Eat First

Road food, Adirondack style

You don't go to the Adirondacks for fine food -- unless you're heading someplace spiffy, like Saratoga Springs or Lake Placid.

You go to the Adirondacks for fresh mountain air, fall foliage (a little past peak, but very golden just the same) and simple, hearty fare.

And spectacular scenery like this:

Near Big Moose Lake; photo by Robert Poormon

Blue Mountain Lake, from the Adirondack Museum.

We spent a weekend in the central Adirondacks earlier this month and were rewarded with three rain-free days, perfect for visiting Great Camp Sagamore, near Raquette Lake, and the Adirondack Museum, in Blue Mountain Lake. It was cold and crisp in the morning and at night, but the sunshine was downright brilliant at times.

Whatever your destination is, food is going to come into play. Here are some rules for the road: 1. Consider a hotel that includes a restaurant. In the Adirondacks, more places than not close for the season this time of year -- or close and reopen for snowmobile season. Our base of operations was the Van Aukens Inne, in Thendara, a couple miles from Old Forge. The rooms are comfortable, and the historic inn, across the street from the Thendara station of the Adirondack Railroad, has a tavern and restaurant, where we relaxed with dinner and a couple of drinks Friday night.

The food, a scallops special and a huge salad with beef and bleu cheese, wasn't any thing out of the ordinary, but it was decent. And generous. The best part of all was saying goodnight and heading upstairs, rather than getting in the car again.

2. Ask the locals where they like to eat. A bartender at Van Aukens recommended the Muffin Patch, on Route 28 in Old Forge, for breakfast, and we were not disappointed. The Muffin Patch is comfy and cozy, a little more upscale than your basic diner, with homemade muffins, breads and sweet rolls. The menu also offers breakfast sandwiches, mega omelets and more. 3. Never underestimate the power of the words "pancake house'' on a restaurant. Keyes Pancake House, in Old Forge, also came highly recommended. It was packed with families on Sunday morning and a line for tables snaked out two doors. Such is the scene every day, according to our waitress.

 

Pancake lovers pack Keyes Pancake House, Old Forge.

Try the blueberry pancakes, and spring for the pure New York maple syrup. 

4. Just because you don't see any cars, don't assume that a place isn't open for business. "Welcome to the Adirondack Park after Columbus Day,'' said our host, bartender and waitperson at the Hard Times Cafe, on Route 28 in Eagle Bay, eight miles north of Old Forge. We walked into an empty bar and restaurant about 4:30 p.m. on Saturday and asked if the place was open.

The response from behind the bar: "The door wasn't locked, was it?''

Nope.

The place, like most in this part of the Adirondacks, is casual as can be, with a small bar and a dining room off to the side. We downed beers and huge burgers, served with fresh-cut fries on the side. The specials that evening included lasagna and other pasta dishes, and the place filled quickly with the heady aroma of garlic and tables of diners.

5. Carry some trail mix in the car, just in case. In addition to dozens of exhibits dotting its landscape, The Adirondack Museum, in Blue Mountain Lake, has a Lakeview Cafe, with fine views of the lake and a casual menu of soups, salads, sandwiches and a few other things.

Our visit coincided with the museum's closing for the season, so it was a good thing we bulked up at breakfast. Pickings in the cafe were pretty slim.

End-of-season turkey chowder, Lakeview Cafe, Adirondack Museum.

In warmer weather, pack a cooler and picnic lunch and spread out a blanket on the museum grounds for lunch. 6. Don't worry if the road isn't paved: Even people who live in the most remote corners of the mountains need a place to eat and drink. The Stillwater Hotel, on the western shore of the Stillwater Reservoir, is a magnet for nature lovers, campers and vacationers during the warm weather months and for snowmobilers in the wintertime.

Stillwater Reservoir from the Stillwater Hotel; photo by Robert Poormon.

The place is operated by Marian and Joe Romano, who fell in love with the Adirondacks and moved there from New Jersey, and features house specialties such as steaks, seafood and Marian's signature lemon pepper chicken soup. We enjoyed a Saranac pale ale, chilled to perfection, and chatted with Joe the owner as he took care of two tables for lunch.

7. Don't assume a hardware store has nothing in store for food lovers. Old Forge Hardware, on Fulton Street, just off Route 28, is an authentic general store, in business since 1900. The store sells everything from canoes and camping gear to candles, clothing and rustic Adirondack furniture.

Among the foodie things you'll find:

Soup mixes to enjoy during your stay, or at home.

Enamelware in one of my favorite colors.

An abundance of cookware.

And bakeware, too.

Teapots in all colors, shapes and sizes.

Who could come away without a moose cookie cutter?

Not me!

What better reminder of our Adirondack adventure than gingerbread moose cookies at Christmastime?

