Hot Food

Remember a few years ago, when everybody was eating membrillo, manchego and marconas? (That's quince paste, cheese and Spanish almonds.) A new food fad had hit our shores, but nobody wanted to say "Guess what I discovered!" Instead, it was talked about in language that implied one had always known about such delicacies; what, are you only just now learning how to eat?
Then there was Maldon salt. I've never tried it, and I'll concede that there may be something going for it (this coming from one who has a dedicated salt shelf in her kitchen with I-don't-know-how-many varieties). But it was on everyone's (heh) lips all of a sudden. (I blame a mention in Saveur.)
OK, then, cupcakes. I still can't figure out the appeal of this current craze (but see, every day in grade school I found a cellophane-wrapped chocolate Hostess cupcake in my lunchbox, and I continue to detest the little bugs and everything that resembles them; don't even get me started on my playmates' birthday party fare).
Obviously this is home eating; I'm not talking about foams and vapors and trick food, all of which are also trends. Pork belly, too.
Me, resistant to trends? Not at all. I joyfully made my own quince paste from fruit growing on the supposedly ornamental tree in front of my house. And yes, consumed it with marconas and manchego.
I'll probably get a box of Maldon salt, if I ever make it through the five-pound sack of so-called Sonoma sea salt.
And now I've jumped onto another food trend, the salted fried-peppers tapa called pimientos de Padrón. Not a super-new trend, by any stretch (I am so not cutting-edge), but just on the culty side of popular. As of this past summer, they seem to have positively spread like contagion in the food blog world (and restaurant world, too).
Unavailable in the U.S. until eight or nine years ago, they are now grown by David Winsberg of Happy Quail Farms in East Palo Alto. When Calvin Trillin wrote about them in the November 1999 Gourmet, I guess their fate was sealed. I know there must be untold numbers of travelers who have adored fried pimientos de Padrón with their tapas 'n' drinks in Spain, and were thrilled to find a source of supply at the Ferry Plaza farmers' market. Me, I've never even been to Spain. I've just heard about pimientos de Padrón.
So I grabbed a sack of Happy Quail pimientos at the Marin Civic Center market recently, and fried them up and salted 'em to see what the buzz was all about.
Verdict: Yummy; very green-tasting and not too spicy (though there's the occasional ringer — whoo, fun). But way expensive. Six dollars for a bag of about 50 little green balls. (That's the entire amount in the photo up there.)
Still, it made for a fantastic meal (I wish I could show you, but no photo), including pan-toasted (domestic) almonds, slices of (domestic) dry Jack cheese, marinated (domestic) olives, and glasses of cheap-o real Spanish sherry from Trader Joe's.
So, now I can say I've tried them.

Veto Alito

Well, it looks like we're not going to get our filibuster in the Senate debate over Sam Alito's suitability as a Supreme Court Justice. Voting on his confirmation could happen as soon as tomorrow, and then you can kiss your liberties as a private American citizen goodbye. Click on the picture to read what his Princeton yearbook had to say about young Sam's ambitions.


Oh, darn. I just wish it wasn't Sandra Day O'Connor's seat he'll be warming.

40 Lashes with a Wet Noodle

It never even occurred to me to participate in Is My Blog Burning?, this month hosted by Amy and with a theme of noodles. So, of course, now that I've made a celebratory dish of noodles for the Lunar New Year, it's too late to be included in the roundup (not that I'm a joiner, because I'm so not a joiner).
You should take a look at the entries, if you haven't already. Some really stunning photos and brilliant interpretations.
For my lunch today, I simply made

Longevity Noodles with Lucky Colors.

It's not authentic, although I gather that there is no one true version of Longevity Noodles. I took the liberty of omitting the chicken stock from the soy/sherry mixture, I didn't add any meat or fish or eggs, and I decorated it with bits of scallion tops, carrots and slices of red Basque peppers (hey, I said not authentic!). So it makes no sense for me to actually include a recipe. All you really need to know is that the noodles must be long. As in "longevity." Don't even cut them while you're eating. (I guess you're allowed to chew, though.)
Oh! I just noticed I could technically still get in on IMBB 22. The deadline is today, not yesterday. Heh. 40 lashes.
Then there's that Technorati tag thingie to add to the end of my post. Oh, wait, it looks simpler to do than I thought.
Huh. Things you never Noodle now.
But I'm not a joiner!

IMBB # 22

The Year of the Dog, Or Gung Hay Wet Boy

When Bean Sprout was a puppy, he loved to hang out on the deck of our old house (just as he loves to hang out on the patio of our new house, when the weather allows).
And, being a puppy, there was a lot to explore, to discover, to experience.
Such as the Water Dish.
Bean Sprout thought it was the funnest thing to splash his paws in the bowl, muddying the drink and drenching his fur.
Oh, I suppose he could get a little miserable while waiting for the sun to dry his fur. But it always did dry.
And he knows better now that he's *this many* [holds up two claws].
Happy New Year.

