A Buffet for Hungry Gardeners

Beginning last September, I've been involved with a small group of avid gardeners and volunteers forming a group called D.C. Urban Gardeners. It was pretty much a club of six, until I went online one day recently and advertised for new members on just about every listserv I could find here in the District of Columbia.

Last time I checked, or membership had passed the 120 mark. To get a little better acquainted, I threw a brunch over the weekend and about a dozen people responded. (Don't know what the other 100 folks were doing that day, or how anybody passes up free food. But a dozen is manageable for a buffet.)

The trick is not to get terribly stressed out over these things because after you've calculated the food, you still have to figure on beverages and setting up drinking glasses, perhaps making coffee, pulling plates and silver, cleaning the house, sprucing up the garden, tidying up the deck. And then there's the cleanup afterward...

In other words, the food is just the half of it.

The salad was a cinch. I have 15 varieties of lettuce growing in the front yard and they're all ready to bolt. I gathered up and cleaned a tub full of lettuce and it occurred to me that figs had made their appearance at the local Whole Foods. So it became a salad of greens with figs, shaved fennel and feta cheese, dressed with a vinaigrette from that chive vinegar I'd put up so many weeks ago (remember?) and juice squeezed from a leftover half an orange.

I had a big jar of quinoa staring at me from the pantry, so I cooked some of that and blanched some carrots and peas and tossed in some thinly sliced red onion, lemon juice and extra-virgin olive oil for a simple pilaf.

Gotta have eggs with brunch, right? Some parsley and mint from the garden, a little crumbled goat cheese and--voila--an easy, delicious frittata (no comments, please).

And for something with just a bit of sweetness to it, our famous creamy scones with raisins, dried blueberries and dried cranberries.

The best part, most of this was made the day before, so I could save part of my morning for the usual weekend running around, such as responding to a phone call from one of my daughter's teachers, who was unexpectedly stranded with a cooler full of food she was supposed to deliver to the National Mall, where my daughter was performing in a children's festival, and was there any possible way I could pick her and the cooler and an armful of beverages up and deliver them to where they needed to be....

I should also not forget to mention that this Sunday marked the first time our salad greens appeared in an official farmer's market. Up to now, I've been hauling our produce down the hill to our daughter's charter school and setting up a small, one-man vegetable stand to raise money for seeds. But a new farmer's market started recently near my sister's house in the Bloomingdale neighborhood here in the District of Columbia and our friends at the 7th Street Garden agreed to sell my bags of salad mix.

(I wonder how they did?)

But, back to the gardeners brunch. This being the first time we'd met, I wasn't sure quite where we were headed with this. But I detected quite a lot of interest in agitating on behalf of environmentally friendly gardening, greener development practices and such. One attendee was a bit disappointed. All she wanted was some advice on how to build a garden in her front yard. But not to worry, we can do that, too.

By popular demand, we then took a quick tour of the "farm" out front, where the cucumbers and pole beans are beginning to climb my improvised trellises and the Italian squashes are stretching out quite impressively. We stopped for a long while over the compost heap and the local gardening magazine editor revealed that the funny plant with the orange trumpet flowers climbing all over the neighbor's fence is the same cross-vine--bignonia--that I'd ordered all the way from someplace in Ohio for the garden at my daughter's charter school.

Turns out bignonia runs rampant right in my own yard--I attack it regularly with the lawn mower--and plants from cuttings quite easily.

I knew there was a reason we were having this brunch...

Photos by Robin Buck

Catered Brunch

One of our best friends is the dean of a very progressive law school here in the District of Columbia and each year my wife and I try to do our part for the cause by donating a catered event to the annual school auction.

More specifically, we donate our time preparing and serving dinner for eight. The auction winner pays for groceries and beverages.

In the past, the high bidder has been another friend who knows he can torment us by stretching the meaning of "dinner for eight" into a fabulous feast for a house full of his other friends.

