Latest news with #KingOrchards
Straits Times
13 hours ago
- Business
- Straits Times
In Michigan's cherry country, the federal safety net is fraying
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Maria Pascual, who came to the U.S. from Guatemala at 17 to work picking fruits and vegetables and became a citizen two years ago, sorts cherries with other workers at King Orchards, in Central Lake, Michigan, U.S., July 15, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein CENTRAL LAKE, MICHIGAN - The frost came in late April, sliding across the hills before dawn. Juliette King McAvoy stepped into the orchard, hoping the cold had spared the cherry buds. But they glittered in the morning sun like glass, just as dead. Weather had damaged much of the family orchard's crop for the third time in five years. The blow landed on a farm and an industry already squeezed by the Trump administration's changes to government services, immigration and trade policies. King Orchards' harvest crew from Guatemala arrived in mid-July, short-handed and weeks late after delays in securing the H-2A seasonal farmworker visas they rely on each year. They paid more to ship fresh cherries by private carrier after a U.S. Postal Service reorganization left fresh fruit sitting a bit too long. A U.S. Department of Agriculture grant request for funding a cold-storage unit remained in limbo, as Washington cut spending on farm programs and agricultural research. And Jack King, Juliette's brother and the farm's agronomist, kept searching for fertilizer cheap enough to haul and untouched by President Donald Trump's trade wars. "It all slows us down," King McAvoy, the farm's business manager, said during a brief pause in July's harried harvest. Farmers in the hills near Grand Traverse Bay, where the fruit of their labor has filled pies and fed generations, said they are caught in the crosshairs of Trump's reshaping of government, with sharp cuts and increasing delays hitting the $227 million U.S. tart cherry industry hard. From weather, plant disease and pest woes, USDA forecast Michigan will lose 41% of its tart cherry crop this year, compared to 2024. Northwest Michigan, where the King farm is located, faces the steepest drop — about 70%, according to the Cherry Industry Administrative Board. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Over 280 vapes seized, more than 640 people checked by police, HSA in anti-vape raids at nightspots Life Meet the tutors who take O-level exams every year to create a 'war mate' bond with their students World Trump advises Ukraine's Zelensky to 'make a deal' with Russia after meeting Putin World Did Putin just put one over on Trump at the US-Russia summit on Ukraine? Singapore 3 truck drivers injured after chain collision on ECP, including one rescued with hydraulic tools Asia Pakistan rescuers recover bodies after monsoon rains kill more than 320 Singapore Nowhere to run: Why Singapore needs to start protecting its coasts now Opinion Revitalise nightlife? Let's get the crowds out first After the April freeze, King McAvoy's phone rang. It was her friend and fellow grower, Emily Miezio, in Suttons Bay, Michigan. "What are you seeing?" Juliette stared at the trees. "I'm not sure. But it's not good." South of the Kings, the cold snap left farmer Don Gallagher's trees sparse. "We can grow leaves," he said, as his family hunted for fruit in the branches. "We just can't grow cherries." POLITICS AND TARIFFS Michigan's cherry roots run deep, from French settlers bringing the fruit to the Midwest. The Montmorency, ruby-red and mouth-puckering, became the region's signature, in pies, juice, dried fruit and the syrup Midwesterners spoon over cheesecake. When John King bought the farm in 1980, cherries were a Michigan birthright, like cars. He grew up in a General Motors family in Flint, working summers picking fruit. "It felt pure," said King, now 74. He secured 80 acres of land with help from a federal loan. The roadside stand came with a preacher's warning painted on the sign: Repent lest you perish in the fires of hell. He covered it with a rainbow and his dream: King Orchards. Today, it's a full family operation: In addition to John's daughter Juliette and son Jack, John's wife Betsy runs the market with Jack's wife, Courtney. John's brother Jim manages the harvest; Jim's wife Rose is chief baker; and their son-in-law Mark Schiller runs the hand-pick crews. Antrim County, where the farm sits, has long leaned Republican. The Kings, who are progressives, say the past few years have shown how national politics can ripple through their orchards. Trump's sweeping tax-and-spending law expanded safety nets for large commodity crop operations, such as corn and soybeans, for feed and biofuels. But nutrition and local food programs fruit