E4

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Finally, I decided to wrestle with a crock

by Joe Yonan

I know, I know: You slow-

cooker devotees can make any- thing in it, can’t you? That’s the line, anyway. Forget

COOKING FOR ONE

the

soups and stews, you say;

time to move on to risottos, cus- tards, overnight oatmeal, lasa- gna. When I recently tweeted news of my early success at a slow-cooker experiment, one lo- cal food blogger fired back: “You can do better than chickpeas, try Peking duck.” No matter how much I’ve heard about the versatility of slow cookers, two issues have kept me from buying one — until recently. One, of course, is about timing. When I first looked at slow-cooker recipes, as a teen- ager, I guffawed: Who could pos- sibly wait six hours for soup? These days, I’m more likely to find that the device doesn’t cook slowly enough. Who could pos- sibly make it home from work in just six hours? The other is their size. The ap- pliances seemed so family-ori- ented that I doubted one could fit my single-guy lifestyle. I’ve gone on record as saying how much I like variety in my diet, something that prevents me from properly appreciating huge amounts of leftovers.

The latter difficulty has been easier to overcome than the for- mer. Slow cookers now come in capacities as small as 11

⁄2

-quarts,

and authors such as Beth Hen- sperger have put them through their paces. A few years ago, Hen- sperger expanded (or contract- ed?) on her previous work by writing “Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook for Two” (Har- vard Common Press). The cook- book also works for singles like me who appreciate having the makings of an extra meal or two. Hensperger’s smaller-scale recipes prompted me to take the plunge, but I just couldn’t decide which size to buy. Finally, I decid- ed not to decide: I bought one with multiple stoneware inserts (two-, four- and six-quart), allow- ing me the flexibility of cooking for just me, for a party of eight or for anything in between. But still, what to cook? The

hours, making it something I might concoct on a weekend. And, in that case, why would I need a slow cooker at all? Beans turned out to be the

⁄2

risotto featured on Hensperger’s cover is beautiful and bright: cer- tainly not what you’d expect from a slow cooker. But it takes a mere

21

sweet spot where my appetite best overlaps with the slow cook- er’s talents. Chickpeas, for one, take at least a couple of hours on the stove top when you start with dried, depending on their age.

They and other legumes, which benefit from slow, even heat, are made for the crock, and vice ver- sa. Rick Bayless includes a bean recipe among a handful of show- stopping slow-cooker ideas in his “Mexican Everyday” (W.W. Nor- ton, 2005), and even bean guru Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo fame cooks them this way some- times. In the morning, Sando com- bines beans with chopped aro- matic vegetables, a little fat and water to cover by an inch or two (less if he has soaked the beans in advance). They cook all day, get- ting tender by the time he gets home. The only problem: Be- cause the slow cooker doesn’t al- low for much evaporation, the bean “liquor” is relatively thin and bland compared with the re- sults of a stovetop method. “The minute you get home, I recom- mend taking the lid off and put- ting the pot up to high,” he told me in a phone interview. “Let some of that pot liquor breathe, and get some life into it, for an- other half-hour to hour.” Sando prefers slow-cooker dishes that can become elements of other meals rather than one- pot wonders. “I fought the Crock- Pot for a long time,” he says. “I grew up in the ’70s, and those flabby meats my mother made came out so anemic-looking, and everything had that hodgepodge flavor.” Now, he’s more likely to

cook a pot of beans and poach a chicken on the weekends, then use those ingredients in tacos and other dishes during the week. He has two young sons, but he cooks for himself four nights a week, “and if you have those three things — beans, chicken meat and stock — you’re pretty much good to go,” he says. Russell Warnick, the blogger at Endless Simmer who challenged me to think beyond slow-cooker chickpeas, echoed some of San- do’s ideas. Warnick’s live-in boy- friend is a picky eater, leaving Warnick in the position of fend- ing for himself at times. For that, the slow cooker is a godsend: “I don’t see slow cooking as a one- time deal,” he wrote in an e-mail. “I cook with meals in mind, so I don’t think of anything as left- overs — more as portions of future meals. For instance, if I make a Bolognese, I will use whatever I don’t eat for filling a lasagna, or add it to rice, baked potato or noodles.” Hensperger’s Lamb Agrodolce was just that type of dish for me. I initially ate it over rigatoni, the hearty pasta standing up nicely to the tangy-sweet chunks of lamb. But as with almost any ten- der meat, I was soon thinking about tacos, and that’s how I fin- ished the batch a couple of days later. Warnick, 30, feels my pain about the not-slow-enough reci-

