Photograph by Clarissa Westmeyer with styling by Heidi Robb

I recently posted an Instagram picture of stunning peonies spotted whilst shopping at the Saturday, Shaker Square location of North Union Farmer’s Market. Earlier that morning I had read this blog post, and wrote the accompanying caption, “My head just exploded after reading a recipe for peony & rose petal ice cream. Maybe next year.” Fortunately, the notion elicited an equally ebullient reaction from photographer Clarissa Westmeyer, who then responded, “Both are blooming in my backyard right now! When are you coming over and we’ll make it!?!?”

Clarissa’s girlfriend-to-girlfriend, photographer-to-stylist comment was interpreted by me as cleverly concealed code, and to mean: “I will bring you the most ravishingly gorgeous peony and rose petals from my garden from which you will make delicious ice cream. Then we shall rendezvous at the studio to style and shoot and eat peony and rose petal ice cream and rejoice in our collaborative beauty.” So we did.

If you are what you eat, then Clarissa and I are peonies. And roses.

Peony & Rose Petal Ice Cream (my version)

Yield: approximately 1 quart

*Ice Cream Base
2 cups whole milk
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons mascarpone cheese, softened
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 quart spray-free and clean, picked fresh peony and rose petals
1 vanilla bean split lengthwise
4 green cardamom pods,crushed

Additional small peony and rose petals for garnish

Process
In a bowl, stir together 1/4 cup milk and the cornstarch; set slurry aside. In a 4-qt. saucepan, whisk together remaining milk and the cream, sugar, syrup, and salt; bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and boil for 4 minutes. Remove saucepan from heat; add peony and rose petals. Scrape the vanilla bean seeds into the saucepan; add the scraped bean and crushed cardamon pods and seeds. Cover and let steep off the heat for one hour.

Prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl with ice and water.

Remove vanilla bean from the saucepan. Strain remaining mixture through a fine sieve into a clean saucepan, pressing out all of the liquid from the petals – I squeezed the last drops out by hand. Discard the spent petal debris. Inhale deeply the ethereal fragrance floating from the pot – indulge in a momentary swoon.

Re-whisk the cornstarch slurry and gradually whisk it into the ice cream base. Bring mixture back to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring with a heatproof spatula, until slightly thickened – about 1 minute.

Add the mascarpone to a deep bowl and gradually whisk in the hot milk mixture until smooth. Pour the mixture into a 1-gallon Ziploc freezer bag and and submerge the sealed bag in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until cold – about 30 minutes (I needed to leave the house at this point and placed the bowl and contents into the fridge).

Freeze ice ice cream according to your ice cream machine manufacturer’s instructions.

*I turned to my Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home cookbook by Jeni Britton-Bauer for the base recipe then created my peony and rose enhancements from there. Jeni’s base ice cream mixture provides an ideal blank canvas to best add your own ice cream flavor creations. The resulting ice cream freezes to a texture that I find perfect for scooping – and eating. 

How does it taste? If Beauty had a flavor, it would unquestionably be peony and rose petal ice cream.

Follow Clarissa Westmeyer on Instagram @sunnyc216

Follow me @heidi_robb

“It’s the way I want to live my life. I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.” -Saul Bass

Ferocious-sounding edibles area easily tamed into a deliciously verdant spring soup with some blanching, chopping, sweating, simmering, stirring, pureeing, slicing and crisping. Outdoor Farmers Market season has arrived, and I rejoice!

Health benefits of eating nettles.

Health benefits of eating lion’s mane mushrooms

Soup ingredients sourced from the North Union Farmers Market

Fresh, beautiful meals were shared on the beach road at the new and notable Hartwood, while other humbler, yet no less delicious meals were enjoyed with equal pleasure in the pueblo. And one perfect afternoon brought tangy ceviche and cheladas at an “in the know” secret beach location a bit north of Tulum.

The color dial is turned up, but I never fail to feel like Dorothy landing in Oz when I reach the boldly-hued destinations of Mexico.

1. Lunch stop in Puerto Morelos on the drive to Tulum for ceviche de pulpo.

2. Vibrant selection of midday guisados at El Tacoqueto.

3. Ceviche misto, cheladas and a secret beach location.

4. Plump shrimp with garlic, and sopa de mariscos at El Camello Jr.

5. Late, and last night celebration with a riot of  antojitos in the pueblo.

Soundtrack: Donovan’s Colours

The calendar may say spring, but the view of snow-fluttered trees out my kitchen window still describes days of winter. My daughter is away on her senior class spring break excursion and I’ve been keeping the cupboard relatively spare while cooking for one.

Fortunately, I’ve a sac of preserved striped grey mullet roe known as “bottarga” wrapped in the fridge waiting to embolden and enhance other pantry staples at hand – pasta, potatoes, and a loaf crusty bread. Chicken eggs.

Until recently, sourcing bottarga was an international affair; generally imported from Italy. My bottarga now comes from the Anna Maria Fish Company (founded by Seth Cripe) – a domestic and sustainable product. Their mullet is fished off the village of Cortez from the clear waters off Florida’s Gulf Coast; wild and net-caught and recognized for some of the finest quality gray mullet in the world. It is fantastic.