The Sonoma Coast

Our destination for a two-day getaway was Jenner, where the Russian River dumps into the Pacific. It's not much more than an hour's drive from home, but we could not have felt farther away. The ocean is so roiling and the beaches so rocky, you'd be a fool to go into the water. The wind that sweeps up the cliffs in winter is bone chilling (and Bean Sprout chilling, as I learned when he climbed inside my jacket). Cypress trees of indeterminate age have ceded to the power of the wind, bending their crowns landward in graceful, artistic defeat.
There is nothing in Jenner but a small general store (selling mainly beer and firewood, it seems), two inns (one with a restaurant, the other with a closed restaurant — the one we stayed at), a handful of modest houses, and down the road, an Indian tandoor restaurant. There may be a cafe, and I did see a shuttered gift shop.
Thank goodness we brought all our own provisions.
Our cabin was tiny, but better appointed than I expected, with a microwave, mini-fridge, itty-bitty kitchen sink, tiny coffee machine and a thoughtful supply of dishes and utensils. The cabin has an Asian theme, with artwork, upholstery, lamps and even the dishes all sporting Far-East imagery.
So the little blue plate from Japan was perfect for an appetizer of watermelon radishes sprinkled with a blend of nori flakes, salt and toasted sesame seeds. (I admit I got this idea from Jennifer's post about her New Year's Eve dinner.) Cranky was determined to buy fresh Dungeness crab in Bodega Bay, a few miles to the south, and he got his wish. We've never had sweeter, fresher crab. It was perfect with a small spritz of lemon, but Cranky figured out a way to make it even perfecter: He sprinkled some of this magic nori dust on it, and voilà — Dungeness à la Japonaise. Recommended. (The nori powder was also wonderful with hard-cooked quail eggs, although the eggs themselves were on the other side of fresh — not at all close to rotten, and still quite tasty — but the egg whites had shrunken, so no photo.)
Oh, speaking of photos. Damn. I don't spend nearly enough time teaching myself how to use my camera, but at least I've discovered some settings that usually give me reliable close-ups of food. I do have enough sense to change lenses when the situation calls for it, but yesterday I did not have enough sense to push all the proper buttons for landscape photography. So I just grabbed the camera, walked up the bluff, and fired away.
Oh well, you get the idea. It was beautiful.

Go North, Young Man (and Woman, and Dog)

Cranky and I are headed off for a coastal respite for a couple of days. It's a dog-friendly B&B, and we booked a cabin with a fireplace. No TV, no cell-phone reception... There is a computer for guests to check e-mail; I don't know if they'll let me hog it long enough to blog. (Heh! Hog-blogging! I've done that.) So I may be absent until Friday.
The funny thing is we're bringing all our food. Sure, there will be restaurants and diners and stuff, but we decided we'd just rather hole up and eat our own cooking.
Yesterday Cranky made a Crockpot Cassoulet, shown here in its cold, congealed persona. This is such an improvement on the lengthy, laborsome (?word?) oven-roasted version. Ours includes duck sausage, some of my homemade pork sausage, a leg of duck confit, gobs of duck fat, garlic, herbs, onion, a squizzle of tomato paste from a tube (what a godsend), and tons of perfect, fresh (though dried), plump Great Northern white beans from last summer's Tracy Dry Bean Festival. Oh, plus a smart splash of white wine, and it's thickened with fresh breadcrumbs.
We're also bringing an array of tapas. More about that later, if they prove at all bloggable.
You would not believe what we are piling into the car. Hot plate. Honey, tea, milk. A lemon (in case we find Dungeness crab). Wine. Radishes. Seaweed. Cheese. I think even a bag of Doritos (and more on that later, too... Do you have any idea how much they're charging for Doritos nowadays?).
For a two-day getaway? Blush.
See you.

What Color Is Your KitchenAid?

Mine's "Empire Red." I gather it's a very popular color.
I chose it to match the checkerboard linoleum tiles at our previous house (red alternating with a custard yellow; love it or hate it — we loved it) and the fabulous red knobs on our antique Wedgwood stove. We've since moved, and there's not a lot of red accents in the new place. The KitchenAid still looks OK with our new décor, but if I could I'd pick a different color. Black, perhaps, or OMG, have you seen the chrome? Like an Airstream trailer.
So somebody should set up a clearinghouse for KitchenAid exchange, sort of like a pet rescue service. Move, change décor, and swap your red mixer for a more appropriate color.
Do you regret the color of your KitchenAid?
What color do you wish you had?

I'm Happy and Bush Eats Pavement

Bush's new numbers, from American Research Group.

