The promise of a Union Square Greenmarket Spring
february 25, 2021
Many of my first childhood memories are of hours well spent on sunny Saturday June mornings in the Union Square Greenmarket with my dad. We’d careen around the market, chatting about my four year old perspective on “why God is peeing when it rains” while perusing the sprawling rows of jams, flowers, crusty bread, and green vegetables and sampling crab fritters and goat cheeses. After our shop, we’d grab lunch at the McDonald’s across the street - chicken nuggets with barbeque sauce for me and coffee for dad. I made friends with a homeless woman that my dad would always buy coffee for who tolerated my endless wide-eyed curiosity.
I’ve spent much of my adult life living in and out of New York City and always make an effort to stop by the market once a year, which remains largely familiar and unchanged. Many of the same purveyors frequent the market thirty years later, like our beloved poultry suppliers the Quattros. While the market is year-round, as the season transitions to spring every year it brings with it an onslaught of discovery of the year’s coming produce and new beginnings.
A lot of things feel like unchartered territory right now, though. Dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer two years ago and his cancer moved to stage four six months ago. Facing, nonetheless accepting, what’s to come in a few weeks or months is a daunting unknown. In a time of uncertainty for the pandemic, the economy, the greater food industry, and for my Dad, there is a hope in what the oncoming spring, much like the market, may bring.
Claire Saffitz’s Marinated Olives and Feta
Liz Moody’s Salted Cookie Dough Healthy Banana Bread (with cacao)
Quarantine hits that hold up
When COVID-19 quarantine began 8 million years ago, I started using a lot of recipes to cook and it brought in new, unexpected dimensions. Nothing that I would call terribly fussy, rather, a renewed focus on attention to detail and technique. For example, I started marinating feta with warm olives about once every other week. Claire Saffitz’s recipe I use is totally on par with my normal palette and sensibilities. Without it, though, I wouldn’t have thought to heat crushed olives, garlic, lemon zest and red pepper in a small cast iron pan until the garlic turns a perfect toasted golden brown and the lemon zest is caramelized into a creme-bruleed crusted savory snack. On my own I probably would have crumbled a package of feta into a bowl and drizzled on a hefty glug of extra virgin olive oil, tossed in some chopped kalamatas, added a finger full of flaky sea salt, and ground in some black pepper. Heck, maybe I’d even go for a few capers and a splash of vinegar. Trust me though, this is better.
Falling back into the habit of using recipes has given me, over time, the confidence to try new technical skills I wouldn’t have felt comfortable with otherwise, like how to make one of my favorite Northern Thai curries or even something as simple as mastering the quick lime-pickled onion. Another benefit to this practice is found in taking some of the creative muscle I need to flex out of the cooking process by giving me the space to live in someone else’s world for a moment. It’s an opportunity to enter my little pocket of culinary escapism, even with an approachable recipe like this 30 minute brothy, gingery Vietnamese Canh I’m excited to try out.
Almost ironically, though, what’s become more clear than ever is that the years of experimenting in self-guided cooking (without a recipe) leading to countless hours of flounced attempts and lessons learned and, more importantly, the willingness to fail that comes with it, has given me the confidence to read a new recipe and know that I’ve got enough reps under my belt to at least give it a try. It’s easier now to understand from start to finish how each step in the recipe process will come together - where I’ll need to watch for moments of potential chaos, which substitutions I can get away with if I need to, how I might add my own touches - resulting in, well, better executed food. Learning to cook without a recipe is like learning to be alone: you have to learn to love your own voice before you can learn to love - or at least follow - someone else’s. Unfortunately, there’s no fast-track to mastering your own voice: it’s a labor of patience and creativity, maybe some self-reflection too.
To get there, here are a few recipes in my rotation that you ought to give a try:
1: Sam Sifton's no-recipe recipe Roasted Fish with Ginger, Scallions, and Soy. There’s something so satisfying about a no-recipe recipe you can replicate with precision over and over. Also, I want to dunk small handfuls of rice in the marinade from this fish recipe every time I make it.
2: A banana bread worth its salt.
In case you’ve missed it, this “Salted Cookie Dough” Banana Bread from Liz Moody was her most popular recipe last year. As a testament to its tested versatility, I typically bake all but a handful of times a year and have made it at least 15 times in the last year. I’ve had it for breakfast, dessert, as a midday snack, and even as pre-lunch. It’s packed with protein and surprisingly very moist, plus I’ll take any excuse to use something sweet as a delivery vehicle for a strong pinch of my favorite flaky sea salt. I use four eggs rather than the three it calls for and half of the cashew butter (½ cup) - a trick I discovered out of necessity when I was running short one day.
Other notes: I swap 1 TBSP of cacao powder (bonus: it’s an immune-booster!) for the chopped chocolate called for in the recipe. The banana bread is great in its intended form; as a glutton for all savory things, I just prefer this approach. Plus, it turns the bread into a sort of burnt toast color, a nice balance with the caramelized yellow edges of the halved banana that sits on top.
3: Perfectly roasted sweet potatoes are having a moment in these warm chickpea bowls with lemon-y yogurt from Andy Baraghani’s inimitable palette. Technically this recipe calls for cauliflower, but I’ve been using sweet potatoes, which was used in the print version of its publication. I haven’t yet had fennel on hand - instead thinly sliced white onion has generally done the job. As my Dad always reminded me while I ground my teeth in sheer rejection of the premise: don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
4: In My Humble Honest Opinion™ Khao Soi is the mother of curry soups. I’m really into this recipe, though it’s worth noting that this is a Thai dish often made with a chicken-based curry and a chicken thigh on top - I just don’t eat meat - and find this vegetarian version quite satisfying. It’s the perfect balance of sweet, spicy, savory and warms my Type A cold, hard soul from the inside out.
5: The real star of these fish tacos is the pesto-y pico de gallo. Since they’re made family style, they’re great for leftovers - the fish, cabbage salad, pico de gallo, and any extra toppings like sliced avocado stand up well on their own and could be perfectly repurposed as components into entirely different meals.
6: Liz Moody’s Anti-Inflammatory Daal is so creamy and yummy and perfect with my favorite simple topping: greek yogurt, lemon juice, salt, and cumin.
A few other fun things:
I can’t stop dipping everything into Molly Baz’s Spicy Cashew Dressing. To me it’s more of a dip than a dressing - a dip-dressing, or, a dressing-dip you might say. Call it what you will - once you start dunking into this creamy, spicy, nutty goodness you will have to exert a great amount of self-control to stop.
I will always love these lime-y quick pickled onions.
The best way to hard boil and marinate an egg is to make the Momofuku’s perfect Soy Sauce Eggs.