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 2010

JAMES M. THRESHER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

ONLINE RECIPE

• Slow-Cooker Chickpeas with Sunchokes and Chorizo

pes. Between work and the gym, he’s usually out of the house for at least nine hours a day, so he knows from trial and error which six-hour recipes can be stretched to suit his schedule. “Those rules can easily be broken,” he says, “ei- ther by adding more liquids than a recipe calls for or cooking on lower heat for longer.” He’s right, especially with for- giving foods such as tough cuts of meat and, well, chickpeas. The chickpeas I combined in a stew with chorizo and sunchokes were probably done after a few hours, especially because I was using

Sando’s younger and quicker- cooking beans. Chickpeas hold their shape better than other va- rieties of beans, though, so even when I let the pot go for nine hours on the low setting, they were fine. More than fine, actu- ally: They were scrumptious. I might not be a slow-cooker

devotee quite yet, but I’m work- ing on it. Just give me a little time.

Yonan is writing “Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One,” to be published by Ten Speed Press next spring.

Mid-size creameries sell old-time flavor, freshness

milk continued from E1

company bottles 9,000 gallons of milk each week. The products are available in eight Whole Foods Market stores in the Washington area.

Other mid-size producers are taking a similar tack, cutting out middlemen and setting prices that keep the business afloat. Trickling Springs Creamery, which sells organic milk in glass bottles, is a favorite of Washing- ton coffeehouses. The Chambers- burg, Pa., dairy has seen its rev- enues grow 60 percent since 2007. South Mountain Creamery, after struggling for years as a tradition- al dairy farm, began bottling its own milk in Middleton, Md., and delivering to customers’ doors. It now has more than 5,000 custom- ers and is profitable. This growth has occurred dur- ing a period that has been all but apocalyptic for the dairy industry. In the first three months of 2009, conventional dairy farmers saw prices plummet by 30 percent, due in large part to falling ex- ports. Organic producers were also hit hard as cost-conscious consumers passed over $7-per- gallon milk for cheaper alterna- tives. Taylor, 58, is not a starry-eyed

newbie, like so many on the front line of the food revolution. His fa- ther was a dairy technologist who judged milk and cheese contests, and young Warren learned to fla- vor milk before he learned to drive. In 1974, he graduated with his own degree in dairy technol- ogy. He says he was a “young Turk” in Safeway’s dairy division, designing milk-processing plants and negotiating with regulators. Later, he launched his own dairy consulting business. As milk consumption declined,

however, the demand for new plants waned. Taylor’s remaining clients became interested in one

thing only, he said: cutting costs. Taylor began to look for new business opportunities. Organic milk was an obvious option. But Taylor said he was skeptical that federal rules governing organics guaranteed a superior product. Producers are allowed to feed cows organic grain, for example, instead of their natural diet of grass. Taylor wanted his cows to be raised on pasture and to re- ceive no hormones or antibiotics. A pasteurization expert, he also maintained that the key to “milk the way it used to be” — now Snowville’s slogan — is to keep it as raw as legally possible. (Taylor says high-temperature pasteur- ization damages the nutritional content and flavor of the milk.) A self-described “old communist hippie,” he also didn’t want to produce a product too expensive for ordinary consumers. In 2006, he entered into a part- nership with nearby dairy farm- ers Bill Dix and Stacy Hall, who had 230 cows on pasture. He mortgaged his farm and home to build the $1.5 million dairy proc- essing plant of his dreams. The first Snowville milk — grass-fed and unhomogenized, so the cream floats to the top — came off the line in December 2007. The business was not an in- stant success. Taylor was able to get his milk into one Kroger gro- cery store in Ohio. The product sold well, but Taylor said he was turned down by several of the chain’s other stores. Complex fed- eral dairy regulations — in partic- ular, one that requires most milk bottlers to pay into a pool that is distributed among regional dairy farmers — also constrained the business. “We make premium milk, but we are forced to write a check every month to subsidize big, commodity dairy operations,” Taylor said. By the following Au- gust, Snowville was on the verge of bankruptcy. In desperation, he

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It’s nice to fool Mother Nature with a menu bright and light

entertaining from E1

they minded coming at 6. “Are you kidding?” one guest asked. “We love Sunday suppers, and we love coming at 6. It’s a nice way to start the workweek off without dragging through the next day.” Right.