Cut and Dried

Once again, it's Weekend Herb Blogging, thanks to my mom's lovely watercolor. I'm not sure what was in those bottles she painted, but let's guess something ordinary and useful like oregano and tarragon.
After I began growing my own herbs, I kind of turned my back on dried herbs from the store, but I've discovered there are times when dried is best.
For one thing, I can't manage to keep a tarragon plant alive. For another, convenience. Sometimes it's dark and rainy when I'm making dinner, and I'm not about to put on a macintosh and galoshes for a pinch of thyme. And finally, dried herbs are concentrated in flavor. They've been vetted by the bottler as having reliable taste, quality, consistency. My fresh herbs, grown from teensy plants in plastic pots from the nursery, may taste too mild, a little off, a little too strong even. I love them, and I'm not giving them up.
But today let us praise dried herbs, and this wonderful painting of them.
Besides, I'm running out of photos of my own fresh herbs to blog about. Maybe just one more next week, and then I might drop out of WHB.
(Bean Sprout is only halfway through his haircut, so he's unpresentable to the camera today. Wait... That's not fair to Sam's mum's grandchildren. OK, here's one from last month. That's a pot of fresh oregano, by the way.)

When Recipes Go Terribly Wrong

Or, Why Didn't I KNOW This One Would Be A Dud?
I was given a spoofy, retro cocktail-
snacks cookbook a few years ago. Shocking, lime-green cover, witty and compelling writing, and best of all, a set of novelty cocktail skewers included in the binding of the book.
Alarm bells should have gone off. This was a gimmick!
Ahh, I probably knew that all along. But, see, I was captivated by one recipe in the book. Every time I picked up the book, I'd flip the pages to see if that recipe still turned me on.
And it did. It was a version of the classic canapé known as Cheese Coins or Cheddar Pennies: a sort of shortbread made with grated cheese, flour, butter, salt and cayenne. But this groovy "ironic" version included — whoa — a whole envelope of Lipton's Onion Soup Mix. Imagine the flavor, I thought. Real cheese and butter, and the exotic sting of forbidden processed soup dust.
It wasn't until this weekend's Retro Blog Party that I gave the recipe a try. I mixed the ingredients, but they didn't hold together well. I added a few spoonfuls of water, same as I would do for a pie crust.
After a night in the fridge, the dough was as hard as a chunk of chain-store cheddar, and when I tried to roll it out, it disintegrated into dirt clods.
I added a few more spoonfuls of water, allowed it to soften at room temperature, and then rolled the dough into a cylinder. It was too soft to slice into disks at this point, so it spent another night in the fridge.
Today it was sliceable, but not very cooperative. The center of the log had fissures, and some of the rounds were partially hollow. And when I baked the ugly little crackers, they browned on the bottom and stuck to the baking sheet. I flipped as many as I could (some broke) and finished them upside-down — all together, twice as long in the oven as the recipe called for.
Then we ate them. There was a taste of uncooked flour, and the texture was puny, grainy, crumbly. (The uncooked flour taste dissipated as the crackers cooled; lessons for an infrequent baker, I guess.)
Cranky said I should have known the instant I read "1 envelope Lipton's Onion Soup Mix" in the recipe that it would be a disaster. I disagree, but what it should have tipped me off to is that the recipe would Need Water. That fakey onion soup powder is, first of all, about 50% salt (forgive me if my math is off). Second, it's adulterated by food starch. Third, there are Dehydrated Onions in it. The whole envelope is just dying for a drink!
It's unfortunate that some fly-by-night publishers will put out a cookbook without kitchen-testing the recipes.
I think I could salvage this one by tinkering with it. But I'm not gonna bother.

ring-a-ding ding!

Nope, the party's not over. We're still wallowing in retro, thanks to Stephanie's Blog Party, this month featuring retro cocktails and canapés.
Now, as everybody knows, Frank Sinatra and martinis made a huge comeback among the groovy crowd in the 80s and 90s. That was so long ago! Since we're well into the new millennium, I think that gives martinis double-secret retro status today (not that they ever really go out of style).
But how many of you have seen this dazzling display of party snacks? It's so retro it will never be cool again... And yet here it is, at Kranky and Kookiecrumb's Kooky Kocktail Klatsch: The Flaming Pupu-Head with Molten Lava Dunk. Erm, no flames. (I should have stuck birthday candles in here and there.)
You may not know that at happening patio parties in the 50s and 60s, the dipping sauce served with crudités, etc., was called a "dunk," not a dip. May that ugly nomenclature rest in peace.
Still, what a cool thing to do: Halve a head of cabbage and carve out a hole in the top that you can fit a small bowl into. Fill the bowl with anything dippy you like. We invented a dunk of cream cheese mixed with mashed avocado, thinned a bit with milk and seasoned with bottled green salsa. Impale neat-o nibbles on toothpicks and stick them into the cabbage. We chose cherry tomatos, smoked oysters, cooked shrimp and (my favorite, as it turned out) little marbles made from minced black olives mixed into cream cheese flavored with cumin and garlic (since this is retro, you get to use garlic powder), and then rolled in chopped walnuts. What a fantastic excuse to use up that can of watery, flavorless black olives (that, I swear, was obtained for free with a coupon).
Too bad the picture's a little out of focus. Wait until you see the martini! (Gin plus enough vermouth to take the nasty off the gin, shaken with ice and strained into glasses. We like Cork Dry Gin, from Ireland. Garnish with olive or twist of lemon. Please don't drizzle greasy, salty olive juice into your drink.)

