Well Pooey on that, as stepdaughter Celia used to say. I wouldn’t be without one and I’m not particularly gadget prone. In fact most of my cooking equipment is either

Vintage:

Bill manning the Strand Universal kitchen stove.

Or primitive

The outdoor clay oven. Beans in the pot, pork roast in the pan, coals banked at the back to boost heat for the first few hours of cooking. The wooden door is lined with flashing to keep it from getting burned.

We didn’t choose the current incumbent it because it was a turbocharged 1300 watts, or because it was black and chrome, thus more or less matching the kitchen decor. We chose it because it was the only mid-sized unit that would fit on the shelf as currently configured.

This selection method worked out very well with the dishwasher. When we did the kitchen back in 1995, the Asko was the only one that would fit under the 34 inch counter top (unless you count dishwasher drawers, already available but out of our financial reach – which alas they still are). Fifteen years later, it’s still going strong, quietly, efficiently…

Where was I ?

Oh, the micro.

Our current microwave - and, it must be admitted, a few other gadgets I’d be hard pressed to do without.

So far so good, except for its being way too powerful for some of the uses I’m used to. The defrost is little short of amazing, but a full cup of room temperature liquid will boil if you push the beverage button and fail to extract the cup in roughly half the pre-measured time.

There are 10 power levels. As far as I can tell, level 6 is about equal to full power on our old one. Fortunately 1 and 2 are still low enough to make melting chocolate the same tidy, near-foolproof breeze it was with the previous machine.

Chocolate (and caramel) aside, we mostly use this handy appliance to defrost and reheat, so it sounds at first as though the naysayers are right. They’re not; defrosting and reheating are huge, because they make it so much easier to eat well locally all year ‘round, even in the frost belt.

From late fall to mid-summer, the freezer is our reliable source of home grown tomatoes and sweet corn, harvest vegetable soups and stews, a good supply of local meat, and plenty of leftover lasagna, cassoulet, etc. the slow food version of heat n’ eat fast food.

Defrosting can of course be accomplished by always knowing what you want far enough ahead of time to allow complete thawing at room temperature. This is not how we operate, and I well remember the pre-micro days: Become fed up with how long it’s taking to thaw whatever by immersing the container in cool water. Switch to warm water. Become fed up. Put it in a saucepan over low heat. Poke and prod and pry at the slowly dwindling frozen lump while the rising sea of already-thawed material inexorably overcooks. Personally, I’d rather put the frozen item in the machine, go do something else and come back in 5 to 10 minutes to find the job accomplished.

Reheating is equally gratifying, for more or less the same reasons. Whatever it is reheats quickly, all of it at the same time, and unlike things reheated on stove or in oven, it’s  unlikely to dry out while doing so. Of course that’s why micros are lousy to cook with – unless you want to do a lot of waterless steaming – and may explain why the anti’s are so down on them. Nothing dries out, but nothing reduces either. Nothing browns and genuine crispness simply isn’t happening.

* Illustrated oven building instructions here, should you be looking for a project.

Result: not so many dead wild trees; fewer monocrop tree plantations, reduced use of  horrendous paper-processing chemicals. To say nothing of less giant log truck exhaust.

In other words, I’ve been cleaning out a few bookcases, bookcases that haven’t been cleaned out for quite a while. In addition to books, photographs and assorted memorabilia, they contained folders that I’d been thinking were full of old manuscripts but were in fact full of self-published food newsletters.

Tons – well, many pounds – of food newsletters. Newsletters beyond counting, from gifted writers and the prose-challenged, from good cooks and from people who should not be allowed near kitchens except in restaurants.

Old copies of keepers like The Art of Eating, Simple Cooking and Food History News will go to the Cushing library (which may be the very last library on earth willing to accept such things). The rest – into the recycle bin, with gratitude that there is finally something reasonably benign to do with unwanted paper.

For 4-6 servings:

Go down to the upright freezer, where “ready to eat,” items are stored. Extract:  the last qt. of Haddock, Corn and Crab Chowder with Chanterelles, 1 qt. Succotash (Black Mexican corn and Dr. Martin lima beans), 1 qt. of something labeled “Chicken and Corn stock, strong flavor, thin texture,” and 1 1/2 c. Chanterelle Cream Sauce.

Combine and heat. Decide more chanterelle is needed. Go back down to the mushroom section and get a little bag of Chanterelles in Butter. Add. Reheat. Serve topped with shredded lettuce and minced scallion.

In other words

Ladies and Gentlemen, Start your freezers!

Hybrid Spring Celebration bread, yeast raised eggs and butter, basically, with lots of vanilla and citrus zest and a crunchy macaroon crust.

Among my food world friends on facebook, hot cross buns were this year’s hot topic and that’s where I started out – refreshing my memory by reading up in Elizabeth David’s wonderful English Bread and Yeast Cookery.

Once refreshed, however, I decided I wanted something richer, eggier and lighter than hot cross buns. Much recipe reading ensued, in bread books and in French, Italian, Greek, Polish and Russian cookbooks.

After a while, they all blended together into one airy, fragrant golden loaf, lightly studded with raisins and candied citrus peel, way too good to bake only once a year. Try it for breakfast with strawberries and mascarpone, lightly toasted with sweet butter at tea time, cut thick as sandwich bread for lemony chicken salad …

Hybrid Spring Celebration Bread

These are quarters of slices taken from the bottom of the taller, more Kulich shaped loaf.

After all the reading and synthesizing I didn’t stray far from the Russian Kulich that I’ve been baking for years, but being a hybrid it also has some dna from Italian Columba Pasquale.

Making it is a lot easier than the length of the instructions suggests, but there are Three Warnings:

1.) The dough starts out  heavy and sticky, difficult to mix and knead. Although it can be done by hand (see instructions at the end), doing it with a heavy duty stand mixer is a lot easier and faster.

2.) The multiple risings that give the bread its light, tender crumb and easy sliceablility take many hours, but timing is very flexible. It  can be stretched out over a couple of days if that’s what fits your schedule.

3.) The dough can be baked in almost any shape, but because it’s very soft it does need support. Braids and similar sculptures spread unattractively in rising and baking.

For 2 very large round loaves, 3 tall (Kulich-shaped) loaves made in 2 lb. coffee cans or 4 standard loaves:

½ c. golden raisins

½ c. Marsala or Madiera

Sponge:

½ c. tepid water

1 envelope dry yeast (2 rounded tsp.)

