One of the particularly attractive things about learning of a new cuisine or recipe is the way that it can introduce unexpected ingredients to mind and palate. Things that seemed commonplace or familiar are suddenly tinged with mystery, filled with puzzles and questions never before imagined. So much recombinant mischief can be made when a new ingredient–or a new use for one I thought I’d known–comes into play.

Tomatillos

I’ve long known the delights of tomatillos. Salsa verde is a pleasurable variant of that endlessly flexible family of Mexican sauces best known in their tomato form, hot or cold. Usually made with chopped or pureed tomatillos in combination with onion, jalapeños, chiles, cilantro and whatever additional spices or lime juice the maker uses for her trademark blend, salsa verde brings a slightly lemony brightness of flavor and a zing of lively green to the plating of whatever magnificent assemblage of Mexican cuisine is in hand. As I love putting fruits of various kinds into my salsa cruda (or pico de gallo, the rough-cut raw and chunky form of salsa) for the bright, colorful, juicy and distinctive twists they can introduce to the party. Fruits are such glorious foils for spicy and savory foods that their addition has been popular for far too long for even a venerable geezer like me to credibly claim credit for pretty much any such combination. This is certainly a great reason to love tomatillos in spicy salsas.

The big surprise, for me (again, blame it on my innocence; blame it on my lack of smarts; blame it on the bossa nova) is that it turns out green is not the only color in which tomatillos ripen. So I bought these seeds for purple tomatillos, too, in high hopes of having an eventual opportunity for making some groovy purple salsa cruda. So cool! Unfortunately, the weather fairies of Texas had a little different slant, this summer, on the whole project and the poor little tomatillo plants, purple and green, couldn’t quite make it to full ripeness while being simultaneously strangled by drought. Pity. But one day I will make it happen. Then you can look for me to side my grilled salmon with a nice salsa cruda compounded of purple tomatillo, fresh peach, jalapeño, cilantro, lime juice and jots of salt, pepper, cumin, cinnamon. Fingers crossed!

How nutty is it that I didn't know people could make and use acorn flour!

There are so many other magical goodies around in the meantime, things not so seasonally sensitive perhaps, that there’s no worry about going hungry while waiting. Flours, for one. Asian, Native American and other foodies have already known for eons that acorns can be a source of jellies, cooking and baking, not to mention much-needed nutrition in times of scarcity. Me, I had no idea that acorn flour is useful for so much in the non-squirrel kitchen. But now I’ve acquired a small stash of the stuff so I can remedy my ignorance soon. Yes, acquired–bought–I have no intention of being so marvelously industrious as is required for the long and involved process of soaking out the tannins and preparing the acorns for consumption when I don’t even know how successfully I’ll use the flour, let alone how compellingly palatable the results will be. Time and experimentation will tell. Promise I’ll keep you posted!

On the heels of that particular discovery, of course, I went off on an alternative-flour tangent and hunted for others of interest. I’ve done a bit of baking with almond flour before (almonds ground up, but not so far as to be turning into almond butter, a whole other sort of ingredient altogether and tasty and useful in its own right) and coconut flour as well, and both are godsend finds for one who’s wanting to reduce or eliminate grain-based flours for any reason in cooking and baking. I certainly like that they’re both mild enough in flavor to work for innumerable purposes and are able to be adapted to a large number of functions in different recipes. The next surprise flour that popped up on my radar was mesquite. Say, what??? Making flour from the leguminous seeds of the nearly unkillable weed tree that drives ranchers ’round the bend with its tire-puncturing spines and water-hogging monster tap-root? Well, proponents say mesquite meal has a nutty, “sweet, earthy taste with notes of cinnamon, molasses, and caramel”—hard to argue with the allure of that. Needless to say, I look forward to seeing what can come of such a distinctive sounding ingredient.

A rose is a rose is a remarkable herb . . .

Consider the rose: what has long been one of the most favored flowers, universally admired for its varied beauty, perfume, and rather astonishing adaptability to climate and environs is being celebrated as the herb of the year this very year. Rose water, candied rose petals, rose hip tea, rose petal preserves, classic Turkish Delight–the list of rose-based foods has been building over centuries and only adds to the popularity of this queen of flowers. But most of that sort of thing was far outside the ken of a girl growing up in modest middle-class America, and didn’t really attract my attention until I was well into adulthood. Even then, I learned that as delicious as the rose is, a little can go a long way. So as I was contemplating my angle for this post and thinking about how fascinating it could be to yet discover previously unimagined ways to invite the rose to the dining table and began to contemplate what numinous form that idea might take. What did I do? Like any culinary detective-wannabe of the modern age, I Googled, of course. I typed in “rose as herb” and there before my very eyes appeared a handy page trumpeting the rose as Herb of the Year 2012. You call it lazy detective work, I call it kismet. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. –Say, wouldn’t sweet potatoes be interesting prepared with a faint infusion of rosewater, some white pepper and a bit of fresh goat cheese whipped in? Or is that all old hat and I’m just showing off my ignorant bumpkin-osity once again? Never mind, I’m going to get me some of that Herb of the Year and have some fun. Ladies and gentlemen, spoons up . . .