and vegetable growers depend on were slashed, and his trade policies chilled demand from top export partners, according to government data and academic researchers. While USDA did not answer Reuters' specific questions regarding challenges facing the cherry industry, a spokesperson said Trump's law boosts the farm safety net, and includes increased funding for programs that support specialty crops and fight plant pests and diseases. The Kings and nearly a dozen other farmers across party lines told Reuters they expected tariffs to return if Trump won, but they hoped for a more surgical approach. About one-third of the Kings' concentrate goes overseas, mostly to Taiwan and New Zealand. But Michigan's crop loss will play a bigger role in diminished tart cherry exports than tariffs this year, the Kings and other growers said. The White House did not comment on questions about the administration's trade policy. Asked about delivery delays, the USPS said it had a plan to save $36 billion over 10 years that would mean slightly slower delivery for some mail, but faster service for other customers. SHRINKING EXPORTS AND BUDGETS While Michigan orchards struggle to fill bins, branches are bending in the West, with Washington State's sweet cherry production 29% bigger this year due to favorable weather, USDA forecasted. But growers there face different woes: fewer places to sell and low prices. In 2024, the U.S. exported nearly $506 million in fresh cherries worldwide - up 10% in value and 3% in volume from the year before, U.S. Census Bureau trade data shows. In the first half of this year, as Trump's trade wars reignited, U.S. fresh fruit exports fell 17% in volume and 15% in value. U.S. shipments to China never fully recovered after Trump's 2018 trade war. Sales to Canada also fell 18% by volume in the first six months. "There's little appetite for U.S. products in Canada," said Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association, said wholesale sweet cherry prices are slumping, and many Northwest farmers are losing money. Back in Michigan, sideways rain lashed Suttons Bay. Emily Miezio hunched in the downpour in her family and business partners' orchard, watching the storm-lit sky. A worker steered a low-slung tree shaker to the trunk, clamping its arms tight. Tart cherries fell like red hail into a catching frame, funneled into bins, as another worker scooped out twigs and leaves, moving fast, racing the dawn. At the chilling station, a Michigan State University intern logged each truck with fruit to be cooled and processed by morning. Miezio, whose farm spans about 2,500 acres, leads the Cherry Marketing Institute, the tart cherry industry trade group. For years, they'd tried to claw back into China. "That door's pretty much slammed shut," she said, since the 2018 trade wars. Now they're courting Mexico and South Korea. USDA HELP On Traverse City's northern edge, the Northwest Michigan Horticulture Research Center is a 137-acre test farm. Run by Michigan State University and funded by USDA grants and grower money, it's where Dr. Nikki Rothwell has spent more than two decades helping orchards survive. She's got the sun-creased skin of someone who lives outdoors and a laugh like a cracked whip. Farmers lean on her, especially now. On a sticky summer morning, she walked the rows with interns and researchers, testing hardier trees and better fruit. When they fired up the tree shaker — a grumbling relic older than some of the scientists — a rust-colored cloud of brown rot spores rose in the heat and settled on their sleeves. Tree by tree, they logged bruised fruit and powdery mold. "This kind of research doesn't have corporate backers," Rothwell said. "It's always been the government and the growers." This month, she's submitting the last paperwork for a $100,000 USDA grant awarded under the Biden administration for a disease study — money that's part of a federal review of climate-related research. She's not sure if the money will come through. Colleagues at other land-grant schools haven't been paid, she said. LABOR SQUEEZE Money isn't the only thing held up. So are the people needed to bring in the crop. The labor squeeze stretches coast to coast. In Oregon, grower Ian Chandler watched half a million pounds of cherries rot on trees. He began harvesting with 47 workers on June 10. He needed 120. Fear that Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in California would spread north kept some people away, he said. "We are bleeding from a thousand cuts," said Chandler, 47, an Army veteran with two sons in uniform. "It's an untenable position." White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said President Trump is committed to ensuring farmers have the workforce they need, but that there will be no safe harbor for