When the Cub Scouts asked Tim Artz, an electrical engineer in Oakton, Virginia, to make s’mores at his seven-year-old son’s Cub Scout cookout, Artz responded like a grizzled action movie hero: “I’m not making s’mores.”
Instead, Artz smoked eighty pounds of chicken legs and eighteen pounds of sausage in his Porkulator (a smoker he built himself from an oil drum), finishing them on a charcoal grill at the campground. He also served a four-gallon batch of homemade beans, an equal amount of potato salad with homemade mayo, and, for dessert, root beer floats with root beer that he brewed and carbonated himself.
Artz, you see, is a bit of an obsessive when it comes to making things himself. He makes his own honey (with three beehives outside his home) and then makes his own mead using what’s left over. He makes his own soap using rendered beef fat the way his mother taught him to in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He makes six kinds of hot sauce, which he puts in his own bottles with labels he also makes himself. He makes pickles, beer, you name it.
Artz grows things, too. He grows figs, Meyer lemons, kaffir lime leaves, two kinds of grapes, arugula, and San Marzano tomatoes.
Within those projects are more projects. For example, in his herb garden (where he grows thyme, sage, epazote, tarragon, and wormwood for making absinthe mead), there’s a jar of liquid. When I ask about it, he says he’s making nochino, a walnut liqueur he first tried at a friend’s house in Milan. “It’s a hilarious recipe,” he tells me. “You have to pick twenty-four walnuts on the twenty-fourth of June.”
“You didn’t actually do that, did you?”
“Yes, I did,” he says.
Of course he did.
How does Artz do all this? Why does Artz do all this? What’s the point of doing all this? Should we be doing this ourselves?
The point becomes clearer when we start cooking. Artz heats milk (high-quality milk that he has delivered from South Mountain Creamery; see Resources in a pot to which he adds a spoonful of citric acid. A few moments later, the milk’s coagulated, and, after straining it, we have homemade ricotta. “It’s that easy,” says Artz.
With that homemade ricotta, Artz fashions a calzone using his homemade sourdough, his homemade mozzarella, his homegrown spinach, garlic, and parsley, and his self-manufactured hot sauce. The result is a hot, oozing loaf of comfort, remarkable for the fact that every element was produced right here. Local food doesn’t get any more local.
In our remaining time together, we make a batch of his West Indies–style hot sauce, chicken croquettes, a loaf of plain sourdough, and sausage. (Artz even comes up with his own nickname: “You can call me the Sultan of Scratch,” he tells me.)
The Sultan of Scratch may be obsessive, but the result of that obsession is a frugal, practical, earth-friendly approach to feeding himself and his family.
“The things I grow are shaped by the things I want to make.”
Makes 6 cups
If you or someone you know loves hot sauce, you’ve got to try this recipe. It’s a simple matter of simmering carrots, onions, and garlic, adding French’s mustard, honey, and vinegar, blending it up, and then adding as many habaneros as you can handle. I can only handle six—any more, and my face will burst into flames—but if you’re one of those “pain is good” kind of people, do it up! Wear gloves or use a sheet of plastic wrap to protect your hands when handling the habaneros. If you have the time and the know-how, this finished sauce can be placed in sterilized bottles. It makes a great gift.
5 carrots, washed, peeled, and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and cut into 1-inch dice
10 cloves garlic, whole, peeled
2 cups water
Kosher salt
12 ounces French’s yellow mustard*
½ cup honey
1 cup apple cider vinegar
6 to 12 assorted habanero peppers, cut in half, stems, seeds, and cores removed
Place the carrots, onion, and garlic into a Dutch oven. Add the water and a large pinch of salt to the pot. Cover and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cook until all the vegetables are very soft (a knife should go through the thickest carrot easily), about 15 minutes.
Add the mustard, honey, and vinegar to the pot. Blend well with an immersion (stick) blender to make a puree. Taste and adjust the honey, vinegar, or salt for balance. Add the peppers, as many as you can handle. Pulse the mixture with the immersion blender again to break up the peppers into tiny flecks. Don’t puree too much: the idea is to leave visible bits of pepper in the sauce, not to make a homogeneous puree*.
