In our office in Russia, there’s a little dining room with a table for four right beside the cafeteria. There’s a white tablecloth, big classical-style windows, and two heavy wooden doors – one to the cafeteria and one to the kitchen. As soon as you sit down, an older woman in a blue-and-white checked apron comes through the second door, hands you the day’s menu, and comes back 30 seconds later to take your order. It’s all very cozy and efficient and Russian. I loved the food in that little cafeteria – the meat-potatoes-cabbage-sour cream approach to cuisine definitely appeals to me, and I think traditional Russian cooking is very tasty, despite the bad rap it gets. And every day I ordered kompot, a sort of chilled, sweetened fruit juice. I discovered it on my very first trip to Russia, three years ago, and never looked back. (Three years! Have I really been traveling on this crazy schedule for three entire years?)

I think kompot might be tied with lemonade for the ultimate summer drink. It’s sweet, tangy, cold, and fruity – the perfect thirst-quencher when you’re parched but water won’t quite do the trick. It’s very simple to make. While in Russia I had it made with pretty much every possible combination of summer fruit, so you don’t have to worry too much about the ingredients – you can make it with whatever fruit you have on hand. But my favorite version is made with red currants, a fruit that I will always associate with Russian summers, so that’s what I’ve made here.

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Red Currant Kompot

Makes 10 half-cup servings.

• ½ c. fresh raspberries
• ½ c. fresh blueberries
• 1 c. fresh red currants, removed from stems
• 5 c. water
• ½ c. sugar (or more to taste)

1. Add the berries, currants, and water to a large saucepan. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat and simmer for about 5-7 minutes, until the water is deeply colored and the berries have just started to break down but have not lost their shape. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar until it is dissolved. Taste and add more sugar if desired. Let the mixture cool to room temperature, then pour the juice and approximately half of the fruit into a pitcher and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. (Reserve the remaining fruit for another use, such as topping ice cream or yogurt). Serve cold.

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We are definitely still in transition mode as we attempt to settle into our new house. Our official move date was 13 days ago, but, as always, unpacking is a slow, painful process. The kitchen, in particular, is a disaster zone, and we have yet to do anything other than pour wine and open beer in it. We’re still waiting for a fridge (worth the wait since it’s free!) so our only cold storage is the wine fridge, which is not that cold, and also mostly full of wine. The result? We’ve eaten 100% of our meals at restaurants/cafes/the Wholefoods hot bar for the past two weeks. It has been kind of fun to explore the new places around us, but I am starting to miss cooking (and vegetables). The upshot of all this is that the blog might be quieter than usual this month, but after that, expect the recipes to come back full force.

We did get a brief reprieve from moving chaos last weekend, when we went up to visit my family in Maine for the 4th. With everything going on this year, I’m not going to find a full week to spend up there, but I’ll take what I can get. It’s so lovely and relaxing to be there – no alarms, no to-do lists, just sleeping in, refreshing swims, naps in the hammock, and huge family dinners. I took advantage of the working kitchen to do just a little bit of cooking, making muffins for my family early one morning. This is the first year that our currants have really been productive, and I wanted to make sure the gorgeous, pucker-inducing little berries got put to good use. The lavender up in Maine is also in full bloom, so I combined the two in these sweet, floral little treats. I used my favorite muffin recipe as a base, replacing the sugar with lavender sugar and the strawberries with the currants. They were lovely.

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Lavender and White Currant Muffins

Adapted from The New Best Recipe. Makes 12-16 muffins.

• 2 c. AP flour
• 1 TBS baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 c. sugar
• 3 TBS fresh lavender buds
• 1 egg
• 4 TBS butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 1 1/4 c. sour cream
• 1 1/2 c. fresh white or pink currants, removed from stems

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins with paper muffin cups or grease with cooking spray. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
2. Add sugar and lavender buds to a food processor and pulse several times, until lavender buds are fully blended into the sugar. In a large bowl, briefly whisk egg until pale yellow. Scrape the lavender sugar into the egg and mix until slightly creamy. Whisk in melted butter in 2 additions. Whisk in sour cream in 3 additions, until batter is just uniform in color and texture. Try not to overmix.
3. Add currants to the flour mixture, and toss gently to incorporate. Now add flour and currants to wet ingredients, and gently fold together until just combined. Some remaining clumps of flour are OK, and the batter will be quite thick.  Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling almost to the top, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until they are a light golden color and a toothpick comes out clean.