criminal illegal immigrants. In Michigan, the King Orchards crew was short two people, whose H-2A visa paperwork in Guatemala cleared too late, said Schiller, who runs the farm's hand-pick harvest crew. A U.S. State Department spokesperson told Reuters that H-2 visa applicants should apply early and anticipate additional processing time, as U.S. embassies and consulates work to process them quickly without compromising U.S. national or economic security. Inside the barn, one of the farm's long-time workers named Maria Pascual stood at the sorting line, head wrapped against the heat, hands moving with quiet precision. She came to the U.S. from Guatemala at 17 with her father. They picked peppers and cucumbers in Florida, then followed the harvest north. She met her husband on the road. For a while, they lived the migrant rhythm — cherries in Michigan, oranges in Florida — until 1990, when they stayed for good. "When you have kids…" she said and let the sentence hang. She and her husband earned legal permanent residency under Ronald Reagan's 1986 immigration law, which helped millions of immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally to secure legal status. Two years ago, Maria became a U.S. citizen. "I just wanted to be a citizen," she said. "I feel like… just normal." Now, Trump's immigration policies hang over her family like a brewing storm. One brother was picked up by ICE this summer in Florida and deported. Others back home hope to come on H-2A visas. There have been no major ICE raids on Michigan farms this year. But the fear lingers, sharpened this summer by the opening of the Midwest's largest ICE detention center — up to 1,810 beds set deep in the forest in Baldwin, Michigan, where birdsong drifts over the Concertina wire. REUTERS
Reuters
13 hours ago
- Business
- Reuters
In Michigan's cherry country, the federal safety net is fraying
CENTRAL LAKE, MICHIGAN, Aug 16 (Reuters) - The frost came in late April, sliding across the hills before dawn. Juliette King McAvoy stepped into the orchard, hoping the cold had spared the cherry buds. But they glittered in the morning sun like glass, just as dead. Weather had damaged much of the family orchard's crop for the third time in five years. The blow landed on a farm and an industry already squeezed by the Trump administration's changes to government services, immigration and trade policies. King Orchards' harvest crew from Guatemala arrived in mid-July, short-handed and weeks late after delays in securing the H-2A seasonal farmworker visas they rely on each year. They paid more to ship fresh cherries by private carrier after a U.S. Postal Service reorganization left fresh fruit sitting a bit too long. A U.S. Department of Agriculture grant request for funding a cold-storage unit remained in limbo, as Washington cut spending on farm programs and agricultural research. And Jack King, Juliette's brother and the farm's agronomist, kept searching for fertilizer cheap enough to haul and untouched by President Donald Trump's trade wars. "It all slows us down," King McAvoy, the farm's business manager, said during a brief pause in July's harried harvest. Farmers in the hills near Grand Traverse Bay, where the fruit of their labor has filled pies and fed generations, said they are caught in the crosshairs of Trump's reshaping of government, with sharp cuts and increasing delays hitting the $227 million U.S. tart cherry industry, opens new tab hard. From weather, plant disease and pest woes, USDA forecast, opens new tab Michigan will lose 41% of its tart cherry crop this year, compared to 2024. Northwest Michigan, where the King farm is located, faces the steepest drop — about 70%, according to the Cherry Industry Administrative Board. After the April freeze, King McAvoy's phone rang. It was her friend and fellow grower, Emily Miezio, in Suttons Bay, Michigan. "What are you seeing?" Juliette stared at the trees. "I'm not sure. But it's not good." South of the Kings, the cold snap left farmer Don Gallagher's trees sparse. "We can grow leaves," he said, as his family hunted for fruit in the branches. "We just can't grow cherries." Michigan's cherry roots run deep, from French settlers bringing the fruit to the Midwest. The Montmorency, ruby-red and mouth-puckering, became the region's signature, in pies, juice, dried fruit and the syrup Midwesterners spoon over cheesecake. When John King bought the farm in 1980, cherries were a Michigan birthright, like cars. He grew up in a General Motors family in Flint, working summers picking fruit. "It felt pure," said King, now 74. He secured 80 acres of land with help from a federal loan. The roadside stand came with a preacher's warning painted on the sign: Repent lest you perish in the fires of hell. He covered it with a rainbow and his