Sprouts Hot and Cold

If you want to get the blood flowing on a snowbound night, serve Brussels sprouts. People love them or despise them—no one is neutral. The response will warm up the room, and the challenge to the cook is of the highest diplomatic order. You want to avoid bruising the tender heart and the great expectations of the sprout devotee while seeking to lure the hate-based reviler into the kinder pastures of sprout love. Think big flavors. Roasting or high-heat cooking caramelizes the leaves of the little wild cabbage cultivars and neutralizes their sulfurous notes. Flavorful fat—bacon, pancetta, or walnut, hazelnut, roasted-sesame, or pumpkin-seed oil—coats leaves like down, soothing their gaseous stink the way a cuddly blanket might an obstreperous child.

Until recently, I couldn’t imagine any Brussels sprouts better than the ones I make, roasted at high heat with pancetta, black pepper, and pine nuts. But at One Big Table’s holiday Twitter party, two of the winning recipes were enough to push me beyond the confines of self (as in my recipe). Jeanne Sauvage, an urban chicken owner and co-founder of the canning channel in Seattle, Washington, offered a recipe for Brussels sprouts with dried herbs and cream that was delicious with the poached chicken I served for Sunday lunch this week. And Shauna James Ahern (glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com) of Washington’s nearby Whidbey Island used shaved sprouts in a raw winter slaw that struck just the right note with spicy pan-roasted pork chops I made last night. Only the dogs took exception. Too many clean plates too often this week.

“We kids feared many things in those days—werewolves, dentists, North Koreans, Sunday school—but they all paled in comparison with Brussels sprouts.” —Dave Barry, in Dave Barry’s Bad Habits (1987)

Jeanne Sauvage’s Brussels Sprouts with Herbs and Cream
Seattle, Washington

• 1 1/4 pounds Brussels sprouts (about 25 sprouts)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more if needed
• 1/4 cup finely chopped shallots
• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 teaspoon dried tarragon
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/4 cup chicken or vegetable broth, homemade or low-salt canned
• 1/8 cup heavy cream

1. Wash Brussels sprouts, cut off stalk ends, remove the outer leaves, cut each sprout into quarters and set aside.

2. In a heavy skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the shallots and sauté until softening, about 1 minute. Add the quartered Brussels sprouts, season lightly with salt and freshly ground pepper, and sauté, tossing occasionally until the sprouts start to brown, 4 to 5 minutes. If the sprouts start to stick to the bottom of the pan, add a bit more oil.

3. Add the herbs and cook, tossing constantly, for a minute or two until fragrant. Reduce the heat to low and add the broth. Cover and let the sprouts steam for about 5 minutes.

4. Remove from heat and add the heavy cream. Stir until it coats the sprouts evenly. Taste,  adjust seasoning with additional salt and  pepper if needed and serve immediately.

Serves four

Shauna James Ahern’s Winter Slaw
Whidbey Island, Washington

For the slaw:

• 1 head broccoli
• 10 Brussels sprouts
• 1/2 head Napa cabbage
• 2 stalks celery

For the dressing:

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise, fresh-made if possible
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. To prepare the vegetables, remove the little florets from the broccoli. Peel the outer layer of the broccoli stalks and slice them in half lengthwise, then dice them (about 1/2-inch cubes) and set aside. Remove the outer layer of the Brussels sprouts. Cut each sprout in half. Slice the halves as thin as possible and set aside. Cut the Napa cabbage in half. Remove the core and slice as finely as possible and set aside. Slice the celery down the middle, lengthwise, then dice the celery stalks the same size as the broccoli stalks. Combine all the vegetables in a large bowl.

2. To make the dressing, mix the mayonnaise, mustard, and rice wine vinegar. Season it with salt and pepper to taste. Toss the vegetables with the dressing, taste, and adjust seasoning with additional salt or black pepper if desired.

Serves four

Poultry, Pears, and 24 Inches of Snow

Good things fell from the sky.  A box of late Warren and Golden Russet Bosc pears were delivered from Frog Hollow Farm in Brentwood, California. Some legs and thighs from Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch’s standard-bred chickens, taut and articulated as a ballet dancer’s. Four chubby chubby little duck breasts from D’Artagnan.

And then the snow. And the snow. And the snow.

Meteorological hysteria mounted. Holiday guests fled. You’d think snow tires hadn’t been invented. You’d think there was no such thing as four-wheel drive. You’d think the entire East Coast was situated on a inaccessible mountain—Dinali, for instance.