The pros and cons of working at home

Some people would pay their employer for the opportunity to work at home.

Not me, so much. Even if I had an employer.

When it comes to work, I'm disciplined, goal-oriented and don't require a lot of direction. But I thrive on personal connections and interaction, which you just don't get a lot of while working on a laptop set up on your dining room table.

I find myself distracted at home, besides. Distracted by piles of laundry to be done, bills to be paid and other things that come in the mail. Case in point:

The  King Arthur Flour catalogue is always full of distractions.

A chief distraction, of course, is the kitchen, and things to do in there. I know, I need to get a life.

But I did manage to get a freelance story written at home recently and at the same time make headway on a project involving two pints of late-season grape tomatoes from the Regional Market and an oven set on low.

The resulting slow-roasted tomatoes are a very tasty alternative to expensive store-bought sun-dried tomatoes.

If you have a bunch of cherry tomatoes, Romas or grape tomatoes hanging around, here's what you do:

Heat the oven to 200 degrees. Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper. Slice each tomato in half (or slices, if using Romas) and arrange fairly close together on baking sheet. Drizzle the tomatoes with olive oil and sprinkle with Italian seasoning. Include a couple cloves of unpeeled garlic, if you like. The garlic serves no purpose, really, except to make your house smell really good.

Bake for 2 and a half to 3 hours, depending on your oven. If tomatoes are on two sheets, rotate them half-way through.

While the tomatoes roast, go about your work or chores and savor the thrill that comes from multi-tasking.

The tomatoes get smaller and shriveled up in the oven, but oh so sweet. Allow them to cool then transfer them to a bowl, drizzle with more olive oil and store them in the refrigerator.

 

Use the tomatoes on salads, on an antipasti plate or enjoy them just as they are. If you like tomatoes like we like tomatoes, they won't last long.

We saved enough of the most recent batch of slow-roasted tomatoes to add color and flavor to an otherwise white pizza.

I'd show you the finished product, but the subject of pizza made at home is worthy of a post of its own. So come back soon.

Birthday cakes I've known and loved

Special request: Pineapple Upside-Down Cake for Amanda's birthday.

I grew up in an era when, as part of your birthday festivities, Mom baked cupcakes for the entire class at school and a layer cake, always served with ice cream, to be enjoyed with the family after dinner.

What a lucky Mid-Century girl I am!

We had white cake with white icing, yellow cake with butter brickle frosting, marble cake, angel food cake (Anne's favorite), chocolate cake with old-fashioned boiled icing, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (Eileen's favorite to this day), Bundt cake, strawberry cake, you name it.

Sometimes the cake was made with a Duncan-Hines or Betty Crocker mix. Only on rare occasions did the frosting come out of a can.

Old-Fashioned Yellow Cake with Chocolate Icing.

My birthday falls in October -- today to be exact! -- and when I got older, I asked my mother to make her mother's recipe for "Apple Jack": a moist, single-layer cake chock-full of sliced apples, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar (giving it a nice crust on top) and topped with a warm cinnamon sauce.

Mom is 88 now, and achy joints and sore feet keep her from doing much standing around the kitchen -- and baking.

My one attempt at making Apple Jack didn't go so well. It's one of those old-timey recipes with cryptic instructions, like: Add milk and flour until the consistency of a thin paste. ...

So, several years ago, I started a new tradition of making a different cake for myself each year and inviting friends and family over to share it.

The timeline, to date:

2006: Carrot Cake Cupcakes and Mini Chocolate Cheesecakes.

2007: Devil's Food Cake with Seven-Minute Icing, an old-favorite made with eggs, sugar and cream of tartar, cooked in a double-boiler and beaten using a mixer until it holds firm peaks.

2008: Old-Fashioned Yellow Cake with Chocolate Icing.

2009: Chocolate-Espresso Cupcakes with a fluffy Cream Cheese Icing flecked with orange zest. This was a practical decision: I've had frosting from a prior batch of these cupcakes in the freezer for months. Time to use it up! Besides, cupcakes are a perfect portion-control treat for someone endlessly battling the bulge.

Yum: Chocolate-Espresso Cupcake with Cream Cheese Icing.

For Robert's special day: Italian Almond Cake With Fresh Raspberries and Whipped Cream.

Maybe it's my advancing age, but I'm kind of sentimental and old-school when it comes to birthday cake.

I purchased a gizmo called a cake leveler a couple years ago, but still it sits in the cupboard with the cake pans. To my way of thinking, the perfect cake need not stand up perfectly straight, like cakes always do on the covers of the glossy food magazines. And the frosting shouldn't look like it was sprayed on.

The perfect birthday cake looks a little tipsy on the plate, its top caving a bit under the weight of so many candles.

I want it to look like something June Cleaver, with her perfectly ironed dress protected by an apron, would make for "the Beav.''