dream: King Orchards. Today, it's a full family operation: In addition to John's daughter Juliette and son Jack, John's wife Betsy runs the market with Jack's wife, Courtney. John's brother Jim manages the harvest; Jim's wife Rose is chief baker; and their son-in-law Mark Schiller runs the hand-pick crews. Antrim County, where the farm sits, has long leaned Republican. The Kings, who are progressives, say the past few years have shown how national politics can ripple through their orchards. Trump's sweeping tax-and-spending law expanded safety nets for large commodity crop operations, such as corn and soybeans, for feed and biofuels. But nutrition and local food programs fruit and vegetable growers depend on were slashed, and his trade policies chilled demand from top export partners, according to government data and academic researchers. While USDA did not answer Reuters' specific questions regarding challenges facing the cherry industry, a spokesperson said Trump's law boosts the farm safety net, and includes increased funding for programs that support specialty crops and fight plant pests and diseases. The Kings and nearly a dozen other farmers across party lines told Reuters they expected tariffs to return if Trump won, but they hoped for a more surgical approach. About one-third of the Kings' concentrate goes overseas, mostly to Taiwan and New Zealand. But Michigan's crop loss will play a bigger role in diminished tart cherry exports than tariffs this year, the Kings and other growers said. The White House did not comment on questions about the administration's trade policy. Asked about delivery delays, the USPS said it had a plan, opens new tab to save $36 billion over 10 years that would mean slightly slower delivery for some mail, but faster service for other customers. While Michigan orchards struggle to fill bins, branches are bending in the West, with Washington State's sweet cherry production 29% bigger this year due to favorable weather, USDA forecasted, opens new tab. But growers there face different woes: fewer places to sell and low prices. In 2024, the U.S. exported nearly $506 million in fresh cherries worldwide - up 10% in value and 3% in volume from the year before, U.S. Census Bureau trade data shows. In the first half of this year, as Trump's trade wars reignited, U.S. fresh fruit exports fell 17% in volume and 15% in value. U.S. shipments to China never fully recovered after Trump's 2018 trade war. Sales to Canada also fell 18% by volume in the first six months. "There's little appetite for U.S. products in Canada," said Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association, said wholesale sweet cherry prices are slumping, and many Northwest farmers are losing money. Back in Michigan, sideways rain lashed Suttons Bay. Emily Miezio hunched in the downpour in her family and business partners' orchard, watching the storm-lit sky. A worker steered a low-slung tree shaker to the trunk, clamping its arms tight. Tart cherries fell like red hail into a catching frame, funneled into bins, as another worker scooped out twigs and leaves, moving fast, racing the dawn. At the chilling station, a Michigan State University intern logged each truck with fruit to be cooled and processed by morning. Miezio, whose farm spans about 2,500 acres, leads the Cherry Marketing Institute, the tart cherry industry trade group. For years, they'd tried to claw back into China. "That door's pretty much slammed shut," she said, since the 2018 trade wars. Now they're courting Mexico and South Korea. On Traverse City's northern edge, the Northwest Michigan Horticulture Research Center is a 137-acre test farm. Run by Michigan State University and funded by USDA grants and grower money, it's where Dr. Nikki Rothwell has spent more than two decades helping orchards survive. She's got the sun-creased skin of someone who lives outdoors and a laugh like a cracked whip. Farmers lean on her, especially now. On a sticky summer morning, she walked the rows with interns and researchers, testing hardier trees and better fruit. When they fired up the tree shaker — a grumbling relic older than some of the scientists — a rust-colored cloud of brown rot spores rose in the heat and settled on their sleeves. Tree by tree, they logged bruised fruit and powdery mold. "This kind of research doesn't have corporate backers," Rothwell said. "It's always been the government and the growers." This month, she's submitting the last paperwork for a $100,000 USDA grant awarded under the Biden administration for a disease study — money that's part of a federal review of climate-related research. She's not sure if the money will come through. Colleagues at other land-grant schools haven't been paid, she said. Money isn't the only thing held up. So are the people