jen's blog

“Adam might be the fastest bread baker I’ve ever seen.” I am sitting on my kitchen counter, mashing butter into a hunk of rye bread.

My housemate B. nodded. “I think he bakes like a farmer”.

In a bright, airy kitchen that looks out on undulating pastures, Adam bakes German-style breads in a massive wood-fired oven. He moves quickly and smoothly, sliding loaves in and out of the 600 degree heat. I took 400 photos during two hours in the kitchen at Bread and Butter Farm, and Adam often appears as a streak, a blur in a blue shirt and red hat, swerving past loaves in crisp focus.

I chewed on the bread, thinking of the afternoon when I watched B., a farmer herself, plant our entire garden in 45 minutes of frenzied activity. She knows from farming. “That must be it,” I agreed. “Adam bakes like a farmer”.

And Bread and Butter Farm is aptly named. The farm store is lined with loaves of fresh bread, leaking steam, speckled with flour and seeds. A cooler is stocked with jars of raw milk from the herd of jersey cows grazing in the fields below, whose milk is a rich yellow topped with a generous line of cream. All of this- the farm, the bread, the milk- have a solid, sustaining quality to them. There is also a clean, simple aesthetic woven through the entirety of the beautiful working landscape that Adam, with partner Erik and co-farmers Corie and Chris, have created.

When I arrived at the farm on a chilly spring morning, Adam and Erik were shaping dough at an expansive table. The oven was a blistering 639 degrees when Adam swept the remaining embers with a long-handled mop. The fire had been burning since the day before, with 12 hours for the oven to “mellow”, for the heat to sink into the walls and distribute evenly to the farthest corners.

After the first loaves had finished their long proof, Adam slides them into the deep oven using a home made belt loader- a beautifully simple mechanical system for evenly and gently placing loaves in the oven. He lays the dough out on a kind of cloth conveyor belt, then draws it back, dotting the oven floor with floury rounds. Once the cycle begins, bread comes in and out every 6 minutes, and Adam lines the cooling racks with blistering hot loaves. Erik works in tandem, using a huge brush to sweep flour from the steaming rounds.

The timer counts down a final batch, and Adam dons a sturdy jacket, warm hat and rubber boots. If he bakes like a farmer, it’s for a good reason. Once the farm store shelves are lined with loaves, he heads to the milking barn, where huge-eyed dairy cows stand patiently under handpainted name tags. They have gently curved horns and glossy coats. As they emerge from the barn one by one, they turn curious looks in my direction, then trot ahead.

With coats in the same golden and nut brown hues of baking bread, the jersey cows file across the pasture. Adam, a baker and farmer, moves behind them, walking fast.

In addition to their amazing bread, milk, veggies, and meat, Bread and Butter Farm has a burger night with delicious food and music. Starting in May, they will add a Monday burger night- good news for Saturday morning bakers like me!

The town of Izamal is painted the same rich yellow that stains my palms after grinding achiote seeds for recado . Horse drawn carriages line up in the central square festooned with garish boughs and bouquets of plastic flowers. The tall windows of colonial houses are left open to the street, so while passing by we heard bits of music and conversation drifting from strangers' kitchens. Wandering past fruit sellers and cyber cafés, we turned a corner and came upon the wide base of a massive pyramid, so wide that from where we stood I could not see the top. A low fence seperates the ruins from the living town, a thin line between ancient stones and the hubbub of schoolchildren and bicycle taxis and blaring speakers.

I first tasted sikil p'ak at a tiny café in the square. It was not on the menu. The rich, nutty paste came in a small dish, accompanied by crisply fried wedges of corn tortillas. We were the only customers, and as we nibbled our antojitos and drank tall glasses of cold tamarind juice, a young man arrived on a motorbike carrying a steamy bag full of the fresh tortillas we would eat with our meal.

