The Arrows Cookbook: Cooking and Gardening from Maine's Most Beautiful Farmhouse Restaurant

by Clark Frasier, Mark Gaier, Max Alexander (With), Jeremiah Tower (Foreword by), John Kernick (Photographer)

Overview

Part how-to-garden primer, The Arrows Cookbook combines more than 150 delicious recipes with time-tested techniques for growing herbs, vegetables, and edible flowers in a book that reconnects us to the land and the seasons.

Cooking food from the backyard garden or farmers' market -- or even using herbs grown in pots in a sunny window -- goes beyond a passion for freshness. On an elemental level, the process reawakens the cook to a cycle of nature that our ancestors understood intuitively but that, for most of us, has been lost in the modern world.

When chefs Clark Frasier and Mark Gaier left northern California to open their dream restaurant in southern Maine, they had no intention of becoming culinary pioneers. But in 1988 in Ogunquit, Maine, finding enough fresh vegetables and herbs to power a sophisticated restaurant was indeed a challenge.

So, like all can-do Americans, they did something. A ragged field of witchgrass behind the restaurant was turned into a garden where they learned to coax a nine-month growing season out of the chilly earth. They built raised beds, saved seeds, researched heirlooms, consulted experts, and started seedlings.

Today, that acre of Maine yields 270 varieties of vegetables, herbs, fruits, and edible flowers that provide 90 percent of the produce served at Arrows. Born of great necessity, the garden is the soul of this destination restaurant.

In The Arrows Cookbook, Frasier and Gaier tell us how they do it, charting the timeless journey from seed to supper. Recipes celebrate each season -- Asparagus with Mizuna and Blood Orange Vinaigrette and English Pea Soup in spring; Grilled Antipasto Platter and Rib-Eye Steak with Herbs and Caramelized Onions on a summer evening; Napa Cabbage and Apple Cole Slaw and Roast Pork Loin with Rosemary and Garlic for fall; and Escarole and White Bean Soup and Winter Greens with Pink Grapefruit and Red Onion for the chilly, short days of winter. They also offer new takes on such New England classics as Boiled Dinner, Our Way to Steaming Lobster -- Southeast Asian Style, as well as a glorious Thanksgiving feast complete with Roast Turkey with Gravy.

The book is full of clear advice and instructions that will make you elegantly self-sufficient in both kitchen and garden: how to smoke a trout, preserve herbs, use raised beds to extend the growing season, make your own prosciutto, start seeds indoors, roast salmon on a plank, maximize garden space, freeze berries, select edible flowers, grow heirloom tomatoes, pickle hot peppers, find local farmers and fisherman for fresh meats and seafood, and more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416590446
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	06/15/2010
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	23 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Clark Frasier grew up in Carmel, California. Before becoming a chef, he studied Chinese in Beijing and ran an import-export business in San Francisco. In 1988, he and Mark Gaier formed a business partnership and bought Arrows Restaurant in Ogunquit. Today they split their time between southern Maine and northern California.

Read an Excerpt

The Arrows Cookbook

Cooking and Gardening from Maine's Most Beautiful Farmhouse Restaurant

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By Alexander, Max

Scribner Book Company

Copyright © 2003 Alexander, Max
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0743236734

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Introduction

All cooking is a process. Measure, mix, bake for an hour. Yet it is obvious that the process of preparing a meal begins long before the oven is heated. Name an ingredient, from anglerfish to zucchini, and it probably begins with a seed. The evolution of food from seed to supper has been the chief preoccupation of man throughout history.

The life of a restaurant is also a process. When Arrows opened in 1988, we had in mind a casual brasserie, not the elegant country destination it grew to become. And it was several years before we began growing our own food from seed.

Our journey to a two-hundred-year-old farm in northern New England began a continent (and several climate zones) away. After many years working for the talented San Francisco chef Jeremiah Tower of Stars, we decided to open our own restaurant. We had watched the gourmet craze that swept America during the 1980s from both sides of the kitchen door, and we had mixed feelings about America's new obsession with fine cooking. On one hand, any trend that pulled Americans away from the frozen-food aisle and back into the fresh produce section of the grocery store was a good thing. On the other hand, the new cuisine seemed driven more by status than sustenance. While striving for trendy cuisine based on the latest exotic flavor, Americans forgot their own good cooking.

