When I was a little girl, hominy (reconstituted dried corn), was something that came in cans, waiting for my mother to heat up in a pot on an occasional Saturday morning. She served the engorged soft kernels warm, in bowls with butter, salt and pepper – simple, on its own as one would eat a bowl of hot farina or oatmeal. There were both white and yellow hominy and I innocently believed the latter came already buttered in the container. Although I held no particular aversion towards the dish, I can’t recall ever going out of my way to purchase whole hominy once I was out of the house, and only was reminded of it’s existence on occasion via an order of posole, likely enjoyed somewhere in Mexico. Hominy struck me as a muted and understated  filler starch, and not as the shining ingredient, until the humble corn grit forced me to sit up and take notice several year’s ago during a meal at Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink in Miami.

A paper-lined bowl filled with hot and crispy fried hominy was sent out to a weary over-recipe-tested crew of us as a pre-dinner snack with cocktails. Tossed in a mixture that was sweet, salty and aromatically spiced, perked up and made puckery with a squeeze of lime, our greedy fingers made short order of those bronzed nuggets and I was hooked.

In Cleveland, at The Greenhouse Tavern, Chef Jonathan Sawyer puts his own spin on a fried hominy appetizer with the addition of those sticky-crunchy bits of similarly-fried pigskin. Salted, and woven through with tangles of pickled red onion, leaves of cilantro, slivers of scallion, surprise pockets of roasted jalapeno, and that welcome acidic splash of lime juice, make this one plate which is always difficult to keep my fork out of.

The combination of flavors and textures of The Greenhouse dish are reminiscent of  addictive Indian chaats, or something Southeast Asian snackish – tumbles of assertive bites which happen to pair perfectly with lager and ales. Inspired by Chef Sawyer’s dish, I’ve fashioned a version by playing up the Southeast Asian angle to great effect. Decidedly un-timid and most definitely addictive, as my son, Julian, stated, “This REALLY wakes you up!”

I reconstituted hominy from a bag of Rancho Gordo dried corn (one cup dried yields approximately 2 1/2 cups cooked). This requires an overnight soak in water, then a simmer for an hour – hour and a half. Chef Sawyer uses hominy drained from a can. Either way is suitable and delicious, just make sure the hominy is very well dried prior to deep frying to avoid splattering.

Thai Flavors Fried Hominy

Serves: 4-6 as an appetizer

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups cooked hominy (if canned, rinsed), drained and very well dried

*1 shallot, thinly sliced lengthwise (2-3 tablespoons), macerated in 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar and 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

**2 large scallions, thin bias cut

1 loose cup picked Thai basil leaves

1 or more fresh Thai chile, thinly sliced (use your own discretion – these little guys mean business)

Scant tablespoon kosher or sea salt

Heaping  tablespoon palm or unrefined cane sugar

Zest of one large lime, microplane-fine

Pastured lard for deep frying (if you are looking for vegetarian/vegan friendly, substitute coconut oil or ::insert your deep fry fat of preference:::, I’ve stated mine)

Lime wedges for serving (optional)

Cooking Instruction:

Heat oven to warm setting.

Set up a deep pot for  frying and begin to heat the lard to 375-400. Have a bowl ready for the hominy as it finishes frying.

Drain the sliced shallot and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the salt, palm sugar and lime zest. Rub the zest into the mixture with your fingers to infuse with the citrus oils.

When the lard reaches temperature, fry the hominy in batches until crispy – 3-4 minutes. Remove fried hominy to the waiting bowl with a Chinese wire strainer (my preferred utensil), or slotted metal spoon. Place in oven to keep warm while frying remaining hominy. Repeat until all hominy is fried. Season hominy with the salt/sugar/lime zest mixture  to taste – half may be all you need. Toss well to coat.

Add the drained shallot, scallion, Thai basil and chile(s). Toss to combine. Pour contents into serving bowl and enjoy hominy while warm.

*The Greenhouse Tavern is now producing their own house vinegars. I’ve been fortunate to sample the beer, red wine, white wine, rose´, garlic and apricot-sake results. I’m even luckier to have several of those in my cupboard, and used the white wine vinegar as part of the shallot maceration.

**In a dish like this, the cut of ingredients truly enhances the eating experience. It’s a great opportunity to practice knife skills. Slender bites of onion and chile are much more pleasant than less delicate pieces.

Food writer, Aleksandra Crapanzano, was inspired to write about the charms of Baked Hot Chocolate in The Wall Street Journal. Flattered and proud, I am, to have created a dessert which stands the test of time.