Just off the cure from a fresh catch, this sac retained some moistness; firm enough for grating, and perfect for slicing on the mandoline into delicate, golden-yolky petals of ocean brine flavor onto an inspired warm soft egg ‘salad.’

Slim rings of shallots macerated in a puddle of squeezed  Meyer lemon juice while I cooked and peeled beautiful local eggs from Breakneck Acres Farm. Into the shallot and juice tumbled capers and segments of Meyer lemon with pinches of sea salt and grindings of pepper. I whisked in flavorful olive oil then folded in a handful of picked fresh parsley and mint leaves. The mixture was spooned over the halved warm eggs. Finally, the bottarga was generously shaved over all. Buttery griddled bread on the side, per favore.

This salad composition hits craveable flavor and texture buttons with creamy, umami, bright, fresh and juicy. The Meyer lemons add murmuring sweetness and a CRUNCH of good bread guarantees you’ll soak up every last oceanic mouthful of goodness.

My favorite salad uses bottarga as an ingredient.

Learn more about bottarga at Food52.

I would love to see (domestic/sustainable) bottarga on Cleveland restaurant menus – hint, hint.

 Anna Maria Fish Company is also producing a sustainably farmed Siberian sturgeon caviar. The tasty dark grey-to-black eggs are rich and briny with mineral undertones – little pop rocks of sea nectar bursting in your mouth.

In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.  ~Mark Twain 

Did Mark Twain happen to live in Cleveland?

Hello, yeah, it’s been a while.
Not much, how ’bout you?

There’s nothing that says,”Hey. It’s time for a new blog post.”, better than a mountain of paperwork giving me the dirty stink eye. In your country, they may call that “Procrastination”.

A recent vegan hot beverage shoot reminded me to pull out my trusted chai tea recipe – one that has been toned and tweaked to a personal liking over the years. As I am not vegan, this recipe calls for whole milk. Feel free to substitute almond milk or other favored vegan milk replacement if you’re inclined to go that route. The instructions call for toasting the spices; take extra care not to burn any of the pieces lest they impart bitterness to the heady blend. The pinch of sea salt? I learned long ago that a touch of salt lifts and compliments sweetness in the most favorable way – I think that you will agree.

Mai Chai

2 cinnamon sticks, broken or crushed into small pieces

8 black peppercorns

4 allspice berries

4 cloves

1 teaspoon seeds from green cardamom pods (Penzey’s sells just the seeds)

1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced

1 vanilla bean pod, split; seeds scraped and reserved

7 cups cold water

4 high-quality black tea bags

3/4 cup whole organic milk

Raw honey, to taste

Pinch sea salt

Lightly toast the dry spices until warm and fragrant. Cool slightly, then crush with the ginger in a mortar and pestle. The mixture does not need to be super-fine – just enough to ensure all spices have been broken. Add the spice mixture, the split vanilla pod and water in a pot and bring to a simmer. Simmer anywhere from 5 to ten minutes – the longer the simmer, the spicier the chai. Add the teabags and remove from heat. Steep the tea for another five minutes. Remove the teabags, add the milk and bring up to a simmer.  Remove from heat and pour the chai through a coffee filter or paper-lined strainer. Stir in honey, along with a pinch or so of sea salt to taste. Whisk in the reserved vanilla seeds. Serve hot and frothy in warmed mugs.

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In other news: On December 7th, I’m teaming with my New Favorite Venue, Mahall’s, in importing cocktail journalist and freestyle mixologist, Warren Bobrow, for a highly spirited & special event. Warren will intoxicate you with his cocktail prowess. There will be premium liquor and mysterious bitters. There will be food. There will be the awesome eight-piece Revolution Brass Band. Rumor has it there may be a soused gnome on premises. This is a ticket-only event. Get yours here.

Event Sponsors:

Kalman & Pabst

Cleveland Hostel

Glazer’s

Middle West Spirits

Watershed Distillery

The Baddish Group

The Cleaver

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This showed up in my inbox this morning (via Leo Babauta of Zen Habits),  just when I needed it most:

“See the beauty in every moment. In every person’s so human actions. In our own frailties and failures.

This world is a morning poem, and we have but to see it to be shaken by its beauty, over and over.”

And YOU. With Love & Respect & Gratitude. 100…howevermany.

Give me a spring filled with sassy stalks of puckery-sweet rhubarb. A harbinger of the season, to be sure, but preserved for heartier meals of colder months, it never feels out of place. Now, my rhubarb jam is enjoyed with homemade yogurt and the first blush of the most fragrant and juiciest of strawberries. Come fall and winter, this jam, with the softest note of toasted Szechuan and black peppercorn, will be just as comfortable snuggling on the savory plate with roasted pork, duck and turkey, and always, slathered on warm, buttery toast and biscuits. Shaken into a cocktail? I’ll further investigate.

A Saturday shop at North Union Farmer’s Market scored me 4lbs. of Muddy Fork Farm’s finest, hued a ragingly hot pink tourmaline. Armed with my copy of trustworthy The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook and well-honed intuition, this year’s 10 pint batch heralds the onset of the 2012 canning kitchen.