But we remembered. Mark grew up in Ohio where his mother cooked every meal with fresh ingredients from the surrounding Amish countryside. On special occasions her dinners could rise to the level of elegance, but mostly she made solid, heartland suppers like Mark's favorite, pork roast. As a child Mark always looked forward to strawberry season, when he and his brothers and sisters would pick berries at a nearby farm all day, stop at the dairy for vanilla ice cream, and then go home -- to wait impatiently as Mom baked pie.

Clark also grew up picking summer berries, near Loon Lake in Washington State, where he spent glorious vacations with his grandparents. There he would rise early to go trout fishing, cooking his catch over a sizzling charcoal grill at the end of the day. Such memories, tied tightly to family and home, constitute a culinary tradition in any society.

Of course, we did not intend to relive our boyhood memories in a restaurant. Nor could we deny our passion for cooking traditions from other cultures, especially the flavors that Clark grew to love during a year studying Chinese at the Beijing Language Institute. Asian cooks strive for balance and contrast -- the philosophical notion of yin and yang as applied to cuisine, if you will. Sweet is contrasted with sour, hot with cool, crunchy with smooth, fried with steamed. Asian cooks pay great attention to individual ingredients, yet the combination transcends the specific.

It's easy to see the difference between Asian and Western cooking, but what struck Clark were the similarities. Watching Chinese peasants cure cabbages for the winter, he thought of sauerkraut, the Central European mainstay that evolved from the need (before refrigeration) to preserve summer's bounty. Curing pork into hams is a fall ritual in rural China, as it is on many farms in Maine. (Pigs are expensive to feed and shelter through the winter, so fall is the traditional time of slaughter around the world.) We wanted a restaurant that celebrated these universal culinary traditions, which are rooted in the march of the seasons.

Whether those seasons gallop or crawl depends on where you live, of course. In California, where the growing season stretches from February to November, we naturally turned to our abundant local crops for inspiration; Poached Garlic Soup with Thyme and Red Pepper Creams (page 214) was an early hit. Using fresh greens and herbs to lighten sauces became one of our trademarks. Here we were building on Southeast Asian cuisine, in which fresh herbs brighten the taste of hearty noodle soups like the Vietnamese national dish, pho.

Our plan was to open a restaurant where we lived in the California coastal town of Carmel. But jaw-dropping real-estate prices there turned our passion for food into a discouraging scramble for cash. We wanted to greet customers, not huddle with lawyers and bankers.

One evening in 1988 when we had really begun to despair, friends of Mark's called to say they were selling a restaurant in Ogunquit, Maine, an artists' colony and seaside playground for proper Bostonians since the nineteenth century. Mark had lived in Maine years earlier; he loved the state's rugged natural beauty, the fishing boats laden with lobsters and clams, and the deep-rooted locals who used humor and ingenuity to carve lives from the rocky terrain. A voice seemed to be saying, "Go east, young men." (Yes, we were young then.)

Off we flew to have a look, arriving in Maine during one of the harshest winters in memory. The restaurant, in a colonial-era farmhouse, was named Arrows -- a whimsical reference to the home's authentic "Indian shutters," which were meant to protect settlers against attack. It was closed for the season; snow had drifted halfway up the first-floor windows, and the heat was shut down. Looking back that was probably a good thing. Had it not been so bone-chilling cold, we might have lingered long enough to notice all the work needed.

Instead we saw a home -- and an old one at that. Built in 1765, it was constructed out of materials from the surrounding woods, like all houses of that time. The framework was made of massive spruce trees, cut with hand saws, then dragged, or "twitched," out of the forest by teams of oxen. Carpenters shaped the logs into square beams using a hand tool called a broadax. Highly skilled craftsmen called joiners cut the ends of the beams into mortises and tenons, perfectly matched joints that locked together the framework. (Metal fasteners, which had to be hand-wrought at great expense, were reserved for hinges and other essential moving parts.) This carpentry was so exacting that every joint was labeled and matched; today you can often see those Roman numerals or letters chiseled into the beams of New England farmhouses.

The house was speaking to us, and not just figuratively. Every time the biting northeast wind whistled through the gables, the old place creaked and moaned. We signed a lease with an option to buy, flew home to California, and packed our bags.