Article with recipe HERE.

A meal at Eleven Madison Park is captivating – an exquisite parade of culinary jewels to be savored mouthful by grinning mouthful, and the delight doesn’t stop when the last trace of dessert is cleaned from the plate. Guests are sent home with a jar of Chef Humm’s signature granola – intended, I presume, for the next day’s breakfast, although I definitely made a dent in mine on the cab ride home after an unforgettable dinner celebrating a friend’s birthday. Well, there was a fair lot of wine..and that wicked frozen slushy bourbon and concord grape spoonable libation…

A composition of sweet, tart and salty flavors delivered through crisp and chewy bites make this granola irresistible. Thank you, Chef Daniel Humm, for creating what might be the perfect formula for granola. I made a few customizations – not enough to reinvent the wheel, or to barely even loosen a bolt. Just minor tweaks to fashion the addictive mixture using what I keep on hand, and to edge up the nutrient content, since I can’t seem to keep my hands out of the granola jar.

The recipe is written with Chef Humm’s original list of ingredients; my slight changes and ingredient preferences are indicated.

Eleven Madison Park’s Granola (via Serious Eats)

Adapted by Heidi Robb

2 3/4  cups rolled oats (use gluten-free if that is your preference)

*1 cup shelled pistachios

1/3 cup raw pumpkin seeds

1 cup coconut unsweetened shaved coconut flakes (not shredded)

**1 tablespoon salt

***1/2 cup brown sugar

****1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/3 cup maple syrup, grade B is preferable

3/4 cup dried tart cherries

Preheat oven to 300. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silpat.

In a medium bowl, combine the oats, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, coconut flakes and salt.

In a small saucepan combine the brown sugar, olive oil and maple syrup. Over medium heat, cook, whisking until the sugar has dissolved. Pour over the oat mixture and stir to coat.

Spread the oat mixture over the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 40 minutes, or until lightly golden, stirring the mixture after 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool 10 minutes. Stir in the cherries. Cool completely before storing.

* I have been absolutely spoiled by the flavor and texture of Sicilian pistachios for use in cooking and baking – no other I’ve tasted compares. However, priced in the realm of 60.00 per lb., and the at the rate I can plow through this granola, Sicilian pistachios fall into the category of a luxury item.  I’m rarely without a stash of Freddy Guys Hazelnuts (Oregon filberts) – truly the king of hazelnuts. Meaty and sweet, the hazelnuts pair ideally with the gorgeous tart cherries, also sourced from Oregon. $12.00 per lb. makes this nutty choice palatable in every way. I’m sure almonds, walnuts or pecans would be tasty alternatives.

** For salt, I use unrefined sea salt.

*** I was thrilled to receive a bag of Rancho Gordo’s granulated piloncillo (the more familiar piloncillo cones are a bit of a pain to grate or grind), as a holiday gift. The smoky caramel and molasses flavor of this Mexican sweetener works beautifully here, and being an unrefined product, benficial trace minerals remain, making piloncillo a healthier sweetening option.

**** My go-to olive oil comes from Chaffin Family Orchards in California. I buy it by the gallon. Flavorful, yet soft enough to use as my “neutral” oil. That Chaffin oils are unrefined and grown and produced in a non-toxic, sustainable environment gives me extra reason to be happy with my purchases.

Shooting with the new Foodie pack for Hipstamatic.

Wiping down the last straggling crumbs from a six-week long Kitchen Boss season two, recipe test. I’ve been stuffed to the gills with tasty eats since the end of October – oof. Take a gander at that beautiful pie – look Ma, no wood burning or high-end oven at Pizzeria Heidi. One doesn’t need  pricey equipment to get the job done – solid technique and ingredients combined with practice, practice, practice with the equipment you have will assure kitchen successes.

Off to New York to wrap the job – ready and enthusiastic to connect with the colleagues I’ve been working with from remote.

Happy, peaceful and healthy holidays to you and yours.

- Heidi

Special thanks to Jessica Jerome for her invaluable kitchen assisting.

All I want is a yurt somewhere. Perched up high in the cold night air. With one enormous chair, oh! Wouldn’t  it be loverly?

As we ease into fall, the nights are cooler, yet the days are sunny enough to keep a dewey shimmer on the skin. The cooking in my kitchen is reflective of what is available with the seasons. I can’t get enough of the fantastic offerings from our farmer’s markets as my burgeoning refrigerator can attest.  Although figs are not a local crop, they are cropping up  by the boxful in grocery stores, full and sweet and priced well.

