Desperately Seeking Salem

I don’t know about you, but when I’m sick as a dog I strap my baby in a stroller and wander deliriously through downtown Salem.

I get it in my head that I need to drop $25 on hardback literary fiction RIGHT NOW and I set about looking for a copy of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Good Squad, hailed in numerous reviews as the best rock novel ever written.

(No dice).

Then I spend the whole afternoon poking around Salem stores as my temperature rockets to 102 degrees and discover some secret slices of Salem that I was often too harried, too distracted, or too busy, to notice.

Discovery number one: Downtown Grocery.

New to you? No. It’s been around since early May, when it opened to much small-town state capital fanfare — read: a few blog posts, a Statesman Journal article, and a rush of murmur that heralded it as the Thing Downtown Has Been Missing.

I don’t know about that.

What I do know is that the Downtown Grocery carries some awesome middle-eastern and European products and offers the kind of other-world-in-your-own-backyard shopping experience that I haven’t really had since I was living on Mt. Pleasant Street in the El Salvadorean district of our nation’s capital.

If you are one of those people that can’t recognize a cardamom seed pod by its face, then you are in luck. The staff at Downtown Grocery can help you sort your spices in a way that is oh-so-satisfying for the home cook with a curious streak.

I’ve heard from friends who are obssessed with the store’s sandwich counter — and its gooey, layered baklava — but have yet to hear from anyone who goes out of their way to buy some of the other packaged, processed stuff that lines the aisles.

Unless you’re talking about fava beans.

If you read this blog, you know that I’ve become wildly enamored of these little green guys after first working with them in California last year and then discovering at my produce paradise at E.Z. Orchards.

Sadly, favas don’t last forevah.

But now I have something akin to that in the canned broad beans (you cheeky Brits!) available for purchase at downtown grocery. No, they don’t have that fresh, green, plucked from the Matrix snap that fresh favas have. But creamed together with some tahini, olive oil, garlic and lemon, it makes a nice hummus.

Don’t forget that you still need to remove the fava bean from the pod before blending!

This one’s for you, Amber. Now you can eat your favas without thinking about Anthony Hopkins.

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who has been supporting DSS’s advertisers this month. We have raised $75 so far to help feed hungry kids. And the month’s not yet over!

Maybe you’ve heard of them.

Perchance you have made a joke about eating them with a nice Chianti and your victim’s liver.

But it is likely you’ve never come across them in your neighborhood grocery store in Salem — until last week, when you stopped by E.Z. Orchards for a  mixed berry shortcake the size of a 6-year-old’s head and happened upon them, hanging out conspicuously with the green beans and the potatoes.

They are fava beans and they are going to break you.

Favas are all about process. They are not the stuff of 30-minute meals — they are laborious, delicious, buttery little beasts that come wrapped in pods that look like Frankenstein’s fingers, all gnarly knuckles and spindly fingernails.

Buy enough of them and you could spend the better part of an afternoon shelling, blanching, shelling, cooking and eating.

Here is a great tutorial on how to handle your favas.

When you open the seed pod you will find as many as half a dozen, or as few as one, glorious alien seed sacks.

You will remove the seeds and blanch them in boiling water for a minute. Then you remove the meaty part of the seed from the alien-looking casing. Think of this as freeing all those little Neos from the Matrix.

My husband has likened the fava to the lima bean, but that does the fava a disservice. They are buttery kernels, slightly nutty, smooth like a good pinot. I sauteed these favas with half an onion and some fennel, added some fresh dill and half a cup of chicken stock. We ate them with couscous.

Is it worth all that time and effort?

I would just as easily ask you if it is worth it to wait for a wine to ripen. Or a novel to be written. Or a John Cage song to be performed.

I like seeing the hours pile up on the plate.