OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and this weekly newsletter. Every week, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, food writer and ecologist, highlights different aspects of the region’s food ecosystem. This week she offers a recipe for a risotto that celebrates sweet corn and one of summer’s weirdest mushrooms.

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[Note: as we approach our 100th edition in just three weeks, not only does the newsletter have a shiny updated look, but I’m happy (relieved beyond measure, tbh) to announce that from here on out I’ll be writing the newsletter in the first person, like a normal person instead of Lady Whistledown. But make no mistake: “Superabundant” is very much a team effort! I’m looking forward to sharing more of what’s happening in other people’s kitchens and gardens in addition to my own. After all, variety is the spice of life. — Heather]

This is such a great time of year for cooking — the days are still warm enough to nudge eggplants and peppers into ripening, and the evenings and mornings are cool enough to turn on the stove. Even if you can’t grow your own produce, the abundance trickles into farmers markets; once-expensive heirloom tomatoes will soon be available by the bushel at reduced prices, ready for salsas and canning projects. And it’s the magical time of year when wild mushrooms coexist with sunny stuff like local sweet corn and fresh beans — spots of rainy weather mean that Pacific golden chanterelles and lobster mushrooms are popping their little heads out of forest soils well before autumn’s fallen leaves bury everything. Lobster mushrooms are such odd ducks — they’re dark red, slightly crunchy and faintly shellfishy as their name suggests, but there’s something else going on with them that separates them from most other choice edibles. Do you know what it is? Read on to find out!

New apple just dropped

Exciting news, apple stans: a new apple variety created by Washington State University — a cross between a Honeycrisp and a Cripps Pink (aka Pink Lady) — will be given a proper name by the end of the year (it currently answers to the catchy moniker “WA 64”). When WSU announced a contest to name the new apple, it created a media frenzy and received over 15,000 suggestions from the public.

Kroger-Albertsons merger update

The supermarket saga continues — on Monday, a Portland federal district court began the process of deciding on the Federal Trade Commission’s request to put the mega-chain merger on ice. While the merger aims to enable the (already quite large) chains to compete with Walmart and Costco, the FTC raised concerns over how it would impact food prices and quality, as well as wages and benefits for grocery store workers.

Vegan grocery store refrigerator ransacked

…But it wasn’t the Tofutti that went missing. Last week, Portland vegan market Food Fight! Grocery was hit by thieves targeting the copper and aluminum pipes in the refrigeration unit behind the store, leaving the small business with a $15,000 bill for a replacement. Before they moved to their current location in Northeast Portland in 2017, the store opened in 2003 as part of America’s first vegan mini mall.

After last week’s rain, my blackberries are pretty much kaput — the dreaded spotted wing Drosophila has moved in as feared, but luckily I’ve got four gallons of bug-free berries safely stowed in the freezer (in addition to the many jars of jam I’ve put up). I’ll cut the floricanes all the way back to reduce the buggy mess and tie back the primocanes (which will produce next year’s fruit) to get them out of the way for the rest of the growing season.

I’ve begun harvesting borlotti (aka cranberry) beans while I wait for the Volga German Siberian to ripen. The nice thing about growing shelling beans is that you can harvest them while the pods are plump and beautifully stippled in fuchsia and cream, or you can completely forget about them until they’re dried and shriveled. I made some nice minestrone with the first round of fresh ones (they can go right in the soup pot without soaking) and am stockpiling the rest as dry beans. Coincidentally, OPB deputy digital editor (and Corn episode producer) Meagan Cuthill just shared a recipe she tried for beans Bourguignon, declaring it “vegan and delish! A bowl of beans, mushrooms, pasta and flavor all added up to a tasty meal with cozy almost-fall vibes.”

Nightshades are doing what they always do in my garden: Taking their sweet time getting ripe. 😤The tomatoes, tomatillos and peppers are all growing lustily, but they remain covered in green fruit. Luckily, a few different friends overdid it with their community garden plots and were happy to swap some of their superabundance for homemade jam.

Peaches from family orchards Baird and Kiyokawa are bowling me over, offering a second chance to enjoy my favorite summer fruit (I processed all the ones from my Red Haven tree last month). I also picked up a cantaloupe that was juicy and intoxicatingly fragrant but woefully lacking in sweetness — a little chile salt and a drizzle of honey to the rescue.

If you don’t have a fig tree of your own, now’s the time to find them in markets. My Brown Turkey is still a few weeks from becoming a burden, but the crimson-hearted green Adriatic figs and moody Mission figs are trickling into produce aisles along with local table grapes. Apples and pears are kicking off, with early Ginger Gold apples and Starkrimson pears making their season debut.

Lately, in the ‘Superabundant’ kitchen

✨ I’ve been seeing Cornelian cherries (not a cherry at all — a cold-hardy dogwood!) ripening in the neighborhood and it turned out I already knew the person growing one of the trees. (You guessed it: Another jam trade ensued.) They’re high in pectin, astringent and sour in equal measure, difficult to pit, but in the end, worth the hassle. I had some of it on a toasted bagel with cream cheese, and since that was so good I’ll probably use some with tvorog to make cherry-cheese vareniki.