It was just snow. First floating, then misting, then blowing, now drifting and covering the kitchen windows up to the second set of panes. The perfect excuse for behaving rationally in the tundra of time between the two winter holidays, when a body aches for nothing more than a good book, a decent fire, and a long, slow dinner.

Linda Miller Nicholson’s Pear-Brined Tea-Smoked Duck
Seattle, Washington

Spice-brined, this duck is fragrant, delicate, smoky, and perfectly matched to the sweet-potato batons that Ms. Nicholson oven-fries in duck fat. Diane’s Spiced-Pear Conserve (see below) makes a delicious counterpoint to the duck and makes a wonderful meal for a snowed-in night.

For the duck:

• 4 duck breasts (Moulard, Muscovy or Pekin)
• 4 cups water
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 4 pears, quartered
• 8 cardamom pods, crushed
• 12 juniper berries, crushed
• 8 whole cloves, crushed
• 4 cups ice
• 6 tablespoons loose green tea

For the sweet potatoes:

• 4 medium-size sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into batons that are about 2 to 3 inches long and  1/4 inch thick
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Use a sharp knife to make a crosshatch patter on the fat side of the duck breasts and set aside.

2. Combine the water, salt, pears, cardamom, juniper, and cloves in a medium saucepan and simmer until the salt has dissolved. Remove from heat, add the ice, and stir until cool. Place the cold brine and duck breasts in a Ziploc bag or shallow dish and allow to brine overnight in the refrigerator. Remove from brine, use paper towels to pat the duck dry, and discard the brine.

3. Place a Dutch oven with lid over medium-high heat. When the Dutch oven is hot, place the duck breasts, fat side down, in the pan and cook until the fat has melted out of the meat, about 3 to 5 minutes. Use a small ladle or spoon to scoop up the fat and set it aside for cooking the sweet potatoes. When a crust begins to form on the meat, remove the duck from the pot and set aside for 5 minutes.

4. Pour the duck fat into a cast iron skillet and place over high heat. When nearly smoking, add the sweet potato sticks and toss quickly to coat with duck fat. Allow to form a crust on one side, turn, and place the skillet in the oven for 10 minutes, turning several times. Remove, drain on paper towels, and season with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Set aside in a warm place.

5. After 5 minutes, return the duck pot to a high flame. Scatter the tea across the bottom of the pot, cover, and heat for 30 seconds. Remove the lid quickly so as not to let too much smoke out, and return the duck to the pot, flesh side down. Cover the pot, sear the meat for two minutes, turn the meat quickly, and sear for an additional 2 minutes for medium rare or 134 degrees on a spot-check thermometer.

4. Remove the breasts to a cutting board, allow to rest 3 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are finished. Remove sweet potatoes from oven, drain on paper towels. Slice the duck breast on the bias into 1/4-inch strips. Fan on the plate with the sweet potatoes and serve.

Serves four

Diane Baillargeon’s Korean Roasted Chicken Legs
Westerlo, New York

A child of French Canadian émigrés, Diane Baillargeon grew up among textile workers in a French-speaking community in Providence, Rhode Island. Her mother, she says, probably called this chicken “Korean” because it contains. She prepares it because it’s easy, tasty, almost impossible to destroy—and delicious with the chutney she makes from the pears that grow in her backyard in upstate New York.

• 1/4 cup sesame oil
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup dry sherry
• 1/4 cup honey
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon dried ginger
• 1 bunch scallions, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried chili flakes
• 2 pounds chicken legs and thighs

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine the sesame, vegetable oil, soy, sherry, honey, garlic, gingers, scallions, and chili flakes in a large flat bowl and marinate for 30 minutes. Remove the chicken to a baking rack in a roasting pan, paint with marinade, and bake, basting frequently, until the skin is crisp and dark and the meat is cooked, 35 to 40 minutes. Serve immediately, with rice and roasted-pear chutney (see recipe below).

Serves four

Roasted Pear Chuntey
Westerlo, New York

Inspired by late-season pears and a recipe from chef Jody Adams, Diane Baillargeon put together this chutney, which is as wonderful with her roasted chicken legs as it is with duck, goose, and game hen.

