The farmers markets have just started up again in Bend, Oregon, and among the stars of the spring produce are the Albion strawberries. Brought in by Marquam Hill Berries, a small, family-owned farm in the heart of Willamette Valley, Albion strawberries are known for being exceptionally sweet and juicy with low acidity. I find them so irresistible that I often buy a “spare” container to enjoy before the groceries make it home.

This recipe works with just about any fruit purée and can be adapted for any season. I’ve made versions of this with citrus (blood orange + Grand Marnier) and summer cherries (FE pie cherries + Cherry Herring) that have all been crowd pleasers! For the most “strawberry shortcake adjacent” version of this and in the interests of being maximally kid-friendly, I omitted any liqueur from my strawberry version.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 1/4 cups mascarpone

• 1/3 cup heavy cream

• 2 tbsp optional liqueur (Strawberry, St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur, etc.)

• 5 eggs, separated

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

• 2 packages of ladyfingers

• 3 cups strawberry purée, from 4 cups strawberries

• 1-2 cups diced strawberries

• Lemon zest from 2 lemons

INSTRUCTIONS

Assemble!

1. In a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, combine mascarpone, cream, optional liqueur, egg yolks, vanilla and sugar. Mix on medium until stable (not soft) peaks form. It should leave an obvious trail when you drag your finger through.

2. Scrape the mascarpone mixture into another bowl, and thoroughly wash the stand mixer bowl and the whisk attachment - it is important that no traces of fat remain in the bowl. Then whisk your egg whites until stable peaks have formed, being very careful to not over mix.

3. Carefully fold the egg whites into the mascarpone mixture, one third at a time. Zest an entire lemon and fold into into the mixture.

4. Using a large 9x13 baking dish, coat the bottom in a thin layer of mascarpone cream. Next, dip each ladyfinger into the strawberry purée and line the bottom of the dish. Once the bottom is covered, spread half of the remaining mascarpone cream. Scatter diced strawberries across the layer of mascarpone cream. Repeat with the ladyfingers and the other half of cream.

5. Chill for a minimum of 8 hours, but best when chilled overnight. Top with lemon zest and fresh strawberries, and serve!

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Last month, I hosted a holiday housewarming party. It was such an undertaking that it wasn’t until I was on the other side of it that I realized I hadn’t taken a single picture. Hosting a housewarming in our first married home together felt like a celebration that needed to happen. But being new in town also means not knowing very many people to invite.…

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First and foremost, I’m being a little loose with the word “detergent” in the title - what we’re really making here is laundry soap. Most consider “true soap” to be a simple combination of natural fats with an alkaline base (usually lye). By contrast, significant amounts of common “soaps” on the market are loaded with synthetic ingredients, making them …

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I recently began working as a Work Trade program member at Chance Farms in Bozeman, Montana. Once a week, for four hours, I work at the farm in exchange for a share of organic produce. Thus far, 95% of my time on the farm has been spent harvesting vegetables and herbs, with a tiny shift of pulling weeds. In the last three shifts, I’ve learned how to harvest dill, cilantro, and parsley for bulk and for individual sale. I’ve pulled beets and radishes out of the ground, and bunched carrots dug up by teammates. I’ve cut broccolini and crated more than 800 lbs of lettuce (mixed greens, little gems, and romaine). Sometimes there’s a quiet joke (is it, though?) of competition between the two work-trade crews, steadily-but-efficiently moving through their harvest list to see who finishes first and gets to do the snap peas - the task is always accompanied by the sounds of crunching and munching as we “remove” anything that looks a little too ripe for sale. And I’ve only just begun!

Benefits:

• Meet new people and work alongside folks with all different experiences and backgrounds. Whether full-time or work-trade, the farm brings together incredibly interesting folks with a range of talents, hobbies, and professional backgrounds. Someone works at the local bookstore and is going to be the next person I ask for a book recommendation when I finish what’s on my nightstand. Someone else is a professional musician. Someone else gets out fly fishing a lot more often than I do, and is a great person to ask about what’s fishing well. Someone connected me with a local chef and educator at the culinary school, and he taught me how to part out whole chicken. I’m learning so much more than how to pull vegetables out of the dirt.

• Spend time outside, with your hands in the dirt and sun in your eyes. For desk-jockies like me, the benefits are obvious.

• Less money spent on groceries. I’m at the point now where I really need to do a month-long audit. We officially have a freezer full of pasture-raised chicken and local grass-fed beef. Between the meat in the freezer and the weekly share I bring home from the farm, my grocery bill is on the drop. And not only am I purchasing less, I’m also wasting less. By removing transit time from harvest and wait time on the shelf at the grocery store my produce lasts well beyond 7-10 days; things still sometimes get forgotten about in the back of the (now very full) crisper drawer, but it’s always discovered before it goes bad.