The phrase "What have we done?" could have been invented for that car trip east across the United States. The luxurious world of Bay Area restaurants quickly receded behind the interstate monotony of motels and McDonald's, and we arrived in Ogunquit on a cold, dreary day in March. Clark's parents, who lived in California, had come along on the drive to help us move and open the restaurant. In Maine we were joined by Mark's brother and his wife, who lived in Hampden, Maine, three hours north of Ogunquit. From dawn to dusk we cleaned ovens, painted walls, and scoured floors. Clark's mother made grocery runs, and every night we collapsed, starving, around a table in the chilly bar to devour rib-sticking meals like black bean soup and cornbread, washed down with samples from the wine salesmen.

The pressure was enormous, but so was the sense of accomplishment and the love of our families working together. The gods of the hearth must have been smiling on us because we made our opening date just as our credit cards were maxing out.

The first menu was simple, in part because good ingredients were so hard to come by, but it was unlike anything the area had ever seen. Compared to California, with its long growing season and dedicated network of artisanal food purveyors, Maine was a culinary backwater. Thankfully that has changed. Ogunquit now boasts a grocery store with entire aisles devoted to organic foods, not to mention pristine heads of Belgian endive and radicchio. But in 1988 locally baked bread was unheard of, and the choice of cooking oil was corn, corn, or corn. We'll never forget our first Maine Thanksgiving. We had 120 reservations for a sumptuous New England feast of salmon, oysters, and roast turkey, and we spent Wednesday night in a frantic drive around the region looking for extra-virgin olive oil and fresh nuts. (We finally found both in nearby New Hampshire, which seemed to be the last stop for specialty food trucks.)

At least we had seafood. Lobsters, clams, scallops, and cod are literally sold on street corners in Maine, right off the back of fishermen's trucks. Impeccably fresh, these elemental New England ingredients formed the basis of our early cuisine, and we still cook with them daily. But we wanted more. We knew that the finest fish in the world were being hauled in every day, right off the coast of Ogunquit, and promptly flown to restaurants in New York and Tokyo. Local stores almost never carried halibut or bluefish, to say nothing of more exotic fare like sea urchins. Distributors with larger selections often didn't handle the fish properly. Now, thanks to conscientious purveyors, we get our pick of the freshest local mussels, striped bass, oysters, and tuna -- not to mention loup de mer from France and crayfish from New Zealand that are still kicking when we open the case.

We weren't alone, of course, and as more Mainers began to demand better food, the local growers and fishermen responded. But in the meantime, the only way we could get good bread was to bake our own. And it didn't take long to realize that if we wanted produce like that in San Francisco, we'd have to grow our own.

Thus was the garden born of necessity, from a ragged field of witch grass at a time when iceberg was about the only lettuce we could order. Now, thanks to the tireless work of a succession of dedicated gardeners, our growing beds stretch over almost an acre of land, providing the restaurant with 270 varieties of vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers. It has, in fact, become the first destination for diners, who arrive early to stroll the grounds. Quite unintentionally, the garden conceived to fill the restaurant's needs is now a primary attraction.

We wish more American chefs would grow their own food. The main obstacle is that in America innovative cuisine chiefly emanates from big cities where gardens aren't practical. Yet in many countries the best chefs work close to the countryside -- where the food is. Some of the greatest restaurants in France and Italy are off the beaten path, where the chefs tend primeval plots of asparagus and gooseberries.

Those chefs know what we have learned: Food from your own garden not only tastes better but also makes you a better cook. It's common knowledge that fresh-picked vegetables have more taste and a crisper texture than anything trucked into a grocery store; how else to explain the renaissance of local greenmarkets in towns and cities across America? But cooking homegrown food goes beyond a passion for freshness. On an even more elemental level, the process connects the cook to a cycle of nature that our ancestors understood intuitively but that, for most of us, has been lost in the modern world. Participating in that cycle -- which begins with a seed, progresses to the dinner table, and concludes in the compost bin, where it begins again -- is more satisfying than the pleasures of any single meal. When you cook homegrown food, you're not the "end user" of the food chain, you're in the middle of it.

This connection to nature is not just an intellectual conceit. The French have a word, terroir, that literally means soil but connotes something deeper and more personal -- the unique soil of one's own land. They understand that on some cosmic level, man is rewarded in health and happiness when he consumes the vital goodness of his own land. It's why that carafe of rough local wine in a little French country auberge tastes so exquisitely perfect -- and why it doesn't taste the same in Paris or Pennsylvania. If all that sounds vaguely spiritual, so be it. Gardens are heavenly places, and the world could use more of them.

