Ann Arbor Adieu on Annarbor.com

On Sunday, I watched two of my "girls" deflowered by a rooster.

I had been feeling wary of this upcoming event and my role as a chicken pimp, but we had no choice. Either we were going to kill the girls and bring them with us to our temporary rental home in the freezer, or we were going to give them to friends who have many chickens in their flock.

It seemed highly ridiculous that killing a living creature was deemed better than letting nature take its course – so our girls were introduced to their new flock. Five minutes later, two of our girls were ruffling their feathers, seemingly unperturbed by the 10-second coitus.

Saying goodbye to our chickens was the last in a long list of adieus as we leave this wonderful town.

We have lived here six years, and I feel I only know 40 percent of what makes Ann Arbor wonderful, especially in the realm of food.

As food is the only carnal thing humans can do in public, I salute all those who pursue this world. I am grateful to you all. This world of feeding our bodies, our health, our souls.

Here is the article on Annarbor.om

What I didn't write in this article was the sense of vertigo that accompanied the list upon list upon list as we sold our house and left. Leaving a town where one has lived for 6 years, leaving a town where one went through residency, through oncology office visits, and through falling in love (with the food world, with one's husband, with the reality of the miraculous).

Onward to the next adventure!

Tangy Parsley dressing to sparkle your winter eatings!

For the past four months we have been chomping on fresh greens courtesy of our CSA from Shannon Brines of Brines Farm. Curly baby kale, dark soft spinach, tall elegant arugula, and delicate salad mix are grown in his hoop houses. Sometimes he adds squash, potatoes, beans, or frozen tomatoes to fill out the selection (based on sunlight and temperature). I am always looking for a new way to add sparkle to the ballast of our weekly diet. I was served this dressing by a friend who had just attended a cooking class entitled “Reclaim your energy: Adrenal support cooking class” by the National Gourmet Institute for Food & Health in NYC. The recipe was entitled “Dark Leafy Greens with Tangy Tahini Dressing” - I think the three of us groaned aloud when we first took a bite.

I have reenergized my kale chomping excitement - in fact, it goes beautifully on everything. (I have been putting it on toast under a poached egg.) Here is the dressing recipe (that which elicited groans at first bite at the dinner table):

• ½ cup tahini
• 2 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)
• 2 tablespoon umeboshi vinegar (or ume plum vinegar)
• ½ cup parsley
• 3 scallions
• ½ cup water

In a food processor, combine tahini, shoyu, umeboshi vinegar, parsley, and scallions blend together then add water and blend again.

Here is what I have been doing (the garlic adds more punch than the scallions, but still groanworthy):

• 1 heaping spoonful of tahini
• 1 heaping spoonful of almond butter
• a 6 second pour of tamari
• a 3 second pour of umeboshi vinegar
• a 3 second pour of rice wine vinegar
• 4 garlic cloves
• one bunch of parsley
• water to taste

I have been blending the above and then adding water to the desired consistency. The less water you add, the more of a paste, the more water you add, the more of a dressing.

Enjoy!

Photo courtesy of Cara Rosean of Real Time Farms, thank you Cara!

Here is the article on annabor.com.

What is the abomination of McDonald's "oatmeal"?

This is the bowl of oatmeal shown on the McDonalds website page - a page that has its own jaunty "oatmeal" tune.

Why do we care that McDonalds has introduced "oatmeal" with more calories than their hamburger and with more sugar than a Snickers bar? I put "oatmeal" in quotes because, according to Mark Bittman's How to Make Oatmeal: Wrong, the product should be described as "oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen."

As of Saturday, the article has lived in the top 10 emailed list for The New York Times since it was published on Tuesday, February 22. Apparently, a lot of people care.

My question is why? Are they preaching to the choir? Or do people actually think in this day and age there is anything healthy about walking through the fabled double arches?

Whether it be SuperSize Me, Eric Schlosser's #1 bestseller Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, or a simple read through McDonalds menu ingredients online. We all know McDonalds is not healthy, yet stories continue to be written, emailed, and commented on - detailing the exact nature of the unhealthiness.

Conrad's "the fascination of the abomination" comes to mind, our inability to look away from a train wreck. However, the true abomination is this. Everyone knows McDonalds is unhealthy and people go there because they have no choice. They have no choice, because as Michel Nischan of the Wholesome Wave Foundation put it at the TEDx food conferece, "they can't afford" real food.