• Leaving a shift with an armload of produce doesn’t just feel satisfying, it is wildly more nutrient-dense than anything you could buy at the store. More to come on this subject, as it has sent me down a rabbit hole of research papers that merit another post. All you need to know at a high level is that a tremendous amount of nutrient-density is lost in transport, and unless you’re regularly frequenting your farmers market, your best efforts to eat all the vitamins and minerals your body needs may be falling very short of your expectations.

• Culinary inspiration. I don’t know why, but I don’t think I’ve ever bought broccolini to cook at home. It’s one of those vegetables I seem to only eat when dining out. Last week, at Little Star Diner, we ordered a broccolini dish with a spicy and sticky fish sauce and sesame and tiny bits of cashew - we stopped just short of licking the plate clean. So when I brought home broccolini from the farm, I decided to try my own version. It turned out great, and now I’ve added a new occasional ingredient to my grocery list.

Not every farm near you will be looking for this kind of help, but even if you don’t see an obvious place on their website or a listing for help, you never know if you don’t ask. Send an email. Ask at your local farmers market. You never know what the answer might be!

Find a nearby farm and get started.

When I started this Substack, I didn’t know what direction it was going to take. I just knew that I had developed a recipe I loved, and I wanted a place to catalogue it. I still don’t know what this series of posts is going to be or turn into, but for now I’m going to keep following my nose.

I simply love sharing what I love. And for those who have spen…

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I recently had a perfect dessert - the “Broken Cheesecake” - at Campione, in Livingston, Montana. It was beautiful on the plate, unpretentious, and so delicious we stopped just short of licking the plate. I walked out of the restaurant on a mission to recreate it with my own twist. Taking a page out of Hailee Catalano’s new cookbook By Heart, I swapped the restaurant’s favored blueberries for a more seasonally-specific spiced strawberry-rhubarb compote. The cheesecake mousse is a no-bake dream that comes together in minutes, and the graham cracker crumble comes together just as quickly. The end result is the sweetest start to spring.

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 40 minutes

Total time: 60 minutes

Makes 4 servings

INGREDIENTS

• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

• 1 cup heavy cream

• 2 tablespoons sour cream (or yogurt, for a lighter flavor)

• 1 cup powdered sugar

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest (you can use lime here, but it WILL look like mold)

• 9 sheets of graham crackers (1 package)

• 1/2 cup sugar, divided (1/4 for the graham crackers, 1/4 for the compote)

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 8 ounces rhubarb*, cut into 1/2-inch irregular pieces - this is about 2 large stalks

• 16 ounces strawberries, divided, hulled and halved

• 3 whole cardamom pods, crushed OR 8 cardamom seeds

• 1 star anise pod

• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and scraped

• 1 inch ginger, grated (freezing your ginger is a grating game-changer; no need to peel)

*Our local co-op has maintained a small but steady supply of rhubarb this spring, and Whole Foods has been a reliable source for it as well. If you can’t find it, this recipe works just as well with just the strawberries - just double the amount required for the compote!

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, positioning racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.

For the Broken Cheesecake:

1. In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine room temperature cream cheese and sour cream and beat until smooth.

2. Sift 1 cup of powdered sugar into the cream cheese mixture, add 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and beat on medium speed until smooth.

3. In a separate bowl, whip the 1 cup of heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Gently fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture. This works best by first adding a small amount of the whipped cream to the cream cheese mixture, incorporating it thoroughly to loosen the mixture, and then gently adding in the remaining whipped cream.

4. Pour mixture into clean bowl, press a layer of plastic wrap to the surface of the mixture, and place in the refrigerator to firm up for at least 8 hours but ideally overnight.

For the Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote:

1. In a 9x9 baking dish, combine the rhubarb, half of the sliced strawberries, 1/4 cup sugar, star anise, cardamom, vanilla bean (pod and all), and ginger, and stir to combine.

2. Cover the mixture with foil and roast in the oven for 40 minutes.

3. Remove from the oven, remove the foil, and allow to cool to room temperature. Discard the large spices. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator until ready to use.

For the Graham Cracker Crumbs:

1. While the strawberry-rhubarb compote bakes, melt 8 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan or in the microwave.

2. Place graham crackers in a plastic ziplock and smash into crumbles with your hands or a rolling pin. You are NOT making a pie crust here, so there is no need to crush to a uniform consistency - some variation in the size and shape of the crumbs lends a nice texture to the dessert.

3. Add the melted butter, 1/4 cup of sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt to the graham cracker crumbs mix until combined.

4. Pour graham cracker crumb mixture onto a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Store in an airtight container until ready to use.

To serve, divide the strawberry-rhubarb compote among small dessert plates. Add a scoop of the cheesecake mousse, a generous mound of graham cracker crumble, and the remaining fresh, sliced strawberries.

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