I couldn’t resist making a batch of these Figs Preserved in Honey & Bourbon. The jammy figs are glossed in a lush cloak full of heady vanilla and headier bourbon. Adding strips of lemon zest and a couple branches of rosemary to the simmering liquid provided both bright citrus and resinous nuances. As an accompaniment to a cheese plate, to roasted duck or pork, these figs are gorgeous, also as a simple dessert finished with a spoonful of soft cream or ricotta and chopped nuts. They made a fine topping to the maple syrup ice cream pictured below.

Confession: I have a beautiful new copper French preserve pot, or bassine a confiture. Apparently, I’ve had a beautiful new French copper preserve pot for well over a decade, picked up for a song at a house sale. At the time it was just an attractive container I spied, useful as an ice, beer and wine receptacle at parties. Then, not long ago, I read a book on jam and preserve making and realized the vessel’s true intended purpose- heeee. The pot and I are busy making up for lost time and are now preserving away. What, what? This girl came to canning and preserving late in life.

On one of the colder nights last week I was craving something sweet and soft and comforting. Ingredients were on hand to put together a sea-salty maple custard base with the intention of baking into creme caramels the next day. Said next day turned out to be a sweaty scorcher as I painted a set of weathered chairs while dodging yellow jackets on the patio. Meanwhile, the maple custard base thickened up to a silken texture overnight in the fridge and instead of baking, I poured it into the ice cream machine and soon had cold and luxurious maple ice cream; intensely flavorful maple syrup from farmer Floyd Davis of The Red Basket Farm.

Grabbing as much local garlic as I can because it is that much superior. Thaxton’s and Birdsong Farm have been keeping my garlic basket overflowing with plump heads of pungent garlicky goodness.

Plenty of that garlic finds its way into the stockpot. I’m happy that in addition to their whole birds and pieces, Tea Hills Farms has been bringing bags of chicken necks, backs and feet to market – all the better for a flavorful stock. Homemade poultry stock is my security blanket – there’s always a way to make a nourishing something out of nothing with stock in the house.

The visual of a pot of stock gently breaking bubbles for hours on end is a warming sight indeed, but if stovetop timing is impractical for your schedule, slide your pot into a 180 degree oven per Michael Ruhlman’s instructions.

I must have been channeling my Belorusian and Ukranian roots while composing this hearty salad of mixed sweet roasted local beets, whole buckwheat groats (kasha), roasted red onions and toasted walnuts. As a creamy and tangy counterpoint, I whisked together a dressing with goat milk kefir, pickle juice (from my homemade lacto-fermented garlic dills), olive oil, coriander seed, plenty of chopped fresh dill and crumbled Lucky Penny Farm and Creamery’s amazing goat milk feta. A salad so satisfying – and generous – that it provided me with at least several meals for the week.

Looking over the Chagrin Falls from this perspective, it’s a bit difficult to imagine there is a bustling Sunday farmer’s market to the left, and a Jeni’s Ice Cream shop to the right. Details are nicer when you click the photo open.

The August vegetable explosion is on! Tomatoes are ripe and richly flavored, squash is thin-skinned and tender. All are available in peak abundance at local farmer’s markets. This “soup” of vegetables simply stewed in their own juices cooks, as if by magic, with a simple layering of the ingredients in a pot. I culled this one from my mom’s recipe box – one I remember thinking was completely crazy – cooking lettuce – that’s salad! A crunchy head of Romaine is a key component as ninety five percent of the lettuce’s own bulk weight is water which supplements much of the broth. A dish that won’t whack you over the head with aggressive flavors, but will enchant you spoonful by spoonful with a colorful tangle of vegetables and a co-mingling of naturally sweet juices enhanced by a grace of salt.

Layered Vegetable Soup
(ever so very slightly) Adapted from Nika Hazelton’s Garden Vegetable Soup
Serves: 6

Ingredients:

2 cups sliced ripe tomatoes  - enough to cover the bottom of a 5-6 quart pot

2 cups onions thinly sliced

4 plump cloves garlic thinly sliced

2 cups small zucchini or yellow squash sliced 1/4″ thick

1 cup Romaine lettuce finely shredded

10 oz. package frozen peas (or two lbs. fresh shelled)

1 cup Italian parsley, chopped

1/4 cup torn fresh basil leaves

10 oz. package frozen lima beans (or 2 lbs. fresh, shelled)

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil (plus extra for finishing)

Salt to taste

Black pepper to taste

Chunk parmesan for grating (optional)

Spread tomatoes over the bottom of a 5-6 quart pot. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Top the tomatoes with the onions, then garlic and sprinkle lightly with salt. Add the zucchini and lightly salt. Top the zucchini with the lettuce followed by the peas. Sprinkle half of the parsley and all of the basil over the peas and sprinkle lightly with salt. Add the lima beans and the remaining 1/2 cup of parsley, lightly salt and drizzle the olive oil over the top. Cook, covered, over medium-low heat for twenty minutes, or until the vegetables start releasing their liquid (take care to moderate the heat level so the tomatoes do not scorch). Do not remove the cover at all for the first ten minutes.