You don't have to believe in the cosmic wisdom of cooking from the garden; it's enough to realize that your garden will make you smarter about food. When you stroll the produce section of the supermarket, what you notice about peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes are their differences. But in the garden you notice instead how similar they are. (All three are fruits because we eat the seed pod, but they are also all members of the Solanaceae family.) You notice their stalks, thick and woody but often in need of staking as the fruit ripens and swells; their long, drooping leaves; their five-pointed flowers with five separate stamen. You might also notice they attract the same insects. (Yes, even those pesky bugs can teach us.) By understanding this kinship in the garden, one begins to see how these vegetables can work together in the kitchen. That's how we came up with Polenta Lasagna (page 235), which marries these vegetables in a new way, but in a way that makes sense according to nature. Cooking from the garden has kept our culinary experiments firmly rooted (no pun intended) in a larger reality, and it will do the same for you.

We hadn't planned on being pioneers in a culinary wilderness, much less garden-club tour guides. Yet the harder we worked at creating our own food supply, the deeper kinship we felt with the colonial homesteaders who had built our farmhouse and cleared the land. As is so often the case, what began as a problem turned into a blessing. Self-sufficiency became our link to the past and began to inform every aspect of Arrows.

While we had always made abundant use of fresh herbs in our cooking, once we started gardening, herbs took center stage -- in part because they were there. The truth is you're not going to run to the supermarket for a sprig of rosemary. But when you have rosemary -- and mint, chervil, oregano, parsley, thyme, cilantro, basil, and sage -- growing outside your kitchen door, you will find ways to use them every day.

Consider our love affair with root vegetables. In sunny California we almost never roasted turnips, beets, parsnips, and such; it's just not something you think of eating under a palm tree. But in Maine we came to realize why New Englanders cherish these hearty vegetables on cold nights, for the long, slow baking process fills the house with warmth and aroma. Now we plant whole sections of our garden in root vegetables.

For the first seven years, we lived above the restaurant and put all of our money into renovations. Like many people who buy an old country home, our life became a replay of that classic Cary Grant-Myrna Loy film, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. There is a law of old farmhouses that says that as soon as you solve one major problem -- say, the need for a new septic system -- something else goes, like the well. One year brought new wiring, which allowed us to properly light the dining room. In another year we commissioned a local craftsman to make 125 black walnut and cherry chairs. In 1995 we bit the bullet and ripped out the claustrophobic kitchen, trashing the old equipment and building a brand-new space with high ceilings and dramatic casement windows overlooking the restaurant's entranceway. Clark's dad, an accomplished woodworker, made the beautiful hutch and wine stands in the dining room. Countless other refinements and improvements came every year.

Our wine list had been growing steadily to the point where our dirt-floor basement cellar was overflowing. When the Boston Globe's wine critic, Robert Levy, gave us a great review in 1989, we knew it was time for a real cellar. A vacant space above the restaurant became a state-of-the-art temperature-controlled wine room.

Such was the process that took Arrows from simple bistro to dining destination. Our greatest satisfaction has been the loyalty of our customers, many of whom have been coming every week for fifteen years. Some are year-round locals, including folks from nearby Portland, a thriving small city with a vibrant waterfront district. Others are "summer people" who spend most of the year in cities far from Ogunquit. Still others make the hour-and-fifteen-minute drive north from Boston just to dine at Arrows. They all come for the food, the garden, and the friendship.

And they have far more choices in Maine today. In recent years the Maine dining scene has exploded, and we are gratified to see many other talented chefs opening restaurants in the Pine Tree State.

The newcomers remind us that the process never ends. Our next project is building an outdoor brick oven. The idea came from our young sous-chef Justin Walker, who loves grilling, smoking, and just about anything prepared outdoors. We liked his oven concept -- and promptly put him in charge of it. Meanwhile there's always a new pepper or tomato to grow and a rare wine to find. At this writing, we're searching for a 1985 Taylor's Fladgate port. No distributor carries it, but we keep looking. Maybe next year

Copyright © 2003 by Clark Frasier and Mark Gaier

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Arrows Cookbook by Alexander, Max Copyright © 2003 by Alexander, Max. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword by Jeremiah Tower