According to the Fair Food Network, 92% of all Detroit food stamp retailers offer no fresh fruits and vegetables. For an urban food desert like Detroit, and for the rural food deserts in Iowa, the dried fruit in McDonalds "oatmeal" might be the closest a child gets to biting into an apple. That is the real abomination, and worth talking about.

Here is the article on annarbor.com.

Muscovy Duck is unlike any "duck" you have ever eaten

David Beemer, of OmniUnum Farm, decided he wanted more control over his food supply. In lieu of purchasing Michigan peat and compost, Beemer decided to raise poultry for their manure, a nutrient-rich and accessible fertilizer. Beemer choose Muscovy ducks as his poultry of choice after being served it at Paul Bocuse’s restaurant in Lyons, France. “I asked for something that I could not get in this country… He brought me Magret - and I ate it. They asked me what I thought it was and I said, “that was probably the best veal I have ever had.” And they said, “This is Muscovy Duck.”

Beemer has partnered with Antoinette Benjamin, of Food for all Seasons Catering, because “she is the only one I have found who knows how to cook them. I am a good example - I overcooked the last one. I just didn’t have time to follow the directions she gave me.”

Endemic in an animal designed to perch in trees not wade in water, Muscovy ducks have about 18% fat as opposed to Pekin duck with 29% fat. This fat difference and the less significant oil gland in the Muscovy alters the flavor of what our taste buds recognize as "duck" and can complicate cooking Muscovy for those not familiar with the meat.

According to Benjamin, trained by renowned French chef Madeleine Kamman, “cooking Magret is a matter of technique. So if you look up cooking duck breast, it is different with the Muscovy. Just because of the fat.”

Recently, I was able to try Muscovy courtesy of ici Urban Bistro in Washington DC. The consensus at the table was that the meat was “absolutely fabulous” and unlike anything anyone had eaten before - a bold, unique flavor arising from a texture that crumbled like veal, unlike poultry’s striation.

I was also able to see firsthand the difficulty of cooking Muscovy. When the breast slices arrived to the table they were medium rare and succulent. By the time we finished eating the meat (20 minutes later?) the slices were cooked through from the residual heat. The flavor was still there but the texture was dry and unappealing.

Beemer's partnership with Antoinette Benjamin is an opportunity for those of us curious to taste more of this unique fowl. As Benjamin says, “Magret is the BEST for the Muschovy - I mean it is JUST AMAZING. I mean as I said, I don’t think that people - most people wouldn’t know, like David, what they are eating. They wouldn’t know it was duck breast.”

Beemer and Benjamin are planning to hold a Muscovy dinner in the Spring. If you are interested, contact David Beemer at OmniUnum Farm or Antoinette Benjamin at Food for all Seasons.

Time to harvest potatoes! (and make Potatoes Savoyarde)

According to the Master Gardener vegetable lesson, potatoes need to be harvested when leaves turn yellow. Deciding to split the difference between a full display of yellow wilted greenery and cold hands, we dug ours last weekend. Just like our kale, our La Ratte potatoes were an unplanned gift from last years planting.

In honor of the potato’s French origin, I decided to use it in a classic French dish - Potatoes Savoyarde.

And wow.

However, before I discuss the dish, I will ponder the potato. Potatoes are not the most glamorous of vegetables. The mind turns to the Irish famine and Van Gogh’s piercing portrait of peasant poverty, The Potato Eaters. Yet those two examples illustrate precisely the importance of this vital tuber in our consciousness and culinary landscape.

They are the workhorse of the kitchen - with many different applications. The potato is baked on the streets of London with cottage cheese and brown sauce, made into gnocchi in Italy and covered with a chili cheese sauce in Peru (Papa a la Huancaina), the first home of the potato.

According to the USDA, the potato is the leading vegetable crop in the United States, with a total production of 41.3 billion pounds. In 2007, the average American consumed 126 pounds: 43.6 fresh pounds and 82.4 processed (mostly frozen). In 1960, the average American consumed 106.3 pounds: 81.0 fresh pounds and 25.3 processed pounds - a fascinating reversal. Whether you are eating a potato frozen, fresh, as chips, or dehydrated - the likelihood is that you are a eating a potato.

Until we started growing potatoes I had no idea what a treat it is to harvest them. Each new vegetable emerged out of the black soft earth as a gift. After continually mounding up the stems of the plants to create a full hill over the summer, the potatoes were easy to pull up out of the mulch and leaves. I felt like it was my birthday.