✨ I made enough smoky chicken and corn cob broth to cover not just this week’s recipe, but had enough to throw together a quick bowl of brothy somen with sliced aburaage (deep-fried tofu), miso-butter corn and boiled eggs. Somen is a noodle usually served cold in Japan, but they were great in this application.

✨ To clear some pantry shelf space, I pulled a jar of last year’s Italian prune plum preserves that needed to be eaten. I blobbed spoonfuls of the thick jam onto an eggy almond frangipane cake (I also needed to use up some eggs, so I doubled the amount I’d normally use). The plums all sank to the bottom of the batter as the cake baked, so I smeared some more over the top after the cake was finished. Outstanding for dessert, tea or breakfast!

Recipe: Lobster mushroom-corn risotto

And the importance of making an effort

Does fruit taste better when you have to work for it? Will a seedless watermelon have the same heady flavor as the one whose seeds you must deftly dodge with your tongue? Can a thornless blackberry ever rival one that demands a blood sacrifice?

Does a freestone peach, though easy to pit, taste as sweet as one whose stone is rooted stubbornly to its flesh?

The other day a neighbor dropped by with a loaf of Sally Lunn bread from a nice bakery to say thanks for the maple peach butter I left on her porch a week prior. It turned out that only moments before the jar left my hands, she had received the news that she has breast cancer. And as if the timing wasn’t already uncanny, she also shared that when she was pregnant with her first son she’d eaten peach jam on Sally Lunn almost every day — one of the only things she could keep down in her hyperemetic state. Sharing a jar of preserves had been such a small, blithe gesture — but one that brought a glimmer of joy to someone when they really needed it.

As gardeners who like to cook, an act as simple as leaving a jar of homemade preserves or a loaf of zucchini bread on a porch is a no-brainer. We likely have more than we can handle anyway (especially if a fruit tree is in the mix — just take a look at the years’ worth of applesauce on our pantry shelves if you need proof), and if you’re known to be in the habit of preserving food, folks have a way of dropping off a bag of empty canning jars rescued from their grandmother’s basement or a neighborhood buy-nothing group. By and by, the circle will be unbroken — the coziest quid pro quo.

But why go through all the trouble, just to give it away? Your mileage may vary, but I’ve never been afraid of a bit of labor, especially if it means something delicious is the result. (The sentiment brings to mind the charming, if quasi-Communist “WORK IS OUR JOY” slogan emblazoned on the Bumble Bee Seafoods advert in Astoria.) The act of growing, gathering, preparing and preserving food becomes a love spell cast, a meditation in gratitude for the gifts of this land.

So go ahead, venture into the woods, giving the damp duff as much ardor as you give the cathedral of trees towering overhead. Marvel that a vermilion-red lobster mushroom is actually one fungus (the parasitic ascomycete Hypomyces lactifluorum) colonizing another species of mushroom (usually some kind of Russula or Lactarius species). If you end up with more than you need, give some away.

Cut the corn from the cob (then roast the cob over wood smoke for good measure). Pick the thyme leaves from the stem. Make your own broth. Reflect. Your effort will be rewarded. Serves 4

Notes: Lobster mushrooms happen to be in season right now, but feel free to use another type of mushroom. And if you’re the type of person who saves corn cobs in the freezer, go ahead and use them plus a cup of frozen corn kernels instead of fresh ears of corn. If you don’t use alcohol, you can use water plus a teaspoon of lemon juice instead of wine.

Yes, you can use any number of newfangled techniques for making the risotto — people swear by the oven method or the Instant Pot — but the point here is that stirring something slowly with a wooden spoon is a nice opportunity for gazing out the window, setting your intentions, or just having a nice glass of wine while listening to the radio.

Ingredients

2 ears of corn

6 cups chicken or vegetable broth

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 large shallot, minced

8 ounces lobster mushrooms, sliced into bite-sized pieces

Salt and pepper

1 ½ cups arborio (or other short-grain) rice

½ cup dry white wine

A few sprigs of fresh thyme

A pinch of saffron if you’re feeling fancy

Grated Parmesan and more thyme for garnish

Instructions

1. Cut the corn kernels off the cobs (this is easier if you do it on a bundt pan) and set aside. You can roast the cobs on the grill to get a bit more flavor if you like, but it’s fine if you don’t. Chuck the cobs into a medium-sized pot.
2. Pour the broth over the cobs and bring to a simmer. While the broth is heating up, melt the butter and olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Sauté the shallot until glossy and fragrant, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, the corn kernels and the rice, a few pinches of salt and pepper and stir to coat everything in the fat. Sauté, stirring slowly, until a white dot appears in the center of the grains of rice, about 5 minutes more.
3. Stir in the wine and cook a minute or two until the alcohol has evaporated. Add a ladleful of the hot broth and stir languidly, thoughtfully, until it has been absorbed by the rice. Add the thyme and the saffron (only if you’re feeling fancy) and stir another ladleful of hot broth.
4. Keep stirring and adding broth until the rice is mostly cooked but still a tiny bit al dente and it’s luxuriating in its own creamy gravy. If you run out of broth before the rice is perfect, just add another cup or so of water to the pot of corn cobs and heat it up to finish the risotto.
5. Taste the risotto and add more salt and pepper as needed, then serve with grated Parm and thyme.

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