1/2 cup bread flour

First Dough:

3 eggs *

2 egg yolks

¼ c. (vanilla) sugar

3 tbl. honey

2 c. bread flour

Second Dough

1/2c. tepid milk

1 envelope dry yeast (2 rounded tsp.)

¼ c. (vanilla) sugar

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp ground cardamom

5 egg yolks

2 tsp. vanilla

2 tsp. orange flower water

1 lemon, preferably organic

1 large or 2 small oranges, preferably organic

4 ½ c. all purpose flour

½ lb. soft  (room temperature) butter, cut in 12 chunks

1 c. candied citrus peel (try  home made and you’ll never go back), any combination of orange, lemon and/or grapefruit, cut in small dice

Finishing and Topping:

butter for the baking pans

½ – 1 c. sliced almonds

½ c. whole almonds

½ c. sugar

2 egg whites

scant ¼ tsp. almond extract

Part 1:

1. Put raisins in a small bowl, cover with the wine and set aside, covered.

2. Make the sponge: put the tepid water in a large mixer bowl, sprinkle on the yeast and let it soften, about 10 minutes. Beat in the flour. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise until tripled and foamy, 45 minutes to an hour.

3. Using the whisk attachment, beat 1st dough ingredients into the sponge. You will have a sticky mixture somewhere between stiff batter and soft dough. Use your fingers to scrape everything clinging to the beater into the bowl, then cover tightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise double, about 2 hours at room temperature or 8 hours in the refrigerator. Dough may remain in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours if that’s more convenient.

Part 2:

4. Put the tepid milk in a small, wide bowl, sprinkle on the yeast  and let it soften, about 10 minutes.

5. Scrape the yeast and milk onto the dough. Mix the salt and cardamom with the sugar and add, along with the egg yolks, vanilla and orange flower water.

6. Position a grater over the bowl and shred in the zest of the lemon and orange. Hold a strainer over the bowl and dump in the raisins and wine. Shake to get off as much liquid as possible, then set the raisins aside. Return the bowl to the mixer and use the paddle attachment to stir in and thoroughly mix all the additions.

7. Slowly beat in 3 cups of the flour, alternating with 8 of the butter chunks. The dough will become extremely thick and start crawling up the paddle spindle. Just push it down from time to time and persevere.

8. Remove the paddle, pushing off the dough. Almost all of it should come away fairly easily. Switch to the dough hook and use it to incorporate the last 1 ½ c. of flour and the last 4 chunks of butter. Continue to knead with the hook until the dough is smooth and shiny. It will again crawl up the spindle. Again push it down from time to time and push it off at the end.

9. Again cover and let the dough double, 2 hours or so for room temperature dough at room temperature, a bit longer if the dough was cold to begin with. As in Part 2, this rising can be done in the fridge for roughly 8 to 24 hours.

Part 3:

10. Heavily butter your baking pans. Sprinkle with sliced almonds, tipping out any that don’t cling. Lightly flour a work surface and turn the dough out on it. Knead just enough to deflate, then roll out into a sheet roughly ½ inch thick. It will probably stick here and there; resist the impulse to add more flour.

Spread on the reserved raisins and the candied zest, then roll up the dough, using a bench scraper or chef’s knife as a pusher in the sticky spots. Fold the roll in thirds, then knead until the fruits are evenly distributed. The dough will be smooth, soft and silky.

11. Shape the dough into balls, rings or logs, depending. They should fill the pans a scant halfway. Cover and let rise until almost at the tops of the pans, a bit less than 2 hours.

Topping and baking:

12. Put a rack in the lower third of the oven and heat to 375 degrees. Combine whole almonds and sugar in a processor and grind quite fine. Beat the egg whites to a soft foam and stir in the nut sugar and extract. Spoon the topping onto the loaves, starting in the center and gently helping gravity to spread it to the edges. There may be a bit left over.

Baking:

Large wide shapes: bake 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake until the bread shrinks from the pan and a long skewer comes out clean (or an instant read thermometer measures 185 degrees), 25 – 40 minutes more, depending on size. Check after the first 20 minutes and cover lightly with foil if the topping is browning too fast.

Small and/or narrow shapes: turn the heat to 350 as soon as you put the loaves in the oven and start checking for doneness after 25 minutes.

Partially cool on wire racks before turning out of the pans, then finish cooling completely before slicing. Bread will stay fresh tasting for close to a week. It also freezes well, but only if thoroughly wrapped. First freezer cling wrap, then a freezer bag will keep it in good shape for several months.

To Make By Hand

It’s a lot like making brioche. Plan to use the slow refrigerator risings; they’ll make the mixing and kneading a lot easier. Steps 1 through 6 are the same. Use a heavy bowl so it doesn’t slide around, and a sturdy wooden spoon to do the mixing.

The wooden spoon will also work for about the first 2 cups of flour in step 7, but then the dough will be so thick and sticky that stirring will be impossible. Set all of the rest of the flour and butter where you can get at them easily; turn off the phone and lightly flour the work surface. Scrape the dough onto it and start mixing with your hands.

They will be completely covered with/immersed in sticky dough. Don’t fight it, just keep adding and mooshing, occasionally lifting as much of the dough as you can and then letting it fall back . After all the flour and butter are in, keep kneading and lifting (do not add more flour).

Eventually, the stickiness will fade and the dough will become smooth and shiny. This brings you to step 9 and from there on the instructions are the same again.

Update: Recipe corrected 4/10/10

The post was published  with instructions in step 3. calling for “2nd dough ingredients.” This should have been ” 1st dough ingredients,” and now it is.

* Concerning quality: Another facebook thread, started by baking expert/cookbook author Nancy Baggett, has been discussing whether food writers should specify “best,” when calling for ingredients, given that not everything can be the best, and if everyone keeps insisting on “best,” what will  become of everything else?

My position is that everyone already wants the best they can get without having to be told, so if you’re going to specify it pays to be specific. I said nothing about the eggs and butter although I used fresh local pastured eggs and my favorite everyday butter: Kate’s, from southern Maine, available here in the Hudson Valley at Hannaford’s supermarkets.

Were the breads better than if they had been made from bland, slightly fishy tasting battery eggs and flat, stale generic butter? Yes. Did you know that before I said so? Also yes.