Last year the winners of the auction item were a couple very prominent in the law school community. And I would be speaking of this particular meal in the past tense (since the auction was held more than a year ago) except that mostly what we've done with this couple for the past 14 months is exchange a lot of phone messages.

In fact, this particular donation has dragged on for so long that we stipulated in this year's auction that the offer of our services is valid for no more than one year. How else to keep these donated events from hanging over our heads like a death sentence?

This particular auctioned dinner has turned into a Sunday brunch for eight and it looks as though it actually will take place this week. So I thought I would share the menu, just to give an idea how a small-scale caterer approaches a seasonal Sunday brunch for a fairly intimate group.

I have many objections to the way catering menus are designed, some of which I may get into another time. Mostly, caterers pay no attention to the seasons and are simply trying to impress with culinary pyrotechnics. Trendiness drowns out all sense of functionality. The menus look like something straight out of a wet dream at Bon Appetit magazine, with simplicity, seasonality and good taste thrown by the wayside.

I look at menu designing as an opportunity to fit the food to the season, the client and the occasion. Also you have to consider the portability of the food, whether it will stand up to re-heating or requires cooking a la minute (hopefully not). Ease of handling and predictability of the end result are equally important factors.

Then you have to add all the knowns about what foods work with crowds. For instance, not everyone likes lamb--too gamy (shocking, I know). Some people will not eat chicken thighs (even though all the flavor is in the thighs). And you have to watch the heat factor in "spicy" foods (not something we need concern ourselves with when cooking for our own friends).

An artful caterer will manage to put all this together and still come out with a menu that looks just right for the time, the place and the client. It might not be what I would serve in my own home. Then again, I'd wager that most caterers rarely if ever cook in their own home.

So I unveil this brunch menu intended for a lovely Spring Sunday near the Chesapeake Bay. And while you are looking it over, I will be dialing up some lovely Spring weather to go with it....

Champagne, Mimosas and Fresh Orange Juice

Poached Salmon Steaks w/ Dill Sauce

Local Asparagus w/ Chive Vinaigrette

Celery Root Remoulade

Quinoa Pilaf w/ Peas & Fava Beans

Salad from Our Garden w/ Shaved Fennel & Fresh Goat Cheese

Strawberry Trifle

Chilaquiles Smackdown

Three years ago my wife and I made one of our regular pilgrimages to Mexico and discovered chilaquiles. The vacation soon turned into a daily quest for breakfast so that we could eat more of our new favorite Mexican food.

If you have never heard of chilaquiles, it is what Mexicans do with their leftover tortillas. Since tortillas are a factor at virtually every meal in Mexico, leftovers are not uncommon. You cut the tortillas into pieces, fry them (traditionally in lard), then smoother them in a piquant red or green sauce with some white onion, then garnish this mash with fresh cheese (queso fresco), sour cream (crema) and cilantro. Some people like eggs with their chilaquiles, others prefer chorizo sausage. The be-all and end-all of chilaquiles is the melding of the sauce with the cheese and the crema, the texture of the onion complimenting just a bit of chew from the fried tortillas as they begin to soak up the sauce. This makes recycling old tortillas seem like a genius idea.

Throughout Mexico you will see chilaquiles on the brunch menus at big hotels, as well as in the food stalls or "fondas" in the local markets. Like hashed browned potatoes, there are terrific versions of chilaquiles and others that find any number of ways to fail. Some bad chilaquiles are made with the kind of tortilla chips out of bag that you would normally use to dip into salsa. Another version I don't care for cooks the tortillas in the sauce until they become a porridge. This year we experimented, making some chilaquiles with packaged tostados from the grocery store. They were not nearly as good as the ones we make with tortillas we fry ourselves.

A good batch of chilaquiles has just enough chew to make the teeth moan with pleasure. So simple, so good. We had to have more when we got home from Mexico, so we started an annual (sometimes) chilaquiles brunch with our friends Keith and Janice. Like us, they are wild for traditional ethnic foods and there are few places they haven't traveled. Keith makes the green sauce for the brunch, while Janice prepares her famous frijoles, or well-fried beans. I handle the red sauce, the chorizo and the condiments.