Introduction

Spring

RETURN TO MAINE

APPETIZERS

Asparagus Soup with Lobster, Morels, and Chervil

A Fresh Look at Lobster

Steaming Lobster, Southeast Asian Style

Shelling Cooked Lobsters

English Pea Soup with Condiments

Chicken and Vegetable Stocks

Asparagus with Mizuna, Blood Orange Vinaigrette, and Prosciutto

Brown Butter

Fiddlehead Ferns with Brown Butter and Bundnerfleisch

Deep-Fried Squid with Parsley and Almond Sauce

Maine Peekytoe Crab Cakes with Spicy Chive Mayonnaise

Grilled Lamb Brochettes on Basil Skewers with Spicy Basil-Cilantro Marinade

SALADS

Salute to Salads

Growing Lettuce

Greens in Your Garden

First-of-the-Season Lettuce Salad with Herb Vinaigrette and Goat Cheese Toasts

Tossing Greens

Vinaigrette Made (Even More) Simple

Rocket with Lemon-Hazelnut Vinaigrette

How to Make Nut-Flavored Oils

Warm Dandelion Greens with Bacon Vinaigrette

MAIN COURSES

Sautéed Maine Cod with Caramelized Endive

Clarified Butter

Sautéed Dover Sole with Peas, Tarragon, and Button Mushrooms

Cooking Fish Fillets

Crispy Trout with Ginger and Lemongrass

Planning a Kitchen Garden

Roasted Poussin with Lemon Thyme and Sourdough Stuffing

Grilled Quail with Rhubarb Compote

Smoked Duck Breast with Swiss Chard and Pearl Onions

Baby Vegetables

Spring Lamb Loin with Rosemary

SAUCES

Citrus and Parsley Gremolata Vinaigrette

Starting Seedlings

14 Easy Seeds

Spring Leek Cream Sauce

SIDE DISHES

Spring Leeks in Vinaigrette

Blanching Vegetables

Grilled Asparagus with Shaved Reggiano Parmesan

Baby Bok Choy with Chives and Smoked Ham

Braised Egyptian Onions in Amarone Wine

Onions

Gratin of Ramps and Morels

Digging the Dirt: Compost and Soil Structure

Asparagus and Dry Jack Cheese Custard

Asparagus and Hollandaise Gratin

Bedtime Story: Using Raised Beds to Extend the Season

Creamy Goat Cheese Toasts

Scallion Pancakes

10 Veggies That Let You Have a Life

Potato-Chive Bread

DESSERTS

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Strawberries with Cinnamon-Rhubarb Sauce