____________________________________

“I had an excellent repast – the best repast possible – which consisted simply of boiled eggs and bread and butter. It was the quality of these simple ingredients that made the occasion memorable. The eggs were so good that I am ashamed to say how many of them I consumed. ‘La plus belle fille du monde”,  as the French proverb says, ‘ne peut donner que ce quélle a’; and it might seem that an egg which has succeeded in being fresh has done all that can reasonably be expected of it. But there was a bloom of punctuality, so to speak, about these eggs of Bourg, as if it had been the intention of the very hens themselves that they should be promptly served. ‘Nous sommes en Bresse, et le beurre n’est pas mauvais,’ the landlady said with a sort of dry coquetry, as she placed this article before me. It was the poetry of butter, and I ate a pound or two of it; after which I came away with a strange mixture of impressions of late gothic sculpture and thick tartines.”

from A Little Tour in France, by Henry James, first encountered by me in one of Elizabeth David’s books, I no longer remember which.

Then –  what else is new? –  it proceeded to back around so cold the loss seemed more likely to involve  blooming crocus and hellebores, swelling buds of narcissus and hyacinth and early peonies. I spent a lot of time running around with heaps of straw instead of attending to maple posting.

Fortunately, in the event, Friday’s predicted low of 14 did not materialize; almost everything came through ok, and it’s once again March, chilly enough to talk about syrup.

Down East Company Coleslaw – a cabbage-taming touch of maple makes all the difference

DOWN EAST COMPANY COLESLAW

would be blamelessly locavoracious  if it weren’t for the pepper(s). It would also be somewhat less interesting, albeit still tasty enough. Up to you.

The dressing and seasonings will seem scant when you first put the slaw together. Sometimes all that’s needed is some sitting time, sometimes tweaking is necessary. A lot depends on the quality of the produce.

For 6 – 8 servings. Recipe may be multiplied; it keeps for 3 or 4 days

Dressing:

2 tbl. peanut oil

½ tsp. each dry mustard, salt and pepper

1 tbl. + 1 tsp. cider vinegar

3 tbl. maple syrup

½ c. whole milk yogurt

Slaw:

7 c. thinly sliced cabbage (about half a 2 lb. head, depending on how much woody, strong core you have to discard. Or  about a quarter head each if you use 2 colors but why not quadruple the recipe and have a party?)

2 large tart apples, peeled and shredded on the coarse holes of the grater

1 small green pepper, cut in small dice, about a cup. Feel free to sub in some jalapeno

Numbered steps not necessary. Whisk the dressing together in a large bowl. Stir in the vegetables, making sure all are coated. Cover and chill for at least three or 4 hours. Stir, taste, adjust, eat.

ASSORTED MAPLE TARTLETS

Once I got going on the maple walnut pie and tart I started wondering what else – besides black walnuts, even better than the English kind – would be good with the maple base. Carrots, perhaps not too surprisingly, were great.

Maple Carrot Tartlet

Apples, perhaps surprisingly, were not. The maple got totally lost.

Nothing wrong with it, just all apple all the time, so why bother?

And wild rice was wonderful, at least in the flavor department.

Maple Wild Rice Tartlet

The rice on top got a little chewy so next time I make that I’ll use a little less rice and put a top crust on.

Important note: As that “next time”  implies,  I haven’t tested the two-crust version yet, nor do I intend to in the immediate future. I’m too fond of being able to get into my pants.

All these tarts are made the same way as the pie (link again here, for your recipe convenience ), with a layer of the fully cooked whatever on the crust, then the maple mixture poured on. This quantity of maple mixture will fill about six 4.5″  inch tarts, depending on the volume of the other ingredient(s).

Baking the tartlets takes a little less time than the big tart or pie, but not by very much. Assume a total of 35 minutes and then start checking at 3 or 4 minute intervals.

For many more recipes, check out  The ABC’s of Maple Syrup, a tour de force of linkage by Amanda Bensen, a maple mad blogger for The Smithsonian who claims it’s all because she’s from Vermont.

Modern Maple Syrup

Our house was once called “ The Maples,” and vintage pictures show a couple of majestic examples right beside the front door, but they were almost all gone by the time we came. Every tappable tree save one was (and is) down at the edge of the property behind the vegetable garden.

No matter, every year as the geese flew calling and windshield-scraping stopped being a major pain, we found new spots in the trees for the taps and tied on the well-used  plastic milk jugs to collect the sap.

Every afternoon after school, Celia would empty the jugs into pails, carefully replace the jugs, then carry the pails up to our outdoor syrup-boiler aka canning kettle on concrete blocks over wood fire. A fresh fire would be lit. After bits of ash stopped flying the kettle lid would be removed.

Eventually, boiling would take place. Not enough to make finished syrup, just enough to make room in the kettle and prevent spoilage of what was there. Then, roughly once a week, boiling would get serious. We’d all stand around worrying and stirring and then triumphantly pouring off our very own home made.

typical backyard sap-collecting device (the plastic bag lid keeps insects and debris out)

Plastic milk jugs lack the poetic beauty of galvanized pails; seeing them doesn’t remotely evoke the sled and the Clydesdales, but what they lack in loveliness they make up for in efficiency and economy, to say nothing of recycling points.

Professionals sometimes use plastic vessels too.

the professional version of bucket-style sap collection

Most of the time, though, what professional syrup makers use is a combination of plastic tubing, the force of  gravity and reverse osmosis, a mechanical sap concentration technique.

Reverse osmosis is best known as a way to desalinate water, but that which can be desalinated can also be de-mapleized, leaving behind a far sweeter liquid that takes much less boiling to be reduced to syrup. The machinery isn’t cheap, but it saves enormous quantities of labor and energy.

plastic tubes carry the sap downhill to the reverse osmosis machine in the little shed. The turquoise tank holds the concentrated result for pickup by the syrup maker.

Syrup Grades and What They Mean

The USDA Grading System is : US Grade A Light Amber, US Grade A Medium Amber, US Grade A Dark Amber, and US Grade B, but grading is voluntary and other terms, like “Fancy Grade” or “No. 1 Light” are also used. Whatever the various grades are called, light color is the gold standard : the paler the syrup, the more delicate the maple flavor and the sweeter the taste.

That’s sweet taste, not sweetness itself. Actual sugar content scarcely varies. If the syrup isn’t at least 66 percent solids (almost all of them sucrose), it will be thin and likely to spoil; if it’s over about 67.5 percent it will start to crystallize.