Did the Party Start Without Me?

I know I'm late. I was going to create many more retro canapés and cocktails for Stephanie's Blog Party, but only got as far as Stage 1. Stage 2 might materialize for tomorrow's post (after all, what am I supposed to do with the cream cheese and avocados and shrimp and smoked oysters and...?).
I also realize Stephanie has previously chosen "Tiki" as a Blog Party theme. But let me explain. "Retro," for me, means something not from my past, but my parents' past. And when my parents were major cocktail partiers, we lived (among fellow Navy personnel and their families) in Hawaii. So cocktail parties were not only retro (in my eyes), they were also tiki. Pupus. Flaming things. Fruity drinks.
"Retro," for me, does not necessarily mean "kitsch." A retro cocktail can be a thoroughly sophisticated gin martini (do not omit the vermouth). A retro canapé can be an elegant dab of pâté on a puff-pastry round.
But the retro of my childhood memories is just a little kitschy. How lucky for me!
Hence:
The Chichi Cocktail
(for one)
1 ½ oz. vodka
4 oz. pineapple juice
1 oz. cream of coconut
Blend with a cup of ice; garnish kitschily.
Note: Cream of coconut is a commercially blended, sweetened product. It is not the same as canned coconut milk. That's a mistake I'm, um, owning up to here. (Yeargh, way too much fat and not enough sweet.)

These cocktails — with room for improvement, and boy, what a project! — are divine with:

Rumaki
(makes 16 lunkers)
1 small can whole water chestnuts, drained
8 chicken livers, cut in half
8 slices bacon, cut in half crosswise (or, for more wrapping fun, lengthwise)
Teriyaki sauce (a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, ginger and a splash of sherry; recipes abound on the Internet; or just buy a pre-made bottle)
Marinate the chicken livers in the teriyaki sauce for an hour or longer.
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Lay bacon strips on a baking sheet and precook for 10 minutes (but do not allow them to become crisp; alternatively you could cook them half-way in a skillet).
Take a piece of chicken liver and one water chestnut, and wrap with a half strip of bacon; secure with a toothpick. Do all the rest until you run out of bacon... The livers might go a lot farther than you'd suspect. (What are they feeding chickens nowadays, Jack Daniels? These livers were huge; cutting them in thirds or quarters would have worked just fine.)
Lay the wrapped tidbits on a wire rack over a baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the bacon browns. (Keep an eye on them; no burning allowed.)
These are gargantuan. I ate four of them for lunch, and didn't want dinner. They are also insanely delicious; shelve any preconceptions you may have about liver and bacon.
Hukilau!

Five for the New Year

Ilva at Lucullian Delights dreamed up a super dare: Come up with five challenges; dishes you may have previously tried and messed up horribly but now want to rectify, or dishes you’ve always wanted to attempt but have chickened out.
Of course, my first challenge would be to get the entire unitary executive gang out of Washington… Well, you do what you can. I’m working on it.
For now, though, here are some kitchen strategeries I’d like to master.

1. Something fermented. I tried homemade sauerkraut a few years (oh gosh, could it have been 10 years already?), when I first laid eyes on a new cooking magazine called Saveur. It came out mushy and stinky, so something clearly went wrong. Now I have a dandy little book called Wild Fermentation, full of ideas for not only sauerkraut, but also kimchi, bread (yuh), pickles and so much more. Maybe even tofu, as McAuliflower is daring herself to do. I’m also going to get started on something (secret) to set aside for the upcoming Eat Local Challenge, in May.
2. Ricotta cheese, and/or mozzarella cheese. I feel confident enough to take on the ricotta, but I’m still a little afraid of mozzarella, mainly because of precise temperature considerations and stuff. If any of you have tackled this, let me know.
3. Something from Fergus Henderson’s The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating. I’m most interested in the jellied tripe, but Cranky’s resisting. Maybe I’ll sneak it on him. (How do you sneak jellied tripe on anyone?!)
4. Makin’ bacon. Chilebrown (no blog, alas) has done it, and so has Jamie at 10 Signs Like This. I just learned from Sam at Becks & Posh that it’s relatively easy to buy pork belly, and Jamie’s cure recipe sounds really easy.
5. Oh. The secret thing. (See number 1 above.) Yeah, well, I want to attempt a homemade soy sauce, made with strictly local ingredients. I guess I’m allowed to use fish or shrimp, but I’m really thinking more along the lines of fermented walnuts. I have no idea how to go about this, but during last August’s Eat Local Challenge, I fell off the wagon because I was craving Asian flavors.
6. BONUS! I’m determined to harvest local salt from the Pacific Ocean. Again, Cranky’s resisting. But I’m determined.