Deer Diary

Three-Cherry Clafouti with Mint

How to Build Herb Boxes

Pecan Pound Cake with Balsamic Sabayon and Strawberries

Rhubarb Gelato with Mexican Wedding Cakes

Honey-Lavender Ice Cream

Flower Power

10 Flowers to Grow in Your Garden

Summmer

HIGH SEASON

APPETIZERS

Chilled Gazpacho with Lobster and Lime Crème Fraîche

Fennel Salad with Prosciutto

Jeremiah's Crispy Okra with Tomatoes, Pesto, and Bacon

Grilled Antipasto Platter

Lobster and Fresh Vegetable Spring Rolls

Roasted Pepper Custard with Corn, Garlic, and Herb Ragoût

Heirloom Gardening

Eggplant Chips

SALADS

How to Make a Real Garden Salad

Marinated Tomatoes

Tomatoes Forever

8 Great Heirloom Tomatoes

Arrows Trio of Summer Salads

Melon and Frisée Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

Beating the Bugs

Sweet-and-Sour Fennel Salad

Chilled Maine Lobster Salad with Tomato-Tarragon Vinaigrette

Sugar Snap Pea and Rock Shrimp Salad

MAIN COURSES

Mushroom, Leek, and Potato Strudel

Maine Sweet Clams with Risotto and Arugula

Shucking Clams

Grilled Sea Scallops with Chile Pepper Sauce

Peppers

Sautéed Halibut with Thai Red Curry

Hot Sauces and Chile Pastes

Grilled Maine Bluefin Tuna with Tomatoes and Gremolata Aïoli

How to Tell from Tuna

Lemongrass and Lemon Roasted Chicken

Grilled Rib-Eye Steak with Herbs and Caramelized Onions

SAUCES

Green Goddess Dressing

Aïoli or Mayonnaise

Clark's Mom's Salmon Vinaigrette

Spicy Cilantro and Basil Sauce

Fresh Herbs

Vietnamese Clear Dipping Sauce

Cool Cucumber Coulis

Creamy Corn Sauce

Roasted Pepper Pesto

Fast Tomato Sauce

Ways to Water

Slow-Roasted Tomato, Parmesan, and Basil Sauce

Spicy Corn Relish

Tomatillo Salsa

SIDE DISHES

Thai-Style Corn-on-the-Cob

Mom's Market-Basket Ratatouille

The Zucchini That Ate Maine

Seared Orange and Cabbage Salad

Chive Mashed Potatoes

5 Ways to Stretch Your Garden

Yam and Leek Gratin

Arrows Yellow Curry with Summer Vegetables

Tomato Concassé

Onion and Rosemary Focaccia

DESSERTS

Cinnamon Basil Shortcakes with Peaches

Community-Supported Agriculture

Orange-Blackberry Tart

Steamed Raspberry Pudding

Blackberry Compote

8 Edible Flowers You Can Grow

Berry Sorbet with Orange Crisps

How to Freeze Berries

Cantaloupe Sorbet with Butter Cookies

Blueberry Ice Cream

Blueberry Heaven

Fall

LATE HARVEST

APPETIZERS

Pumpkin Soup with Curried Pumpkin Seeds

Roasted Eggplant and Lentil Soup with Sage Butter

Eggplants

Poached Garlic Soup with Thyme and Red Pepper Creams

Pumpkin Empanadas

Radicchio Gratin with Gruyère Cheese and Bacon

Bourbon and Brown Sugar Gravlax

Potato Gnocchi with Six Herbs

SALADS

Cucumber and Cherry Tomato Salad

Cucumbers

Red and Golden Beet Salad with Sherry-Shallot Vinaigrette

Red Oakleaf Salad with Pistachio Toasts and Red Wine Vinaigrette

Chicory Salad with Creamy Mustard Vinaigrette

Napa Cabbage and Apple Cole Slaw

Warm Beet Greens and Beets

Warm Salads

Smoked Trout and Apple Salad with Horseradish Crème Fraîche

How to Smoke Trout

MAIN COURSES

Polenta Lasagna

Sautéed Turbot with Lemon-Parsley Butter

Hickory-Roasted Black Sea Bass with Mushroom Broth and Thyme Crème Fraîche

Preserving Herbs

Roast Pork Loin with Rosemary and Garlic

Pork Loin Confit

Rendered Fat

Braised Lamb Shanks

Herb-Braised Rabbit

SAUCES

Horseradish Crème Fraîche

Tomato Chutney

Celery Root and Sour Cream Sauce

Mustard-Rosemary Sauce

SIDE DISHES

Lucia's Nuclear Pickled Serranos

Green and Yellow Beans with Toasted Pine Nuts

Honey and Lavender Roasted Shallots

Herb-Roasted Fennel with Pancetta

Lentil, Root Vegetable, and Herb Cakes

Butternut Squash and Potato Gratin

Saving Squash

Sauternes-Braised Apples with Currants

Ginger-Roasted Parsnips

Roasted Yam Purée

Pumpkin Dinner Rolls

After the Fall

Black Walnut Bread

Toasting and Grinding Nuts

DESSERTS

Herbal Teas

Orchard Apple Crisp

Zucchini Bread with Lemon Verbena Curd

Super-Moist Apple Cake

Apple Fritters with Cajeta Sauce

Peppermint Crème Brûlée

Creating Large Floral Arrangements

Rose Petal Granita

Winter

FAREWELL AGAIN

APPETIZERS

Escarole and White Bean Soup

Oysters with Spicy Jícama Salad

How to Shuck an Oyster

Colby Cheese Fritters with Chicory Salad

Maine Shrimp Dumplings with Cilantro

New Zealand Cockles with Chinese Dark Wine and Ham Sauce

Homemade Prosciutto

0

SALADS

Winter Greens with Pink Grapefruit and Red Onion

Sectioning Citrus

Radicchio Chiffonade Salad with Creamy Blue Cheese Vinaigrette

Reine de Glace Lettuce Salad with Roasted Shallot Vinaigrette

Winter Lettuce Salad with Sherry-Walnut Vinaigrette

Warm Red Cabbage Slaw with Creamy Herbed Goat Cheese

Cole Slaw with Creamy Mustard-Ginger Vinaigrette