Dark Amber or Grade B is preferable for cooking because darker syrup has more maple flavor. It would seem that even darker would be even better, but practically speaking Grade B is as low as it goes, even though there is a much darker syrup in the lineup.

That one is Commercial grade, as far as I know a strictly wholesale product. It’s made at the end of the season when quality is starting to decline and is used in maple flavored products like cheap syrup and ice cream. More like a seasoning than a food, Commercial grade can contain off-flavors that would render it inedible if you tried to pour it on your pancakes or bake it into your pie.

Milk jug and forest-of-bucket photos by Bill Bakaitis

Ricotta with maple syrup and oil-cured black olives, a trio from heaven

And then – Hot Snap. Enemy of syrup making. Instant wilter of  species crocus.

in cool weather, three weeks of delight. If hot, not.

Who knew the drearier aspects of March could be something you’d miss?

The person whose crocus those are, of course. On the good side, I finally figured out how to get a crisp bottom crust on a maple walnut pie without pre-baking the shell, my very least favorite part of pastry making.

Walnut Maple Tart looking tipsy (‘twas the camera, not the tart) and Maple Walnut Pie

Back in the early 70’s I had a night kitchen bakery in rented space in a coffee shop in Rockland, Maine. The product line was limited: three times a week I made 60 baguettes of sourdough French bread and one to two dozen maple walnut pies.

Baking and delivery took me from around 8 PM to 3 AM, much of that time spent in a bar across the street, waiting for the dough to rise. The pie recipe is long lost ( perhaps not surprisingly) but whatever else was going on I’m certain of two things:

1) I was not baking those pie shells blind, and

2) the bottom crusts were crisp, that being a bottom line for me in the pie-quality department. So how did I do it? Words cannot express how deeply I wish I knew; the old fashioned Blodgett stack ovens may have had something to do with it. How I do it now – can’t believe it didn’t occur to me sooner! – is with a pizza stone. Simplicity itself.

CRISP CRUST MAPLE WALNUT PIE

Using a pizza stone puts a lot of heat under the pie, close to that bottom crust. A glass pan holds more heat than a metal one and allows you to check crust doneness. This pie freezes very well, so don’t be shy to make one and save the bulk of it for future reference.

for a 9 inch pie:

A large pizza stone, at least 14 inches in diameter (mine is a square that completely covers the rack of my small oven)

Pastry for a single crust. I use a half batch of  Processor Sour Cream Pie Crust .

1/3 cup sugar

1 tbl. flour

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

3 eggs, cold right from the fridge

1 ¼ c. maple syrup, preferably very dark amber (Grade B)

a 9 inch glass pie pan

1 ½ c. walnut pieces, lightly toasted

2 tbl. butter, melted

1. Put a rack in the lower third of the oven. Put the stone on it and heat to 425 degrees. This will take at least a half hour.

2.While the stone is heating, roll out the pastry between 2 sheets of waxed paper. Put the whole thing on a cookie sheet and put it in the ‘fridge.

3. In a good sized mixing bowl, mix sugar, flour  and salt with a wire whisk. Stir in the eggs, trying not to beat. The less air incorporated the better.

4. When the stone is hot, retrieve the pastry. Use it to line the pie pan, building up a generous rim. Sprinkle the nuts over the bottom. Put the prepared pan on a thin, foil lined cookie sheet.

5. Stir the melted butter into the filling and pour it over the nuts. A few will dislodge, no big deal. Put the pie into the oven and turn the heat down to 350.

6. Bake for 20 minutes, then turn the heat to 325 and continue to bake until crust is richly browned and a knife inserted in the filling comes out clean, 25 to 35 minutes more. Check from time to time and cover the top with foil if it’s browning too quickly. Allow to cool completely before serving.

WALNUT-MAPLE TART

The ingredients above will yield a 9-inch tart with a very pronounced walnut flavor.  Cut down to ¾ c. nuts, chopped a bit more finely, for a stronger maple taste. If you use the full amount of nuts, there will be a bit of filling left over. Bake it in a custard cup or make a tartlet. (A 10 inch tart would seem to be the obvious solution, but it’s hard to get that size cooked in the middle without overcooking the edges).

Being thinner, the tart will cook more quickly than the pie, but not by much; just  subtract about 10 minutes from the last segment of baking.

RICOTTA AND MAPLE SYRUP

Is great all by itself, very nice with mandarin sections

mandarins are fine, so are slices of tart blood orange. Very sweet oranges don't really do the job

And unbelievably good with oil cured black olives. Their salty bitterness is just right with the smoky maple sweetness and then there’s the creamy, mild ricotta for the third leg of the triangle.

Also not to be overlooked; this dessert is very nearly instant. If you have time, put the syrup in the freezer to thicken for a few hours before serving.

LES GRANDPERES

is a classic Canadian dessert – or breakfast, on state occasions -  of biscuits baked on top of boiling maple syrup. Cottage pudding gone to heaven: crisp, brown and buttery on top, syrup softened but not at all soggy underneath. The recipe is here

MAPLE CELEBRATIONS

Before I go out to plant the lettuce.

This weekend and next are loaded with maple celebrations – open houses, demos, tastings and kid-friendly activities too numerous (and predictable) to go into at length.

Fun, though, and you can’t beat it for shopping local. Not many syrup makers are regulars at farmers markets, so this is often the best chance to buy directly from producers instead of through middlepersons or by mail order. Many New York opportunities can be found here,  many in Maine here.

Other syrup producing states include Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, to say nothing of the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, which together produce the bulk of North American syrup. Google any one plus maple weekend to find festivities near you.

Postscript not about Maple Syrup. Frustration! Not for the first time unable to comment on a Blogspot site, in this case A Haven for Vee, because there’s either no url category that fits (Vee’s) or the open ID isn’t interested in my address. (Others I can’t think of at the moment). Usually I just give up, cursing, but Vee was very generous – and also curious about Roger and the 3000 Mile Garden.

So Vee, if you’re reading:

Wow! WHAT a lovely compliment – and lovely blog, too. (congrats on the tassel,btw). Thank you so much for that generous praise…in the same post as E.B. and Katherine White! My cup runneth over. Happy to say Roger and I are still in touch, though we seldom see each other. Our last visit was 2 summers ago, when we were together for 4 days at a mushroom conference in CT and then he and Nicky came to Maine, stayed near us, and came to dinner twice. He has a couple of wonderful websites, one on roses, one on mushrooms. You can get to both through Roger’s Roses. I just heard from him the other day, in fact, because he’s been making 3000 mile into an e-book and is almost done.