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Once upon a time, Trevor and I spent two weeks in France.  It was three entire years ago, which makes me think we must have barely known each other, but then again, we did a lot of flirting in high school – that had to count for something in the getting-to-know-you department.  We stayed in a little Ikea-furnished apartment on Rue Tiquetonne in Paris, where we mainly walked and ate baguettes and croissants and went to museums right when they became free for the evening and soaked it all in.  Then we headed South, to the town of Cassis, where we swam at deserted beaches and climbed through the calanques on hot dusty days.  We also discovered Cassis, the drink, early on in the trip, and didn’t stop drinking it once we’d started.  The sweet, musky liqueur came with us from Paris to Cassis and back again, upgrading our €4 bottles of white wine to elegant Kir cocktails.  Ever since, the drink has been a bit special for us – a memento of a time and a place.

[Before I move any further with this post, I would like to share that looking for pictures of that trip has had two unusual effects on me: 1) the immediate and unbidden singing of “Paris, paris combien, Paris tout ce que tu veux” which we used to sing ad nauseam with Dr. Odjo.  A surprisingly effective French-teaching method. And 2) browsing through a lot of memories from that year and kind of wishing I could do junior year again and move back to Prague.  Also wishing I was still that skinny.]

After returning to the U.S. and learning that it’s almost impossible to get fresh black currants in New England, I of course decided that I had to have some.  Specifically, I had to have some to make my own homemade cassis.  At the time when I decided that this was one of my goals, I think I was operating under the assumption that it would be cheaper than buying the store-bought kind, and also infinitely hipper.  Two and a half years later, I’m definitely sure that it’s not cheaper, and hipness has lost some of its importance to me, but the idea stayed with me and I was determined to accomplish it.  I was unsuccessful in locating black currants last year, so I added it to my summer bucket list this year, just to hold myself a little more accountable.

Enter Wilson Farms and my extremely amazing boyfriend.  Trevor took me to Wilson in early July, just when all the stone fruits were starting to get good.  We were there mostly just to wander around and debate buying more fruit trees, but while we were there, Trevor asked them if and when they might be getting some black currants.  They told him that they would be getting a shipment, and that it was likely to arrive in about a week.  This was both good news and bad news – good in that they would be there, bad, because I was just about to leave for a 10 day vacation in Maine.  Trevor immediately offered to check back for them every day on his way home from work.  I assured him that this was overkill and that I could live without black currants.  Still, about a week later, he called me at 5 in the afternoon, sounding urgent:

“Katie.  I’m at Wilson.  There are 8 boxes of black currants here and they’re only getting one shipment this year.  There’s several other people on their ‘call when black currants arrive list.’  They’re $7 per box.  How many do you need?”

And that, my friends, is the sign of a boyfriend you should hang on to.

With black currants acquired, I proceeded to wash, stem, and sugar them, before pouring them into pint jars filled with vodka and setting them on a sunny windowsill for a month.  A lot of anticipation for one drink, no?  But after opening and straining the jars this weekend and tasting the fruity, boozy, cinnamony liqueur, I’ve decided it was worth it.  Maybe next time I will use the much cheaper, frozen currants sold here, but I can definitely see there being a next time.

Of course, to be thorough in my consideration of how worthwhile this whole thing was, I had to do a little side-by-side taste test between my homemade version and a decent $25 bottle I got at the store.  I was actually expecting to like the store-bought version more, but to my surprise, I liked them both equally.  Both were sweet, slightly syrupy, and delicious on their own or in a Kir, but the tastes were quite different.  The homemade version was fruity, bright, and summery, while the store bought brand was much muskier, darker, and wine-y.  I would use them at different times, for different things.  Of course, by the time I had drawn all of these conclusions, I’ll admit I was a little drunk.  In fact, I was tispy enough that I decided spur of the moment to throw the leftover vodka-soaked currants in a saucepan with some of the cassis and fresh blueberries, and eat it over a bowlful of vanilla frozen custard – a perk of the homemade variety being the boozy leftover fruit.

