Well, as Lance Armstrong and my husband Mark would say, it’s not about the bike. I’m not entirely sure what a 7 time winner of the Tour de France means when he says it’s not about the bike, but I think I do know what Mark means. For weekend riders, it’s a lot about the people. And I’m thinking it might even be a little bit about the food. Eating is a big interest for a lot of bicyclists; eating well, eating right, eating food that tastes good.

I had a pleasant post final class breakfast with a few of my mates this morning in another Wilkes-Barre favorite, the S&W diner. We talked a bit about upcoming rides, about local politics, about coffee, about cooking. One of the items of conversation was the perfect hamburger roll. No doubt there is room for disagreement on what constitutes the perfect roll, but bottom line is that it’s not to be found in those soft and spongy packaged supermarket offerings. A perfect roll has character, but defers to the meat. It delivers substance enough to hold a juicy burger, but is not over the top country bread chewy. It’s the perfect delivery system for the perfect burger, which is a whole other topic of discussion.

I’ve experimented a bit with hamburger roll recipes, and think I found a winner in the Kaiser roll recipe on The Fresh Roll. Check it out. The all important malt powder can be found at alternative grocery stores, which for me means House of Nutrition, in Luzerne, PA.

My photo, my home baked rolls—good even without the burger.

My attempt to grow parsnips in my square foot garden in 2009 was a flat out failure. No growth above ground and none below. By most accounts, parsnip seeds do not winter well in the refrigerator, so I couldn’t even count on a 2010 second chance from 2009’s unused seeds. But I did save them (what’s another pack of seeds crammed in an empty tin?), and took a second shot at a parsnip harvest this past summer.

I am not an experienced gardener—just experienced enough to know that sometimes root veggies can produce an awful lot of greenery above ground and a distressingly awful lot of nothing below. When the leftover parsnip seed that I planted in two square feet of garden in mid July started producing voluminous top growth in September, I was not quite ready to declare success. It’s now November. And the next time somebody says that simple pleasures are the best, I’m not going to roll my eyes. I’m going to remember how happy I was when I pulled these beautiful parsnips out of the ground.

Looking back, I wish I kept gardener’s notes. If I had to pick a few keys to 2010 success, I would have to include planting in mid summer instead of spring, making sure the soil was richly supported with my homemade compost and regular watering, and trusting in the possibility that I am one lucky gardener.

Designed for users with a low tolerance for bad smells and messy mixing, the Naturemill is an engineering marvel. Looking something like a computer tower case, the Plus Edition model I bought has a lidded top that opens to a chamber housing a mixing blade and trap door to a tray that catches the compost. You deposit kitchen waste in the top and when it’s good and ready (in about two weeks), it falls to the lower chamber for a little additional curing. It’s billed as an indoor composter, but I have mine parked right outside the back door off the kitchen—and yes, the novelty may wear off, but I like to lift the lid once in a while just to see the potato peels, coffee grinds, and apple cores turning into a rich, dark mess of good stuff for the garden or flower beds.

To be honest, I have always been more of a farmer’s market shopper than a backyard gardener, but the compost making cultivated an interest in growing a few veggies and herbs this summer. More on that in the next installment. In the meantime, check out the Naturemill video and if you decide to buy one, send along an email after you do your online order to the Naturemill folks and request a $50 discount. Tell ‘em Anne sent you.

Real estate choices and utility company policies consigned me to cooking with electricity for much of the last sixteen years. No gas line hookup and no willingness on the part of the gas company to install a line (unless we replaced a perfectly good oil heat burner) were two compelling reasons to go electric. And as it turned out, my recently retired Dacor range was not all that bad. But dang if I didn’t want to make the next go-around gas.

Call it a payback for the truly patient, but a gas line was easier to arrange in 2007 than it was in 1991. What wasn’t so easy was finding a gas range that didn’t look clunky and overburdened with features I didn’t want. I wanted stainless steel, high-power burners, and a simple, clean look. And it had to fit in the standard 30 inch space that was available.

The day I took a walk down Wyoming Avenue in Kingston and spotted a Bertazzoni range in the showroom at Voitek Appliance, it was all over but for signing on the dotted line. (And yes, I did the due diligence and checked out reviews on the web (pretty much fantastico across the board) and knew what would be a fair price.)

A month into using the Berta, I don’t think I’m any more serious a cook than I ever was. I may, however, be a happier one.

In practice, many of us who own really good knives know that this theory is not bulletproof. In my kitchen, there is no knife that will cut it when the result I’m after is perfect vegetable strands for simple Japanese-inspired garnish or salad. But thanks to a recent purchase of Cook Help, a vertical turning slicer made in Japan by Benriner, strands are literally billowing off my kitchen counter.