A cake that looks a little precarious on the plate takes me back to the days of cupcakes for the class, and of making a wish and blowing out the candles to the accompaniment of the birthday song sung out of key, followed by applause around the table.

Applause for the birthday girl or boy. And a thick slab of cake!

Market days: Going, going but not gone

Sunshine, blue skies and 60-something temperatures lured me to the Regional Market Thursday afternoon. And I was surprised by what I saw there.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by continued presence of summer produce, like zucchini, peaches and watermelon. There hasn't been a killing frost yet -- depending on where you live and grow.

Without further ado, here's a little "show and tell" from yesterday's visit:

Juicy fruit: The fragrance of locally grown grapes filled the air in Shed A.

Go orange: A trunk-full of gorgeous carrots. 

A rainbow-riot of peppers. Hot, medium or mild?

Cabbage so huge they're almost scary.

Ditto the hubbard squash. Do you need a saw to cut them open?

Ear ye, ear ye! You haven't seen the last of butter and sugar corn.

And Roma tomatoes.

 

There are corn stalks for seasonal displays.

And gourds in all shapes, sizes, colors and degrees of nubbiness.

The vendor gave me late-in-the-day deal: 10 for $2. I took them home and did my best to artfully arrange them on a vintage platter with a border of tiny apples.

The CNY Regional Market will be open Thursdays until the week before Thanksgiving (the hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., but many vendors are packing up by 3 p.m.). It's open 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays, year-round.

For seasonal design inspiration, stop in and say hello to my friend Linda O'Boyle at Metro Home Style, in the Regional Market Commons. She's got lots of great stuff (and reasonably priced!) like ceramic pumpkins, bunches of cattails and beautiful decorative leaves for hanging wherever your imagination allows.

Alone in the kitchen with an eggplant

I know, I know: The title of this post is not exactly original. The late author Laurie Colwin used it as a chapter title in her "Home Cooking.'' More recently, it's the title of a collection of essays by a collection of foodie women, including Marcella Hazan and M.F.K. Fisher, and what they like to eat when no one is watching.

Being a huge fan of the color purple, I've always loved the deep hue and shiny skin of eggplant, or aubergine. But I had never been overly enthused about it or experimented with it in cooking until several years ago, when I made a pact to eat more meatless meals and eat more healthily.

Fresh, local eggplant for sale at the Regional Market, in Syracuse.

I was mostly familiar with eggplant from its presence in baba ghanoush, a Middle Eastern dip/spread served with pita bread, and the Greek dish moussaka, a layered dish of eggplant and ground beef or lamb, topped with bechamel sauce. And Robert's excellent ratatouille: Not only does he go to the trouble of grilling all the ingredients for the vegetable melange, he goes to the trouble of canning it, so we can enjoy it all winter.

Some cooks use eggplant raw in salads, but it is usually cooked. It can be grilled, stuffed, broiled, roasted, used in soups, stews, curries and stir-fries and threaded on kabobs for the grill. It's low in calories, high in fiber and full of other nutrients, like potassium, magnesium, folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin A.

The recipes here are alternatives to the Italian comfort food classic, eggplant Parmesan, which involves dipping eggplant slices in egg and bread crumbs, frying them in lots of oil and layering them in a casserole with cheese and sauce.

Not that I don't LOVE eggplant Parm every now and then, especially in the form of an eggplant Parm sub from our favorite neighborhood pizzeria, Mario and Salvo's, in DeWitt. Give the rollatini a try before it gets too cold to grill outside. Meanwhile, the baked eggplant and pasta dish will soothe your soul and warm your kitchen.

Eggplant Rollatini

Adapted from "Everyday Italian,'' by Giada di Laurentiis

Olive oil (or seasoned basting oil, if you have it)

2 medium-sized eggplants

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

16 ounces ricotta cheese

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

3 tablespoons toasted pine nuts

2 tablespoons basil pesto (or to taste) or 20 basil leaves, minced

1 1/2 cups tomato sauce

Preheat the grill to medium-high and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place a rack over a large baking sheet.

Cut the 2 ends off the eggplant. Cut the eggplants lengthwise, into 1/2-inch thick slices. Arrange eggplant slices on rack and sprinkle with salt to remove excess moisture and bitterness from the eggplants. Set aside for about 30 minutes. Rinse the eggplant well under cold water and pat dry.

Brush the eggplant slices lightly with olive oil then grill until browned, about 5 minutes per side. Remove slices to a platter or cookie sheet and allow to cool.

What you're after is some nice grill marks.

In a large bowl, beat egg gently. Mix in the ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan and toasted pine nuts. Fold in the pesto or basil.

Grease a 13-by-9-inch baking dish with olive oil and spread a half cup of tomato sauce on the bottom of the dish.

