I was delighted to be invited to the first annual Lamb Jam. The American Lamb folks and BostonChefs.com did a fantastic job with this event. From the charming Lillet aperitif at the front door, to a good selection of craft beers, and even chocolates by Aroa Fine Chocolates, you had opportunities to nibble and sip and a wonderful menu of food and drink.

Here are some snaps from the point and click while I was balancing plate, glass and swag bag (including a spice rub, recipes and cooking guide.)

Chef Joseph Margate's Lamb poached in whey with Rancho Gordo yellow beans and remember Claytonia I got at winter farmer's market?! Remember Rancho Gordo beans I fell in love with at IACP last year?

Ipswich Ale was one of over a dozen breweries and one winery there. The stout on the left was wonderful.

Michael Leviton dished up Vermont Lamb done three ways. We also chatted about heritage breed pigs and authenticity, transparency in the S/O/L/E messaging.

Greg Griffie serves up crispy lamb shank, mustard, horseradish, upland cress.

The guys from Rapscallion were pouring a terrificly refreshing brew from an 1868 recipe.

Will Gilson plating a delicious "North African style Lamb rillette" which was like the best bite of shawarma. Soumak onions anyone?

What I want to know more about?

What about local lamb? Sure, "10,000 miles fresher" means American lamb from "California and Rocky Mountains" is more local, fresher and has a smaller carbon footprint (than that from New Zealand). And American Lamb is delicious. But, don't we have really LOCAL northeast lamb farmers?

"Natural" sounds good but we've learned, it's not a meaningful term and can mean so many things that most lay people would never dream of when they hear "natural" (The animal may have been confined, fed GMOs (see below), hormones, animal by-products, etc. and still legally bear the label “natural.”)

Where are they? We're still looking for the missing link between farmers doing the right things and chefs who want to support their work, could the American Lamb organization be the missing link? It's not enough to say "10,000 miles is better" - we can and should get more info and cleaner, more local lamb.

What do you think?

Momo mo...how do you like it, how do you like it? Momo mo, how do you like to file?

Dumplings (and Disorder)

Okay so there's no disco tune about dumplings, or about dumplings and filing methods. But I've been on a dumpling binge lately. And it ran up against my organizational woes. This is going to be a post about dumplings. But it took a while to pull this all together because of filing disaster. Just stick with me a minute...

Writing up the latest Celebrate Seafood dinner (see Celebrating Seafood and Screening the End of the Line), I was reminded of the prior dinner which included Momos, demonstrated by Chef Andy Husbands. The Dungeness Crab Momos at that dinner were fantastic.

So, a couple weeks back, I began this post about Momos, Tibetan dumpling, those delicate little parcels Chef Husbands is a pro at making. Try his regularly featured Momos at Tremont 647. Husbands is also a World class BBQ champ, anti-hunger advocate and sustainable food champion, so if you're not a fan of dumplings (who are you?) there's plenty of good reasons to visit. You can also come see Chef Husbands at our Teach a Chef to Fish panel at the Boston Seafood Show.

The night I searched high and low for the recipe packet from the Chef Husband's Celebrate Seafood dinner, I wanted to post a recipe to entice readers to attend the next event. But I couldn't find the recipe packet from the dinner. I knew I'd saved it, somewhere. The little packet of recipes was nowhere to be found. I gave up after about an hour, exhausted, frustrated and mad at myself for tossing something useful. Frustrated with the state of my desk and work area, I threw myself into a fit of organizing, re-organizing and shredding and tossing.

The root cause of the constant, time-wasting searching I go through is being a horizontal organizer living in a vertically organized space. I’m convinced that we are hard-wired one way or the other and conversion is not possible. But convert, I must. This particular search ate up too much time, so I gave up after a while.

Amazing what some sleep will do.

Right in the prime spot, in between my screen and the keyboard are several file folders. I open one to consider finishing a post that’s been 75% done for 100% too long. Hm, wonder what’s in this folder just underneath it...? Doh. Assorted “to be dealt with next” items including, guess what, the New England Aquarium Celebrate Seafood Dinner recipe packet.

So, content that I'd located it at last, I finished the other post, knowing I could return to the Momo post when I was done. Plus, they say when you're fixated on a stumbling block, one tactic that can be successful is to do something else, distract yourself from the obsession and come back fresh.

