The Last Pieces of June

Cherries, glorious, in all their red, white and sour forms! A much healthier cook-time snack than my usual bread groaning under the weight of cheese.

And then... Fresh duck breast! I have not seen this lovely vendor at the Union Square Farmers Market until just last week. It was 6:00--closing time--and produce was a little tired and discounted. I wanted to use my wok again and had scored bok choy, mint, scallions and snow peas when I saw the sign: "10% Off All Duck!"

Abawhaaat!? Giddy, I stepped right up and nabbed a big, fatty, fresh not frozen(!) Moulard breast--almost a whole pound for $7 from the Hudson Valley Duck Farm.

At home, I rubbed five spice and Sriracha onto the breast, browned it up nicely in the wok and then, ghetto-like, finished it in the toaster oven. To keep the heat in the kitchen down, I stir-fried all the green things with a bit of ginger for just about 15 hot seconds, then I put some orange juice, a tiny bit of hoisin sauce and soy sauce, a spoonful of honey and a squirt of Sriracha into the hot wok (these things sort of sounded like they should go together, no?), let it reduce and then poured it all over my duck before mixing everything together.

Final answer: really pretty, really easy, fairly good flavor... and I decided I don't like bok choy. Poor bok choy.

My Clafoutis Brings All the Boys to the Yard

Yiii, that sounds suggestive. Oh, but the clafoutis was so, so good! And I must send sincere to thanks to my darling Cynthia in Belgium for introducing me to clafoutis years ago in our little catering trailer in West Hollywood. Thank you, Cynthia! "It's like a whole stack of crepes piled on top of each other!"

Free pound o' cherries at the Whole Foods plus the requisite eggs, flour, sugar and vanilla extract all on hand meant clafoutis was so easy (that's a nice rhyme).

Ms. J. Child's recipe, to be honest, was a bit overly sweet for my tastes, so I ended up squeezing some lemon juice over the whole show. Next time, less sugar. Oh, and pitting those damn cherries was seriously tedious. Next time, I leave the pits in.

Hey and here's the yummy cous we munched prior! Cleaned the fridge out of kalamatas, arugula, lemon and some parmesan.

Gasp! Tomatoes in May in NYC

Seasonality be damned. I wanted a tomato in my mouth so badly that I didn't care if they were flown in from Mars. You stinking carbon footprint!

So I popped right into the shiny new, fluorescent green "Kim's Millennium Market" around the corner and snatched up a heap of cherries, tomatoes and basil, all unsustainably trekked from the entirely opposite side of the nation. And heavens, they were delicious. I scarfed the cherries as a snack while I whipped up the last of my box of whole wheat couscous, then I dumped in a greedy ton of tomatoes and ribbons of basil and some nuggets of feta that I had hiding in the back of the fridge.

Tastes like sunny California! Humm. Homesick.