In Yucatec Maya, p'ak are tomatoes, and sikil are squash seeds, what Spanish speakers call pepitas . These are ancient foods here. Pre-Colombian codices depict the plants, which can also be spotted in the small kitchen gardens that abut rural homes. Painted stucco at ruins show women grinding corn and seeds in stone molcajetes like those that many modern Mayan cooks use each day for food preparation.

In sikil p'ak, squash seeds are ground into a smooth paste, then pounded with charred tomatoes, roasted onion, garlic, and cilantro. The result is like a vegetarian paté- rich, smooth, and fully flavored. On a recent night in Vermont, I tried to recreate the flavor that has lingered in my mind since Izamal. With each ingredient, I nibbled a bit of the chunky paste, and as I added more cilantro, or a squeeze of lime, the taste came into focus, and with it the colors and smells of that turmeric-colored town. This is one to try.

Sikil P'ak.

Make this in a molcajete if you're feeling patient, but if you're feeling hungry, a food processor works great.

2 cups pepitas
¼ of a white onion, left whole and held together at the root
2 cloves garlic
3 tomatoes, or 12 ounces of fire-roasted canned tomatoes, if it's March in Vermont
¼ cup fresh cilantro leaves
1 jalapeno (optional)
salt and lime to taste

In a heavy skillet over medium heat, toast the pepitas until the are fragrant and nutty smelling, and just beginning to brown. Set aside to cool. On a comal, or a cast iron pan, dry roast the ¼ onion and unpeeled garlic cloves until they have blackened somewhat on the outside, let them cool, then peel and roughly chop. If you are using fresh tomatoes, char them on a well-seasoned cast iron skillet, or on a grill. Let cool, then chop roughly.

Blacken the optional jalapeno over a gas flame, then let cool in a small covered bowl. Scrape the black skin off with a knife, then cut in half and remove the seeds.

In a food processor or molcajete, grind the peptitas until they form a smooth, thick paste. While still grinding, add the tomatoes a bit at a time so that the liquid emulsifies in the oils of the seed paste, giving the mixture a whitish color. Add the onion, garlic, cilantro and chile and continue grinding until they're completely incorporated. Add salt and lime to taste, adding only enough lime to balance to flavors- the citrus should not be pronounced.

Serve with chips, as they do in Izamal, or spread on sandwiches, crackers, toast, tacos, eggs... It turns out that sikil p'ak is good on everything.

On the Saturday afternoons when they make pibi pollo to sell in town, Rafael and Elia cook together in their small, airy kitchen. The stripped-pole walls filter light onto a packed dirt floor. The posts provide storage for cook pots, woven baskets, vivid cloth, and bundles of onions trussed with sisal. A cloud of nervous chickens drifts around the perimeter, tangling with wiry dogs and children. Clusters of beans dangle above the cook fire.

Elia is the family matriarch, but the kitchen is Rafael's domain. With a perpetual smile and the enthusiasm of true gourmand, he flourishes pans and swipes his finger through bubbling sauces. Like many in the Yucatán, he is an impeccable host.

He served me a plate of fried pork and onions before the gate swung closed. The family joined me at the table: Rafael, Elia and several of their 24 children and grandchildren. Moments later, another son arrived on a bicycle carrying a steaming bundle of paper-wrapped tortillas.

We ate slowly, talking, using tortillas as utensils to scoop up the meat. Rafael passed a small bowl of crushed habanero peppers and poured me a glass of coke. When I finished eating, his twenty year old son offered me more; I thanked him but refused, stuffed. Rafael frowned and cleared his throat.

“Guests are like Gods!”, he announced. “You don't make an offering, then ask if the God wants some more. They won't answer”. He seized the metal spoon from the pot. “You just make the offering”. He piled my bowl high, once more.

Mexico's pasteleras fill their glass cases with extravagantly gaudy sweets. Meringues the color of Barbie's Dream House. Dumplings that are fried, then dunked in sweet syrup, rolled in sprinkles, coconut, chocolate, and fondant icing: bright pink. Mexican confections are not for the weak of tooth.