needed to bring in the crop. The labor squeeze stretches coast to coast. In Oregon, grower Ian Chandler watched half a million pounds of cherries rot on trees. He began harvesting with 47 workers on June 10. He needed 120. Fear that Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in California would spread north kept some people away, he said. "We are bleeding from a thousand cuts," said Chandler, 47, an Army veteran with two sons in uniform. "It's an untenable position." White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said President Trump is committed to ensuring farmers have the workforce they need, but that there will be no safe harbor for criminal illegal immigrants. In Michigan, the King Orchards crew was short two people, whose H-2A visa paperwork in Guatemala cleared too late, said Schiller, who runs the farm's hand-pick harvest crew. A U.S. State Department spokesperson told Reuters that H-2 visa applicants should apply early and anticipate additional processing time, as U.S. embassies and consulates work to process them quickly without compromising U.S. national or economic security. Inside the barn, one of the farm's long-time workers named Maria Pascual stood at the sorting line, head wrapped against the heat, hands moving with quiet precision. She came to the U.S. from Guatemala at 17 with her father. They picked peppers and cucumbers in Florida, then followed the harvest north. She met her husband on the road. For a while, they lived the migrant rhythm — cherries in Michigan, oranges in Florida — until 1990, when they stayed for good. "When you have kids…" she said and let the sentence hang. She and her husband earned legal permanent residency under Ronald Reagan's 1986 immigration law, opens new tab, which helped millions of immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally to secure legal status. Two years ago, Maria became a U.S. citizen. "I just wanted to be a citizen," she said. "I feel like… just normal." Now, Trump's immigration policies hang over her family like a brewing storm. One brother was picked up by ICE this summer in Florida and deported. Others back home hope to come on H-2A visas. There have been no major ICE raids on Michigan farms this year. But the fear lingers, sharpened this summer by the opening of the Midwest's largest ICE detention center — up to 1,810 beds set deep in the forest in Baldwin, Michigan, where birdsong drifts over the Concertina wire.
Chicago Tribune
08-07-2025
- Climate
- Chicago Tribune
As farmers face the effects of climate change, a recipe for an apricot and Rainier cherry crostata
Cookbook author, chef and proud Midwesterner Amy Thielen said something on her radio show, 'Ham Radio,' that rang true to me. In the winter, heartland cooks delve into recipes or cookbooks to decide what to cook for dinner or bake for dessert, then they head to the grocery store. In the summer, that gets flipped. We venture out to the farmers market, our gardens or the grocery store and see what looks best, then we find a recipe that matches nature's bounty. When you can smell the strawberries from 10 feet away, you buy two quarts and make a fresh strawberry pie. When sweet corn is piled high at a roadside stand, you eat it boiled with butter and salt. When mounds of ripe apricots greet you at the farmers market with a blushing smile, you grab a quart to make a crostata. Unless those apricots never show up. Last summer, when apricots normally abound at the stands of two of my favorite stalls at the Lincoln Square Farmers Market, I asked: 'When will the apricots be ripe?' Both farmers replied with the same story, 'We are so sorry, but a late frost zapped our entire apricot crop this year.' It got me thinking: Is climate change affecting local farms? Fruit farming in the Midwest has always been a tricky business. Late frosts, hot summers and frequent hailstorms pose a risk to fragile crops. But a few farmers told me they've seen a pattern of changes. Some farmers plant new crops every year, whether that's soybeans, corn or tomatoes. However, fruit farmers rely on trees and shrubs that produce fruit year after year. They plant for the long term, so they have a different outlook from those who grow annual crops. Juliette King-McAvoy and the team at King Orchards farm 400 acres, including one of Michigan's most iconic crops: Montmorency tart cherries. Planted on rolling drumlins alongside the Lake Michigan shore in Central Lake, Michigan, these ruby jewels are big business. Michigan produces approximately 75% of the nation's tart cherries, which get baked in pies or dried for trail mix. Traverse City is known as the 'Cherry Capital of the World.' But climate change is altering what might be viable for the region. McAvoy says they have seen the effects of climate change in their