The Traveler and the Cook
Our cooking instructor, Eva Szigeti, introduces her new series in The Dirt, writes about a breathtaking blueberry farm, and shares a recipe for a frozen blueberry treat…
Who doesn’t sometimes dream about faraway places, thrilling escapes, change and new experiences, about being a stranger in a welcoming place?
Most of us probably do here and there. Although partly for different reasons, the idea of travel excites children as well. And that is why we travel, and why we take our kids along. We cultivate their curiosity; we want them to see and experience; we give them the possibility for learning, for transformation and for reevaluating their self-concept. Travel suggests hope, things to discover and find, change, and a new perspective.
As we say farewell to summer, we are also leaving behind the season of vacation and travel. Wanderlust might stick around though, and we have to cope with it. Having good food is always helpful and comforting. Enjoying food that evokes faraway destinations is an even better remedy for a traveler who must stay put! The traveler can become a cook. With a little imagination, the cook (and their helpers) can go places without ever leaving their kitchen. The traveler/cook may know the desired destination and reach it, or they might be on a wonderful journey without ever arriving…
In the upcoming issues of The Dirt, we will travel through cooking. The road will take us to countries, towns, and villages that I have visited or that I, along with my children, dream to see someday.
The Traveler and the Cook in Maine
It took us more than eight hours to get to Downeast Maine. It was a long car drive – uneventful in a good way. A flight of a similar length could have taken us to Rome, Italy; Helsinki, Finland; or Lima, Peru. But we didn’t leave our continent, our time zone, and not even the country. We did, however, leave behind some of the summer heat and our everyday life.
Not too much planning went into this trip. We wanted to take the children to Acadia National Park, to see some friends, to visit a goat farm we have been to once before (because their cheese was simply unforgettable), to relax and do whatever felt best on a particular day. The minimalistic plan seemed to work well. The children were the most happy engaging in unplanned simple activities like seeing a harbor seal (well, just its head) or a starfish, collecting shells on the beach, looking for sea glass, jumping the cold waves, petting goats and kittens on the farm, harvesting blueberries with an old-fashioned blueberry rake, or watching fisherman unloading their catch. They enjoyed the beach, which was so different from their idea of a beach or the familiar Jersey Shore: rocks instead of sand; no palm trees or grasses, but tall, dark conifers. These were not the balmy waters of the Caribbean but the rough and raw northern coastline. The space seemed so big, so stretched out. Even in the midst of the tourist season, it wasn’t hard to find a beautiful beach that we could have just for ourselves.
It was mid-August, and it was blueberry season in Maine. We couldn’t miss a visit to a blueberry farm. Our journey took us to a quite unusual one. The farmer was a former New Yorker who, I suspect, decided to trade the unpredictability of markets and corporate life for the unpredictability of nature and its elements. He was not only a farmer but also a sculptor. He cultivated his fields, and gave form and meaning to enormous pieces of basalt rock. After all, in both capacities, he was taming the nature.
Even more unusual than this man was his field of organic wild blueberries. I would have never identified that piece of landscape as a cultivated land. I saw a mild slope full of rock and some boulders. In a way it looked ordinary, but there was something breathtaking in it: a feel of sacred space. I imagined a place of ancient rituals, not a crop producing field. This was land formed by a receding glacier, the farmer explained. That made sense, but the explanation did not fully satisfy me – there was something there that simply could not be explained…
We left the farm with several pounds of wild blueberries. Some got eaten fresh and we froze the rest. The frozen ones made the trip back to New York with us and became part of our winter provision.
Every time we will take some out of the freezer to make a sweet treat, they will remind us of Maine and the mysterious field that gives life to wild blueberries.
Frozen Blueberry Treat
Recipes will be the maps on our imagined journeys. With the addition of common sense and a little bit of imagination the
results will surely be yummy.
This is a quick frozen (or almost frozen) dessert for a warm autumn day.
The recipe is so simple, even your six-year-old could prepare a treat for the family.
For 4 servings:
2 cups frozen wild blueberries
1 cup vanilla yogurt
nuts , fresh fruit or whipped cream (optional)
In a mixing bowl, combine the frozen blueberries with vanilla yogurt. Work fast and make sure the berries get covered in yogurt. (The yogurt will freeze over the blueberries.) Fill four small dessert bowls with the mixture. Decorate with fresh fruit, nuts, or whipped cream. Serve and enjoy immediately before the blueberries get defrosted.