At this point T.A.G is more of a cultural artifact than a source of great recipe ideas, but there are a few gems that still shine with undiminished luster. A “Congealed Avocado and Chicken salad,” for instance, contributed by Mrs. Jacque Puken, of Eunice, LA, doesn’t sound all that promising, but in fact it’s absolutely delicious and a perfect make-ahead for a crowd. It’s hearty enough to be a main dish, light enough to play well with all the chili, boudin and/or brats, easy to serve and easy to eat  - with or without a fork.

Molded and served like pate; no fork needed

Molded into a loaf and sliced; fork needed. Also chips. (Crunch must not be overlooked.)

When I decided to do this I was thinking only about New Orleans. But  just to put the cherry on the congealed salad, you could say it’s a tribute to Indianapolis as well; the gelatin obviously binds it to  the jello-based concoctions so popular in the Midwest.*

Sorry Hoosiers, but there’s simply no contest – you’re gonna get beat in the kitchen no matter what happens on the playing field. When your culinary historians can’t come up with anything more than corn, pork sandwiches and being the birthplace of Wonder Bread, you know you’ve got a problem.

Background: I wasn’t planning to talk about the Super Bowl – what’s to say, really? – at all but then I got annoyed by a recipe for a “lighter, more contemporary” gumbo, clearly timed to address football eats in a year when New Orleans – !Go Saints! – is playing for the first time. Nothing really wrong with the dish in question except its fundamental premise: traditional gumbos in all their assorted glories are to be passed over in favor of  modernity and abstemiousness.

Please.

But then what? New Orleans is a place that loves parties, food and talking about food in pretty much equal measure; there are dozens of terrific cookbooks and websites full of jambalayas and gumbos, po’ boys and peacemakers. No need for me to insert my oar into those familiar waters.

Off to the cookbook shelf, there to be greeted by an old friend.

Those scribbles are a gift from the pre-owner, who noted several favorite rolls and and desserts.

Almonds and lettuce can also provide crunch, if you've already had too many chips

CONGEALED CHICKEN AND AVOCADO SALAD ( adapted from Talk About Good)

For  about 1 1/2 quarts, 8- 10 main dish servings, enough pate for 25 or more, depending on what else you’re having. (Recipe may be doubled, which would tidily use one 4 lb. chicken)

Chicken salad:

1 1/2 c. strong chicken broth

1 envelope unflavored gelatin

1 tbl. lemon juice

1 c. finely diced celery

3 tbl. minced parsley ( you can of course substitute cilantro, but it’s interesting to taste avocado without it – kind of like apples without cinnamon)

3 cups chopped cooked chicken, light and dark meat

1/2 c. plus 2 tbl. mayonnaise

salt and white pepper

Avocado topping:

1 envelope unflavored  gelatin

1 1/4 tsp. salt

1 small onion, finely shredded or grated

2 tbl. lime juice

1 1/2  large or 2 small avocadoes, enough to make 1 heaping c. mashed

1/3 c. sour cream

1/3 c. finely dicd green pepper (use part or all jalapeno if you like, but see parsley, above)

For serving:

Crisps and crunchies: crackers, corn chips, toasted sliced almonds, shredded lettuce…

1. Assemble molding pans: loaf, bowl, fancy molds… rinse with cold water, line with plastic wrap and set aside. Don’t forget that if you want to have avocado on top of a tapered mold you have to prepare and put that layer in first. As long as the first layer is chilled before the second one goes on, order doesn’t matter.

2. For the chicken: Put 1/4 cup room temperature broth in a heatproof bowl, sprinkle on the gelatin and let soften, then heat the rest of the broth just to boiling and stir it in to dissolve. Add the lemon juice. Let the mixture cool, then refrigerate until gloppy – thickened but not yet solidified.

3. Stir in the celery, parsley and chicken, then the mayo. Taste, then season quite highly with salt and pepper. Put it in the prepared pan(s), pressing down to remove air spaces. Cover and chill.

4. For the Avocado: Put 2 tbl. cool water in a heatproof bowl, sprinkle on the gelatin and let soften, then stir in 1/3 c. boiling water, the salt, onion and lime juice. Cool, then chill until gloppy (see above).

5. Mash the avocado now. Stir in the sour cream and diced pepper and add to the gelatin mixture. Taste and adjust salt. (If the avocados taste bland, a tiny pinch of sugar and a drop – literally – of peanut oil may help). Spread over the chicken layer and chill.

That’s it. Salad keeps 2 or 3 days refrigerated, cover tightly to keep the onion odor from spreading around. I’m still playing with the leftovers from recipe testing. Made little turnovers this afternoon with some ( also leftover) flaky sour cream pastry. Very tasty; the gelatin keeps the filling moist without turning the crust soggy.

* Parts of the south, too, to tell the truth. T.A.G offers many jello-based extravaganzas that would be right at home on the banks of the Wabash.

No cracks about this being a rather ladylike version; the Junior League gets to party too

A few favorite moments from Talk About Good :

A recipe for Veal Scallopini Dip ” for a large crowd” that starts out by having you cut 6 to 8 pounds of thinly sliced veal into 1×2 inch pieces,which are then floured and deep fried before being stewed into submission.

A recipe for OKRA (Summer Preparation for Winter Gumbo) that reminds me of my own exhortations about making use of the freezer. It begins: ” I buy fresh okra by the sack in summer and freeze it cooked down, ready for instant winter gumbo when water and seafood are added…” Needless to say, there’s a lot more than okra in the recipe and its author admits ” You can easily allow one day for the preparation,” before saying “but it’s well worth it…”

A recipe for Easy Guacamole Salad that starts with mashing several ingredients and helpfully advises ” (This is best done with a child’s potato masher if you can find one, otherwise use a pastry blender)…”

A recipe for Chicken Genoa that would probably surprise Italians by calling for a pound of butter to cook two 2-pound chickens. You do skin the chickens first…

Quick Grits souffle for 100? It’s in there. Tamales (25 or 30 dozen)? Gotcha covered.

This was in 1975. According to the cover of the current edition, 750,000 have been sold, so there is undoubtedly a copy or six at a used bookstore near you.