To make eggplant rolls: Place a tablespoon of the ricotta filling on one end of the eggplant and roll up tightly. Place the eggplant seam-side down in baking dish. Continue with remaining eggplant.

The eggplant roll-ups should look like this. Go easy on the filling.

Spoon tomato sauce on top of eggplant rolls, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle lightly with Parmesan cheese. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until heated through. Serve with a little pasta on the side and a green salad. Makes about 6 servings.

Ready for the oven: Eggplant Rollatini.

Eggplant and Ziti Parmesan

Adapted from "Jane Brody's Good Food Book"

1 1/4 pounds eggplant, peeled and sliced

1/4 inch thick

Salt and black pepper, to taste

2 cups ziti or other tubular pasta (uncooked)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 plump garlic clove, minced

1 1/3 cup low-fat cottage cheese

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided

1/4 cup minced fresh parsley or 1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (optional)

2 cups tomato sauce

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Arrange eggplant slices in a colander. Sprinkle salt over each layer of slices and let drain for half an hour. Rinse well and pat dry with paper towels.

Meanwhile, cook ziti according to package directions. At the end of cooking, reserve about a half cup of pasta water. Drain, rinse and set aside.

Combine 2 tablespoons olive oil, black pepper to taste and garlic and smear over eggplant slices. Broil 4 inches from heat, turning once, for a total of about 5 minutes. Do not let the slices burn. You probably will need to do this in 2 batches.

Careful: The eggplant can go from broiled to burned in a matter of seconds.

Combine cottage cheese or ricotta, all but 2 tablespoons of the Parmesan cheese, parsley, basil, oregano and red pepper flakes, if using, in a large bowl. Stir in the pasta. If mixture seems too dry, add a little pasta water.

Spread a thin layer of tomato sauce on the bottom of a 13-by-9-inch baking dish. Add half the ziti-cheese mixture. Follow with a layer of eggplant, then half the remaining tomato sauce. Repeat the layers and top with the remaining two tablespoons Parmesan cheese. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 15 minutes or until the top is lightly browned. Makes 6 servings.

Bake and enjoy (for several nights to come).

Staycations 2009: Lombardi's in Fairport

I could have gone to Wegmans for a bottle of balsamic vinegar. Or to Williams-Sonoma, Marshalls, TJMaxx, P&C, Lombardi's Fruits and Imports or any number of places right here in Syracuse. But no. I HAD to go to the Lombardi's store in Fairport, near Rochester, for a bottle of balsamic vinegar. I just HAD to.

 

The food demons made me do it. Voices told me to jump in the car on a summer Friday and check out the Lombardi's store in the community called the "Crown Jewel of the Erie Canal" and named one of Money magazine's "Best Places to Live" in 2005. They also told me to buy some bread, salami and cheese there and enjoy a little picnic along the canal before heading home.

Food lovers in Syracuse know that Lombardi's is a mecca for oils, vinegars, pasta, sauces, herbs, spices, espresso and other ingredients essential to cooking and eating Italian-style. The store, a landmark at the corner of Lodi and Butternut streets on the North Side, has been there for more than 30 years. One of my favorite things to do is wander the aisles and breathe in the store's perfume: It smells all at once of meat, cheese and fruit.

The man behind the meat counter, usually Dominick Lombardi, is happy to take the time to discuss the fine points of different salamis and prosciuttos and the difference between fresh mozzarella and melting mozzarella for pizza.

The Fairport store is a little less Old World deli and market and a little more upscale and glossy. Bread is made on the premises. And in addition to a fine selection of food items imported from Italy, it also has cookware (think Le Creuset, Chantal and others) and an entire room devoted to pottery and tableware. Here's a look at what you'll find there:

Shelves full of balsamic vinegars.

Meats...

and cheeses galore.

Olives in abundance to serve on the side.

 

Everything you need to serve Italian food in style -- and then some.

Olive oils and dipping oils wearing the Lombardi's label.

Pastas of every persuasion...

Sauces to serve with them...

And canned tomatoes and other ingredients to make your own.

Need an espresso set? You've come to the right place.

I stuck to my budget of $20 and came away with a bag holding a bottle each of balsamic and sherry vinegar; a container of multi-color couscous; and a loaf of ciabatta bread and some picnic provisions. It was a wonderful outing.

Still, there's no place like home. Lombardi's at Butternut and Lodi is my first love, and if you haven't been there lately, please do. We're blessed to have it in easy reach.

 

Lombardi's in Fairport is at 124 N. Main St. (585-388-1330). Lombardi's in Syracuse is at 534 Butternut St. (315-472-5900). Note: In a future post, Eat First will visit Vince's Gourmet Imports, in North Syracuse, owned by Vincent Lombardi and his son-in-law, Sam Mondello.