So – the cassis experiment has been accomplished, and deemed a success!  Another item crossed off the bucket list, and another delicious ingredient added to my pantry.

Homemade Creme de Cassis

Recipe from Figs, Bay & Wine.  Makes a little less than 1 quart.

• 1 1/2 lb. fresh or frozen (and thawed) black currants, washed and stemmed
• 3 c. vodka
• 2 1/4 c. sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick, cracked in half

1. In a large bowl, crush the black currants with your hands, the back of a spoon, or a pastry cutter, until most of the berries are releasing juice.  Add the sugar, cinnamon stick, and vodka and stir to combine.  Pour the mixture into clean mason jars and seal.
2. Place the jars in a warm, sunny place and let sit for a month, gently shaking the jars once or twice a week.
3. After the month has passed, strain the mixture through a fine mesh strainer.  If you want a really clean liqueur, line the strainer with a cheesecloth.  Catch the juice in a bowl, then pour into a bottle and enjoy!  Reserve the vodka-soaked fruit in your fridge or freezer and enjoy over ice cream, or in blueberry-cassis sauce.

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Three years ago, I didn’t know what currants were.  I guess this isn’t really that surprising, given that I also didn’t eat broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, or other cruciferous vegetables, didn’t know how to pit an avocado, and certainly couldn’t tell you the difference between a lemon and a meyer lemon.  (Don’t totally write my three-years-ago-self off though – I did know how to prepare couscous in a dorm room without getting any dishes dirty, which I consider a feat up there with being able to completely change your clothes – underwear included – in the locker room without ever flashing anything).

Besides the fact that I didn’t really know much about food in 2009, currants haven’t really been a thing here for a long time.  You still don’t see them in grocery stores, and even at farmer’s markets, I hear a lot of people ask what they are.  Their lack of popularity is not because they’re an unlikeable fruit, although their tart-tart flavor can be off-putting at first, but rather because they’ve been banned as a crop in many parts of New England since the early 1900s due to the fact that they can carry White Pine Blister Rust.  Recently, bans have been lifted town by town as demand for the berries has begun to rise, and now, for a brief few weeks in July, you can actually get red currants, white currants, and gooseberries fairly consistently at Boston farmer’s markets.  Black currants are still a no-go, although rumor has it that there are wild bushes still around – if you know of any locations, I’ll trade you a pie for the deets.

Back to 2009.  That fall was the semester I spent in Prague, where I learned a lot of things, among them, how to cook for myself on a daily basis.  This is where I started to learn about foods I thought I didn’t like, like cabbage (a Czech staple), and goulash (which I would love a good bowl of right now).  Grocery stores were an adventure, and there were definitely recipes I made where I didn’t know what the ingredients were even after the dish was complete.  I also made a lot of pie and quiche in Prague, and have vivid memories of sitting at the kitchen table, slicing up frozen butter for a pie crust and being perfectly content.  But this is not about Prague, it’s about currants.  And Czech people eat quite a few of them.  I didn’t really actively notice them, as they’re usually mixed with other berries, but frozen fruit mixes contained them, cheesecakes were topped with them, and I liked them.  It wasn’t until I got back to the U.S. and went to buy some at the store that I learned you can’t get them here – which clearly set me on a mission to find them.  Long story short, 2 1/2 years later and I got my hands on some, which I quickly turned into two things – red currant and meringue pie, and red currant chutney.

I really enjoyed both these recipes.  The pie, well, it’s different, in the best sort of way.  Not what I typically think of when I hear “fruit pie,” the sweet, airy meringue is punctuated by bursts of tart red currant, with a buttery crust to ground the flavors.  It’s ethereal, surprising, and totally delicious.  It would be the perfect sort of thing to serve at a picnic, when you need something light to finish off the meal, or for a pretty, feminine treat at a bridal or baby shower.  Or for dinner on a Monday night, if that’s more your speed (hint: it’s definitely more mine).  I promised Trevor I would save him some for when he gets home from his business trip Friday, but given that I’ve already had three big slices, I’m not sure how good the chances of that are.

