CORN

THE FIRST EAR of corn, eaten like a typewriter, means summer to me—intense, but fleeting. Remember those kitschy corn holders from childhood? They let you eat juicy, buttery corncobs hot—twirl ’em fast, have fun. Fresh corn means a short season of silky corn soups, luscious cheesy corn on the cob, fresh corn pancakes, and corn salad with tomatoes. Corn is perhaps the quintessential American food. It’s part of our collective nostalgia, but even today, growers take particular pride in their sweet corn.

Jim Wroble, who grows our Anthony garlic in upstate New York, wears his “Best Corn in the County” pin with pride. It’s easy to buy local sweet corn in season and families still prize the precious ritual of putting the pot of water on the stove before they go out to pick (or buy) their corn. Then they gather to shuck it on the back porch. I can’t think of another vegetable that draws everyone to the table with such shared joy. Yet no other vegetable has been as distorted, abused, and manipulated as King Corn. But I’m here to remind us that we can still find the real thing: unmodified corn, raised for the table (not cars), sweet (but not supersweet), grown close to home (not flown in), and eaten the day it’s picked! The rest of the year, I relish the varieties of corn specially grown to be dried, ground, and cooked for their depth of flavor: cornmeal for corn bread, polenta as a bed for sautéed mushrooms, grits for scooping up with a spoon as fast as you can, and masa, for real tortillas.

Cooking with Water

In all vegetable recipes, adding just enough liquid really matters. Too much water and you lose flavor, but too little water will leave the vegetables undercooked and dry, or worse, scorched. Not a pretty picture. With just the right amount of liquid, you can actually build flavor from the surrounding ingredients. In this book, when I ask you to cover a vegetable with water, I’m very specific about the amount to use. I use the water to communicate flavor, even if it’s just salt. When cooking vegetables like turnips and sugar snap peas in just water and salt, the right amount of each makes all the difference. One of the most frequent comments I make in the Gramercy Tavern kitchen is “That dish is not wet enough.” And what I mean is there’s not enough liquid left in the pan for the ingredients to fully share their flavors. So the last bite is as moist and flavorful as the first. It’s hard to communicate these nuances in a recipe.

The best advice I can give you is, when you’re finishing a dish, keep in mind that you might need to add a drop or two of liquid to bring out its best qualities. An obvious example is grandma’s tomato sauce. She would instinctively add a spoonful or two of pasta cooking water to give the sauce the right consistency and shine. A skillful cook of green beans would want to have just enough liquid in the pan, then add a squeeze of lemon juice, a sliver of garlic, a sprig of thyme, and a drop of olive oil in order to produce a light glaze. Some cooks do it instinctively, others have to be told, but using the right amount of water is directly connected to what makes food delicious.