So, no martinis and Manhat-

MICHAEL DIBARI JR. FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Snowville Creamery milk is pasteurized for a short time at a low temperature to help preserve taste. It’s also unhomogenized.

turned to Whole Foods, just the kind of high-end grocery Taylor originally had hoped to avoid. He couldn’t argue with the re- sults, though. Within four months, Snowville’s milk and cream were in six Ohio stores and accounting for 30 percent of the business. Though he had hoped to keep his milk local, in September 2009, Taylor drove the first truckload of milk 350 miles to Washington. The creamery now has about $2.5 million in annual revenues and is close to breaking even. “Warren has a real vision for

what he wants to do,” said Mark “Coach” Smallwood, Whole Foods’ mid-Atlantic forager, who first brought Snowville’s milk into the grocery chain. “He designed every stainless-steel pipe [in the creamery]. It’s all set up so he can double in size and not take up much more footprint than he has. He’s always thinking about how to use his operation as a model for other farmers like him.” Other dairies have discovered

the Goldilocks formula them- selves. Trickling Springs Cream- ery and South Mountain Cream- ery are designed to be small enough to control the quality of the milk — big dairies get milk from many farms and combine it — and big enough to supply enough customers to turn a prof- it.

Trickling Springs Creamery buys almost all of its milk from one organic farm, nearby Shank- stead EcoFarm. It processes it, using minimal pasteurization, and distributes the milk, cream, butter and yogurt itself. The dairy has had some “pretty bad times” over the years, acknowledges General Manager Fred Rodes. To- day, demand is high. Trickling Springs bottles between 8,500 and 9,500 gallons of milk per week. Rodes said he hopes to achieve 20 percent growth in 2010.

At South Mountain Creamery, the owner’s decision to build a processing plant was born of eco- nomic necessity. After 20 years of dairy farming, Randy Sowers couldn’t make ends meet selling his milk to the local cooperative. Sowers persuaded a local bank to lend him the money for a mini- dairy so he could process his milk himself. South Mountain’s milk is not organic but all-natural. Sow- ers, too, uses minimal pasteuriza- tion to retain flavor. Unlike at Snowville and Trick- ling Springs, however, Sowers de- cided he would deliver his milk directly to customers, cutting out the middlemen throughout the

process. “I knew we had to go straight to the customers,” said Sowers, 55. “With wholesalers, you’ve got to pay them to deliver it, pay the people working in the store. There are too many people with their hands in it.” Getting the business off the ground took time. South Moun- tain made just 13 deliveries on its first day in May 2001. Sowers tried advertising the old-fash- ioned milk-to-your-door service on cable TV and on radio, but that didn’t do much good. The turning point came about three years ago, he said, when The Washington Post ran an article about the creamery’s delivery service. Cus- tomers started calling. South Mountain now delivers its milk as well as bread, cheese and even produce to more than 5,000 cus- tomers in the Washington area. “Three times, we almost lost it all,” Sowers said. “We are diver- sifying and, what do you call that? Integrated. Start to finish, we are in control of it all.” At Snowville, Taylor’s goal is

“good milk for all.” But none of these mid-size dairies can com- pete on price. Their milk prices are in line with those of organic milk: between $3 and $3.50 per half-gallon, about the same as the average retail price of a full gallon of conventional milk. Though demand for organic milk fell during the worst period of the recession, many customers seem willing to pay a premium. Ryan Jensen, owner of Peregrine Espresso on Capitol Hill, said he originally was attracted to Trick- ling Springs milk because it was local and came in reusable glass bottles. But it was the taste that won over his staff. Baristas used to commodity milk were “blown away” by the quality of the skim milk and the way all the milks frothed when they were steamed, he recalled. “The flavor and tex- ture of the milk is a cut above what a lot of us had used before.” Shoppers also like the taste and

are grateful to find good milk at the grocery store. Ellen Fort, who works at the Pappas Group adver- tising firm in McLean, said she originally picked up Snowville be- cause it was all-natural; the taste made her a fan. “It definitely has a different consistency, even the skim,” she said. “It’s creamy and good, almost grassy.” Snowville’s Taylor is used to

such praise. “Whenever I sample milk, people always tell me, ‘This is how I remember milk tasting,’ ” he said. It might happen all the time, but it never fails to excite him.

