delicious, and the people were nice. The city has a very European feel—like France, but without that attitude that English speakers sometimes experience—but with a distinct North American vibe. Still, Marina and I spoke French at every opportunity. I’d go back in a heartbeat. Check out some pix in my Picasa album!

Random pensées:

• You don’t have to ask for fries with that, because ouais, you get frites with everything ... except maybe crêpes. But I couldn't be sure.
  
• The only poutine I ate was the first night, at Le Cochon Dingue (i.e., The Crazy Pig, not to be confused with La Vache Folle/The Mad Cow), with pulled pork on top. Miam!
  
• If Quebec City were a perfume (eau de Québec), it would smell like a warm waft of horseshit (from the carriage rides).
  
• Apparently, en québecois, “kitchenette” means a tower created from a coffee maker, a small microwave, and a dorm-size fridge. (We decided to call it an “-ette.”)
  

Instant gratification

Today I took a short break from planting and yard work to taste the first home-grown alpine strawberries of the season. This variety is perennial and everbearing, which means two things: The berries return every year with minimal effort on my part, and they keep coming all summer (that is, as long as I continue to pick—otherwise the plants think that the season is over and start to go dormant). Two great features to have in a garden plant, if you ask me!

Alpine strawberries are known in gourmet circles as fraises des bois, a high-priced delicacy appreciated by foodies the world around (e.g., read an article by Maine four-season gardener and author Barbara Damrosch—you must register to read the Washington Post online, but it’s free). Chez moi, however, alpine strawberries simply are easy-to-care-for plants that give good eats.

Because the sweet, tasty fruits are small (you’d need to pick dozens just to fill your palm), hide under leaf cover, and tend to dry up quickly after harvest, they require careful hand harvesting—hence the hefty price tag. Given these difficulties, I find that the easiest approach to alpine strawberry harvest is to eat them in the garden. Yup, you heard me: plant to mouth, with only the lightest, briefest passage between the fingers. Gratification doesn’t get much more instantaneous than that.

Another nice feature (IMO) of alpines is that they don’t send out runners like full-sized strawberries; however, as the plants grow, you can divide their clumps to expand your strawberry bed or border.

One more interesting tidbit about my plants: They are true survivors. I originally sowed organic seeds from Johnny’s several (5?) springs ago, in black plastic seed flats. However, when I was putting the rest of the plants in the garden, the strawberries looked so tiny and pathetic that I figured they needed more time to grow and should be planted in fall rather than spring. So, I left the flats outside near the garden and watered the spindly seedlings (occasionally, anyway) throughout the season. Come fall, I got busy and never got the plants in the ground, so the flats were left, forgotten, next to the garage. There they passed the winter under several feet of snow.

The following spring, as I was weeding, prepping the garden, planting tomatoes, and so on, I caught a glimpse of something green among the dried-up leaves in the flat. Not believing that anything might have survived a New Hampshire winter in a plastic seed flat—and certainly not the sad strawberry seedlings that I had chucked aside the year before—I guessed that the green must have been from a growing weed, like a maple tree or some crabgrass. Still curious, I examined the greening leaf more closely, and sure enough, it was a strawberry leaf—and many more plants were starting to green up! So out came the water and a bit of seaweed fertilizer, and before I knew it, the plants were looking perky. A short time later, I transplanted the baby strawberries to the garden, where they have thrived ever since.

BTW, if you’re interested in reading more about organic farming and gardening … check out Four-Season Harvest by Barbara Damrosch’s farmer husband, Eliot Coleman, at your local library. It’s a classic! Also check out their website, Four Season Farm, to see that they practice what they preach.