Pickled Me This

What to do with a large quantity of seedless green grapes procured from the Berkeley Bowl Dent Shelf? I can never remember to eat grapes for snacking, but they are so cold and tasty when I do, that I couldn't very well leave them at the store. Especially because in truth, there was nothing very dented about this bundle of grapes. Sifting through the bunch and plucking each one from its stem, I found most to be perfectly in tact and deliciously sweet, too.


Seeing as how I had this new book of recipes just lying around, I figured I may as well go ahead and pickle the grapes with peppercorns and brown mustard seeds and cinnamon sticks as per Molly's instruction. I'm not sorry I did.


They made a nice little host gift yesterday at the Easter day party I attended. They stay nice and crisp, and pretty sweet, like little nuggets of high quality wine vinegar (even when you didn't start with any). I plan on eating my own jar with cheese and crackers and dumping generous spoonfuls into spinach salads.

You should definitely get your own copy of this book, but just to whet your whistle:

Pickled Grapes With Cinnamon and Black Pepper
Adapted from A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

This rendition of the recipe reflects what I had on hand...

1 lb. red or black or green grapes, seedless
1 cup white vinegar
splash of white cooking wine
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 t brown mustard seeds
1 t whole black peppercorns
1 (2 1/2 inch) cinnamon stick
1/4 t salt.

Rinse and dry grapes and pull them carefully from their stems. Ideally, some of the skin comes away when you do this to expose some of the flesh. If your stemming seems to leave the "belly button" too intact, use a sharp knife to remove the very end of the grape. You just want the brine to come into contact with the inner flesh of the grape. Put finished grapes into a medium bowl and set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, then pour over the grapes waiting in the bowl. Stir to evenly combine. Set aside and cool to room temperature.

In the meantime, wash 2 pint-sized canning jars and their lids in warm soapy water. When the grapes have cooled, ladle them into the jars. Store in the refrigerator and allow to chill at least 8 hours or overnight. Serve cold. Use within one month.

Heirloom Beans

You can read as much as you want about how freshly dried beans are better than steak, how they are worth ordering from Rancho Gordo farm in the mail because of how they make a sort of a gravy...but you really probably won't believe a word of it until you actually get some and cook them up with garlic and eat them yourself.

Two nights ago, using up the nubs and ends of the aging vegetables in our refrigerator I wanted to try a soup in the new Bon Appetit: Chicken and White Bean with herb swirl. Sadly I was out of white beans and not so sadly, I'm vegetarian. But we had some Christmas beans stashed away and so making accommodations, I proceeded to get on with some soup thusly:

We've been making stock lately from scraps of whatever we're cutting, doctored if needed with some vegan chicken broth powder and that was the base for this soup. But to begin I sauteed some fresh herbs: sage, parsley and thyme in olive oil until fragrant a la the bon appetit recipe and reserved the drizzle for the aforementioned swirl. Then I browned some faux fowl* and removed this from the pan for later too. Next I took the beans and put them in the same pot with some water and some smashed garlic, a bay leaf and some salt and pepper. I let these simmer, uncovered for almost an hour. They were fresh dried beans meaning you don't need a pressure cooker or a whole day to cook them, you can really just throw them in and leave them for an hour and they'll be good.

I took the beans out of the pot when they'd reached an acceptable softness with any liquid they let off and then threw in carrots and celery to brown in that very same pot. I waited til these were nicely colored and then added some of that stock (which was simmering all along!) to the pot to deglaze and added the beans back in to cook a few more minutes, along with some cabbage, some chili flakes and a 1/4 a cup of tomato paste and let them mix and mellow just a bit.

I added the faux fowl back in at the last minute and threw the herb swirl into the soup itself against orders; I decided that serving a swirl was too silly for my taste. So we dished the stuff up with a dollop of sour cream on top instead.



Well! Now having only just finished the last of it, those beans were the crown and glory of the whole soup. A wholly different thing than that BA recipe, my soup came out dark and brown and roasty, with notes of cinnamon, though I hadn't added any, and a thick broth that coats the tongue like a robust gravy. The pictures don't do much justice as the steam from the soup on the stove was tormenting my camera.


Christmas beans are speckled purple and white and I traded for some at a farmer's market (when I still worked at one) and they aren't cheap. But they are worth it, leaps and bounds above any dried beans you could buy in a plastic bag. Reading the Rancho Gordo website, you can even plant any of the beans they send you and grow some for yourself. Or you could order heirloom bean seeds from a seed seller. It is getting on seeding season, you know.

*we rather like certain soy products like this, though compared with the very natural elements in this soup I would skip this next time. It sticks out among the other flavors and in the end, it didn't need anything like chicken.

Weather or Not

2 oz. cheap whiskey, one peppermint tea bag, half one lemon's juice from the Meyer Lemon Tree in our Neighbor's Yard, and hot water. To be drunk as needed to protect against the persistent chill.



Yum.