OK, tag yourself if you haven’t already participated.

Psychedelic Psalad

How could you NOT eat this? These are the colors of my bedroom when I was in junior high school. The colors I wore as a flower child (not that I ever, uh, well, never mind). The colors I first gravitate to when I open a paint box.
The colors that completely captivated me at the farmers' market.
And, as deeply colorful foods, they are rich in antioxidants; they're superfoods (a health conceit which I'm sure the food scientists will attempt to debunk any minute now).
More amazingly, they are rich in flavor. You are looking at a salad of purple cauliflower, purple (Peruvian) potatoes and arugula, topped with flowerets of chartreuse Romanesco cauliflower and a scattering of pomegranate seeds.
Unfortunately, for this photo, it is also marred with a dressing made from olive oil, vinegar and miso paste. It tasted great, but the miso sludge on the little purple potato is unlovely to look at, and the acid in the dressing altered the color of the purple cauliflower (see the pink spots?).
The secret to preserving the color of the vegetables is to steam them, separately. I cannot be responsible for any color changes once you start playing litmus test.
Truly delicious. And a perfect dish for ARF/5-a-Day.
If there are any leftovers, we call them "flashbacks."

I Made Weenies! But Good!

Who would have thought the average home cook could cure meat at home? Well, if you have a cookbook called “Cooking at Home,” and it contains a recipe called “Homemade Sausage,” I think I would have thought: Me.
I’ve done this twice now, and it really works.

HOMEMADE SAUSAGE
Serves six
(Adapted from Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, by Julia Child and Jacques Pepin, 1999.)

1 ½ pounds coarsely ground pork, about 20 percent fat (from the Boston butt or shoulder)
2 ½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon smoked paprika (use a hot paprika; Pepin calls for ¾ teaspoon black pepper)
1 teaspoon fennel pollen (Cookiecrumb’s innovation)
3 tablespoons coarsely chopped pistachios (Pepin uses pecans)
1 fat clove garlic, minced (Pepin uses ½ teaspoon; what is he thinking?!)
3 tablespoons good red wine
(Optional: 1/8 teaspoon potassium nitrate, aka saltpeter. I skipped it.)

How To, in my own words:
This is unbelievably easy, but you must plan ahead. Mix the above ingredients with your hands, in a large bowl. Get all the seasonings well distributed.
Now (after you wash your hands), lay out an 18-inch piece of plastic wrap, with the long side facing you. Sculpt the meat mixture into a log shape and plop it on the wrap. Fold over the plastic and use it to roll the meat into a thin, even sausage, about 12 inches long and 2 inches in diameter. Slap it around a bit to make sure there are no air pockets. Wrap the plastic tightly, twist the ends, and tuck them under.
Next, lay a piece of aluminum foil, same size, in front of you. Roll the plastic-wrapped sausage up in the foil and seal it the same way.
This now goes in the fridge (I took the precaution of sealing it in a zipper bag to contain the garlic odors) for THREE DAYS, or up to a week. This is when magic happens.

To cook:
You’ll have to use a saucepan or pot wide enough to accommodate the length of the sausage. Fill the pan with enough water to cover the still-wrapped sausage (but don’t put the sausage in yet). Bring the water to a very low simmer (180-190°F). Lower the sausage into the water, weight it with a plate to keep it submerged, and cook slowly, gently, for 40 minutes. Then turn off the heat and keep the sausage in the water until ready to serve.
If you do it right – not too hot, not too fast – your sausage comes out pink but fully cooked. It is a thing of beauty. (The saltpeter would preserve an even redder color.)

To serve:
Unwrap and slice the sausage into 1/2-inch rounds. Arrange slices atop a robust warm potato salad (mustard, vinegar, onions, etc.) or a warm lentil salad. Or something cabbagey would be good.

