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The Red Bank Farmers Market

Eggplant Parmigiana Recipe

 My favorite thing on Sundays, after the NY Times and Keith’s traditional English breakfast with eggs, fresh bangers (sausage to the uninitiated) from Sickles and toast (I leave all the Heinz baked beans in tomato sauce for Keith), is the Red Bank Farmers Market.

 A hop, skip and a jump from our store at the intersection of West Front Street and Shrewsbury Avenue, in the parking lot behind the Galleria, is where you get the best and freshest fruits and veggies from a variety of local suppliers.  This is what fresh direct means, from the farm to your table.  And when Sunday rolls around it is always exciting to see what new treats are in store.

 Because they start slow.  Some herbs and lettuces in early spring, next comes the asparagus, some squash and now suddenly, it is in full swing, with nearly every fruit and vegetable you can imagine.  It is a great place to schmooze with friends you haven’t seen for a while.   And if, unlike us,  you have not been properly fed there are some fabulous breakfast options starting with our neighbor Adam’s vegan legend, The Cinnamon Snail…

 Or for you gourmands out there, there is that only in NJ classic, the Pork Roll truck!

 Although I managed to resist the pork roll,  I could not resist the eggplant, so guess what we’re having for dinner tonight?

Eggplant Parmigiana

This recipe is adapted from one in Mario Batali’s  Molto Italiano; heaven forbid I ever follow a recipe exactly.  But I love Mario for figuring out a way to make this dish without having to fry, or even better–batter the eggplant.  Even if you are willing to take on the calories, who wants to spend a 100-degree day with the air-conditioning cranked up so you can sweat for a good half hour or so over a hot frying pan?  And then you still have to hang around for another half hour while it bakes.

 And don’t sweat that whole pre-salting thing either–it just takes up another half hour, uses more dishes and I can never taste any difference.  Just start with the freshest eggplant you can buy.  Don’t use the baby ones–go for a nice mid-sizer with some heft and slice it into  a little less than 1/2 inch rounds.  Put the slices on a lightly olive-oiled baking sheet, add salt and pepper to taste and bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for ten minutes or so.  Keep an eye on them–you want them cooked through with some color–but not burned.

 And that’s it.  Make stacks, with a cheese layer in between the slices–I like to use a mixture of goat cheese and fresh mozzarella because I think the mozzarella is a little bland.  Top with your favorite tomato sauce and some grated parmesan and cook for twenty minutes in a 350 degree oven.  Garnish with fresh basil if you’ve got some on hand and serve with a fabulous salad, and a warm loaf of that great Italian bread from those guys in the far corner at the Farmers Market and enjoy.

Buon Appetito!

On Golden Pond

The World’s Best Fish Stew

Like most visitors to Maine it was love at first sight.  I was 16 and working for the summer as a mother’s helper for a local Rumson family and they carted me along with them to their summer place in Prouts Neck. Most famous for being home to Winslow Homer, it is a glorious peninsula composed of rocky crags on two sides and a sandy crescent on the third.  My little charges and I spent our days on the beach and climbing the cliff paths that circled around the neck, and it was a summer I will never, ever forget.       

A similar thing happened to my sister when she first got to Maine, but she was her in twenties and smart enough never to leave.  She landed on the Pemaquid Peninsula–just far enough north not to be completely overrun with tourists, but still filled with the requisite amenities that make Maine so delightful: a lighthouse, fabulous ocean vistas, lobster pounds serving the freshest and best seafood imaginable, estuaries, tidal pools, and even a sandy beach.

       We visited her many times over the years, and finally when we were empty nested we took the plunge, sold our family home, repaired to our apartment over the store in Red Bank (always the plan when we renovated a decade ago) and bought ourselves our own Maine cottage.

       As much as we love the ocean views, we opted for lakeside because our little lake (which is technically a pond because, or so I’ve been told, it is just shy of the required five miles) warms up enough so we can comfortably swim all summer.  Biscay Pond is just the right size for sailing in our little boat,kayaking, paddle boarding or running our little outboard to our hearts’ content–without the fear of being swept out to sea!

       Naturally given the nature of our business, having our own home to furnish and decorate just adds to the pleasure of living in Maine. The first thing we did, and I know this is going to cause a lot of groans, was paint all the original knotty pine paneling Benjamin Moore’s China White and all the fir trim White Dove…. Yes, sacrilegious in some minds, but fully supported by legions of Scandinavians  who know how best to live in northern climes.  White makes smaller spaces live larger, reflects light and makes the day brighter and me, and happier.  (And we all know that when mom is happy–everyone’s happy.)

       Next we stripped the floors to a natural pine.  I love light floors because they hardly show the dust or dirt or wear and when they do one swish of the mop and they look as good as new.  With two small grandboys and a third sibling on the way, we want to make all of our visitors feel welcome and not fret over natural, and heaven knows with small boys around sometimes unnatural, wear and tear. You never know what they will get into or up to!

       We had new kitchen cabinets made for the galley style kitchen, mostly because there were too many for the space and the wood was an ugly brown. These cabinets were made at the factory we use in Hungary to build all of our furniture so we knew they would be top quality. During the install we were able to double the insulation in the walls and enlarge the window over the sink–I am all about waterviews when washing up. And yes, the cabinets are now white so the whole area looks larger and so much more inviting than before.

       Decorating was a challenge because there is only one room on the main floor for cooking, dining, and living.  We had to have a large farm table, after all, we are British Cottage.  Even so, the one we chose has a metal base so it doesn’t look so massive, even though it is 96″ long and can seat twelve–squished–but still,  the more the merrier!  Our chairs are upholstered in black linen; not the fabric you would think of for a lakehouse but I thought they would have to do double duty as extra seating when entertaining a crowd so they may as well be comfortable.  And what else is Scotchguard for?