And yes, Potatoes Savoyarde is a variant on the classic Potatoes Dauphinoise (au gratin)- and choosing to do it with the La Ratte from our garden, “a top quality fingerling” according to Seed Savers Exchange, was a special treat with the robust nuttiness of the vegetable off-setting the cheese. As with all things baked, when presented with a recipe, I used what was in the house - and the result was sublime.

I prefer Savoyarde to the Dauphinoise (au gratin) because it uses stock instead of milk or cream. I was taught to sprinkle cheese between the layers of potato throughout the process instead of putting the cheese only on top.

Potatoes Savoyarde: Take a baking dish, cover the bottom with a layer of lard, overlap thinly sliced potatoes, sprinkle cheese (swiss cheese works best), layer of potatoes, thin layer of cheese, layer of potatoes, thin layer of cheese, etc. Once the concoction reaches the top of the dish, finish it off by pouring chicken/veggie stock into dish until about half full. Finish with another sprinkle of cheese. For about 1 ½ inch of potatoes cook for 60 minutes at 350 degrees.

Bon appetit!

Here is the article on annarbor.com

Kale chips are sublime

Last season, I was tired of kale. Tired of sauteing leaves, tired of putting green stalks in soup, tired of the dense chewiness, tired of hearing how good it is for me (high in flavonoids, blah blah). So, come late last October, I choked down the rest of the leaves, relieved to be finished with that duty for the season.

A farmer friend of mine had told me that kale would survive the winter and come back hardy and healthy in the spring if I cut off the dense stalk right at ground level. He was right. We have several thriving kale plants from last year’s stalk. Unfortunately, the passing of months did not diminish my kale fatigue and I have not harvested much of any of this year's leaves.

Yet here we are again, a new October, and I knew I needed something new to try to help me take my kale medicine before the frost.

So I tried a variant on a kale chips recipe I found in the world of dehydrators/raw food. I can honestly say that it was the closest I have ever come to eating a plate of food like an 18-year-old-boy eating a pizza (there was no chewing involved). I inhaled these delicate green chips.

Kale chips are crunchy, intensely subtle, salty, warm and wonderful. There is not any of the bitter flavor associated with kale when prepared this way. As an even better bonus the chips are super fast and easy.

When I did a bit more research I learned that you can bake kale chips in your oven for those who don’t have a dehydrator. Instead of dehydrating for two to three hours at 95 degrees F, you can pop them on a baking sheet for 20 minutes at 300 degrees F (or until crisp).

Here is the recipe I used for my chips.

- Cut four leaves from plant.

- Remove stem and cut into large pieces.

- Toss in a bowl with 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon olive oil and sea salt.

- Let sit for 10 minutes to wilt a bit from the liquid (one recipe I found said to wait an hour)

- Place in the dehydrator/baking sheet.

- When they are crispy and warm, they are finished.

- Devour them as fast as you can before your friends learn how good they are.

(I will end with a thank you to the earlier maligned plant.)

Oh kale, of cruciferous and flavonoid fame, thank you for being such a delicious chip. You pulled me in with your sturdy frame and healthy fronds, and though I strayed from eating your flesh, I am once again pulled back into the fold of loving you – with your sea salt, oil warmth beguiling me in. All hail kale!

Here is the article on annarbor.com

(March 2015 update: Here is an updated page from the great folks at Health Ambition about the health benefits of kale - with recipes too!)

Grandmother's Chocolate Mousse recipe

As always on the lookout for a recipe that will use a lot of eggs, I dug out my grandmother's chocolate mousse recipe. Ten eggs later, it is as decadent as I remember - an easy and delectable treat for you and your guests.

Unlike the plethora of chocolate mousse recipes: from Julia Child to my backyard egg mainstay book, "Eggs" by Michel Roux, this recipe does not call for any sort of dairy or butter. In fact, aside from the eggs, one could consider this vegan.

The recipe is easy and fast. The end result is scrumptious. Imagine eating a luxury dark chocolate bar with a spoon, like it is ice cream.

I procured my baking chocolate from Mindo Chocolates, our bean to bar business in Dexter. The 10 eggs were from our backyard chickens. Water, sugar and vanilla round out the ingredients.

Here is the recipe

1 pound best quality baking chocolate

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup water

10 egg yolks

3 teaspoons vanilla

10 egg whites

Melt together (in a double boiler) the chocolate, sugar and water. Stir. When smooth, cool, stirring occasionally. Add well-beaten yolks and vanilla.

Beat egg whites until able to hold peaks. Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture. Put in a deep crock or individual serving dishes. Refrigerate at least 12 hours.

