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Farm Dinner: Loveliest of trees

A few years ago there was an early spring in March that you might remember fondly. A stretch of weeks of hauntingly warm weather, as if a spell cast by a mysterious friend had let us skip a season and jump headlong into summer. For the fruit farmers of Michigan that warmth was no robin, but rather a bitter harbinger of a 100 year disaster; a total crop failure of cherries, apples, apricots, and plums. The trees had been tricked into blossoming before the last frost had passed. Once the cold came they would fall and die and leave an unproductive orchard.

Abby from Klug Farm came into the restaurant with buckets of blossoms trimmed from a cherry tree that would surely bear no fruit at all, once the spell had been broken and the early mornings turned cold again. She was cutting these before they fell. Maybe we could do something with the flowers? They were gorgeous - maybe more beautiful in dying - but an errant brush of your hand would send them all scattering to the ground.  

We made a batch of cherry blossom vinegar that was fragrant and sweet, yet still ripe and tender, and we used it to splash on raw fish for an appetizer.  I don't recall the dish or the recipes, but I remember the buckets of blossoms and what I had learned about the dark side of a really sunny set of days.

Ever since then I ask Abby about cherry blossoms and whether we can have some to make vinegar.  She's reluctant to trim the trees because the fruit they will bear has a value that the flowers do not.  (Seedling Farm, on the other hand, saves a few trees just for the purpose and you can buy a tender branch from Peter and force the blossoms yourself.  Makes for a beautiful centerpiece.) I was able to get a few branches from Abby for a dinner we did last week for Kinfolk Magazine down in Hyde Park's Plein Air Cafe, and the leftover branches got my sous chef Sarah thinking...

What can we do with cherry wood? Since the sweet fragrant flavor is often preferred for smoking, would it work for us in other applications? We loved the vinegar we had made with the blossoms - could we do something more robust, earthy, heartier, with the bark and the wood itself?  

This morning we have a pot of cream on the stove with the trimmings of that blossoming branch wrapped in cheesecloth as though it were a sprig of thyme. We hope it will infuse flavor into this neutral palate and then, when thickened into creme fraiche, transform into something uniquely subtle, spring-like, beautiful.

Using a peeler we will scrape and shave the branches into a jar of moscatel vinegar, apply a little heat, and let it steep for a few days. And lastly, we will throw the remaining branches, doused with water, on a set of well-tended coals and gently smoke some marrow.

Come see what we make with these things at Monday night's Farm Dinner. We are cooking with the seasons, whether spring comes in April or in late May, whether it snows like it did last week, like it did one night, for Housman, too, sometime long ago:

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It leaves me only fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

- Jason Hammel

Kinfolk's L’Espirit de la Mer Dinner

Last week, our own Jason Hammel joined Art Jackson (Pleasant House, Plein Air Cafe & Eatery), Hunter Moore (Parson’s Chicken & Fish), and Cosmo Goss (Publican) to celebrate l’espirit de la mer at Hyde Park's newest restaurant addition — Plein Air Cafe & Eatery. 

Click through for Amanda Jane Jones' beautiful photos of Kinfolk's potluck style-meal made by some of Chicago's favorite chefs and bakers:

Chicago Reader Cocktail Challenge

Lula bartender Celina Dzyacky was challenged with hard boiled eggs in this latest edition of Chicago Reader's Cocktail Challenge:

"The drink kind of looks like [something from] the milk bar from A Clockwork Orange," Celina said. "You might not want to drink it outside on a hot day, but you might want to drink it in a really creepy, dark milk bar in London."

Next up, Celina challenges another familiar face from Lula, Jonathan Van Herik, with bacon bits!

Spring is Reactive: Rhubarb at this Monday's Farm Dinner

I've been asked many times how we decide what to make for Farm Dinner on Monday nights. Wednesday mornings our chefs have coffee together at a neighborhood joint we like and stare at each other until the ideas finally (painfully, sometimes) emerge. Truth is, the winter stare goes long. In the cold months we think a lot about flavor combinations that we might not have tried before but which are somehow evocative. Carrot and caraway, for example. The words imitate each other, the flavors reach out for sweetness, for 'caramel,' and we think of palm sugar or honey or molasses. So then you get duck, carrot, candied caraway, or something like that.

But spring is different. Spring is reactive, almost defensively reactive. So much stuff comes bursting through. It gets kind of crazy in here. Garlic mustards! Radishes! Nettles! All of a sudden what was bare is now full and bright and alive.

Here's a text message and my open notebook. Five minutes earlier I got a call from someone: Hey, Slagel Farm has rhubarb. Rhubarb? From LouisJohn? Yes, not expected, but he has some rhubarb and he needs to know right now if we want it. Kelly looks at me, the coffee is cold, and says, I was thinking rhubarb, almond, mascarpone. Text him. I pick up the phone. There's only twenty pounds left. Not much. We'll take it all.

— Jason Hammel

Make your reservation by calling 773-489-9554 or visiting opentable.com/lula-cafe. 

Walk-ins are always welcome!

In addition to the Farm Dinner menu, our Café and Specials menus are also available on Monday evenings.

When Spring is a Tease

When spring is a tease, it helps to have your own grow room. All winter long our gardener, Jennifer Rosenthal, tends to mustard greens and red sorrel, lovage and minutina, so that we can pick tender leaves and shoots just before we need them. And while everyone is hunting for the first morels and ramps, the grow room is still active these first May mornings. It helps us get through those days when we have to jump over cold puddles on a grey skied walk to work. Since I live so close, my walk is just a hop-and-skip over Logan Boulevard, but these five minutes tell us what kind of day it will be. What we will have to rely on. Get out the scissors — it's a grow-room kind of morning.   

Yes, we have a box of onions from Vicki and some ramps from a forest nearby. But we'll need to count on our sprouts and herbs to brighten up these last frigid days before we move with any pace toward a real spring.

          

Long thaws in Chicago, I've learned. But the market opens this week. We'll see you there. 

- Jason Hammel 

 

Make your reservation by calling 773-489-9554 or visiting opentable.com/lula-cafe. 

Walk-ins are always welcome!

In addition to the Farm Dinner menu, our Café and Specials menus are also available on 

Monday evenings.