The chutney is also a real treat – with a flavor vaguely reminiscent of sweet and sour sauce and a smooth, jammy texture, it’s delicious on toast, as a condiment, or straight out of the jar.  The currant gets mellowed out a lot during the cooking process, so it’s less of a standout flavor, and the seeds are strained out as well.  Whereas when I’m eating the pie I’m thinking “currant! meringue! currant!” with every bite, with the chutney it’s just “mmm, chutney.”  I had the chutney spooned over toasted sourdough and melty fontina cheese alongside a cold glass of raspberry lambic for dinner on both Friday and Saturday nights last weekend – lazy summer cooking at it’s best.  (Can I take a moment to express how amazing raspberry lambic is?!  It’s like someone distilled raspberries – not sugary-sweet raspberry syrup, but fresh, sun-ripe, forest floor raspberries – into a bottle and then gave it the added bonus of giving you a buzz.  If it weren’t $10 a bottle, I’d be drinking a lot of it.  Tangent over.)  Since currants are newer to the American palate than many fruits, many people seem mystified by what to do with them beyond toss them into a berry mix.  If you happen to find yourself with some (maybe you bought a box at the market because they’re just so pretty and now can’t figure out how to use them) – I highly recommend both these recipes.

Red Currant Meringue Pie

Adapted slightly from Heather Homemade.  Serves 8.

• 1 1/2 c. flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 c. butter, very soft
• 1 c. white sugar, divided
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 2 eggs, separated
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• pinch cream of tartar
• 1 c. white and red currants, washed and stemmed

1. In a large bowl, whisk together flour and baking powder.  Stir in butter, 1/2 c. of white sugar, lemon extract, and the 2 egg yolks until evenly moistened.   Knead with your hands several times to bring dough together, form into a smooth ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1/2 an hour.
2. Preheat oven to 325°F.  Press chilled dough into a 9 inch tart pan, forming a crust a little less than an inch thick that also wraps up the sides of the pan.  Bake the crust for 25 minutes, until golden, then remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes.  Increase oven temp to 400°F.
3. Whisk 2 egg whites until frothy, then sprinkle cream of tartar over, and whisk vigorously until egg whites are stiff.  Whisk in cornstarch, then gradually add remaining 1/2 c. of sugar to egg whites, whisking vigorously between additions.  Whisk until whites are stiff and shiny, then gently fold in currants.  Smooth currant filling out on top of the pre-baked pie crust, then bake for 12-18 minutes, until most of the meringue top is golden brown.  Remove from oven and let cool/set.  Serve at room temperature on same day.  Refrigerate leftovers (although this will make the meringue begin to “weep”).

Red Currant Chutney

Adapted slightly from Fresh Juice.  Makes about 1 1/2 c.

• 2 c. red currants, washed and stemmed
• 1/3 c. sugar
• 3 TBS apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 c. water
• 1 TBS vegetable oil
• 1 TBS whole mustard seeds
• 10 whole black peppercorns
• 10 whole cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 large onion, chopped into small pieces
• 1/8 to 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, depending on your heat tolerance

1. In a small saucepan, bring currants, sugar, vinegar, and water to a boil.  Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until currants begin to fall apart, about 10-15 minutes.  Careful, this is a recipe that’s likely to boil over (and make a mess!), so leave your lid somewhat ajar or give it a stir frequently
2. Strain red currant mixture through a fine sieve, catching the juice in a bowl.  Press down on the currant solids to extract as much juice as possible.  Discard the solids, reserve the juice.
3. Rinse out the saucepan and return to stove.  Heat vegetable oil in saucepan over medium-low heat.  Add mustard seeds, peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon stick, ginger, and salt, and fry until mustard seeds begin to pop, about one minute.  Warning, the hot mustard seeds can pop quite forcefully and splatter oil, so work quickly and carefully, removing pot from heat if need be.
4. Add the onion to the spices, and cook over medium low heat, stirring occasionally until onions are golden brown, about 10 minutes.  Add currant juice and cayenne pepper to pot, and stir.  Bring to a simmer, and simmer, uncovered, for about 15 minutes, until the sauce has reduced and thickened.  Let cool and refrigerate for up to two weeks.

Note: This wasn’t written as a canning recipe, so I’m not sure if it has enough sugar/acid/other preserving elements to work, but if that’s your thing and you can figure out the safe ratios, I think it could work really well!  If not, I’m sure you’ll be able to use this up pretty quickly.

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