(Serves 6-8)

This is what I learned from doing the recipe.

Instead of using a double boiler to melt the chocolate, water and sugar - I used a metal bowl on top of a pot. That worked just as well and was much more economical than purchasing a double boiler. The chocolate is the consistency of icing when you add the egg yolks; there is no need to add extra water to make it creamy. I also learned that egg whites treble in volume when beaten, ending up on the floor. Next time I will use a larger bowl from the outset.

As for serving 6 to 8, I cannot imagine wanting to have more than ½ cup of this rich chocolate immersion after a full meal. I divided mine into 10 teacups and six espresso cups (making 16 servings) and refrigerated for 36 hours. I removed the cups from the refrigerator two hours before serving to bring out the flavors.

For those at your table who want something lighter and less intense, I would recommend offering at bowl of whipped cream and perhaps some berry jams. Everyone likes making his or her own dessert, and the chocolate mousse is sturdy enough to be the bass note of whatever dessert compilation is orchestrated.

Here is the article on annarbor.com

Storing harvest bounty: canning vs. dehydrating

Last winter I received Mary Bell’s Food Drying with an Attitude: A Fun and Fabulous Guide to Creating Snacks, Meals, and Crafts - and I put it aside because I did not have a dehydrator. Like last year, I started this season with drying tomatoes in my oven, but the tomatoes take two full days to dry in the oven at 200 degrees. So I bit the bullet and bought an electric dehydrator - one built for the task.

I purchased the dehydrator week ago, reread all of Bell's engaging and intriguing book, and I have not turned the machine off since. I pack slivers of color, once hefty tomatoes and gleaming eggplants, into airtight jars and debate the pros and cons of dehydrating vegetables vs. canning vegetables. Here are my thoughts so far - I look forward to hearing yours.

Dehydrating pros

- Food is considered raw when dehydrated below 105 degrees (because it maintains enzymes and nutrients that are leached by higher temperatures).

- The labor involved is minimal. I cut the vegetables at night and pack them into jars in the morning.

- The equivalent ingredients take up less room when dehydrated than when canned.

Dehydrating cons

- Dried fruit and vegetables do not last as long as canned items.

Canning pros

- The recipe is finished when you open the jar, as opposed to drying the basic ingredients, and then making a recipe in the winter. (This could also be considered a con.)

Canning cons

- The labor involved is focused, hot, and continuous. From cooking the sauce, to the hot water bath, to preparing the jars - unlike dehydrating, it does not happen while you sleep.

This last point for me is the crux of the matter. A food preservation technique that is self-contained, creating results while I sleep, is incredible. To me, that is a winning food preservation technique.

Here is the article on annarbor.com

A locavore discussion: why preserve tomatoes for the winter?

I have been scratching my head recently over a recent Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, called Math Lessons for Locavores, by Stephen Budiansky. First, I felt kinship with the author when he agreed with what I learned when I did my organic berry jam cost comparison article - namely, the efficiencies involved in shipping food long distances, “adds next to nothing to the total energy bill." Then, he goes on to posit that household energy usage is the true culprit, accounting for “32 percent of all energy use in our food system, the largest component by far."

The Op-Ed piece concludes with the same argument I learned from economics in high school; we should “grow lettuce, oranges, wheat, peppers, bananas, whatever, in the places where they grow best and with the most efficient technologies – and then pay the relatively tiny energy cost to get them to market, as we do with every other commodity in the economy." This is his rationale for being wary of the terms “food-miles" and “sustainability" - which are rapidly joining “organic", “natural", and “free-range" as words that connote gold and denote tin.

He gives very convincing evidence that the energy used in transporting grapes from Chile can be less than the energy used for the extra freezer your family buys to freeze your local rhubarb. But his fallacy is assuming that we need, as a nation of Americans, to be eating those grapes in March.

For the last three weeks, at the Westside Farmers' Market, I have overheard customers ask the vendors whether or not they have any lettuce to sell. I think this is because tomatoes are ripe. At some point in our national assumptions, a burger became married to “lettuce and tomato." The question, “would you like lettuce and tomato on that?” became coupled together and ingrained into our national consciousness. Therefore, when you go to the farmers market and see tomatoes, our brains look for the lettuce - “it must be here! How can I make a proper burger without it?" But the two vegetables are not ripe at the same time: lettuce typically arrives in the spring and tomatoes in the fall.