Sitting down to finish a couple days later, do you think I could find that damn folder? Oh yes, I filed it. In my “hot” file. One organzational guru promised me nirvana if only I would adopt his method of designating a “hot” file for all the current, hot items. The problem is that it’s vertically filed, in the drawer. Out of sight, out of mind...and so it goes.

Dumplings, Dumplings and More Dumplings

Another day, another dumpling. I saw a Facebook post by Robin Asbell on Momos and it was all I needed to finish this post. Then life happened. (Ever had it rain inside your house? Twice?)

My next dumpling day was in preparation for the post on Nourish Network that has engaged a lot of readers, I've enjoyed the comments and the tweets and the emails about their own dumpling love, their family stories and their favorite recipes. If you haven't seen it yet, please read For the Love of Dumplings.

A couple of readers were interested in the vegetarian version of my Mom's Gyōza. This was the first time I'd made them without pork, so I paid attention in case they were successful, I wanted to be able to share the experiment. They were so good, I'm looking forward to making them again soon!

Vegetarian dumplings

Napa cabbage is perfect this time of year.

Vegetarian Gyōza by the Leather District Gourmet

• 1 1/2  cups cabbage, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 cups finely chopped black mushrooms (rehydrated dried black mushrooms)
• 1/4 cup shredded carrot
• 1/4 cup minced scallion or garlic chive
• 2 TBSP soy sauce
• 2 TBSP sesame oil
• 1 TBSP fresh ginger, minced
• 1 TBSP fresh garlic, minced
• 1/2 TBSP saké or Madeira

1. Soak black mushrooms (available in Asian grocery stores and some larger markets) in very hot water. Remove and discard stems, chop caps finely.

2. Chop napa cabbage finely, salt it and rub it together. Set cabbage aside to exude water while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

3. Chop scallion finely. Peel and mince finely garlic and ginger.

4. Mix saké, soy sauce, salt, sesame oil in a small bowl or measuring cup.

5. Rinse cabbage in fine colander, place on clean dry kitchen towel and roll up to squeeze out excess water.

6. Mix cabbage, carrots and mushrooms, pour in liquid ingredients and scallion, ginger, garlic.

7. Add a rounded teaspoon of mixture to middle of gyoza wrapper. Holding it in your left hand, dab cornstarch and water slurry lightly around one half the wrapper edge. Using your thumb of one hand and index finger and thumb of the other feed a pleat toward your thumb and pinch gently. Pleat about five or seven times to create a half moon. (The slurry will not be necessary if using fresh homemade wrappers.)

8. Fry in batches of 6-8 dumplings (fan out in a pinwheel in a non-stick pan). You will get a dark golden crispy bottom in  2-3 minutes using about 1 TBSP hot oil. Add 1/2 C hot water, quickly place lid on pan and steam for 8-10 minutes.

Packaged gyōza skins are quick and easy.

* * *

Tips:

• Dipping sauce can be made from soy sauce, black vinegar, chili oil, scallions all to taste.
• Leftover filling (either vegetarian or meat) can be sautéed and served over rice. Thicken with the strained mushroom soaking liquid, or other broth, and cornstarch. You can add tofu or chopped vegetables.
• To easily peel ginger without losing too much of the fleshy part: invert a spoon and drag firmly across the papery skin. It will peel it much more closely than a vegetable peeler or paring knife.
• To make homemade wrappers see Andrea Nguyen’s Asian Dumplings for recipe, how to video and encouragement. It’s not hard to do, but it does take practice. Practice can be delicious, too.
• To read more about the Japanese obsession with Gyōza read the Oishinbo installment on the topic. Read Rich Auffrey's review here, at The Passionate Foodie.

Momos for you!

♥ To reward those of you who stuck with this convoluted story of dumplings, I have an offer. Drop a comment here with the name of your favorite dumpling, a link to a dumpling post, or the name of your favorite dumpling book and I'll randomly choose one of the comments to receive the recipe packet including Chef Husband's Momos! It also includes other recipes well worth a try. All feature sustainable seafood! I'll select a winner next weekend.

