Follow the River North

When I was 21, the poet I was working for at the time graciously arranged for me to spend a portion of the summer at a writer’s residency on a small organic farm in Wisconsin. It was late June, the heat of summer, and we spent the mornings picking raspberries, grubbing apple trees and staking tomato plants as they grew heavy with big red globes that were hot to the touch in the mid-morning sun. In the afternoons, we would take shelter in the dimly lit attic apartment in the barn out behind the house to comb through shelves full of ancient paperbacks, crack open a bottle of wine and take a swing at getting some writing done.

Before we headed out to the barn, we would stop by the house to grab a loaf of freshly baked bread, a slab of homemade butter, a hunk of local Wisconsin white cheddar and as many little red and orange and green tomatoes as we could carry. On our way out, we would grab a handful of basil from the kitchen garden.

Ever since then, the most satisfying summer lunch I can think of is homemade bread, a bit of cheese and fresh tomatoes.

Garlic scapes have come into season. The garlic won’t be ready for another couple of months, but the scapes are cut off now, in late spring to early summer, to allow the plant to focus on growing the bulb instead of flowering. I had never seen garlic scapes until I came to Korea and still default to their Korean name at times, since I only learned that they were called scapes years after I’d become aware of them in Korean. They’re kind of crazy looking, something like a hybrid between a really long green bean and a spring onion gone mad. They taste mildly of garlic, almost like spring onions or scallions, but they have a surprising heat to them that mellows significantly when they are cooked.

Koreans often eat them raw, tossed in an even more spicy paste made from gochujang (fermented red pepper paste), red pepper powder, soy sauce, sesame oil and corn syrup, but with the turn of the weather last week toward summer, I was hankering for something light, with cheese and tomatoes.

That summer on the farm, I was still a vegetarian, and I still usually to revert back to flexitarian tendencies during the summer, when meat often feels too heavy. This tart is nice, because it fills you up without bogging you down. The more substantial ingredients — heavy cream, milk, eggs and Gruyere — are balanced with minced garlic scapes incorporated into the filling. Cherry tomatoes and garlic scape stalks dotted across the top of the tart help to lighten it up.

I’ve had rye bread, leftover Gruyere and tomatoes for lunch every day so far this week, but this tart was a nice variation on the memory of that hot Wisconsin summer on the farm, with the scapes in place of the basil adding a little Korean twist.

Continue reading Tomato Garlic Scapes Tart and Summer on the Farm