Tasting notes and recipe riffs:
I took some liberties with this recipe, at Pepin’s urging. Well, he urged me to use truffles, but I figured he was giving permission for me to fool around. So I substituted smoked hot paprika for the black pepper. I could have used even more; there was no discernable kick. Then again, I was just being subtle. (On purpose, yeah.) Suit yourself.
I also added some fennel pollen (which I had harvested from the church parking lot across the street last summer). Fennel would be a prominent flavor in an Italian recipe, but I just used a little, and again, it was subtle (and nice).
I doubled the amount of garlic. Enough said.
I subbed pistachios for the pecans, but you could use almost any nut (except for peanuts).
The pork shoulder we bought was nearly two pounds, so I ratcheted up all the proportions of seasonings (although the amounts given above are correct for 1 1/2 pounds of meat).
However, instead of rolling the entire mass of sausage into one log, I divided it in two, and the other one is still in the refrigerator, curing. We’ll get to it in a few days.

Technical difficulties:
I have a nice blender made by Cuisinart. It came with an interchangeable food-processor attachment, complete with feeder tube, blades, all the works. I also have a “real” Cuisinart food processor.
I tried coarsely grinding the pork in the little food processor, and nearly deafened myself. It seems the motor on this appliance is too dinky for tackling a meaty job, and it screamed and struggled and spun and sputtered.
So Cranky dragged out the Big Boy (which I’ve used for chopping meat many a time), and it handily did the job.
Haul out the heavy artillery if you have it.

That'll Do, Pig

This is my "preserved pork" post, as requested by Kate Hill and Ms. Divina Cucina.
The minute I saw the challenge to honor the slow pig (apologies, Babe), I knew I was there. I may have dawdled a bit longer than I should have to get started (I'm a slow pig), but having just eaten the fruits of my labors, I think I did just fine.
I'm reluctant to get into sausage-making, the kind with the nitrates and the intestine casings and the chemistry.
But. OK. Let me tell you a story.
I was a guest at a big-deal PR dinner at Chez Panisse some few years ago, starring Jacques Pepin and two other high-octane chefs. I was seated at a table with a local food show-off, and we were all served dishes specially made by the three chefs. My favorite was Pepin's sausage over a peasanty potato salad, and it apparently caught the fancy of Mr. Show-Off.
When Jacques (can I say we're on a first-name basis? No?) came by our table to see how we were enjoying the meal, Mr. Show-Off gushed, and asked how he could get the recipe for his radio show.
Ooh.
Pepin gave him an icy glare, and no verbal answer.
Turns out the sausage recipe is in the cookbook collaboration by Monsieur Pepin and Madame Julia Child, the chronicle of their PBS show. And Jacques was apparently perturbed that Mr. Show-Off didn't know that.
Well, I had the book. And I raced home to find that the recipe for this superb homemade sausage is (here comes the caps) DOABLE!
Apparently Pepin hates having people not know all his personal history and every single recipe in all his books. I will skip over my other meeting with him, when he snubbed me pointedly for not knowing *where he lives*! (Connecticut.) Sheesh.
ANYWAY.
Super sausage. Easy for the home cook. Made with pork shoulder (Boston butt), seasoned with whatever you like... And the best part is, no casing. You actually simmer this sausage in water, wrapped in Saran and aluminum foil.
I will give you the recipe tomorrow.
You can't believe how good this is, and how easy.

Crazy Salad

I'm cheating a little for this entry in Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging. The picture is almost two years old. (Bean Sprout had just turned three months old and boy, can you see the championship potential in that noble puppy?).
That means this picture was taken at our old house, where we lived on a wild hillside growing with all manner of green things (including poison oak). We lived there for about 11 or 12 years before we discovered we were also growing salad on that hillside.
See all those drooping, elongated heart-shaped leaves in the top portion of the photo? That's miner's lettuce, aka winter purslane, Cuban spinach, and claytonia perfoliata.
It's a delicious, mild, slightly tart, vaguely succulent, somewhat crisp leaf that reminds me of limestone lettuce, aka Bibb lettuce. Very fresh (obviously, if you can pick it in your own yard) and tender, it should be dressed with nothing more aggressive than a light vinaigrette.
Miner's lettuce grows wild in cool coastal areas on the West Coast, and in cool mountain areas too. Its name comes from the 49er gold miners who allegedly rejoiced in the weed's appearance in the spring, after a winter without greens to eat. High in Vitamin C, it must have been a blessing.
On a hunch and a dare, Cranky and I drove out to West Marin a few years ago to find miner's lettuce. I didn't know what to look for, but I came across a lush stand of clean, verdant leaves of some sort growing in a moist spot, filled a bag with them, brought them home, and ate one.
I didn't die, so the next day we tried our first salad of miner's lettuce.
Then, by coincidence, I saw a photo of miner's lettuce leaves that had matured past their pick-by date, and suddenly realized two things: that what we had foraged was the right stuff, and that I'd been seeing that same crazy-looking plant in certain places on our own property: a round, cup-shaped leaf with a stem growing out of the center, itty-bitty white flowers on the top. OMG. Go see what I mean.
So for the next three winters, we enjoyed "homegrown," picked well before the flowers appeared.
Miner's lettuce should be getting ready to harvest in a week or so. But now our backyard is a concrete patio, although perhaps I'll explore in the woods up the hill about half a block from the patio.
And if I don't have any luck there, it's a pleasant excursion to West Marin.