       I think cheap couches are a false economy.  Usually, the fabric choices are awful.  And they can be really uncomfortable to sit on because the cushions are made of synthetic materials that are (besides being toxic) either too dense or too sloppy for relaxing properly–which is, after all, the whole purpose of a vacation home. So we have a really good couch, but we had two slipcovers made in a cotton blend that looks like linen and wears like steel. 

 I try to use antiques when decorating as much as possible.  With furniture that has been used over and over again by family after family one more nick or scratch is not going to be the end of the world; it’s just another part of the journey.  The whole point of decorating is to make your part of the world a little happier for you and your family.  If you get it right, they will come.

That’s why the third floor has room for three beds tucked under the dormers; there is plenty of space for when the kids are visiting. Which is really what it’s all about, isn’t it? When no one is visiting I can channel E.B. White and write at the little desk by the window.

There is a another small bedroom on the main floor and then downstairs there is a master bedroom and bath with a Jacuzzi tub! I know, hardly roughing it, but I never said I was much of a camper.

But eventually, it is time to stop whatever you are doing and come in for dinner. One of our favorite meals is fish stew and this is the best I’ve come across. It is from Kate Shaffer, owner of Black Dinah Chocolatiers in Westport, Maine; naturally I’ve taken some liberties but basically, it goes like this:

The World’s Best Fish Stew

Heat a glop of olive oil in a large pot, the more decorative the better because this is what you will be serving from.  Add a pinch or two of thyme, turmeric, fennel, saffron and crushed red pepper.  If you don’t have any of those on hand try some oregano or basil.  Heat just for a few seconds then add a large yellow onion & 2 celery stalks chopped up and 4 cloves of garlic minced.  If you have fresh fennel on hand and like the taste–add that.  For me a  little fennel goes a long way so I usually skip this step. Another step I usually skip is adding 1/2 a yellow pepper–only because I don’t have any in the house.  Then cook over low heat for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

 Add a 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes and their juice and squish them up a bit.  Fill the empty tomato can half with water and half with white wine–this is the bit I like because it means it is time to start cocktail hour.  Cook the mixture until it boils and then simmer for at least 15 minutes or as long as a couple of hours–the idea is to let those spices really season the stew.

 Just before you are ready to eat and the stew has simmered and is very hot, add your fish.  Any kind of fish works; I like a couple of pounds of cod or haddock the best.  Then add whatever else you like.  I generally splurge on 6 or 7 of the priciest fresh scallops and shrimp the fishmonger has on hand and chuck in a bag of mussels (make sure to take them out of the bag and scrub them first).  Cook until the mussels open and serve with some fresh parsley and a loaf of good bread and the freshest butter you can find.  Scrumptious.  Thank you, Kate.

On Board -My Farmhouse Table

British Cottage is now officially 30!  We opened our first store at 125 West Front Street in January 1986 with a container full of antique English pine bought with the cash buyout Keith received after parting ways with the Tetley Brewing Company.

Neither of us had a background in antiques; it was only by chance we met a Martha Stewart look-a-like from Connecticut at an auction on the grittier side of Gosport, a washed up city on the wrong side of the Solent.  We were looking for furniture to bring back to New Jersey (another part of the package was free shipping) and watched as this petite, middle-aged woman with fabulous hair and an outfit that coordinated with her pumps,  bought every piece of stripped pine that came up for sale.

Waiting to pay at the end, we met her in the queue and just had to ask what the heck was she doing there, like how did she even find Gosport?  She told us that antique English pine furniture was the heart of the “American country” look and all the craze in the states and advised us to buy every piece we could.  So we did.  And thirty years later we still are buying and selling antique pine (as well as a whole bunch of other stuff).

Looking back over the years we have sold some really fabulous items.  But we kept a few too.  This “On Board” feature will be the ones that did not get away.  Objects we’ve known and loved for years–even decades.

For us decorating is not about buying a catalog of matching items, it is all about the hunt, the experience, and the joy of finding an object that fits in a room just so–or doesn’t fit in at all –but you love it so into the mix it must go.  I’ll start with our dining room table.

It is an antique farm table from Ireland that Keith bought from Martin Dearden,  an aristocratic bloke straight out of Dickens, with a large manor home called Pennard House in Shepton Mallet, a little village in Somerset.  That is how you did things in those days.  You would go to a small shop on a High Street and invariably the owner would have a bunch of sheds or barns somewhere else so off you would go through fields and hedgerows to see great masses of furniture in astonishingly bad disrepair and then start making a deal.

The deal would usually involve tea, some biscuits and if it all turned out okay, in the end, a trip to the pub–there is always a pub in these stories.  (Pennard House is still in business today as a wedding and event venue–I’m guessing the antique barns are probably used for dining–and rinking).

Anyway, Keith bought this table from Martin and along with a number of other items it was loaded onto a container that eventually found its way to Red Bank.  When my mother walked into the store, she took one look at the table amongst the other new arrivals and claimed it immediately.  Made in the late 1800’s with three long pitch pine planks and a stretcher base, it has two drawers that reach all the way to the middle of the table and it was a beast to carry up the stairs to her second-story dining room overlooking the Shrewsbury River in Rumson.

Mother of six, friend to all, it is impossible to count the number of parties and holidays we enjoyed around her table–let alone fathom all the meals served on it prior to its arrival in America.  When my mom died, one of my brothers was quick to claim it.  A few years ago he moved to California and the table came full circle back to us, where it is now front and center of the great room above British Cottage.  We are happy to let the parties begin, again, at this fabulous table.