orchards. The climate isn't just warmer or colder, it's more volatile: They might see an 80-degree day in February or a 20-degree day in May. If a hard frost hits after the Montmorency cherry treesblossom, the farmer waves goodbye to that year's crop. The opposite problem can also affect fruit farmers. Maxx Eichberg, owner of Stranger Wine Co. in Buchanan, Michigan, tends about 22 acres of vines. In 2024, they lost their entire crop, not because of a late frost, but because of an early hard freeze in late 2023. It's not only erratic temperatures that cause problems. Rain has been less frequent, but more severe. McAvoy noted that the total amount of rain hasn't changed much, but instead of consistent precipitation, there are periods of drought and downpour. Storms on dry soils absorb less water than a long, gentle rain on damp soils, plus these storms can erode the soil and flood the orchard. The weather is also getting warmer and more humid for King Orchards, which increases the potential for fungal, bacterial and insect problems. McAvoy and Eichberg can't pivot like some farmers. Cherry trees planted this year won't generate any income for about seven years. Vines need several years to produce viable crops, and even more to produce excellent wines. Both farmers must decide today what varieties will be best suited for the climate over the next 10 to 20 years. McAvoy notes that the stalwart Montmorency cherries may be among the most vulnerable varieties to climate change. They had total crop failures in 2020 and 2021. This year, they estimate a crop of only 25% of the normal yield. To mitigate these losses, King Orchards has invested in frost fans to warm the orchards, dug drainage ditches to combat flooding and planted additional crops, such as apples, strawberries and raspberry varieties to diversify their portfolio. Eichberg had to pivot differently — he turned to the community of fellow Michigan winemakers and grape growers. Although Eichberg lost his crop in 2024, the vineyards in Michigan's pinky finger had a better year. So Bryan Ulbrich, winemaker at Left Foot Charley in Traverse City, and Doug Olson, winemaker at Lake Leelanau's Boathouse Vineyards, helped Stranger Wine Co. secure about 20 tons of grapes from their region. Potential solutions to combat and mitigate climate change abound, but there's one thing that we can all do. We can support our local farmers. This year, I'll be buying and baking with as many Michigan apricots as I can and toasting their appearance with a bottle of Stranger Wine Co.'s 2024 'Yeastie Boys' sparkling wine. Apricot & Rainier Cherry Crostata Time: About 3 hours, plus cooling time. Rainier cherries, with their sweet peachy flesh, usually get eaten out of hand — their delicate succulence easily overshadowed when baked — except here. The sweet, mild cherries balance out the tangy apricots to create a harmony I couldn't have predicted. Amaretto amplifies the almond-like notes of these drupes, creating a filling with equal parts mouth-watering tartness and luscious sweetness. Crostata can refer to various types of rustic pastries. The jam-filled versions that line Italian bakery shelves inspired my take on this classic. I adapted this recipe from my friend and fellow 'Great American Baking Show' winner, Tina Zaccardi. Ingredients for the filling: 300 g (about 10½ ounces) fresh apricots, halved and pitted (measured after pitting) 300 g (about 10½ ounces) pitted fresh Rainier or Queen Anne cherries (measured after pitting) 100 g (½ cup) sugar, divided 2 Tablespoons amaretto (or ¼ teaspoon almond extract and 2 Tablespoons water) 1 Tablespoon lemon juice 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt 18 g (2 Tablespoons) cornstarch 2 Tablespoons rice flour or dried breadcrumbs Directions: 1. Cut each apricot half into four slices. 2. Place the apricots, pitted cherries, amaretto, lemon juice, salt and 50 g (¼ cup) sugar in a medium saucepan, stir and let sit for 10 minutes to draw some water out of the fruit. 3. Whisk together 50 g (¼ cup) sugar and the cornstarch in a small bowl until combined and set aside. 4. Bring the fruit mixture to a light simmer over medium heat while stirring gently. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the fruit has just softened, about 6-8 minutes. 5. Add the cornstarch mixture and stir. After a few minutes, it will start to thicken and a few bubbles will pop. 6. Cook for 1 full minute after you see the first bubble. Scrape the filling into a bowl, cover it and chill it for at least 2 hours or until completely cold. (You can cool the filling faster by spreading it out on a sheet pan to chill.) This filling can be made a day ahead. Ingredients for the crust: 360 g (2¾ cups plus 1 Tablespoon) all-purpose flour 80 g (about 2/3 cup) powdered sugar 40 g (1/3 cup minus 1 teaspoon) rice flour (or more all-purpose flour) 1 teaspoon fine sea salt 227 g (1 cup) unsalted butter, cold and cubed 1 large egg, cold 1 Tablespoon cold water 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Ingredients for the egg wash and topping: 1 egg Pinch of salt About 1 Tablespoon coarse turbinado sugar Directions: 1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit with a rack in the oven's lowest position. 