Stop and Smell the, Uh, What Is this Thing?

I put in some time in the kitchen today, but I'm not ready to show you what I'm working on. I should have started this project two or three days sooner to meet my deadline of Sunday, but it's a repeat of a previous, successful dish and I have confidence in the outcome. My hands smell really great (hint: garlic, not flowers).
Lunch was half a box of cheese crackers, Whole Foods' house brand. Not bad at all; less greasy and salty than Cheez-Its. And we're meeting friends for dinner (dragging out the birthday celebration).
So no phood photo.
Just wondering, though. Any chance Alito will get Bxrked?
Just wondering.

I'm It and I Eat

Mona tagged me. Ten things you never knew about me. OK:

1. I am accessory-challenged. I have boxes of scarves, drawers of jewelry, a closet full of shoes. But I forget to avail myself of the variety, and instead go out unadorned, wearing the same damn clogs, every time. No scarves.
2. I interviewed Calvin Trillin once. Nice guy, if a little distant (well, I was a stranger to him). But he let me buy him an Anchor Steam beer.
3. My first job (other than baby-sitting) was picking strawberries for two summers in junior high school. I made 55 cents for every 12-quart flat I lugged down the rows to the mean lady who would punch my card as proof that I'd picked a flat (we didn't get paid actual money until the end of the summer). On my best days, I made $2.20. We're talking 8-hour days. Call the Department of Labor!
4. Cranky and I have lived in our new house for almost a year, and we're still scared to hang pictures. The paint is so nice. (That's just one excuse.)
5. I saw the Doors play live at a roller rink in Alexandria, VA. This was obviously before they got really big. There was a local DJ warming up the crowd with quizzes and such, and I won a dollar. (So, that made up for the lousy wages picking berries.)
6. There's a bag of stale gummy bears on my nightstand.
7. I own six ukuleles.
8. Today I am going to hard-cook 10 quail eggs. This will be a first for me.
9. I went to Gavin Newsom's wedding.
10. (Since this is a Top-10 list): Cranky and I attended a taping of the David Letterman show! Yes, it really is that cold in the theater.

Now I must tag five people. I'm going to bug:
Mrs D
Kalyn
Kevin
B'gina
Ilva (because she tagged me for something else I have to get busy on)

If the above tag-ees have already participated, I apologize for missing it. And if they don't want to play, that's cool
Simple rules: post ten weird and random facts about yourself. At the end, list the names of the five people you tagged.

Happy Birthday to Cranky!

ARF and a Nice Story

I haven't been cooking, because it's Cranky's birthday today — a very big, special birthday — and we've been going to restaurants.
So, for Antioxidant-Rich Food day, I'm posting a photo of something I haven't cooked. I washed it and trimmed it, but it's still in the fridge. It's a double-whammy in one single vegetable: Red Chard. Deep, dark green leaves and brilliant red stalks — it's just swimming in beta-carotene!

A NICE STORY

As an aside, here's a nice story. Cranky and I enjoyed a fantastic birthday-eve lunch at a "fine" Marin restaurant yesterday. There wasn't much of a crowd, so we were lucky to be well attended-to. (And in my experience, sometimes a less-crowded restaurant results in less-attentive service.)
The first person who approached our table looked — again, this is from experience — like he might be the guy who delivers the water and bread and clears away dishes. But Cranky put a question to him: "We're going to be ordering oysters, so is there a wine you'd recommend?"
This superb fellow, with the heavy South-of-the-border accent, did have suggestions, good ones. Apparently he was our server, not a busboy.
He disappeared into the kitchen and returned to tell us there were no oysters on the half-shell, only fried. We knew that; that's what the menu said. But he had taken it upon himself to, well, take a guess as to our desires, and to go find out if he could accommodate us.
Long story short: He dazzled us throughout our whole meal with knowledge, attention, decorum and warmth. He understands food; no, he loves it. He paced delivery of dishes in an incredibly intuitive way; after a particularly rich course, he held off on bringing the next so we could savor and digest for a while (it's true, we asked him about it). He told us interesting inside stories about the kitchen staff. He revealed "secret" ingredients and techniques.
We flipped for him.
And so when we asked how long he'd been with the restaurant, there was a slight hesitation on his part... And then he confirmed our best guess: He's been there seven years. But he's only been a server for the past six months.
We didn't ask him what his previous position was, but I think we were looking at the American Success Story: Smart, ambitious young man comes to this country, learns the language, toils at entry-level job, acquires a love for restaurants, kitchens, and — customers. He proved himself.
And he got promoted.
Bravo to the restaurant's powers-that-be for giving him a chance.
I don't think we've ever had lovelier service, and he's only been at it for six months.