Meanwhile, on the arts front, check out the high-end trash talk and wager between the rival cities’ art museums. Just when you’re feeling gloomy about culture in America, here comes this priceless piece of good cheer.

It’s also a reminder – should Black Friday find you in appliance shopping mode –  that shiny black surfaces in the kitchen are a very bad idea. This is not a room where it’s wise to have water spots look like dirt.

Poor fellow can barely see himself; and I'd just washed it that morning!

Bill built the Maine oven so the process could be filmed, so in a way I can thank The Three Thousand Mile Garden for that one. But that one never would have happened if the New York one hadn’t came first, and although Bill did of course build it the ultimate thanks there should probably go to his childhood.

There were several outdoor bread ovens in the neighborhood where he grew up, including one at his grandmother’s place. He never forgot the bread –  or the fact that the ovens were home built – so when I started making wistful noises about how nice it would be to have one they fell on receptive ears.

Next thing to be thankful for: he’s a man of action. And that goes not just for building the ovens but also for providing instructions. You too can have one of these things, not without a bit of work and not instantly, needless to say, but very very inexpensively and it ain’t rocket science, either. Here’s his step by step how-to:

THE OUTDOOR BREAD OVEN

story and pictures by Bill Bakaitis

For a number of years now, ever since The Three Thousand Mile Garden TV series aired, we have received a steady stream of requests for assistance/plans/advice for building an outdoor bread oven similar to the one constructed for that series. The latest request, from a school in Australia, prompted me to post this commentary.
I know it is not time for most of us in the Northern Hemisphere to begin construction, but we can dream on and plan for the spring, while the Australian crew begins work now. In the plans which follow the first four or five steps can actually be done now, in winter, well in advance of that burst of construction that comes with spring.
Our two ovens, the first in New York, and the second in Maine, were inspired by reading The Bread Ovens of Quebec*, by Lise Boily and Jean-Francois Blanchette. Although the Italian side of my family, and the community in which they were immersed, made and used several outdoor ovens, these were all made of stacked paving brick and mortar.  That tradition quickly fell into eclipse as the American-born children of my mother’s generation found the glory of ready-made, plastic-wrapped, balloon-bread.  Why not? It Builds Bodies Twelve Ways proclaimed the wrapper. It was quick and easy to buy, to eat, to forget. Sort of soft in the mouth and in the mind, an authentic American product of the 1950′s.

I was too young to fully understand how those Italian bread ovens were constructed and Uncle Richard, my mother’s brother could find only one person, Angelo Don Francisco, who recalled how it was done. His sketchy instructions, however, were no match for the weighty anthropological reconstruction of the French Canadian ovens described by Boily and Blanchette.  It is a text I highly recommend. All of our plans and techniques were highly influenced by their research.
Here is how we did it.

HOW TO BUILD A CLAY/BRICK OUTDOOR OVEN

1. DIAGRAM YOUR OVEN:

Decide upon the size and shape of your oven. From the photographs on p. 69 of the Boily/Blanchette text, a simple scaling grid overlay set for the length you decide upon will give the height of the oven and its position at apex. The formula and graph on pp. 38 and 39 will give the height of the door opening relative to the height.  From p. 48 the length to width ratio of the base can be determined, and by subtracting the 10″ thickness of the clay ‘loaves’ which will make the side walls of the oven the inner size of the oven will result.

Plans for the New York Oven, as extrapolated from Boily/Blanchette typological considerations (p 38-39) overlaid onto Diagram, p 69.

Both of our ovens closely followed those dimensions used in the construction of the oven constructed for Boily text.

The base (see step 2 below) is 75″ X 47″ OD. The inner height of dome at apex is 32″, and the outer dimension (w 5″clay wall above) is 37″. The height of our door opening is 20″; the width of the door opening at its base is also 20″.  This gives a theoretical working interior of 27″X55″ (24.5 sq ft) although the Maine oven turned out to be substantially larger than the first one we made in NY.

This size oven will bake @ 10 round loaves plus 4- 8 baguettes of bread, along with a small pizza or two in one baking, followed by a few pies and slow cooked beets, tomatoes or other vegetables using only the residual heat of the firing. It is the long heat storage time of the clay mass which makes all of this possible.

If this oven is too large for your needs, you will want to reduce the dimensions by following the ratios arrived at by the research team. Leslie will describe various baking processes and techniques in a separate post.

2a. DECIDE UPON THE LOCATION OF YOUR OVEN:

It should be close enough to the kitchen to be convenient for watching the fires, transporting the raised loaves into the oven and the baked loaves into the house, as well as loading the oven with all of the subsidiary items to be baked: pies, roasts, root crops and the pans of ripe tomatoes to be put up. At the same time, consider the fire hazards and avoid placing the oven next to a combustible structure. You will see that we realized the importance of safety AFTER we built the New York oven. Over two tons of stone, mortar, and clay are impossible to move, and we need to be especially mindful of fire hazards when we use this oven, which places limits on the times we can safely use it.

2b. BUILD A BASE OF STONE, MORTAR, SAND AND RUBBLE:

It should be as long and wide as your plans dictate and end up being knee to thigh high so as to make the heavy work of tending the fires and baking the bread easy.  Ours was made of stone and matter that we gathered from our yard and garden.  I swept the road before the road crew in the spring for much of the sand and gravel, and some stone I gathered from road cuts in the area.

3. POUR A CEMENT HEARTH:

3a. Lay a pair of full dimension 2×4′s (such as the rough cut stuff found at sawmills) on edge across the top of the base during the last round of leveling. These will extend out beyond the side of the base and will become the support for the roof. If you can only find lumberyard milled material, it may be wise to double up or go with 4×4′s.

3b. Over these construct a 2X4 frame around the perimeter of the base. This will correspond to your OD measurements. However, if you extend the 2X4′s a foot to the front of your base you will be able to use these arms as a foundation for a removable apron, useful for staging the loaves after the fire has died down and the coals have been raked.

Fill this void with cement, imbedding the metal door frame 2 ” into the cement. For good measure I placed a few bolts through the perimeter 2X4′s into the inner void, to be firmly affixed when the cement was poured. In this way they become permanent redundant construction members able to be used in the future if need be.

