The Kitchen Sink

Stone Fruit Anxiety

"HERE’S a dirty little secret of summer. What should be a beautiful and inspiring sight — your kitchen, overflowing with seasonal produce — is sometimes an intimidating tableau of anxiety."

Julia Moskin, New York Times 

Last year, Julia Moskin published a terrific piece in the Dining and Wine Section of the NY Times entitled 'Raw Panic' -- Coping with Summer's Bounty. And believe me, anyone who belongs to a CSA can relate to raw panic in one form or the other.

For me, my bi-monthly vegetables shares are more than manageable. A pot of ratatouille here, a quick stir-fry there, and I am good to go. But my weekly fruit shares are a whole other story.  

Two years ago, my anxiety peaked during raspberry season. It was a terrific year for berries, and our fruit farmer, Fred Wilkow, sent us pint after pint of huge, sweet berries. I ate as many as I could, but at a certain point, I declared defeat and started to freeze the excess. Sometimes, you just have to pick and choose your battles. 

Last year, the locus of my anxiety shifted to stone fruit (peaches, nectarines, apricots and various types of plums). Because in addition to my weekly CSA share, there was tons of fruit coming from points east, including:

• Peaches and apricots from Wickham's Fruit Farm  
• My parent's peach tree, which needed to be picked while they were on vacation 
• My mother's CSA (stone) fruit share, which I picked up in her absense.

 Definitely a lot of fruit!

So at some point, I decided that I could stew in my stonefruit compote, or I could head to the kitchen and use up the excess fruit. And being me, I chose the latter.

And the fruit of my labor? Well, here is a quick snap shot to enjoy and inspire: 

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Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

Is there anything that screams spring like a bunch of rhubarb on the farm stand? I think not. But then again, I get weak at the knees over the stuff. And judging from my recent website analytics, I am not alone. "Moist Rhubarb Muffins" has been the most popular blog post/recipe on this site for the past week. And if people are intrigued by that recipe, they will be blown away by this one for Rhubarb Upside Down Cake.......

When my mother asked me to 'make dessert' on Mother's Day, I knew I wanted to make something with rhubarb. And while rhubarb crisp would have garnered no complaints, I actually wanted to try something different. Maybe even a little more special?  So I set out searching for some inspiration, and this recipe for a rhubarb upside-down cake caught my eye.

Until recently, I was very intimidated by 'upside-down' cakes -- reckoning that unmolding a hot cake with molten fruit on the bottom was nothing short of impossible (read crazy). But when I finally made one, I realized that it is much easier than I had imagined. And as a bonus, the end result is really quite elegant. 

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Strawberries