• 2 ripe Bosc pears, peeled, cored, and cut in half
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 small red onion, cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 1 bulb fennel, minced
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
• 3 tablespoons currants
• 3 tablespoons golden raisins
• 1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/8 teaspoon saffron threads
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
• Zest from one orange, minced

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss the pears with the lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of the sugar, the cinnamon, and the cloves. Add half the vegetable oil to a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat; when it’s nearly smoking, place the pears, cut side down, in the pan and sear for 3 minutes. Brush the skin side of the pears with the remaining oil, place in the oven, and roast for 25 to 30 minutes, until tender. Coat a sheet pan with half the vegetable oil. Set the pears cut side down on the pan. Brush the pears with the remaining oil. Roast until caramelized and  tender, 40 to 50 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.

2.  While the pears are roasting, place all the remaining ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Then, reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

3. Using a small spoon or a melon baller, scoop out the cores of the cooked pears. Cut the pears into 1/2-inch slices.

4. Combine the pears and the onion mixture. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 day before serving.

Nearly 300 cooks joined the One Big Table “Twitter party” on Friday, December 10th to brainstorm the ultimate holiday menu.

Course by course, recipes were offered, and the most toothsome were awarded a copy of One Big Table. But the resulting collection was not a menu for single meal. Instead, it’s a wonderful assortment  of recipes for the formless week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve when, despite seasonal caloric overload and the annual conviction that you will never eat again, you are drawn to the kitchen and the table.

With help from the Twitter Wizards, here are some culinary couplets to mix and match throughout this snowbound week, which we’ll be posting here throughout the day. Two soups. Two roasted birds. Two ways to cook Brussels sprouts. Two potatoes—one Irish, one sweet.

And so, on to the soups!

“To feel safe and warm on a cold wet night, all you really need is soup.” —Laurie Colwin

Amy Wittenbach’s Curried Squash Bisque
New York, New York

It’s tough to ruin a winter squash. The fleshiest ones—the butternut, turban, and Hubbard varieties—need little more than some heat and good beating to become rib-sticking wonders. Ms. Wittenbach manages to improve on nature by seasoning the bisque with a warm curry and uses cold coconut cream to create the sort of luxurious texture that minions laboring with manual scrapers, screens, and food mills dreamed of. Served with rice, this vegetarian soup becomes a meal. Croutons made from stale rye or other whole-grain bread are another tasty way to add ballast. Unadorned, this curried squash bisque is a natural starter for a meal of roasted chicken or duck.

• One 2-lb butternut squash, peeled, seeded, diced into 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch cubes, yielding about 6 cups of cubed squash
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon olive oil, plus more if needed
• 1 teaspoon butter , plus more if needed
• 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons yellow curry powder, plus more to taste
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger, plus more to taste
• 2 to 3 cups vegetable stock
• 2 cups cooked basmati or brown rice, if desired, for garnish

1.  Open the coconut milk, remove the lid, and place the can in the freezer. Heat the olive oil in a large, thick-bottomed stock pot on medium heat. Add the butter and melt, add the onions, season lightly with salt and cook, stirring occasionally, for three to five minutes, until the onions are soft. Add the garlic and the cubed squash to the pan and toss to coat all sides with the olive oil and butter mixture, adding additional oil if needed. Season lightly again with salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the edges and sides begin to caramelize. Adjust the heat as necessary to promote browning and to avoid burning the vegetables.

2. When the squash is lightly browned and has begun to soften, add the curry powder and ginger, stir, and cook for an additional minute. Add the vegetable stock. Use a flat-bottomed wooden or metal spatula to scrape and incorporate any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

3. Remove the coconut milk from the freezer and use a spoon to carefully lift the cream from the top of the can and set aside. Add the remaining coconut water to the soup, stir well, and continue to simmer for 10 more minutes until the squash in completely tender.

4. Using an immersion blender or a stand-up blender, blend until smooth, adding the reserved coconut cream by the teaspoon. Taste, adjust seasoning with additional salt, black pepper, or spices to suit. Serve in individual bowls, garnished with basmati or brown rice, if desired.

Serves four

Homa Moyafaghi’s Ashe Reshteh (Persian Noodle Soup)
McLean, Virginia

Homa Moyafaghi grew up in Mashhad, Iran, and moved to the United States 30 years ago. During the work week, she is a public-school administrator. In the evenings and on weekends, she assumes her favorite role—that of tutor—and focuses on her favorite subject, teaching Farsi to Americans and third-generation Iranian Americans. She organizes poetry nights in which all verse is recited in Farsi, and feels that cooking is as powerful cultural ambassador as language. She makes this soup for the picnic that is traditionally held on the 13th day after the Persian New Year, Sizdah Bedar, in the early spring. But it is wonderful sustenance for the snowy days leading up to the Western New Year as well.