3c. Our metal door opening frames were bent at a local foundry from stock 6″ X 3/16″ flat AR metal.  Remember to add a 4″ lip on both ends and to have the height 22″ (for a 20″ opening) since it will be set 2″ deep into the cement.

All of the above  can be done this fall and winter preceding the spring work with the sapling armature and clay. Winter is also a good time to locate and test the clay for step 5.

4. BEND A FRAME OF SAPLINGS INTO THE SHAPE OF AN IGLOO CAGE:

4a. With magic marker trace out the inner dimensions of your oven; mark the apex point.

4b. Nail together some scrap lumber to hold the saplings,

4c. Gather together a few dozen flexible saplings .5 to 1.5″ in diameter. Apple, Maple, Viburnum, and Alder are all good. Gather more than you think you will need. Then begin the bending, shaping and wiring using the thickest saplings to set the major meridians. I used electric fence wire or twine as needed.

4d. As the shape comes into being you can progress to smaller and smaller twigs. To my eye this armature is the most beautiful part of the oven, and yet it is there to be sacrificed in the first fire. Photos alone will save this work.

4e. Cover the armature with old sheets. We learned that by doing this the resulting interior of the oven is both smoother and larger.

5. OBTAIN YOUR MARINE CLAY: Locate and test your clay. In NY we used some from the east bank of the Hudson River. In Maine a local farmer brought us a load. Before you even bring the clay to your site, however, you will want to test a small loaf by firing it in a bucket of burning sawdust. The first site I came upon made a great looking brick, but it crumbled at the first touch

6. MAKE YOUR CLAY LOAVES AND BUILD UP THE OVEN WALLS.

During this process it is VERY important to wear a pair of tough rubber gloves. Otherwise the clay, which has a high pH, will work its way under your fingernails and into your skin causing puckering, chapping, and painful lesions. Take it from me, and I ain’t tender.

6a. Mix marine clay with sand and earth into a doughy paste. Children tromping in a mixing trough are traditional, but a rototiller works better. As it is used it will chew up a small depression in the ground into which clay, sand, and water can be added to the rototilled earth making a superb mixture. The object is to lighten the clay and make it sticky.

6b. Bind the clay with hay or straw into “loaves/bricks” of about 20-40 pounds each. Clay is incredibly heavy, even after lightening it with sand and earth. The purpose of the straw is twofold: it binds and lightens the bricks, making them easier to work with, and more importantly creates a myriad of air passages that allow steam to escape during the firing process. Without these passages the bricks will explode. You can easily see why the early brick making industry was located near places where both salt hay and marine clay were available. Haverstraw Bay, for example, is derived from “Paver straw”.

6c. Set the wet loaves of clay over the frame, molding them together. The walls should be 10″ thick at the base gradually thinning to 5″ over the top of the oven. It helps to lay in a course of reinforcing chicken wire over the first few courses above the metal door opening as this area expands under use, the heat causing cracks. We did not know to do this on the NY oven and a permanent crack now exists over the arch. The second oven, in Maine, incorporated the chicken wire reinforcement and has only two hairline cracks to the left and right of the arch, a result of better distributing the stress of expansion.

6d. I placed a single removable plug into first course at the rear of the oven so that I could use this as an auxiliary air intake if needed. A threaded pipe with end cap could also be used.

6e. Allow the clay to dry for a month, loosely covered to protect  from the weather until the roof is built. Patch any cracks as they appear.

7. ROOF YOUR OVEN TO PROTECT IT FROM THE WEATHER:

Once fired, the clay will become brick on the inside, but the outside will remain clay and must be protected from weathering. We originally used the board and batten method used in Quebec, but now (16 years later) are having the wood replaced by corrugated metal roofing, which is both fire proof and rot-resistant. For either method use the 2X4′s (3a above) as the platform. They run crosswise under the hearth. Lengthwise over these attach another set of 2×4′s and then use these as the base onto which the roof is supported.  Since some rot appeared in this secondary set over the years, I used pressure treated material this year as a support for the metal roof.

8. BURN OUT THE ARMATURE, FIRE THE BRICK:

At the end of the drying period, a series of small fires inside will burn out the wooden cage and turn the clay into brick.  These first fires will demonstrate the efficiency of the door to dome ratio planned in step 1. A bed of fire brick may be added above the cement floor. For us, they seem to work better than the naked cement.

9. MAKE A DOOR:

Now that all the wood is burned out the clean sweep of the metal door frame provides a perfect template for constructing your door. I used a plywood core with aluminum flashing on the inside, boards on the outside and wooden handles.  It is only put in place after the fire dies down and the coals are spread out to temper the held heat, and also during the baking process itself, so it will never see direct flame.

10. TO BAKE:

10a. Build 2 fires, 1/2 hour apart. Build the first fire in front and then push it to the rear as wood for the second fire is added. If one large fire is laid, flames will be more likely to shoot out the front and ignite the A-Frame roof.  To be safe, we keep a fully charged garden hose at the ready as we fire the oven. When the fire dies down spread the coals evenly over the entire surface of the hearth.

10b. Rake out the coals; we use a hoe to scrape them into a metal wheelbarrow or bucket. Use a wet mop to swab out the hearth.

10c. The bread is laid directly on the hearth, the door closed and the held heat of the brick does the baking:  10 minutes for pizza; 20 minutes for small loaves; 30-45 minutes for large loaves.

compare to the New York walls Celia's inspecting

More on the baking techniques, some tested recipes, oven maintenance tricks, etc. in future posts.

The Boily/Blanchette text has a much more detailed description of the construction of the oven. You will want to read it for the more complete process, particularly if you are a guy like me who assumes the y chromosome is a natural problem solving device.

*Note: After Bill put in the link for buying the  book, we learned it was a lot rarer  - and a lot more expensive! – than we realized. If you don’t mind downloading lots of pdf files, you can get it free online from the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Addendum: Using Salt in the Clay

We did not add any salt to the clay we used in either of our ovens. The NY clay (pictured in the back of the truck in step 5 above) was used almost as soon as it came out of the ground.  It was blue-gray, sticky and eminently moldable.

We did not witness the digging up of the Maine clay so cannot comment on how long it had been out of the ground, but it arrived in a sticky moldable condition. Nearby ‘marine clay’ in situ looked just like the NY clay.

In neither case did we “weather the clay first” as Boily and Blanchette describe.  Since they refer to the excavation of French Canadian clay from intertidal areas one can assume it was also ‘marine clay’. This may mean it contains some sea salt, but if so their ‘weathering’ of the clay would seem to allow the natural rains to wash away any unbound salt. Dunno!