blackj@washpost.com

tans. Instead of cocktails, I started off the evening with a few bottles of Tissot Cremant du Jura ($24 at Cork Market & Tasting Room), a non-vintage brut rosé sparkling wine, to ac- company some favorite easy nibbles: toasted spiced pecans and sweet Peppadew peppers stuffed with slivers of herbed fresh mozzarella. From the “refashioned items”

section of my freezer came some chicken liver pâté, a smoked salmon spread and half a loaf of fruit and nut pumpernickel that I turned into oil-drizzled crisps. The pâté was from a party I wrote about in January; the spread was processed from bits of smoked salmon, cream cheese, butter, red onions, ca- pers and lemon left over from a Sunday brunch platter. Who has to know unless you tell? (It’s a wonder that anyone who reads my column still accepts my in- vitations.) In keeping with the casual theme, my menu included three courses (salad, entree, dessert) that could be served family- style right from the dining room table.

I knew I wanted to make the

French version of veal stew known as blanquette de veau: chunks of braised veal shoulder, pearl onions and mushrooms in a white sauce of stock and cream lightly thickened with a roux. It’s a main dish that works particularly well for early spring because it is hearty enough for a cool night but not as stodgy as, say, beef bourguig- non. It’s a lot less messy, too, be- cause you blanch the meat briefly in salted water at the be- ginning of preparation rather than browning it on all sides in hot fat. To keep from having to serve a side dish or a starch, I added more vegetables to the blan- quette. I roasted one-inch pieces of cauliflower, parsnips and carrots along with pearl on- ions, shiitake and cremini mushrooms and whole garlic cloves. The lightly colored vege-

tables kept the stew from look- ing drab and wintry. To inject some green into the mix, I cut baby spinach leaves into thin chiffonade strips and served the stew atop them as if they were noodles. (The spinach could just as easily have been incorpo- rated into the stew.) The blanquette offered an ad- ditional benefit: I could keep it warm, over low heat, until I was ready for it. That kept the pres- sure off, as did choosing to serve a cold salad first. Celery root, or celeriac, was the salad’s main ingredient. A form of celery grown for its large, white root, celery root has a delicate celery flavor, but it’s earthy, too, like fresh horserad- ish but without the bite. It may be eaten raw, but it can be tough, so I prefer to slice the root into rounds, blanch them for a minute and then cut them into julienne strips. The salad was a riff on the French remou- lade, featuring a mayonnaise flavored with grainy mustard, celery seed and scallions. I add- ed shredded carrots, daikon radish and julienne of Granny Smith apples to the mix for tex- ture, sweetness, tartness and color. Garnishes of pistachios, Boursin cheese and Iberico ham elevated the sophistication a bit. Taking advantage of plentiful

oranges and grapefruit, I creat- ed a perfectly delightful, sunny spring dessert: a single moist layer of cake topped with a cit- rus glaze and a compote of or- ange and grapefruit segments enhanced with rose water. Cornmeal and olive oil added extra dimension to the cake’s batter. Unsweetened Greek-style yo-

gurt as an accompaniment of- fered a note of dairy freshness to the dessert’s sweet and tart elements. As it turned out, the menu

worked equally well when I in- vited a friend over for lunch a couple of weeks after my Sun- day supper. Over dessert, my guest eyed the pink-yellow tu- lips and roseate ranunculus I had loaded into vases on the table and said: “Everything was so delicious. It was spring, but not spring. You know?” Exactly.

food@washpost.com.

JAMES M. THRESHER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

The veal pieces are first blanched in water, a tidier process than frying them in hot fat, as you would do for many other stews. Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60