We got word of the second-to-last Winter Farmers' Market at Russell's Garden Center in Wayland (AKA Way-far-away-Wayland). We decided to add it to our list of Saturday stops. I've been itching to get a terrarium set up since I picked up Sunset Magazine (January 2010) in the airport last California trip. (See page 40) I love Sunset and pick it up every time we're out West.

We arrived at Russell's and were greeted with this cute piggy:

Guess who was there? Linsey makes wonderful treats that happen to be gluten-free - check them out!

That's Linsey (AKA Lula or AKA @CakeandCommerce on Twitter) and I'm kicking myself that I forgot to circle back for some goodies! Next week Linsey!

Others at the market included Springdell Farm ("Since 1931") who raise a Duroc-Hampshire cross and Red Fire Farm who had wonderful organic greens, including Claytonia which is completely new to me. Claytonia is sometimes called Winter Purslane, though it's not in the Portulaca family. Claytonia (AKA Miner's Lettuce) is a winter green that despite its very delicate feel and flavor is quite hardy. It was foraged by miners seeking to avoid scurvy and is rich in Vitamin C.

Here's the Polenta we picked up from Winter Moon Farm. We may never have had Polenta in our married lives. I love it but it always elicited an "enh" from Doc. To my surprise he picked this up while I was off scouting terrarium plants. Our friend Linda was off scouting and sampling.

As you can see, this heirloom polenta was very coarsley ground. I was hopeful that the chunky texture would win Doc over. I started it with three cups of cold water and one cup of organic, low sodium chicken broth, a glug of olive oil and a good pinch of sea salt.

This was one of three terrariums (terraria?) I put together when we got home. Here's all three.

And here's dinner: Winter Moon Farm's Organic Heirloom Polenta, sauté of chicken, porcini, onions, Claytonia leaves.

It was a great day, all in all and now we have a new "grain" in the rotation.

Welcome Year of the Tiger!

I was going to make two dumplings to celebrate Chinese New Years. These delicious and umami-packed sustainable sardine puffs I saw on Pat Tanumihardja's Asian Grandmother's site (and she submitted for Teach a Man to Fish): see Sardines Wrapped in a Sustainable (and Baby-friendly) Package. I was also going to make these lamb curry puffs from Andrea Nguyen, too. Really, I was.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the kitchen...we got lured into Chinatown by gently swaying red lanterns hung for the holiday and the promise of good food. So we wandered out...

Festive red lanterns strung all along Beach Street.

Here's our whole fish with ginger and scallion, gailan on the side.

Then we were surprised with an invitation to friends' get-together which included lots of great food and fun.

We gorged ourselves on dim sum this morning and then planned to clean - having post-poned it from yesterday. (One should not sweep or clean on Chinese New Year as you might "sweep out the luck.")

As we've been liquidating, consolidating, and freecycling the remnants of my storage unit, we kind of didn't get to the vacuuming today, either. What we did do was find a home for 400 CDs, three boxes of household items are boxed for a friend of a friend setting up her first place. We also cleared out a closet, re-organized and re-packed. Feels good to start getting the place back in order after our little leakage problem.

One thing I thought I could still muster tonight? A celebration cocktail!

This is the Blood Orange-Lychee Martini.

Red is the color for Chinese celebrations. I thought the Lychee would evoke the Lunar New Year and the glass is rimmed with Li Hing Mui powder. For the uninitiated, Li Hing Mui or Wa Mui is the Chinese snack of salted dried plums. The salt is flavored with licorice and often has a bit of orange peel. So I rimmed the glass with Li Hing Mui and salt mixture. I blended the drink as follows:

• 2 ounces Bols Genever
• 1/2 ounce Blood Orange juice
• 1/2 ounce lychee syrup
• one lychee for garnish

Place all ingredients in a shaker with ice, shake vigorously and pour into prepared glass. Garnish with lychee.

The li hing mui salt and blood orange juice off-set the floral notes of the Bols Genever, the lychee adds a wonderful deep floral flavor. I'm enjoying Adam Leith Gollner's The Fruit Hunters which describes the lychee as "fabulously fragrant and expensive..like the Imperial Concubine's laugh." Ah..so.

Well this drink is really a fine way to start the new year concubine or not.

Gung Hay Fat Choi!