In Yucatán, one classic treat is mazapán, a marzapan-like sweet made not from almonds but from semillas de calabaza, squash seeds. The flavor of the seeds is rich and nutty with a hint of bitterness that takes the edge off their considerable sweetness. They are ground, then mixed with sugar and a bit of cinnamon, then formed into dozens of bite-sized shapes. Tuná, the fruit of the nopal cactus, is painted pink and green. Maize appears everywhere. At one booth at the mercado central in Campeche, I spotted rompope, plantains, and fat orange carrots. The pasteleras of Valladolid opt for animal shapes: colorful tortoises, hens, puppies and brilliant fishes with cross-hatched gills

Mazapán is incredibly labor intensive. The semillas have to be soaked, dried, and hulled before they're ground. Every single seed. The pasteleras laughed when I asked how long it takes to make them. Bastante tiempo. Lots.

Curious to learn the technique, I asked each woman how they'd learned to make mazapán. The answer was unvarying. Mi abuela, mi abuelita. In every town, every time I asked the question, the pasteleras of the Yucatán said the same thing: they'd learned from their grandmothers.

I am the lookout, perched on the front of a three-wheeled trici traveling down a dirt road in Pomuch. Rafael is pedaling. His head swivels from side to side. We are on the hunt. He is a gregarious and enthusiastic gourmand, who spent the day cooking and sharing recipes, including this one for a free-range meat source: iguana. This is what he told me:

1) Attrapelo! First you have to catch it. Find the iguana's hole, and you set up a wire, a noose around the hole. Then you wait, wait, wait for the iguana to come out. Then you grab it! Squeeze it tight, though, because iguanas like to fight.

Or, if you don't want to wait, you take your ule, your slingshot, and you take a rock and tak! You better hit it in the head, too.

2) Matelo! Kill it.

3) Quemelo! You take the iguana like this, and you lay it in the fire, until the skin is all burned and you can scrape it off. You see?

4) Abrelo! Cut him like this- slowly draws hand from throat to navel- like you were performing an operation.

5) Cortelo, y Salelo! Chop your iguana into several large pieces. Salt to taste.

6) Cocinelo! Oh, you can put the iguana in a delicious soup, with onions and chiles, or if you want to you can fry it in oil, then squeeze a little lime on top! So good! You can put it in tamales, or in stew. Anything!

“There, there's one!”. Rafael waves his hand towards a pile of rocks. I missed it entirely. We turn around, approaching slowly, silently. To no avail. The iguana has retreated to the safety of his hole. “Be-ey”, Rafael sighed in Mayan: that's the way it goes.

Note: Wondering what to do with the moles that are tearing up your garden? Rafael recommends serving them in adobo sauce.

Aside from a startling number of bakeries, there's not much to do in Pomuch, but there's plenty to look at. I had come for the pan de pomuch -more on that later- and after meeting the bakers I took a slow wander down the town's main street. The hot, hard-packed dirt road was dotted with sleeping dogs. Men relaxed in the shade, shirts rolled up to their armpits. Groups of students in neat school uniforms crowded onto the benches in the central plaza. A few vans passed, and the streets were crowded with trici-taxis, bicycles that have been chopped and welded onto two-wheeled benches with bright awnings and curtains.

In front of one house I spotted a hand-lettered sign advertising Tamales de Holoch. I pushed past the metal gate, which opened onto an lush courtyard and a traditional thatched wood home. A woman appeared in the doorway and gestured for me to follow her inside, where she sat at a small table loaded down with bowls of food.

Gérard Rubaud's bakery is perched at the top of a swooping road overlooking the Westford valley. Concerned about the two black labs that circled my car as I crested the hill, I hesitated at a crucial moment, then retraced my tracks in reverse before taking another shot. The drive continued upward, between undulating walls of stacked firewood.