Seal in sanitized bottles or keep refrigerated. The sauce keeps for a year in bottles stored in a cool, dry location. If stored unsealed in a refrigerator, use within a month.
Serves 4 to 6
Even though Artz constructs this calzone to feature his homemade sourdough, ricotta, mozzarella, and hot sauce, as well as his homegrown spinach and garlic, make things easier on yourself. The dough can be made from scratch using the recipe (which Artz contributed to), but it works equally well with store-bought pizza dough. As for the cheese and spinach and garlic, use store-bought and you will still be very satisfied. This is a monster of a calzone—humongous!—that can easily feed a family of four on a weeknight. In the spirit of Artz, serve a bit of homemade hot sauce (see his recipe, opposite) on the side. And if you want to make all the other elements by yourself, too, by all means do so.
8 ounces fresh baby spinach leaves (or an equal amount of frozen spinach, defrosted)
1 cup fresh ricotta cheese
½ cup fresh mozzarella, torn into pieces
6 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 egg
2 teaspoons West Indies–Style Hot Sauce
2 teaspoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 round of pizza dough, preferably homemade
1½ cups tomato sauce, for serving (optional)
If using fresh spinach, rinse it without drying it, then either place it in a microwave-safe bowl, cover it, and zap it until it’s soft, or cook it in a steamer basket just until wilted. Squeeze out extra moisture and then roughly chop.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
In a large bowl, stir together the spinach, both cheeses, the garlic, egg, hot sauce, and parsley.
On an oil-lined baking sheet, flatten the dough and work it into a large oval (about 9 inches across). Spread the filling inside it, leaving a 1-inch border all the way around.
Fold the dough over itself and pinch the edges to make a seal. Then roll the edges up and over to form a nice elevated crust. Slash the top of the calzone a few times with a very sharp knife to create air vents.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the cheese has melted. Allow to cool slightly on the baking sheet and then cut into 1-inch wedges and serve with more of the hot sauce or, if you’d prefer it, warm tomato sauce.
Serves 4
“It’s fried meat,” said my friend Jimmy when I served this one summer night. “How could that be bad?” The answer is that it can’t be bad; it is, in fact, very good. Think of these as elevated chicken nuggets and you’ll get the idea. Artz makes his with chicken he smokes himself in his self-built industrial smoker, but since most of us don’t have that (or a meat grinder), you can (and should) make this with ground chicken or turkey. It works very well; you just have to make sure you cook the croquettes all the way through when you fry them in the oil. Serve with a bright, acidic salad, such as Jonathan Waxman’s Arugula Salad with Heirloom Tomatoes.
1½ pounds ground smoked chicken or turkey or plain chicken (ask your butcher to grind it for you)
½ pound fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, cut into ¼-inch strips, sautéed in 4 tablespoons unsalted butter until brown, set aside, and cooled
2 tablespoons chopped sun-dried tomatoes
¼ cup fresh bread crumbs
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 tablespoons grated Grana Padano or Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted in a dry pan until golden
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 teaspoons white truffle oil (optional)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup panko bread crumbs
Grapeseed oil, for frying (or, if you can’t find grapeseed oil, use canola or vegetable oil)
West Indies–Style Hot Sauce (optional)
In a large bowl, mix together the chicken, cooked shiitakes, sun-dried tomatoes, bread crumbs, garlic, cheese, pine nuts, eggs, parsley, white truffle oil (if you’re using it), and salt and pepper to taste*. Fold until well combined.
Pour the panko into a shallow pie plate. Form the meat mixture into small patties and coat the patties on both sides with the panko. Set the patties aside. (You can do this several hours ahead, covering and refrigerating the patties until ready to fry.)
Heat a ½-inch layer of grapeseed oil in a frying pan until it’s hot when you hold your hand over it. Lower a few croquettes at a time and cook until brown and crispy on both sides and heated through the middle, 3 to 4 minutes per side. (If you aren’t using smoked chicken, which is already cooked, make sure the patty is no longer pink in the middle before serving. The best way to know is to cut in.)
Serve with the hot sauce, if desired.