Bananas on our breakfast cereal, apple pie in May, watermelon for the 4th of July picnic, orange juice and coffee in the mornings, chocolate for Valentines Day, lettuce with tomatoes for BLTs in March ~ many food pairings in our American culture assume cheap oil, willing trading partners, and organized large-scale transportation.

Our supermarkets groan under the volume and the diversity of our food choices - during all seasons of the year. That abundance of choice and quantity is not serving us. According to a recent article in Scientific American, Americans throw away between 25% and 50% of all of the food we produce for domestic sale and consumption. A 2009 study from the National Institute of Health concluded, "US per capita food waste has progressively increased by ~50% since 1974 reaching more than 1400 kcal per person per day or 150 trillion kcal per year. Food waste now accounts for more than one quarter of the total freshwater consumption and ~300 million barrels of oil per year."

You only throw away that which you do not value. The NIH study tells us that Americans are a spoiled nation when it comes to food. There are 6.8 billion people in the world - 1.02 billion of them are hungry.

One out of six people is hungry, yet we are overwhelmed with a relentless supply of bananas and lettuce and avocados and apples all seasons of the year. It is understandable that our national barometer for what to expect at the market has been skewed. It is understandable, and a huge tragedy, that we throw so much food away.

Why preserve tomatoes for the winter? I preserve my tomatoes for the winter to help me reset my internal barometer as for what I should expect on my burger.

Here is the article on annarbor.com.

Berry jam: a novice's first attempt

As our household creeps toward food self-sufficiency, you would think our decision to keep backyard chickens would incite more concern than canning fruits and vegetables. However, botulism is a big word and scenes from Louisa May Alcott books where women in full-length wool dresses sweat over a hot stove in the middle of August stirring the gelling fruit are writ large in my psyche.

Last fall we canned tomato sauce for the second year in a row, and we did applesauce as well. I have learned the trick of the popping metal top and the stove was not that hot. So this weekend, inspired by the gorgeous fruit at Makielski's Berry Farm (site of my most recent Farm to Fork visit), I made blackberry jam - and I used their raspberry honey for the sweetener. I learned several important lessons.

#1 - I need a bigger stovetop or I need to make smaller batches.

It was a precariously balanced stovetop with two water sterilizations going for the glass jars, the large black canning pot, and the pot for the cooking of the fruit.

#2 - When the recipe says “Measured Ingredients: 4 cups mashed fruit” - read it twice.

I had measured out fruit, then mashed it, then put in the lemon juice, and then read that it is “mashed.”

#3 - Don’t wear a white shirt while making blackberry jam.

Indeed.

#4 - The whole house is infused with sweet warm berry goodness - absolutely divine.

I followed the recipe included in the Pomona's Universal Pectin, which I purchased from Downtown Home and Garden. Based on my experience with applesauce last fall - I thought I did not need pectin. But I was kindly corrected by Mark Hodesh, owner of Downtown Home and Garden, who shared that apple and quince are the only two fruits that have high enough pectin to gel - otherwise one must augment. According to Wikipedia, guavas, plums, gooseberries, and oranges can be added to the high pectin list.

I am happy there are more weeks of blackberry, cherry, blueberry, and raspberry picking because I would like to experiment further. I am curious to hear from those of you who have done this before - aside from not wearing a white shirt, are there more things I should watch for as I dabble?

This is the recipe I followed (well, except for the fact that I put in enough lemon for 12 cups and only ended up with 9 cups of mashed fruit). It did gel and it tastes like blackberries.

- Wash and rinse jars; let stand in hot water. Bring lids and rings to boil; turn down heat; let stand in hot water. - Measure mashed berries into pan with lemon or lime juice (4 cups of mashed berries for every ¼ cup of lemon or lime juice). - Add proper amount of calcium water (an addition that Pomona’s includes that helps to activate their pectin, 2 teaspoons). - Measure 1/3 cup honey and mix in 2 teaspoons of pectin. - Bring fruit to a boil. Add pectin-honey; stir vigorously 1-2 minutes while cooking to dissolve pectin. Return to boil and remove from heat. - Fill jars to ¼ inch of top. Boil 10 minutes. Check seals - lids should be sucked down. Lasts about 3 weeks once opened.

Here is the link to the article.

Backyard Chickens: the deep litter method

In one of my first chicken posts I mentioned the book I “borrowed” from my grandparents, Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: A complete guide to gardening without DDT or other poisons or chemicals edited by J.I. Rodale (published in 1969). There is a section on poultry. I took their litter advice for our girls: “A practice that makes healthier and more productive chickens in deep litter, sometimes called built up litter. Simply let the little accumulate instead of cleaning out the poultry house every couple of weeks. Biological activity in the litter, just as in the compost heat, produces huge amounts of rich food.”