2. Add flour, powdered sugar, rice flour and salt into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse five times to combine. 3. Add the cubed butter to the food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, about 10-15 one-second pulses. 4. Add the egg, water and vanilla extract to the food processor and pulse until the dough starts to come together into a ball and holds together when squeezed, about 10-15 one-second pulses. 5. Dump the dough onto the counter and gather it into a ball. Divide the dough in half. 6. Press one piece of dough into a ½-inch-thick square, wrap it in plastic wrap, and chill it in the refrigerator until needed. 7. Line the tart pan: Take the second disc and press it into a 9½-inch round, 1-inch deep tart pan with a removable bottom, making sure the dough is an even 1/8-inch thick around the bottom and the sides. Trim off any excess dough that extends above the rim of the tart pan. Put the tart shell in the freezer for at least 15 minutes to firm up. 8. Remove the tart shell from the freezer and the filling from the refrigerator. Sprinkle the bottom of the pastry with rice flour or breadcrumbs. Pour the filling into the lined tart shell and spread it evenly. It should be about 1/8 inch below the top edge of the pastry, no higher. 9. Remove the square of dough from the refrigerator and dust it with flour. Roll the dough about 1/8-inch thick, dusting with more flour as you go to keep it from sticking to the counter or the rolling pin. 10. Cut 1-inch-wide strips of pastry dough using a pizza wheel or a long chef's knife and a ruler. 11. Dampen the rim of the crust with a bit of water, which will help the pastry strips adhere. Place the strips of pastry parallel to each other, with about ½ inch of space between them, on top of the pastry, and press the edges lightly to adhere. 12. Place another row of pastry strips at a 45-degree angle from the first row of strips to create a diamond-like pattern. 13. Trim off the excess pastry using your fingers or a paring knife. Gather any pastry scraps into a disc, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate. (Never throw away extra pastry dough.) 14. Make the egg wash by whisking together the egg and salt. 15. Brush the top crust with the egg wash and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. 16. Transfer the tart to a baking sheet to catch any drips. 17. Bake on the lower rack of the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit until deep golden brown on top, about 42-46 minutes. This crostata should have a strong color, which ensures crispness. 18. Take the tart out of the oven and carefully remove it from the baking sheet and place it on a wire rack to cool. Cool completely. Remove the crostata from the tart pan and put it on a serving platter. This tart is best served the same day it's made. It still tastes great on the second day, but the crust will soften. This crostata dough is, in essence, shortbread cookie dough with a bit of egg. Throwing away pastry dough trimmings is blasphemy: You can always turn them into something. These little melt-in-your-mouth cookies make simple, scrumptious treats. Directions: 1. After you've baked the crostata, turn the oven down to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and place a rack in the middle position. 2. Gather the leftover crostata crust scraps together and knead them a few times to create a cohesive dough. 3. Put the dough on a lightly floured piece of parchment, and roll it until it is just shy of ¼-inch thick. 4. Transfer the dough to a sheet pan and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, up to an hour. 5. Take the dough out of the refrigerator, and using a pizza roller or chef's knife, cut the dough into one-inch-wide strips. At a 45-degree angle, cut the dough again, creating diamond shapes. Use a fork to poke holes in the center of each diamond to keep it from puffing up too much. 6. Brush the dough with a thin layer of egg wash and sprinkle generously with turbinado sugar. 7. Bake until slightly puffed and just turning a blonde shade of golden brown on top, about 30 minutes. 8. Immediately after you take the cookies out of the oven, recut them along the scored lines to separate, if necessary. Let the cookies cool for about 10 minutes, then separate them and set them on a cooling rack to cool completely. .
