Blue Cayenne

Ahhh, potatoes!  Let me count the ways.  

Today’s potato is the upmarket Yukon Gold.

The history of these potatoes is interesting. Yukon Gold potatoes have only been available commercially since 1980. Developed at Canada’s University of Guelph by legendary potato breeder Gary Johnson, the distinctive yellow-fleshed Yukon Gold potato was the product of 14 years of work and experiments with 66 potato crosses.

The Yukon Gold wasn’t Johnson’s only contribution to the world of potatoes, though. Over the course of  his long career, Johnson developed 16 potato varieties. ( Sixteen potato varieties!!! Move over Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan. Any man who develops 16 potato varieties has a sure place in the heart of this potato-loving Irish girl!)

Johnson’s Yukon Gold potato is a cross between a wild  (yellow) Peruvian potato and a domestic (North Dakota) variety of potato. Food writers often describe the potato as looking like it is drenched in butter. Food images don’t get a lot better than that!

Once the Yukon Gold potato was introduced commercially, it became a culinary rock star. The potato got its big break when it was featured by food writers like Mark Bittman in the New York Times. Bittman’s piece was titled “Yukon Gold Standard.”

Soon, Queen Elizabeth II was being served Yukon Golds on Buckingham Palace china. Wolfgang Puck was serving an elegant Yukon Gold potato appetizer at an Oscar’s Ball–yellow-fleshed Yukons topped with Caspian caviar, no less!  And, Barack Obama’s celebrated White House Chef, Cristeta Pasia Comerford, was featuring Yukon Gold potatoes at a state dinner honoring Canada’s hunky Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Her dish?  “Yukon Gold Potato Dauphinoise Drizzled With Yukon Jack Canadian Whiskey.” Wow. Wow. Wow. 

The Yukon Gold potato celebrated it’s 50th anniversary in 2020. We have Gary Johnson to thank for elevating a potato from its lowly status as a sustenance food  to that of a delicacy.

Now, if I can just find that Yukon Gold Potato Dauphinoise recipe, or, at least, a bottle of Yukon Jack Canadian Whiskey…

In the meantime, here is a wonderful Yukon Gold-Cheddar Soup recipe. 

The original recipe from which this soup recipe was adapted appeared in the New York Times. 

Portobellos are gourmet mushrooms. Right?

Actually…no.

Portobellos are poseurs. They are just your common Agaricus bisporus (button) mushroom with good PR. Who knew?

It turns out that until the 1980s,  those big beefy mushrooms we now call portobellos were the overly-mature culls that more often found their way into the compost pile than onto the dinner plate. Today, those same mushrooms command premium prices–$14 a pound at Amazon Whole Foods right now!

So…what in the heck happened here?

To put it bluntly, elderly common mushrooms got the Cinderella treatment. 

As is true so often in life, timing was everything. In the 1980s, the food world was experiencing an “eat your broccoli” healthy food moment. Seeing that unfold, the mushroom industry seized that moment to introduce the portobello.  To make it happen, marketing experts (Don Draper?) were enlisted to sell the heretofore mushroom discards to the general public as healthful delicacies. Ingenious! No?

Along the way, the mushroom promoters experimented with names: Portobello? Portobella? Portobella? Today, those names are used interchangeably. They also promoted the brown portobellos as a healthier (albeit more earthy-appearing) alternative to the pristine younger white button mushroom strain of Agaricus bisporus that had dominated the market since they were popularized in 18th Century France.

But how? The public had to be sold on the deep musty flavor and scent of the “new” mushrooms. (As mushrooms mature, they lose some of their water content and the flavor of the mushroom intensifies.) The PR men pulled that one off brilliantly. The portobellos were promoted as having a “picked fresh from the forest floor” scent and taste. You’ve gotta respect the sheer chutzpah of that “forrest floor” line! 

The growing health food conscious public (literally) ate it up.  Today, portobello mushrooms make up a substantial part of the billion dollar U.S. mushroom industry. 

I’m a portobello fan. I’m first in line to enjoy a juicy grilled portobello as a main or on a bun. Sometimes, though, I long for preparations that take the mushrooms in new directions. This innovative portobello mushroom recipe, Portobello Mushroom Steaks And Butter Bean Mash, fits that bill perfectly. 

This recipe is adapted from one that appears in Yotam Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, Flavor. The book is excellent and is available on Amazon and in your local bookstores.

Oh Instacart!

It’s not you, it’s me.  Well…actually…it’s you.

How did we lose that beautiful thing that  we had? We’ve been so close since March. Whatever I’ve needed, you were there.

Wine? You’ve always given my glass a generous pour.

Ripe tomatoes? You’ve searched for them like a trooper, knowing that the transcendent flavor of truly ripe tomatoes would make me happy. I loved you for that.

Makrut lime leaves? OK. My bad. I told you I knew that order was unfair. I didn’t think you held a grudge.

But, then, this happened.

My usually flawless Instacart order arrived this week with a bouquet of six grossly overripe avocados–packed at the bottom of the box. Six overripe avocados! (You know…the squishy ones that would have been perfectly ripe like two days ago but are now…ugh!…on. their. decline.) That was hurtful.

We need to talk.

You’ve forced Sweet Juliet and me to struggle so that we wouldn’t waste food. In the end, we decided that one foodie wannabe and one small dog could only eat so much guac and avocado toast–although Juliet was more optimistic than I about the guac gorge.

As luck would have it, I had  been leafing through the pages of a newly-acquired cookbook, Yotam Ottolenghi’s Flavor, when this week’s avocado crisis reared its ugly head. And…there it was on page 83! Chilled Avocado Soup With Crunchy Garlic Oil. Once again, Yotam saved the day.

Is there a future for us, Instacart, or have you kicked me to the curb? (That would be Ralph’s curbside.) Sad.

The Yotam Ottolenghi  cookbook Flavor is available at your local bookstore.