Remove the cover and mix the vegetables well. Taste a slice of squash and determine if it is done enough for your liking. At peak season, the skin is tender and the squash cooks through quickly – same with the tomatoes. If the soup is done to your liking then you can stop here. If not, continue to cook, covered and low for another ten minutes or so until the vegetables are done enough for your taste.

Correct salt seasoning and grind in some fresh black pepper.

Serve hot, warm or at room temperature (my preference is for the two latter) with a drizzle of olive oil and a grating of parmesan.

This dish is best served on the first day, but subsequent second and third day rewarmings are tasty enough, too.

Summer is fleeting and peaches are ripe for the picking and eating. Out of hand, over the sink with sweet juices running down my chin and arm, sliced and steeped in a quenching peachy lemonade, or pureed and churned into cold ice cream. These are a few of the ways I’ve been indulging in the peaches I purchase at the farmer’s market from Woolf Farms. Last Sunday I was lucky to wrestle politely grab the last order of rosy Red Havens. Sweet, but not cloying with a welcome acid balance – perfect for roasting as to coax out the stone fruit’s natural sugars.

This may now be my favorite peach dessert. Ginger and peaches have a natural affinity for each other, and what doesn’t taste better with butter? A bit of salt elevates and intensifies the peach flavor, dark speckles of vanilla seeds add a deeper layer of nuance. I love basil with peaches, and the licorice-spiciness of this just-picked, tender leafed variety from Birdsong Farm holds its own beautifully with the zingy bathing of ginger. A cooling, creamy counterpoint is welcome, and I like mine in the form of a tangy cultured creme fraiche or Greek yogurt. A bit of texture and crunch comes from crushed amaretti cookies – almond being another magnetic attraction for peaches. No amaretti? Sliced or chopped toasted almonds are a superb option.

One single spoonful of this balance of flavors, temperatures and textures is guaranteed to send your mouth into a warming tizzy of late summer harvest madness, and compelling enough to ensure that the bowl will be licked clean. Mine was. Both of them.

Hot Buttered Ginger Peaches

Serves 4-6
Ingredients:

4 smallish firm-ripe, freestone peaches, pitted and cut into quarters

1/4  cup Ginger Syrup (see recipe below)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Good pinch of salt

1/2 moist vanilla bean, seeds scraped

Creme fraiche or Greek yogurt  - enough for dolloping

Fresh basil leaves

Crushed amaretti cookies or toasted almonds

Preheat the oven to 400. In an 8″ skillet, stovetop, heat the ginger syrup, butter, salt and vanilla seeds over a low flame, just until the butter is melted and all is swirled together. Arrange the peach quarters, one cut side down, on top of the syrup mixture.

Roast the peaches, center rack for twenty minutes. You can now opt to flip the peaches onto their opposite cut sides (which I do since I like to fiddle), or just baste and continue to roast another ten minutes. The peach skin should be a bit shriveled and the peaches softened, but not to a mushy texture. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for ten minutes before serving.

Spoon the warm peaches with puddles of pan juices into serving bowls. Top with dollops of yogurt, creme fraiche or sour creme. Add a few small leaves of torn fresh basil to each portion as well as a scattering of the crushed amaretti.

Ginger Syrup

This will make more than what you will need for the roasted peaches, which is wonderful. This syrup has become one of my kitchen staples. Think ginger lemonade, Moscow mules, as a glaze for pork or duck…

To juice the ginger, I take a quantity of fresh, unpeeled ginger, scrub it well in cold water, and trim free of any dried gnarly ends. Cut the ginger into chunks and press through a juicer.

The syrup ratio is one part ginger juice to two parts cane sugar. For the sake of a recipe:

1 cup fresh ginger juice

2 cups cane sugar

Combine in a jar and shake until the sugar is dissolved.