The interior of the low wooden building where Gérard works is filled with burnished golds and warm browns that conjure bread's wheaten hues. The walls are lined with wood and the shelves with cookbooks. A battered Larousse Gastronomique sits on the expansive surface of a work table. The windows frame a grey and snowless landscape; its harsh lines underscore the glowing warmth inside the room. Smiling, Gérard comments that “this is a church of baking!”, and it's true. As his hands have shaped many thousands of loaves, baking shapes his life. He follows the nocturnal schedule of his lévain, a carefully nurtured wild yeast culture. When I arrived late in the morning, he was preparing his final batch of loaves, ending a work day that had started at 10:30 the night before.

I turned 25 in Wisconsin's moist August heat, when summer storms rumble in on steaming afternoons, cooling the air. We ate on the back porch by a gnarled apple tree, while mosquitoes buzzed halfheartedly, dazed by the sun. Daniel's parents made a feast, which we ate with beloved friends. Pork loin marinated in sour cherry juice, salad and corn, cold beer. After the meal, guitars came out, as did this miraculous cake. Four moist layers chock full of poppyseeds, enclosing sweet vanilla custard and slathered in a luxurious pile of whipped cream.

After digesting a while, we piled in the car and drove to Pulaski for our second consecutive day of their Polka Days festival. Four stages, each with a live polka band. Refreshments included bratwurst, blood soup and Milwaukee's best beer. We danced up a storm that night, heels flying, sweating buckets, swinging in circles on increasingly treacherous dance floors.

We came home exhausted, and headed straight for bed. Mostly. I hesitated just a moment before the fridge, contemplating the last slice of cake. Well, I thought, it is my birthday, after all.

Check out the recipe for this amazing cake, after the jump.

When I stepped into Krin’s bakery kitchen, I immediately thought of the Keebler elf commercials that made me drool as a seven years old. I’ll explain. Those commercials imagined a world where grocery store cookies are made by charming creatures in hollow forest trees, who lovingly dunk each one in chocolate before sending them to the neighborhood Walmart. Of course, those Fudge Stripe cookies are made by factories in towns like Cincinatti, Ohio, and if anyone touches them at all, you can bet it’s a full grown shift worker.

Krin’s deliciously almondy, salty, chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons are for sale in stores all over this area. While she is known to many, I bet the average customer hasn’t seen her kitchen, in a charming farmhouse at the foot of the Green Mountains. It is every bit as magical as the fictional elf tree. When I stepped inside and got a whiff of the warm, chocolaty air, I thought ,“Really? C’mon.”. Four friendly, lovely women stood at a counter in the spacious kitchen. Irish tunes played softly while they took one macaroon after another, and, well... lovingly dunked them in chocolate. Really. The wooden cabinets glow golden in the morning light. The windows look out towards Camel’s Hump, and the rolling racks are filled with tray after tray of macaroons.

Sometimes, the food on our store shelves really does come from enchanted places. It’s nice to know, and adds a little extra savor to the macaroon that I’m nibbling along with my tea. As head cartoon elf J.J Keebler is fond of saying, it’s “uncommonly good”.

Find a list of stores that carry Krin's treats at her Bakery Website

I'm back on the horse, testing recipes for local restaurant A Single Pebble, after my last experiment ended in in hilarity and goop; while staying with my in-laws in Wisconsin, I made a Five Spice Flourless Chocolate Cake, then fell down the stairs while carrying the just-glazed confection to the basement fridge. There was cake on the wall and cake on the carpet, but mostly there was cake ALL over me. It exploded, but as my gracious Mother-in-law Mary assured me while scooping some off the floor, it was also delicious.

Putting that behind me, here's a lovely black sesame cake that I made last night for friends, which we ate over games and conversation on a wet, sleety evening. I got the recipe from Alice Medrich's wonderful book "Pure Dessert", and loved the moist texture, the nubbly crunch of black sesame seeds, and the rich flavor that this cake gets from toasted sesame oil. A keeper! Try the recipe, after the jump.