This year we were 16 people at the brunch. It all happens very quickly. You spread some oil in the bottom of a frying pan, saute the onions briefly, then pour in some sauce and mix it up with the fried tortillas. Just as the chips begin to wilt you dump the mix onto a buffet platter and invite guests to start making their own plates. Meanwhile, Keith and I were poaching eggs and serving those as well.

This is comfort food no one can resist. The only thing we plan to do differently next year is poach the eggs ahead and simply reheat them. That will eliminate some of the stress.

Here are the basic procedures to feed 16 persons:

To fry the tortillas, figure three tortillas per person and purchase the appropriate bag of 5-inch corn tortillas at the grocery. Slice the tortillas into 1 1/2-inch pieces (use a serrated bread knife to slice a stack of tortillas into four sections, then rotate the stack 90 degress and slice into threes). If using lard, cover the bottom of a heavy frying pan with 1/2 inch of melted lard, then fry the tortillas in batches till golden. Drain on paper towels. If your friends are vegetaran, use vegetable oil. You can also fry the tortillas in your deep fat fryer.

For the red sauce:

4 tablespoons lard or vegetable oil

1 white onion, peeled and diced small

3 cloves garlic, peeled, crushed and roughly chopped

1 28-ounce can plus 1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes, with juice

2 chipotle chilies in adobo

1 cup chicken stock or broth

2 teaspoons dried epazote (or substitute 2 teaspoon dried oregano, preferably Mexican)

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1 bay leaf

Heat 2 tablespoons lard or oil in a heavy pot or Dutch oven. Saute onion and garlic until onion is soft, about 10 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and cook about 1 hour. Remove from heat. Remove bay leaf. In batches, mix sauce in blender until smooth. Rinse out cook pot.

Return pot to stove and heat remaining 2 tablespoons lard or oil. Pour sauce into oil and stir to blend. Cook until sauce has reduced slightly and is thick like a pasta sauce. (Cooking sauces in oil is traditional in Mexico.) Set sauce aside until ready to use. Can be made several days in advance.

For the green sauce:

2 1/2 pounds fresh tomatillos, husks removed, cleaned

4 tablespoons lard or vegetable oil

1 medium white onion, peeled and diced small

3 cloves garlic, chopped fine

3 Serrano chilies, seeds removed, chopped fine

½ cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro leaves

2 teaspoons dried epazote (or substitute 2 teaspoons dried oregano, preferably Mexican)

salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Arrange tomatillos on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Place in oven and roast 45 minutes, or until tomatillos are soft.

Meanwhile, in a sauté pan over medium-low heat, sweat the onion, garlic and Serrano chilies in 2 tablespoons lard or vegetable oil until onions are soft, about 10 minutes. Spoon into a food processor with cooked tomatillos, and cilantro. Pulse to a coarse puree.

Over moderately high heat, heat remaining 2 tablespoons lard or vegetable oil in a heavy skillet. Pour in pureed sauce. Add epazote. Cook vigorously until thick, about 5 minutes. Season with salt as needed. Remove from heat and reserve.

To serve the chilaquiles, have plates and condiments ready. In addition to the queso, crema, cilantro, chorizo, refritos and eggs, you can also display chopped lettuce, diced tomato, avocado--whatever you like.

You will also need one or two white onions, thinly sliced, to finish the cooking.

Coat a pan with lard or vegetable oil and, over moderatly high heat, toss in a fistful of white onion slices and cook just a minute or two. Then add about two cups of sauce and continue cooking until it begins to bubble. Add enough tortilla chips and mix well. There should be just enough chips, and just enough sauce, so that the mixture is wet, but the chips are not swimming in sauce.

When the chips begin to soften, quickly transfer them to a platter so that guests can dig in and add condiments as they choose. Great with Mexican beer or Bloody Marys--or try making Bloody Maria's, substituting Tequila for vodka and spicing it with cumin.