dispatch no. 6: early fall
sweet goat cheese tart with concord grape compote + lemon verbena cream | sea scallops with fried sage + capers | everything garden pesto | herb garden + foraged tea blend
an homage to The Concord Grape
stories and thoughts
I’ve been obsessed with Concord grapes since my mother and stepfather bought a farm in Illinois and created a small vineyard of them at the edge of a field of alfalfa. being the youngest of four children, and before their baby, my little sister, was born, i was the only kid still at home when we moved to The Farm.
Some things about this situation were great. i immediately took to the back-to-the-land lifestyle. my grandfather insisted on getting me a horse (he had been a captain in the cavalry in WWI) and that very horse taught me (i swear she did!) how to ride bareback like a dang cowgirl. we dug a pond fed by a natural spring for blissful fresh water swimming, picked copious quantities of wild asparagus in season along the hedgerows and collected the best eggs i’d ever tasted from our fledgling flock of Rhode Island Reds.
Other aspects not so much. i was the third wheel to a pair of newlyweds who were madly in love, in their new home with close proximity to the birds and the bees — and teenage me. i did not know a single soul my age when we moved to the farm (we’d left my childhood home and all my friends in the suburbs) so i would come home in the afternoons from my freshman year of high school and plunk myself down in the tall grasses alone under those grapevines and literally stuff myself with grapes, lying lazily on my back in the slanting golden light and warm September sun. i honestly don’t remember being lonely — maybe i was? — all i remember are the grapes, that burst of deep dark sweet and tangy flavor when i popped the skins open in my mouth with my fingers, and the juice and the pulp (along with the seeds) slid down my throat, one by heavenly one.
So many grapes. And all the time in the world.
A couple of years later when i went off to boarding school in Vermont, as soon as the grapes were ripe on the vine in Illinois, my mother would send me a big cardboard box of them, the bunches wrapped in pages of The Chicago Trib and padded on all four sides with bubble wrap.
Those September boxes of Concord grapes from The Farm followed me year after year. After high school in Vermont, they came to college in Michigan, and then would arrive every September to my New York City apartment after i’d moved there to live and work. i don’t think that any other packages heading my way, ever, were met with greater anticipation or subsequent elation than my boxes of Concord grapes from The Farm. of course i tore into the grapes the minute the package arrived, never mind whatever else was going on.
A number of years later, i finally planted my very own Concord grapevines at our farm in Connecticut. a pergola covered with them shaded the patio right outside my kitchen door, within very easy reach :-). every September, when our grapes ripened on the vine and i’d eaten my fill (which was to say, almost never ;-), i would use them to make jellies and pies and juices and shrubs — but this compote (recipe below!) might just me my favorite Concord grape concoction yet, harnessing the very essence of my treasured beauties.
Trust me, you should definitely seek out Concord grapes at the farmers’ market, the farm stand or the specialty produce market and buy more than you think you need ;-). to me, they are the very epitome of this time of year.
And when you make the compote, serve it like i do here, alongside a goat cheese tart and some lemon-verbena-infused soft whipped cream, or over ice cream, or stirred into yogurt… or just eat it by the happily decadent spoonful!
SWEET GOAT CHEESE TART, LEMON VERBENA CREAM + CONCORD GRAPE COMPOTE ! (recipe below)
SEA SCALLOPS WITH FRIED SAGE AND CAPERS!
So now that dessert is done, all you need is a simple seasonal salad (you got that) and a lovely easy delicious main course (I got that — see below!) and you have a DINNER PARTY :-). this scallop dish is what i’ve been making a version of for years after eating it in a restaurant somewhere — and while sage is available throughout most of the year, nutty fried sage just feels so autumnal to me. this combination is pure heaven.
Also, it’s ready in about 10 minutes with little to no prep and of course all the more expedient if you have sage in your garden and capers in your pantry.
Serve as is, or over polenta, or maybe on top of potato or cauliflower puree, and you have a most satisfying not to mention a rather impressively “fancy” dish. (recipe below!)