My name is Heidi. I am an Instagramoholic and a Hipstamatic devotee´. All but the first photo were taken with the Hipstamatic Foodie Pak; Loftus lens, DC film. Follow me @ hrobb

“But behind the chalet, my holiday’s complete

And I feel like William Tell, Maid Marian on her tiptoed feet

Pulling mussels from the shell

Pulling mussels from the shell”

There was no getting the Squeeze song “Pulling Mussels” out of my head while testing the recipe of “Nina’s Mussels” for the first season of Buddy Valastro’s, Kitchen Boss for TLC. Easily one of my favorites from that job, made even more so by delightful phone conversations with Buddy’s eager-to-share Aunt Nina- necessary to best develop and transcribe from verbal (“A pinch, maybe more – you know – until it tastes good!”), a written and beloved family culinary pearl.

Unlike oysters and many clams, mussels are most familiarly appreciated as cooked- generally prepared steamed in a savory seasoned broth enhanced by the mussel’s released juices, or tossed on a grill, whole, until the shell pops open, meat beckoning for a hot dunk in melted herb butter. Nina’s Mussels required a raw shuck before settling meat-side down on a bed of garlicky breadcrumbs, which presented a  fresh challenge – yet another reason why I never tire of cooking as there is always something new and wonderful to learn and bring to the table, even if the new and wonderful to me is already something old and treasured to another.

With a decent shucking knife, I can open an oyster alright and with minimal blood loss. Once the recalcitrant muscle hinge is popped, the reward to slurping your briny mouthful comes on short order. The trick to opening raw mussels required Nina’s “snap” technique – a sliding, or snapping of the top and bottom slightly ajar, quickly slipping in the sharp blade of the knife, and down, to release the adductor’s tenacious grip. Practice made perfect – ensuring that my non-dominant hand was well-protected from the blade – and after testing several batches of roughly 3 dozen each, there were no visits to the E.R. and I think Aunt Nina would approve of my “snap”.

After shucking, well-seasoned and oiled homemade breadcrumbs are put down in your pan, topped by the raw mussels, meat-side down. The heat is turned up until the sizzling begins, soon followed by appetizing wafts of garlic, herbs and toasty bread. Magic happens a few minutes later. Carefully turned out onto a platter, crumb-side up, each mussel emerges with it’s own crisply burnished cap, tender cooked mussel beneath – each a perfect bite of contrasts in texture and flavor.

This recipe prep time is undoubtedly a bit time consuming, yes, but the actually cooking takes just minutes. With a result so impressively delicious, rustic in character and just perfect to serve as antipasti with a fizzy prosecco, I encourage you to prepare Nina’s Mussels. And then you will again and again.

The recipe calls for the use of a non-stick pan, but I continually use my grandmother’s seasoned cast iron skillet with great success.

Click to Recipe for Nina’s Mussels

Above photographs shot by Ricky Rhodes at the studios of Kalman & Pabst

The stylist shoots the photographer.

What do you get when you combine a rhubarb fool with an Eton mess? You get a Rhubarb Foolish Mess, that's what! How perfect for an April Fool's day shoot.

Another delightful Sunday of test shoots at Kalman & Pabst Photo Group. I’ve been looking forward to working with Clarissa and her elegant touch with lighting for a long time. Spring sprung in the studio, and it tasted every bit as vibrant as it looks. #allnatural #realfood

Please click open the images for maximum viewing pleasure.

Fresh artichoke and Calabrian chile pie. Holy yum.

Salad of peas, pea leaves, pea shoots and carrots.

Assorted meringue ready to be crumbled and folded into soft cream and tangy rhubarb compote for the Foolish Mess.

I spent the better part of a recent weekend styling test shoots with Cleveland photographer Ricky Rhodes. We worked in the urban comfort of  Kalman & Pabst Photo Group. The shoot was natural ingredient and whole-foods focused, and we kicked the session off by by getting up close and personal with affable bunches of varicolored carrots from The Chef’s Garden.

The cooked presentation (did you know that carrots are more nutritious cooked than raw, and that cooking with oil increases the beta-carotene content?), is a simple roasted riff on Moroccan carrots. Whole spices, sea salt and oil are tumbled with the lengthwise-sliced carrots on a sheet pan  and set to roast. The warm flavors of exotic spices enhance and compliment the inherent sweetness of perhaps the most joyful of roots.

Filling in as baker at the adorable new Lemon Falls while the hunt for someone full-time continues. Hello, bakers…greater Cleveland area. Interested? Call and ask for Chef Karen.

Assisting Cleveland photo-stylist Melissa McClelland on Smucker’s shoots at the fantastic commercial photography studio of Kalman & Pabst.

*Eagerly awaiting the inaugural issue of edible Cleveland, which should hit the new stands this week. I penned a feature piece and am excited to finally see it in print. Feeling proud to be a part of the edible community.

It’s curiously summery weather in Cleveland, and I am not complaining!

*Received word that my sweet (wink, wink) piece has been cut from the spring issue of edible Cleveland, but will be a lead story for the summer issue. Proof positive that Cleveland is long overdue for their own edible publication – an over-abundance of wonderful content!