MAIN COURSES

Plank-Roasted Salmon with Rosemary-Mustard Vinaigrette

Saving Seeds

Sautéed Maine Cod with Burnt Tangerine and Star Anise Sauce

Roast Duck with Paprika, Garlic, and Herbs

Roast Turkey

Enriched Stock

Boiled Dinner, Our Way

SAUCES

Carrot and Ginger Sauce

Citrus and Lemongrass Vinaigrette

Growing Lemongrass

Fire-Roasted Onion and Rosemary Sauce

SIDE DISHES

Pickled Daikon

Red Beet Mousse

Beijing Cabbage

Braised Red Cabbage

Kale, Swiss Cheese, and Bacon Casserole

Celery Root Pancakes

Root Vegetable Gratin

Sage and Cheddar Bread Pudding

DESSERTS

Rosemary Poached Pears with Chocolate Crème Anglaise

Chocolate Pound Cake with Frozen Berries

Chocolate Carrot Cake with Chocolate-Sour Cream Frosting

Ginger-Pear Upside-Down Cake with Lemongrass Caramel Sauce

Should You Invest in a Greenhouse?

Steamed Pumpkin Puddings with Vanilla Crème Anglaise

Blood Orange Sorbet with Butter Cookies Dipped in Mint Chocolate

Resources

Acknowledgments

Index

Editorial Reviews

One of America's Best 50 Restaurants.

Gourmet

One of the country's ten most romantic restaurants.

Bon Appetit

Set in an 18th-century farmhouse, Arrows embodies the Yankee spirit of self-sufficiency...and Arrows never misses the bull's-eye.

Wine Spectator

The setting at Arrows would be enough...but the new American food will take you even higher.

Travel and Leisure

Arrows is part of a burgeoning trend...that celebrates regionality and seeks to strengthen the essential link between garden and table.

Horticulture

Artfully combined, fresh ingredients require little flourish to produce good recipes. In 1988, Maine restaurateurs Frasier and Gaier planted the garden and opened the restaurant to prove it. Simple recipes designed to showcase the flavors and aesthetics of fresh-grown produce fill their cookbook featuring dishes inspired by the one-acre garden that supplies their restaurant. The book, a tribute to purity and simplicity, is organized by season-each section includes an essay or memoir, food-preparation suggestion, gardening tip and, sometimes, a tidbit of culinary history. The recipes are concise and thoughtfully written. The ingredient combinations are generally innovative (morels, gruyere) but never rare, so cooks in Ohio can use the book as easily as cooks in San Francisco or Maine. In keeping with their philosophy, Frasier and Gaier have written recipes that highlight, rather than overwhelm, any key seasonal ingredients. Unfortunately, the essays, tips and culinary histories lack the sophistication and logical cohesion of the recipes. While these writings may contribute, in a vague way, to the overall "experience" of the book, the tips and histories tend to be reiterations of relatively well-known information. Yet this volume is filled with recipes home cooks will want to prepare for friends. Includes photos and illustrations. (June) Forecast: With recipes as sophisticated as those offered regularly in Gourmet or Food & Wine, the book should be guaranteed the same success that the Arrows Restaurant has enjoyed for years. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Frasier and Gaier met when they were both line cooks at San Francisco's acclaimed Stars restaurant, and their original intention was to open a place in California. The economics of real estate intervened, however, and instead they bought an old farmhouse outside coastal Ogunquit, ME, just south of Portland. In the late 1980s, the fresh produce that they were used to in California was simply unavailable to them, so they started a kitchen garden and revived the ancient orchard behind the restaurant. Today, the garden produces some 270 varieties of vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers-and, as the garden grew, it shaped the cuisine of what has become an elegant, upscale restaurant with a national reputation rather than the casual bistro that the two chefs originally imagined. Organized by season, the recipes presented here are not complicated for the most part, as they are intended to show off the flavors of fresh, high-quality ingredients: Asparagus Soup with Lobsters, Morels, and Chervil; Lemongrass- and Lemon-Roasted Chicken; and Berry Sorbet with Orange Crisps. The book will appeal to gardeners as well, for along with the story of the restaurant and the garden there is a great deal of practical advice, from "How To Build Herb Boxes" to "Starting Seedlings." With delicious recipes and an entertaining and informative text, including a foreword by Jeremiah Tower, this is highly recommended. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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