More Persian food, Penzeys, and Yekta, a new-to-me, great market

I recently ran out of Aleppo pepper and have felt a vague sense of unease since. Whole Foods doesn't carry it, so for years Williams-Sonoma has been my source. Now they've gone and stopped stocking this marvelous, brick-red spice. Penzeys to the rescue!

Do y'all know Penzeys Spices? They have a good website and also a number of brick-and-mortar stores, they support environmental and civil liberties causes, and they carry a wide variety of dried herbs, spices, extracts and proprietary spice blends. For orders north of $30, shipping is free and prompt. 

For one or two bags of Aleppo pepper though, a trip to the store closest me is required, and while I sort of hate driving up Wisconsin Ave to Rockville, it is a chain-store shopper's paradise. Last Sunday after swimming, because my Aleppo-unease was growing mightier, I took the kids to Penzeys with me. The only thing I struck out on was dried rose petals which I wanted for several of the Persian recipes in Food of Life I've been salivating over.

"You know, you should try Yekta's. It's a Persian market just down the Pike," said a Penzeys employee. 

I hightailed it out of there so fast, I nearly left the kids behind. 

Yekta Market and Kabobi are adjoining structures in the same lot as Oliver's favorite place, Party City. The restaurant faces Rockville Pike while the market looks at the side parking area. I was in heaven immediately upon stepping inside as vats of nuts, bins of dried berries and racks laden with all kinds of tahini, rice, couscous, tea, herbs and spices, breads and sweets greeted me warmly. There are also refrigerated, freezer and deli sections.

Suffice it to say that we left with much more than a bag of dried rose petals.

Yesterday, after enjoying a Cinco de Mayo lunch of tacos and then making more for the boys' dinner, I pulled out the beef short ribs I'd purchased earlier this week (I adore short ribs), and started browning them while considering a Persian-inspired braise.

veggie tacos, beans and brown rice

I decided to use onions and carrots, red wine and beef broth, a hefty amount of advieh (a Persian spice blend that includes cumin, coriander, nutmeg, cardamom, and dried rose petals; mace and turmeric are sometimes added too.), pomegranate molasses, pomegranate arils, salt and pepper. After sauteeing the onions and carrots and then letting them stew in the red wine as it reduced, I added everything else, covered the pot and let things cook for about three hours.

Short ribs cannot be rushed if you want tender meat. The rib should slip out on its own, and three hours is usually the sweet spot for that. It is worth the wait because during a long, low braise, the gravy gets awfully flavorful!

Just before serving dinner, I used some of the braising liquid to cook the couscous, a gorgeous, fine-grain, whole wheat version I bought at Yekta. I also quickly broiled some asparagus that I'd drizzled with lemon and olive oil and made a caprese with sumac to give it a middle-eastern twist.

If I say so myself, dinner was sublime. I only wish I'd made something for dessert!

Persimmon picking, amazing skies

Today was spectacular. Truly, the skies were absolutely dazzling, turning hourly like page after magnificent page of the most incredible illuminated manuscript on which you could ever lay eyes. As Percy and I rounded the turn off of Fordham, back onto Mass Ave, I looked heavenward and was wowed. It was as if M.C. Escher had gotten hold of an airbrush cannon and gone wild.

Meanwhile, a friend I met through one of my canning classes emailed me a post from her neighborhood listserv: someone had a persimmon tree, pregnant with fruit, in her front yard, and anyone was welcome to come pick. By the time I arrived, the lower boughs were bare, but there were some good knobs and forks offering themselves as a crude ladder. Clad in a silk shirt, cardigan and my trusty Toms, I scurried up that tree like a squirrel.

At the apex, my head was in between two electrical wires, but all was well, and I remembered what youthful fun it is to climb a tree. Getting down is another thing. I plucked six persimmons -the squirrels had already massacred so many!- with the intention of giving most away to my persimmon-loving pal, C. I'll try my annual "can I ever love persimmons" test when the remaining ones are fully ripe. They are a pretty fruit.

Then to school to pick up my munchkins (both of whom threw insanely outlandish tantrums today over NOTHING; is this still the aftermath of stupid Daylight Savings? I could kill it.) and then on and through an after-school afternoon. We witnessed a glorious sunset that seemed to grow more incredible by the moment until suddenly, night raced in and with it a perfect crescent moon. Ol said, "you know what would happen if that moon was a full moon? LUPIN!" Harry Potter reference, y'all. Oh lawd.

I finally got those bozos to bed after a complete #momfail when I suggested a competition: "who can get into bed, head on pillow, first?" BOTH, count them BOTH, kids managed to injure themselves in the simple and, wait for it, done-every-night act of getting into bed. Both were wailing about their pain, and honestly y'all, I just said, "goodnight."

Realizing that the flu shot to which I'd acquiesced earlier today was sinking its flu'y tentacles into me (damn you, flu shot!), I took two Advil and poured a little glass o' red. I roasted some broccoli and also an eggplant, two of my favorite recipes running through my mind screaming MAKE US. So I did. Broccoli with pimentón oil, and burnt eggplant with pomegranate. Aah. Both hit the spot in every way!

Roasted delicata with bacon-shallots and pomegranate

I dare say this is one of the prettiest things I've made in some time. The golden rings of roasted delicata squash are enlivened by the pomegranate arils and chopped scallion. I sauteed the shallots in bacon drippings and a splash of white wine, then added the sliced squash, and some broth. That all went into the oven for twenty minutes or so, and then I stirred in some pomegranate molasses before roasting another 5 minutes. In the meantime, I made a yogurt sauce with plain Green yogurt, pomegranate molasses, cinnamon, tahini and salt and let that sit and meld while the squash cooked. A nice lunch for me!