• 10 cups water
  6 1/2 cups beef broth, homemade or low-sodium canned
• 1/4 cup dried red kidney beans, soaked in cold water overnight or in boiling water for 3 hours and drained
• 1/4 cup dried navy beans, soaked in cold water overnight or in boiling water for 3 hours and drained
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 medium onions, finely chopped
• 12 garlic cloves, minced
• One 15-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 pound spinach, stemmed and coarsely chopped
• 1 bunch scallions, green and white parts, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup coarsely chopped fresh parsley
• 1 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 cup coarsely chopped fresh dill
• 2 teaspoons ground turmeric
• kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons dried mint
• 4 ounces reshteh (Persian wheat noodles) or cappellini, broken into three pieces
• 1 cup sour cream or kashk
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground saffron mixed with 2 tablespoons hot water

1. In a Dutch oven, combine the water, broth, and kidney beans. Bring to a simmer and cook for 30 to 45 minutes, until just beginning to become tender.

2. Stir in the navy beans and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until all the beans are tender.

3. In a large skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until the onions begin to brown. Stir in the garlic and cook about 1 minute, until aromatic. Add half the onion mixture to the soup and set aside the remaining onion mixture for garnish.

4. Stir the chickpeas, spinach, scallions, parsley, cilantro, dill, turmeric, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper into the soup. Bring to a simmer, partially covered, and cook over low heat for 2 to 3 hours, until the soup thickens.

5. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat the remaining 3 tablespoons of oil over medium heat. Add the mint and cook about 10 seconds. Remove from the heat.

6. Stir the noodles into the soup and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, until tender.

7. In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream, lemon juice, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir all but 2 tablespoons of the sour cream mixture into the soup, then stir in the mint oil.

8. To serve, ladle into bowls, sprinkle with the reserved onion mixture, and drizzle with the remaining sour cream mixture and saffron water.

Serves six

Note: When Ms. Moyafaghi first moved to the United States, it was difficult to find kashk, the special whey that is traditionally used to make this soup, so she got in the habit of using sour cream. Kashk is far more available today, and is sold by several online purveyors.

I will be making an appearance on NBC’s Today show tomorrow morning around 9:40 am! I’ll be cooking from One Big Table and spreading holiday cheer with the Today show anchors! Tune in if you can!

Update: You can watch a video from the show here.

Per this week’s apple pie theme, I wanted to share my personal recipe for the French apple dessert tarte tatin.

My mother is a fabulous baker. I am not a great baker. I am an almost adequate baker with a few things that I do well. Tarte tatin is one of those things, and this is a foolproof recipe. I think of tarte tatin as the Chilean sea bass of the pastry world: You really have to work to ruin it. It is best to make this upside-down apple tart right before serving so that the caramel is sticky and hot and the apples are fragrant and the rich pastry is at its buttery best. It can be made up to a day ahead of serving, of course, but should never, ever be refrigerated, for the cold causes the whole idea of tarte tatin to seize up and get ugly. I’ve used pears, plums, fresh figs, bananas, and even some stone fruit in the place of hard apples. As long as you adjust the cooking time—the softer the fruit, the less time it will need in the oven and the thinner you should roll your dough—it is foolproof.

Enjoy!

Molly’s Tarte Tatin

For the filling:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 8 large tart apples, such as Granny Smith or Northern Spy
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter

For the pastry:

• 2 cups flour, plus additional for rolling the dough
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons water

1. To prepare the sugar for making the tart, place in a closed container with the slit vanilla bean for at least 24 hours and up to a week.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter. Working quickly, rub the flour and butter together between your fingers until most of the butter is incorporated and the mixture looks like course cornmeal. Combine the egg yolk and water. Make a well in the center of the flour-and-butter mixture, add the egg yolk mixture and using a fork, a pastry harp or fingers, combine quickly, and press into a ball. Cover and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.

3. To make the pie filling, quarter the apples, remove and discard the core and peel and set the apple quarters aside. Melt the butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium-low heat. Remove the vanilla bean (it can be added to any stored sugar and left indefinitely) and add the sugar, stir, and allow the sugar to caramelize until it reaches a dark honey color. Remove from heat. Carefully arrange the apple in the pan, round-side down to create a pretty design.