Wait. Not cleaning out the litter from the coop on a weekly basis, me being lazy, is good for the girls? This seemed to good to be true! The section continues.

“Litter-reared chickens need no expensive animal proteins or mineral supplements, and if pastured or given ample feed in addition will need to vitamin A or D supplements. Antibiotics are also produced - litter-raised poultry is remarkably free from disease.”

Wow. What a huge gift. It is healthier for the girls to live around microorganisms in their litter. And yet, summertime is for cleaning.

The Augean stables it was not, but there was about 10 inches of accumulated litter to be transferred onto the compost pile. Last August, we put pine chips 2 inches deep. Over the course of the year we added handfuls of pine chips and cedar chips. The cedar chips smell nice; yet we found cedar stains the outside of the egg, so it is better to avoid cedar where the girls are laying.

I don’t know if they care one way or another, but I love the fresh yellow and the smell of the new sawdust - should last about another week.

Here is the link to the article!

Fresh Michigan asparagus with homemade mayonnaise

This appetizer combines two of my favorite things - farm fresh food and eggs from our girls! Asparagus dipped in homemade mayonnaise made from the eggs of our backyard chickens - I cannot think of a better way to celebrate the beginning of harvest bounty beginning to descend upon us. Asparagus is wonderful for all sorts of reasons: it tastes amazing, when it leafs out the fronds are soft and silky like baby hair, and when you prepare it there is snapping involved. I did not realize until I was in college that not everyone snaps asparagus. I was taught to bend the cut stalk until it snaps - the area where it snaps will be the demarcation of where it is still chewable and where it will become stringy and difficult to eat.

I was able to find glowing asparagus at Seedling's booth at the Westside Farmers Market. Seedling is located in South Haven, MI and they focus mainly on fruit. However, I had heard Locavorious was procuring asparagus from Seedling for their CSA and I was curious to try.

So I sat outside and snapped my way through a large handful - the leftover stalks to be divided equally between our chickens and to feed our vermiculture container inside the house (those worms are always hungry).

After snapping, I steamed the asparagus for 4 minutes and quickly ran them under cold water to stop them from continuing to cook.

Then I pulled out from the refrigerator our second attempt at making mayonnaise.

It seemed silly for us to be purchasing mayonnaise (one of my most favorite indulgences) when we have an abundant and never-ending supply of eggs. I was able to corner a family member to give me his recipe over Easter. His recipe is simple and elegant in its simplicity.

JP’s mayonnaise recipe: Two egg yolks, two cups of oil, juice of one full lemon, 2 tablespoons water, some white pepper, and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper to taste.

Blend together the two egg yolks and the lemon juice in a mason jar (I later learned this is important to prevent splatter). Still blending, slowly add the oil - the mixture should quickly solidify and lighten in color - if this does not happen, add another egg yolk. Continue to add the oil until it is all incorporated. Then add two tablespoons of water to stop the mixture from separating, or “oiling out.”

Add pepper, and voila!

When we returned home we tried another recipe for mayonnaise that we found in our fancy book of egg recipes, Eggs, by Michel Roux. His recipe calls for Dijon mustard and white wine vinegar OR lemon juice, we went with the white wine vinegar.

Roux’s mayonnaise recipe: 2 egg yolks, 1 tbsp Dijon mustard, salt and freshly ground pepper, 1 cup peanut oil, 2 tbsp white wine vinegar/lemon juice.

Place into a bowl on a towel the egg yolks, mustard, salt, and pepper. Whisk. Slowly add a trickle of oil while you whisk. Once the mixture begins to thicken add the oil in a steady stream, whisking the whole time. Once the oil is incorporated, continue to whisk briskly for 30 seconds and then add the vinegar/lemon juice.

First of all, I used our manual blender and the mixture refused to thicken when I started adding the oil. Our hand-held electric blender worked much better and the mixture began to thicken - but the splattering was considerable (note the Mason jar in JP's recipe).

Taste wise, when I think of my ideal mayonnaise flavor, I prefer JP's recipe. The addition of mustard in the Roux's recipe adds an element of non-mayo that alters the essence of the mayonnaise flavor.

But the mustard-esque mayonnaise is a beautiful dunk for freshly cooked asparagus - it gives it a certain bite that offsets the grassy flavor of the green stalks.

Here is the article on annarbor.com.