A Fish out of Water

We're all creatures of habit for the most part, aren't we?

I know I am. When I get in the kitchen, I expect things to be in a certain location and when they are not, it throws my game off.

Off my game is how I felt the first time trying to cook in our new kitchen, a fish out of water.

A simple case in point: in our last two kitchens, the knives lived in a knife block on the counter next to the cutting board, easily within reach when needed. Trying to declutter our new island, I purchased an in-drawer knife block that lives in the righthand island drawer. After years of reaching for knives on top of the counter, now they're hidden away in a drawer, neither good nor bad, just different, a confounding of muscle memory.

And so it went while cooking in the new kitchen for the first time last week. Things were not where my body thought they ought to be based on muscle memory, despite when designing the kitchen, my visualizing the new location of the items that we most often use. Visualization is part and parcel of my being: every night at the restaurant, when I was actively cooking as opposed to expediting, I would cook (my part of) each dish in my head while standing at my station, ensuring that each tool and ingredient was exactly where I expected it. Efficiency is, after all, born of familiarity and organization.

Despite all the time that I spent visualizing where things would go in the new kitchen, that did not mean that I had considered everything, or that everything would fit where I thought it should go, or even that my body would automatically reach for something where it was hiding. Cooking the first meal in this kitchen reminded me of cooking as a guest chef in somebody else's restaurant. I would always feel a bit helpless in not knowing where anything was. I'm sure if you've ever cooked at somebody else's house, you can relate.

Though it was awkward reaching for the salt, a tasting spoon, or a towel and not finding it right away, it was still a blast to finally cook a meal after a month and a half with no kitchen, even if I had no clue how to work the stove controls. It won't take long to build new habits and muscle memory in our new kitchen and I am looking forward to no longer feeling like a fish on dry land.

Arugula, Tomatoes, Goat Cheese, and Marcona Almonds
with Tomato-Hazelnut Vinaigrette

Pasta with Chicken Confit and Sugar Snaps in Garlic-Thyme Cream;
Crispy Chicken Skin

Brebirousse d'Argental Cheese with Persimmons,
Chipotle-Tangerine Marmalade, and Rosemary Caramel

King Salmon with Persimmon-Pomegranate Salsa

There's a lot to love about fall. It's the season when some of our more interesting fruits such as persimmons and pomegranates ripen. I love both fruits and when I saw them appear in our store for the first time since last year, I bought some of each with no particular plan for using them. I knew in time that they would speak to me and when I came across a nice piece of king salmon, I thought that two somewhat unusual fall fruits would make a great salsa. I was right: it made a bright, crunchy, sweet-tart counterpoint for an unctuous piece of fish.

King Salmon with Persimmon-Pomegranate Salsa

I must say that modern improved sweet and seedless cultivars of persimmon are a far cry from the wild persimmons I used to devour as a child in Virginia. An inveterate roamer of the woods and fields near our property in the rolling hills at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains, I knew where every pomegranate tree was within five miles of our house. And I would keep an eye on the fruit as it developed, knowing that the horribly astringent fruit was no good to eat as a rule until after the first frost. Then I had to battle the deer, the wild turkeys, and other smaller creatures for the tiny fruits that are night and day different from their grocery store counterparts today.

In my adult years, I now know time, not frost, is responsible for turning these delicious fruits sweet, golden, and soft. The frost notion was an old wives' tale, a handy rule for approximating when the fruits would be ripe.

Persimmon-Pomegranate Salsa Ingredients

Persimmon-Pomegranate Salsa

Pan-Searing Asparagus for Salmon Garnish

Here's a useful technique for cooking many vegetables on the stove top. You can sear them, like the asparagus above, in a heavy pan with no liquid whatsoever, right on the stove. For thicker vegetables, if you need to move along their cooking, you can splash the pan with a touch of water which will flash to steam and help steam the vegetables as they pan roast.

Persimmon-Pomegranate Salsa

This salsa, while made with somewhat unusual ingredients, follows my tried and true salsa formula of a fruit (or two!), an onion, cilantro, salt, some spice, and lime juice. How much of each ingredient you use is up to you and certainly the amount of lime juice could vary significantly based on how sweet your persimmons are.

2 persimmons, diced
1 pomegranate, seeded
1/2 bunch of green onions, chopped
1/2 bunch of cilantro, leaves only, chopped
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt or to taste

1 tablespoon chipotle adobo or to taste 

juice of half of a lime or to taste

Don't forget plenty of salt. Not only does salsa depend on the interplay between salt and lime juice, but salt will make the super-sweet persimmon better, in the same way that adding a bit of salt to almost any dessert will improve it.

Picnic at Sky Meadows

Sky Meadows State Park is a jewel of a small park about 20 minutes from Winchester and nestled up on the eastern flanks of the Blue Ridge in Fauquier County. I had intended to take Ann there on our very first date three years ago, but the weather did not cooperate and we enjoyed our picnic at the island in her (now our) kitchen. Ann's been on some meds recently that preclude her drinking any alcohol—poor dear—so I decided that this just might be the weekend to go to the park, where alcohol is prohibited.

View from Overlook, Just Below Appalachian Trail

We hiked from the parking lot, proving to ourselves just how out of shape we are, up to the overlook just below the Appalachian Trail. Two days later, my calves are still sore!

Splendid Dogwood, the Only Trees Turning Color

On the way up through the cow pasture, we took breaks at opportune locations including by this gorgeous dogwood. Dogwoods are the only trees turning color now, though some persimmons in other locations were showing a flash of red. Poison ivy is turning red now as are sumacs, but there are no sumacs up at this elevation.

Bumper Crop of Persimmons This Year

The chef in me is always excited about wild edibles and I couldn't resist showing Ann all the good things to eat on the way up to the top. Persimmons were everywhere and the crop of pawpaws is good as well. We've been serving pawpaws at the restaurant for about three weeks, but none of these at elevation were yet ripe. We also saw lots of rose hips, black walnuts, and hickory nuts just screaming to be foraged.

Lots of Pawpaws This Year Too, Alas None Ripe

Ann and Mystery Flower

During our drive out, we passed big fields of goldenrod in all their fall glory and as we got closer to the park, big fields of another golden flower that I couldn't recognize from a distance. We got up close and personal with it at the park and it looks for all the world like a Helianthus, a sunflower, similar to a Jerusalem artichoke, but with a different flower.

Olive Oil, Focaccia, Olli Calabrese, Boerenkaas, Figs