4. Lightly flour a board, remove the pastry from the refrigerator, and gently roll out to a circle that is about 12 inches in diameter. Roll the dough around the rolling pin and then roll out over the skillet. Tuck the edges of the pastry around the apples in order to create a container. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until apples are tender but not mushy. Remove from oven, allow to sit for 3 minutes, then carefully invert the skillet over a serving plate and serve.

Makes one pie

When my friends at Union Square Events and I were imagining the menu for the launch of One Big Table at Ellis Island, we needed one dessert that expressed the American spirit and autumn and New York State. Apple something and probably pie. Our choice—we turned the magnificent salty caramel pie from the women at Four & Twenty Blackbirds Bakery in Brooklyn, New York, into turnovers, packed them in little wax paper sandwich bags, and gave them, along with hot cider, to guests as they headed from the Great Hall to the boat that would ferry them back to Manhattan—was hard won. And it might not have been possible, were Thanksgiving—and a chance to make multiple apple desserts—not so near.

Here, then, is a symphony of apple endings, recipes for which will be posted here over the coming week or so, starting with a special apple crumb pie with very special roots.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Great-Great-Aunt Irma’s Apple Crumb Pie, Redux

Katrina Busselle is the great-great-grandniece of Irma Rombauer. She lives and cooks in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and four-year-old twins. “Starting when I was six years old,” she says, “I’d get into the kitchen, take out a bag of flour, some eggs, sugar, vanilla, butter, and whatever struck my fancy—like grape jelly. I would toss all this into a bowl without much measuring. The globs baked on cookie sheets or in muffin tins or fried, I called ‘concoctions.’ Usually I could eat the things.  By fourth grade, when my reading was solid, I took Joy of Cooking down from the shelf and started testing the recipes written by my great-great-aunt Irma Rombauer. Cooking by the book took discipline after my concoction years, but I thought of it as science and it made me feel grown up.

“This apple pie—made more than 30 years after those first attempts—is no doubt delicious just the way Aunt Irma wrote it. Still, I wanted a crumble top, so I went to her 1975 edition of Joy, looked up apple crisp, and just about doubled the topping ingredients. Then I couldn’t resist adding some nutty, excellent, homemade granola, which I measured out and wrote down. The results were terrific—not pure Aunt Irma, but not a concoction, either.

“The best apples make the best apple pie. I like to use half Mutsus, Empires, or Winesaps and the other half a tart apple such as Granny Smith. And a pint of sour cream with a half cup of maple syrup and a teaspoon of vanilla makes an excellent variation on the traditional ice-cream accompaniment.”

Crust for one 9-inch pie pan

For the filling:

• 9 large tart apples, peeled, cored and sliced into 1/4-inch slices
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 4 tablespoons flour

For the topping:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter, cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup excellent-quality granola
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Make favorite pastry dough, lightly flour a board, roll out the pastry. Light dust the bottom of the pie pan with flour, then line the pan with the pastry, dust it again, and crimp the edges. Line the pan with parchment or aluminum and weight with dried beans or pastry lentils. Bake for 20 minutes until the edges are lightly gold. Remove from the oven, remove the weights, and cool on a rack.

2. To make the apple pie filling, combine the apples with the sugar, toss well, and set aside for 30 minutes. Add the salt, cinnamon, and flour and toss. While the apples are macerating, prepare the topping by placing the sliced butter in a bowl. Using fingertips, combine the butter with the flour, brown sugar, granola, and other seasonings and set aside.

3. When the pie crust is cool, fill the shell with apples, spreading evenly.  Spread topping thickly, making sure it comes to edges of pie. Cover fluted edge with aluminum foil strips.   Bake at 425 degrees for about 45 minutes, removing foil for last 20 minutes.

Makes one pie

In response to the suggestion of a British man that Americans limit their daily consumption of pie to two times a week, The New York Times wrote in an editorial in 1902: “It is utterly insufficient (to eat pie only twice a week), as anyone who knows the secret of our strength as a nation and the foundation of our industrial supremacy must admit. Pie is the American synonym of prosperity, and its varying contents the calendar of the changing seasons. Pie is the food of the heroic. No pie-eating people can ever be permanently vanquished.”

Apple pie is the only sane response to a day like this.  This maple-leaf-gold light. The sudden gust that wipes one tree limb bare, leaving it black and skeletal and crooked, like a witchy finger, against the wooded hillside outside my window. Behind that single naked branch, most of the trees are still a splotchy palate of resistance and surrender. The still-green trees, the I’ll-be-damned yellows and reds, the limb-weary leaves, rusted, brittle.