Boily and Blanchette refer to the addition of salt “perhaps to harden [the clay] and make the mixture waterproof” (page 15) and indicate that this was more common to the Gaspé Peninsula. Checking various atlases I see that the Gaspé is primarily a rocky upland area where the Appalachian Mountains meet the Laurentians and where the glacial clay deposits are likely to differ from the lowland  clays of the St. Lawrence River Valley and the broad Coastal Plain.

Elsewhere in the text (page 22) they say that sometimes the dome is protected with a layer of chalk or mortar. They appear not to mention the use of additional salt in the construction of the oven they documented.(page 47 following).

Although potters sometimes use salt to produce a glaze on their pottery, the heat of these bread ovens stays mostly inside the ovens. Ours have never produced enough heat to vitrify the outside surface, so whatever protective hardening the salt might produce, it probably wouldn’t be in the form of a glaze.*

If you want to try using salt it would be wise to test proportions in advance. Make two test bricks of approximately equal volume, mix a roughly measured amount of salt into one and leave the other au natural. Bake both in the sawdust bucket (step #5 above) to see if there is any difference.

*Salt-glazing involves throwing 10 to 15 pounds of salt or a salt/water mixture into the kiln during the final phase of firing.  At temperatures of 1,100 degrees or more, hydrogen chloride is produced. When the hydrogen chloride bonds with steam or atmospheric water vapor, it becomes hydrochloric acid gas. The acid then interacts with the clay to produce a glaze.  Truthfully, I would rather eat white bread than to breathe Hydrochloric acid vapor!

Photos of Bill building the oven by Leslie

By real deal I mean the cherries are fermented in the hooch, not simply given a quick bath.

Sweet cherries, before and after the full brandying treatment

Most popular recipes for brandied cherries require only combining the fruit with brandy and sugar.  Couldn’t be easier, and it’s delicious after sitting around for only a couple of days. Then after you put it in pretty jars and age it a while the cherries turn leathery and the liquid tastes just like cough syrup.

I made a lot of this stuff myself before I discovered that if you take the longer route, using less brandy and letting the mixture ferment, you end up with two good things: a fortified spirit that resembles port and firm, slightly velvety cherries that taste like themselves except for being drunk.

Once those get into the jars they last for years, gastronomic money  (and gift material) in the bank. Obviously great in drinks and desserts – after a rich meal, they’re a great dessert all by themselves – but  also wonderful in rice pilaus, with rich meats like pork, duck and salmon and chopped, just a few, in mayonnaise dressed potato salad with lots of dill and sweet onions. Try it before disbelieving me.

CHERRIES IN BRANDY

Be warned they take several weeks to be ready. Actual work time is about 20 minutes.

For 4 half pint jars (feel free to multiply):

1 pound very firm dark sweet cherries, with stems if possible

1 c. sugar

1c. water

about ½ c. good but not spectacular brandy or cognac

1. Rinse the cherries, then spread them on a towel-lined cookie sheet and let them dry completely, turning from time to time. Sterilize the jars and lids and the tip of a coarse needle.

2. Prick each cherry all the way to the pit 3 or 4 times and pack them snugly but not tightly in the jars, leaving about 3/4 inch headspace at the top. Upper layers should go in stems down so stems don’tpoke above the liquid at the end.

3. Cook sugar and water in a heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved, then raise the heat to medium and let the syrup bubble gently until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.

4. Pour the hot syrup over the cherries, filling each jar half full (there will probably be syrup left over; save it refrigerated for sweetening iced tea and lemonade). Add brandy to the jars to bring the liquid ¼ inch from the top. Cherries should be completely covered; remove one or two if necessary.

5. Put lids on the jars and screw the rings on tightly. Shake gently from side to side to mix the liquids;  thump the jar bottoms on the work surface to resettle the cherries, then undo the rings, leaving the lids in place.

6. Set the jars in a deepish rimmed pan to catch any overflow and set the whole works in a cool dark place ( See note).

7. Once a week, repeat step 5. The liquid will bubble as the cherries ferment, more or less theatrically depending on the sweetness and moisture content of the cherries and the coolness of the storage place. Keep checking until the bubbling stops, which can take anywhere from 10 days or so to more than a month.

Note: Sometimes the cherries do not bubble. There could be several causes: slightly too much brandy or sugar being the most common. And sometimes there’s no cause at all; just the cherries being balky. They’re being transformed in there regardless and should be done in about a month whether they bubble or not. As long as you don’t see mold, they’re fine. Fish one out with chopsticks, cut in half and taste the center. When it tastes alcoholic the process is complete and it’s time to tighten the lids and put them away.

8. When no more bubbles are rising, the cherries are done. Remove lids and wipe the jars, being especially careful to get the rims completely clean. Rinse, dry and replace the lids, put on the rings and tighten securely, then apply labels and store in a cool place, where they will keep indefinitely. Liquid darkens as they age and will be the color of fine old Port at about the 3 year mark (which gives you an idea about the ones in the picture).

Note: The refrigerator is too cold. Ideal temperature is around 50 degrees, a temperature that doesn’t exist in most modern homes in the summer – or the winter, come to think of it. One more reason to be friends with somebody who has a cellar. Or one more reason to buy an inexpensive “wine cellar,” aka small refrigerator with thermostat. Fifty degrees is also ideal for storing cheese, ripe stone fruit and ripe avocados, so you can get plenty of use out of it even if you don’t drink much.

The memory , which comes flooding strongly every year at this time, is of being able to buy enough cherries to make dozens of jars of brandied ones and plenty of cherry  preserves. I just spent a small fortune on a week’s supply for eating fresh and I’ll probably keep doing that long after it’s insane instead of just fiscally unwise, but somehow spending a great deal more so we can have quantities of homemade cherry preserves is probably not going to happen.

In the old days, at the height of the cherry season both of our big local supermarkets offered the fruit in 20 pound boxes at a greatly reduced price per pound. They still weren’t exactly cheap, but they were certainly affordable. No more. For the last ten or fifteen years I haven’t been able to get them even by special request. Is this one more curse of prepackaged produce ? A catastrophe in the cherry orchards?  If any of you have light to shed on this, please shine it in our direction.

Update on the cherry marketing question now in.