The Cook Help slicer looks like the object of one of those late-night infomercial pitches, and its instruction leaflet promises more than I thought this relatively light-weight tool could possibly deliver. Lightweight in this case does not mean wimpy—this is a simple, efficient, and easy-to-use engineering marvel.

There are plenty of online outlets selling the Cook Help for around $50, including fantes.com. If you’re in or near Philadelphia, go directly to Fantes Kitchen Wares in south Philly and pick one up in person. It is a GREAT store that sells absolutely everything you want and many things you don’t even know you want (yet). [Fantes, 1006 S. Ninth St., Philadelphia, PA]

Billing itself as the “music lover’s rendezvous,” the Victor Cafe spices up your dinner with arias on the side. The performances are given by the wait staff who respond in turn to a bell, the signal that a musical interlude is about to be served up. The stage is a small landing that bridges sets of steps separating the Victor Cafe’s two dining areas. When the singing begins, accompanied by piped-in recordings, forks go down, table service stops, and for a few brief minutes, the singing waiter is the star. Transitions are seamless: once the aria is delivered, the singer is back in character as your attentive waiter. As the website says, the Victor Cafe is “a unique dining experience.”

In a word, the food at The Victor Cafe is ok. In two words, it’s overpriced ok. But don’t let that keep you away. Order a simple pasta. Enjoy the house chianti. You may even find yourself giving your singing waiter a big bravo and a nice tip.

The Victor Cafe, 1303 Dickinson St., Philadelphia, PA 215-468-3040

I ordered a Sambuca Salad and received a house salad. (Perhaps I’m nitpicking here, but maybe it would be a good idea to call the house salad the Sambuca salad since that is, after all, the name of the restaurant.) I stuck with the salad I was brought. It was a simple plate of mixed greens, tomato and red onion dressed with feta cheese, olive oil and red wine vinegar. These kinds of simple salads can be really wonderful when they’ve been constructed with care, but this one was off the mark. The vinaigrette was tasteless and the tomatoes (at the height of tomato season in NEPA!) were ice cold and underripe. Refrigerated tomatoes simply do not belong in a salad coming out of good kitchen.

It’s worth repeating that my pasta entree was good. But for a restaurant that earned such high praise in its first year, this dining experience was, on the whole, just not good enough.

Sambuca Grill and Bar, 234 Penn Ave., Scranton 570-961-5205

Among our adventures, we got an inside look at Buckingham Palace, enjoyed a scenic train ride across England to Scotland, took in a performance of the oh-so-Scottish Tattoo military music review in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, and celebrity-sited Tom Hanks at afternoon tea in the Balmoral Hotel. And most memorably, we ate some great food—Japanese, Indian, Nepalese, Thai, Spanish, traditional Scottish pub food.

Once we discovered Broughton St., around the corner from our flat on Hopetoun St., it was inevitable that we would also do some cooking. The street is home to some interesting shops and restaurants, but none more appealing than the food vendors. A butcher shop offering Scottish sausages and meats, a small but well-stocked organic grocery, and a fishmonger with a whole window full of fresh fish inspired us to see what we could pull off in our simple kitchen.

For our last cook-in of the week, we opted to make cullen skink, a traditional Scottish soup. We did a quick internet search, expecting formidable preparation duty for our team of three. What we found was anything but formidable. From start to finish, creating a pot of cullen skink took about 30 stress-free minutes. Easy! But easy not simply because the preparation was straightforward, but because the ingredients (and especially the critical star ingredient, cold-smoked haddock fillets) were fresh, inexpensive, and plentiful at Something Fishy on Broughton Street.

Making cullen skink on our trip was part of a great tradition of everyday cooks who create meals around what’s fresh, abundant, and appealing at market. I’m totally up for carrying on the tradition wherever the next vacation leads.

Cullen Skink Recipe
Once we knew the basics of this recipe, we added the celery root and opted to use dill instead of the the more commonly recommended parsley. We did not have access to a food processor; if the vote was for a smoother soup and we had a processor, we may have used it instead of masher.
2 tablespoons cooking oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 medium onion, chopped (leeks would be good alternative)
3 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 medium celery root, trimmed, peeled and quartered
water
1 pound cold-smoked haddock fillets, cut into small bite-size pieces
1/2 cup fresh dill, torn or cut into small strands
1/2 cup heavy cream
freshly ground pepper

Put the quartered potatoes and celery root in a pot with water to cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook until easily pierced with a fork. While potatoes are cooking, melt butter and oil together in a small saute pan and cook the onions over low heat.

When the potatoes and celery root are done, drain them, but reserve the water. Mash with a potato masher and then return to pot with water, the sauteed onions, and the dill. Bring to a gentle boil, then lower heat to a simmer. Add the fish and cook for about 6 minutes, or until fish is heated through. Finally, add the cream and fresh pepper and heat, but do not boil. Serves 4-6.