miso mayo and watermelon and gin
and existential revelations while berry picking!
Hey, hi, hello,
It’s me. I’m still on the farm, and I’ve gotta tell you… I love it very much. I’ve been doing things like collecting chicken eggs and marking the prettiest ones to leave behind to hatch and clipping strawflowers to bundle and hang upside down to dry in the sun.
It’s very nice.
I’ve also been having a lot of thoughts. I’ve been thinking about how nice it is to always have softened butter on the counter and about how I don’t have to be on a farm for that to be part of my life all the time. I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a part of a community of people and the different ways people need to be cared for.
The other day I was picking blackberries, and the ones that were ripe released from the bush so easily it was almost like they were jumping into the bucket I was carrying. I found myself tugging at the ones that looked like they were ripe but weren’t—I could tell because I really had to pull to get them to come loose. I was surprised how quickly I learned the amount of pressure necessary to free a ripe berry and how I recognized when to stop pulling immediately when a blackberry wasn’t ripe, even if it looked like it was.
Because I’m still in the honeymoon stage of farm life and because it still feels romantic to be getting a sunburn on my shoulders while learning particularities about the fruit I’m picking, I obviously took all this blackberry business in as a metaphor for my life. About jumping when you’re ready and knowing when to stay on the vine even if it seems like you’re ripe for the picking. Nature knows when she’s ready. Don’t rush what takes time. Grow and ripen and don’t hurry your sweetness. It was all very profound!
A few hours later, still feeling romantic but certainly more tired, I was on my hands and knees collecting ground cherries. Fort what it’s worth, ground cherries aren’t cherries at all. They kind of look like a cherry tomato meets a tomatillo—a little round fruit inside a papery husk. They grow, you guessed it, on the ground, and you know they’re ripe because they’re, again, on the ground. They just fall off the plant, and then you scoop them up. However! When I lifted up one of the tendrils, intending to collect the brown papery orbs underneath, something literally crazy happened. Seemingly unripe ground cherries popped off the vine!
Girls! I said out loud (because, just like clouds and butterflies, all plants are girls), girls, what are you doing? You’re not ripe! They were not ripe! I could tell because their husks were still pale green and silky. And yet, with barely so much as a nudge, they were jumping ship. A quick Google search told me that, although they were not yet ripe, they were probably almost ripe, and much like tomatoes, they’ll continue to ripen off the vine. Phew! After assuaging my momentary fear that I would be fired from the farm for harvesting unripe fruit, I once again sunk into the warm romanticism of gleaning spiritual revelations from the produce.
Maybe you do need to be harvested before you’re ripe and do your ripening after you’re picked. Or… do you wait until you’re tender, juicy, and ready, and then ready, set, go? Ugh! It’s so frustrating when the majesty and wonder of nature doesn’t perfectly align itself to offer a unified metaphor to dictate the narrative arc you’re wandering. Real life! It’s nuts!
I don’t know if I’m a blackberry or a ground cherry—right now, all I know is that both have been made into jam. Speaking of jam (I’m too tired for a good transition), here are three recipes I think you should make whether or not you’re having an existential crisis involving fruit. And if you’ve made it this far, go on and let me know if you’re team blackberry or ground cherry in the comments. Vote or die! (Please don’t die.)
xoxo,
Garrett
miso mayo: ingredients
I’ve claimed previously to have made the best aioli ever—and now I’m back to say this is the best mayo ever. I put it on a tomato sandwich, and it changed my life. I dipped lightly salted blanched veggies in it, and it changed my life again. Do all of the above and more!
2 egg yolks: I like my mayo THICK! You can absolutely do this with just one if you want a more reasonably dense, dippable mayo.
1 cup neutral oil: I used grapeseed! You can use vegetable or canola or avocado or whatever you want!
1 tsp dijon mustard: pick your fav
2 tbsp rice vinegar: you can also use white vinegar or lemon juice if that’s what you’ve got, but I really like rice vinegar here!
1 tbsp white miso: yes, white miso!
a big pinch of kosher salt
1 tbsp sesame oil: this is extra credit and totally optional
miso mayo: method
I’ve made my mayo lots of ways before. Mostly by hand. Sometimes in a food processor. However, I’ve never… owned an immersion blender before. I know! It’s crazy, but it’s true! And having one on the farm has changed my life (because now I make mayo like this).
Regardless of how you make it, everything should be room temperature, including the yolks! This is important! These instructions are to do it by hand, but however you do it, all you need to know is that you should reserve 1 tbsp of vinegar and the tbsp of miso to whisk in at the end after your mayo is formed. Go forth and prosper!
In a large bowl, whisk together egg yolks, mustard, 1 tbsp vinegar, and salt.
Once that’s come together, slowly whisk in your neutral oil, drop by drop, until it thickens. Once it starts to thicken, you can stream in the oil at a quicker speed, making sure to pause and get all the oil emulsified.
If using, whisk in your sesame oil, and after that’s incorporated, add your reserved vinegar and miso. Taste! Season again! Put it on everything!
watermelon with lemon and flaky salt
This isn’t a recipe so much as it is a way of life, tbh. And I didn’t make it up, my friend Zach did. It would just be too cruel of me not to tell you the best way to eat watermelon at the height of summer.
All you’ve gotta do is:
Make sure your watermelon is as cold as possible
Slice it in whatever way you see fit—I’ve been really into this method recently
Squeeze a fresh lemon juice over top and then sprinkle on a lot of flaky salt
ENJOY!
My friend Nick said he didn’t really care about watermelon until he ate it this way, so if that doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will.
gin jam
As you may remember, from just a few sections up, we’ve been making a lot of jam on the farm. Jam is good on a lot of things, but it’s also especially good with gin. I already went long on the gin jam on Instagram, but here’s what you need to know:
In a shaker with ice, combine:
2 oz gin
1 tbsp of your very best/favorite jam (whatever that means to you)
shake!!!!
pour into a very cute glass filled with ice and top with a splash of soda water and a squeeze of lemon
garnish with a twist if you’re gay or just like good things!
HOPE YOU’RE HAVING A GREAT DAY BYE!
Gin jam is the summers greatest unlock