This morning, the air had that sweet, scary smell of overgrown vegetable and herb patches. With hints of rotting fruit. Anyone who needs to believe that things happen for a reason responds to this smell like one of Skinner’s rats thumping the water bar. Apple pie. Apple pie. Apple pie. Apple pie. I’ve been fighting the impulse to bake one since I walked up the hill with the dogs at dawn.

The apple-pie impulse gives better bakers than me significant pause. Will it be a deep-dish pie, a tidy little gallette, a rustic, free-form tart? Double crust, lattice topped, crumble topped? Robust and full of cinnamon—or a dainty little composition of apples, hold the spice? I don’t suffer this sort of indecision. I am not a great baker, but I do make a mean tarte tatin.

Dinner saved the day. Cold green tomato pie. Stale cornbread, sliced and grilled. Leftover roast pork, refried in a cast-iron skillet, given a few coats of Dan Huntley’s  famous Pig Pucker Sauce, covered with a lid, removed from heat  to steep. Tomorrow, I will shred the pork, add some of the Pig Pucker, and serve it with red beans and rice. Or maybe make a pulled-pork sandwich.

Pig Pucker Sauce can be purchased by emailing DanthePigman@mac.com.

I’d already consumed at least 5,000 calories, mostly in pork, by the time I left the Vendy Awards and headed north to Sam’s birthday party in Millerton, New York, on Saturday night. But pig tastes different en plein air.  Especially when both a pit-master (Ryan Killmer, who cooked in public schools and high-end restaurants before joining the local road crew) and a cooking-rig mastermind (Jamie Petkovich, a carpenter) are involved. Jamie’s dedication to handcrafting the perfect pig rig must have left junkyards in upstate New York all but picked clean. At approximately 20 times the size of any pig they might roast, his rig had no secrets.

After spending a year investigating homemade cooking contraptions, Dan Huntley, the co-author of Extreme Barbecue: Smokin ’Rigs and 100  Real Good Recipes,  was convinced that “pound for pound, you are going to eat better if the cook is a contraption maker.” I spoke to Mr. Huntley at his “pig palace,” a sort of barbecue-and-hot-sauce iteration of  a man cave in the backyard of his home in York, South Carolina, when I was gathering barbecue stories and recipes in the area. More than the thousands of pounds of meat I consumed or the recipes I gathered in the quest, the connection that Mr. Huntely made between a guy and his smoker explained the national obsession with slow-cooked meat.

Barbecue, he said “is an expression of life, an American art form. I’ve seen some junkyard serendipity you wouldn’t believe. My rig? I put it together for $165, and it’s built like a Sherman tank. Why would you want to pay more for your rig than you paid for your pig? I’ve seen cooking rigs made out of a satellite dish found by the side of the road, smokers made out of old refrigerators, galvanized trash cans, a backhoe bucket, and a seven-foot rotisserie that one guy put together with the chain from his grandson’s bicycle. You can’t find that in the Yellow Pages. You can’t learn how to do that on the Web. It’s not about a recipe as much as it is about knowing what to do when something happens, like your rig catches fire in four lanes of traffic going 70 miles an hour.”

Indeed, Mr. Killmer was hard-pressed to describe the actual recipe he deployed and the steps he took over a 12-hour period to ensure 50 pounds of toothsome pork under a golden armor of crackling skin. There were apples and oranges stuffed in the animal’s cavity, and there was a wet mop that probably contained one part cider vinegar to two parts water, along with lots of garlic, black pepper, chili-pepper flakes. This pig bath was applied with the sort of rag mop that is generally used to swab kitchen floors. But mostly there was just a feeling between the man and the rig. The proof, of course, was in the pig. It was indescribably delicious.

To frame the noble creature, Rebecca served several of the recipes I gathered from cooks whom she’d photographed across America in the quest that resulted in One Big Table: A Portrait of American Cooking. Green tomato pie, cabbage with bacon and blue cheese, rosemary cornbread. There were four kinds of pie for dessert.

What a feast. Of the 30 friends and family members that gathered on under a canvas canopy on the Bussselle’s stone terrace, most had traveled a significant distance—several had even journeyed across the country to toast the birthday boy. I’d only driven 250 miles up and down the Hudson River Valley.

I’d do it again tomorrow if the menu was the same.