I’ve had several people ask if there is way to make ginger syrup in the absence of a juicer – yes. I’m providing the link to another recipe, one which has you simmer sliced ginger with sugar and water for a while, then straining out the ginger pieces. I’m sure the syrup is wonderful, albeit a bit tempered in taste from the fresh hot assertiveness of fresh ginger juice in the first recipe. Either way, the peaches in the buttery ginger syrup will taste amazing.

A honeybee sting nearly killed me when I was eight. It happened as I was running barefoot across a clover-scattered lawn to a neighbor’s house for a swim. I don’t recall much else – apparently I soon went into anaphylactic shock, passed out in the pool and woke up the next day at the same hospital where my dad worked as a surgeon. I had been drifting in and out of consciousness for over twenty four hours and my body was a mass of hives. I was exquisitely lucky to be alive.

When I recovered, I began receiving regular injections of bee venom from an allergist to build up desensitization in my body, and when that series was finished – maybe sometime during high school – I always carried an Epi-pen, JUST IN CASE.

After the bee sting episode, lingering physical contact, ingestion or inhalation of various matter triggered different levels of histamine reactions in my body. I could go months, perhaps a year and then, bingo, a wool sweater or blanket would bring symptoms. Penicillin and latex gave me hives. Morphine, caused anaphylaxis (I discovered this while on a drip immediately following my c-section I had to deliver my son). Sustained hand contact with citrus or tomatoes, or the eating of penicillin mold-inoculated cheeses, and drinking fine red wines resulted in painful weeping eczema. Various mold exposure, synthetic fragrance (over-sprayed Abercrombie and Hollister stores are the WORST perpetrators – just strolling past one makes me wheeze), and many cleaning supplies made my lungs and eyes itchy and constricted breathing. However, none of this occurred with any rhyme or regularity or reason – sometimes the triggers, um, triggered, and sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes food didn’t feel good to me when I ate, and other times it did – I wasn’t truly paying close attention to what I was eating and how it affected me specifically until maybe the last ten-fifteen years when I ate what I believed to be a “healthy” diet all of the time. All whole foods, which, of course,  included plenty of whole grains. Frequent episodes of irritating eczema, occasional histamine reactions and tweaky problems with respiration were simply a fact of life. I did notice that I felt most optimally nourished and well on days when I went grain free.

A couple of years ago after catering a party with Karen, my dear friend and colleague, I sat down and enjoyed a big bowl of an irresistibly tasty farro salad we had prepared. I remember how good it was, dappled with sweet roasted baby root vegetables, loads of fresh mint, pops of heat from slivers of fresh chiles, and hardy olive oil. A welcome bowl of heavenly comfort after  long days spent working on our feet. Sometime after falling asleep, I awoke in the middle of the night with both arms covered in blistering welts – pain so intense that I showed up at the dermatologist begging for a shot of cortisone as soon as the office opened the next day.

I stopped eating farro (because, I reasoned, I must only be allergic to farro), but continued to ingest wheat and other  grains, whole and refined. Grains always made my belly feel tight or bloated and my mind lethargic, but hey – they were whole, which supposedly best for you, and carbs made everyone bloated and sleepy – right?

Spring of ’10 brought the onset of constant, fiery pain in many of my joints. There was a debilitating frozen shoulder on one side. Knee and hip pain on the other. The shoulder was treated accordingly and thankfully, fully recovered, but the knee and hip pain remained. I chalked it up to wear and tear from decades of working in the restaurant and catering business, and age. I lived with nagging stiffness and pain and daily doses of Alleve as a pre-breakfast appetizer.

Earlier this summer I was stung by a wasp which had been hiding out inside the sleeve of a dress in my bedroom. Without hesitation I swallowed a benadry capsule. My Epi-pen was in hand, poised and ready. I sat and waited (which you absolutely should not do if you believe that you are allergic – immediately call 911). Was a wasp sting the same as a honeybee? I didn’t know. My breathing was steady and I remained calm. There weren’t any hives. I drove myself to an Urgent Care and thankfully, I was fine and promptly made an appointment to see an allergist – it had been years and it was long overdue to discover whether or not I had outgrown my known and potentially lethal allergies.

My doctor drew blood to check for the big culprits of honeybee (a wasp bite is not equivalent, I discovered), penicillin, and latex . He inquired about other things going on in my body and I started to both joke and complain about the joint pain. I think I’d better give you a series of scratch tests, just to check on some other hunches and possibilities. Sixty scratches and twenty minutes later we discovered that I am very allergic to wheat, particularly whole wheat. Very allergic to barley. *Corn, rye and hops, are not really my friends (it makes complete sense now why I was never much fun at keggers). He believed the joint pain to be attributed to those foods, that they cause inflammation in my body and result in an allergic arthritis. My entire history of allergies are interwoven, systemic, but it is now abundantly clear that my ingestion of particular grains are the foundation of the bulk of my allergic issues.

The great news? The pain quickly disappears with the removal of those grain culprits from my diet (it also reappears as soon as I tempt fate and eat them). I don’t require medication. Sleep is rich and breathing is deep. There is no postprandial lethargy or headache. My concentration is sustained and clear. Anxiety has abated. A side perk is that I’m most definitely leaner. The usual battery of triggers don’t fire as frequently, if much at all. This isn’t Celiac Disease – I am allergic to certain foods and eating them negatively affects my quality of life. It feels a bit insecure not to be carrying an Epi-pen, but the blood test results indicate that I am no longer allergic to honeybees, penicillin, morphine or latex.

Tonight I was craving pasta as a vehicle for lovely summer tomatoes, amazing Thaxton’s garlic, and a bit of creamy robiola cheese I found lurking in the cheese drawer. I opened a package of **corn spaghetti and set that boiling that while I sauteed the garlic in butter and olive oil, followed by the tomatoes, diced, just until the tomatoes began to soften, with a good pinch of salt. I tossed the pasta with some of it’s cooking water in the simple sauce, added plenty of snipped chives and tore the cheese into nubbins – better to melt, lush and tangy into the hot pasta. Tomatoes, butter and corn. Simple, and summer-satisfying. My belly and knees feel happy and I didn’t crash the way I always did after eating a pasta meal.

I tried a little bit of a gluten-free beer crafted by Green’s which was on the sweet side, but was not compelled to sip on more than a small glassful. My friend, Carol Blymire, has Celiac Disease. In addition to her acclaimed, Alinea at Home, she has started a wonderfully informative new blog, Gluten For Punishment, and recently gave a shout out to Bard’s Gluten-free beer. Hopefully, I’ll enjoy the Bard’s a bit more. If not, there’s always tequila-la-la. The 100% blue agave IS my friend.

*I don’t seem to get much reaction from cooked corn, only raw.

**The pasta was from BioNaturae, which I now see contains soy – a no-no for me for other reasons so I will not be using this pasta again.

At least that’s how it works in my house. It’s indulgent and special, a delectable treat. So give it your all, make it celebratory, in fact. Which means…

…beginning with the best chicken available – on the small side – around three pounds or under. I use a beautiful little bird from my favorite local poultry grower, Tea Hills Farm. Truly, when a bird is this fresh, no pre-seasoning or brining is necessary, but I do like to putter, so into the bowl go robust slices of Extra Hardy German White garlic from Thaxton’s, thyme sprigs from my herb pot, sea salt, sweet paprika ( bright and true tasting from Penzey’s, not the dullard powder of the ubiquitous red tin), the juice and zest of one lemon. Rub the lot well into the pieces of chicken. Chill overnight.

Next day (although this is often my starting point), rinse the chicken pieces in cold water and pat pat pat dry. Give them an overnight soak in a buttermilk bath, laced or not, with a sploosh of hot pepper sauce and more sweet paprika, a pinch of salt.

Bring the chicken to cool room temperature before frying. Generously season about two cups all purpose flour mixed with about a quarter cup of cornstarch with salt and pepper. Dredge each piece of buttermilkydrippy chicken in the seasoned flour and lay on a rack while heating the cooking fat to 340-350.

If I’m going to the trouble of making Once a Year Summer Celebratory Fried Chicken, you can bet that I’ll be frying that worthy bird in plenty of the best locally sourced leaf lard I can get my hands on. Thank you, Jessica.

It was quiet in the frying kitchen, just the bubble, gurgle and hiss of chicken magically turning a deep, crackling bronze on the exterior, while remaining tender and juicy on the interior. When the chicken reaches this stage of divine plucky perfection, remove and allow pieces to drain on cooling rack, salt to taste.

I set the table with her  great grandmother’s hand-embroidered Ukranian linens. The fried chicken was plattered and placed between us. Simplest Corn Pudding was scooped out of another smaller cast iron skillet, and freshly-squeezed lemonade, steeped with coral slices of local peaches was served with gingered simple syrup for sweetening. A lunch, a celebration, a feasting, the two of us. It isn’t everyday that your only daughter gets her driver’s license. Here’s to safe and steady, my love.