But Really, I Don't Wanna Win

Say you have four wacky ingredients, and a funny lady is holding a hypothetical gun to your head, daring you to make a tasty dish out of them. Say the four ingredients are quinoa, cashews, yogurt and “something baby.” Oh, yeah, baby, it's Paper Chef.
Think fast!
Hey, I can swing either way: sweet or savory. I’m less inclined to be sweet, but the recipe I posted yesterday for my Paper Chef entry, kinda on the sweet side, was simply the first thing that came to my – no, confession: Cranky’s – mind. (Well, he only thought of it. I "executed" it! Pardon the “gun” reference.)
But there was all that leftover cooked quinoa, and it began to look like so much Incan bulghur, sitting there on the plate.
In a flash of culture-clashing inventiveness (nah, I got the idea off the Internet), I decided to make this summery dish – because for reasons unexplained by intelligent design, I’ve still got all these summery ingredients growing on my patio.
I didn’t have enough tomatoes for a perfect balance, and I probably could have used more parsley, too. (Hey, it’s the middle of winter!) There was a cucumber in the fridge I probably ought to have peeled and diced and added…
But, even so, I liked the results very much. No, really, a LOT. Chewing on cooked quinoa is, I have to confess, addictive, and the flavors came together really well, especially with bites of arugula.
I smoothed out the tabbouleh with yogurt, because a tub of it was sitting right there in front of me on the kitchen counter after making the previous dish, and because the lady with the “gub” said I had to; ditto the cashews. I wanted to season some extra yogurt to drizzle over the tabbouleh, so I consulted (proudly, defiantly) Joy of Cooking, where I learned that allspice and black pepper were considered logical choices. Wow, the allspice was still on the counter from the previous recipe, too. Come to think of it, that lemon was still there, as well. But what to do for the “baby” ingredient? Simple. Baby tomatoes from the patio, plus baby leaves of parsley and mint.
Not baby enough? OK, how’s this: The arugula might have been baby arugula! But I didn’t card it, so I can’t say for sure.
Still unconvinced?
Then this is my final offer: I named it after baby-faced powerhouse D’Brickashaw Ferguson. If you don’t like it, take it up with him.

QUINOA TABBOULEH D’BRICKASHAW

1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped tomato
1/4 cup chopped cashews
1 tablespoon minced mint leaves
1 garlic clove, minced
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3 tablespoons plain whole-milk yogurt
Salt
Lettuce leaves (I used arugula)

Technique: Ha, technique? Way too fancy a word for this. Just stir everything but the lettuce leaves together in a bowl. Let the flavors mingle at room temperature for 10 minutes or so, while you go set up – oh, right, the tripod’s still set up from shooting the last recipe.
Decorate plates with lettuce leaves, and spoon portions of tabbouleh on top.
Drizzle the tabbouleh with some more plain yogurt which you have seasoned to taste with ground allspice and freshly ground black pepper.

Serves two or three as an appetizer.

Tagged with: Paper Chef

Battle "Burn, Baby, Burn"

I can't figure out why, all day, I've had the music from "Backdraft" — you know, the fireman movie Opie directed — running through my head. I kinda like it, though. (For a listen, go to the bottom of the page and cut and paste #1 in a new browser window; I can't make the link work)
Anyway, so I'm in my kitchen stadium (ha ha, just my silly name for the cluttered little space where I dream up fabulous new meals using the most unique, original combinations of ingredients). I'm suddenly struck by the craziest idea , so crazy it just might work! What if I tried putting together a dish made with the unlikely — but staggeringly genius, bwah-ha-hah! — foursome of (oh, I'm blinded by my brilliance): quinoa, cashews, yogurt, and today's "theme ingredient" (I wonder why I called it that) of — hold your horses, it's insane — anything from the "baby" family of foods! Get it? Baby vegetables! Or, well, maybe Baby Ruth (it could happen!). Heh, or even baby food, as in baby food. Pabulum. Mother's milk (ew, OK, not that). Strained peas. You see where I'm going.
Never work, you say? Oh, wait a sec, I've spattered something on my yellow satin chef's jacket. There, got it.
I assemble my ingenious foods before me, and let my instincts run hot. Yeah, "Backdraft" hot! And before you can say "Yukio Hattari" (listen to me, and I don't even speak German), I've nailed it!

CREAMY QUINOA PUDDING WITH TROPICAL FLAVORS
Two fillling servings

1 ½ cups cooked quinoa (look up how to cook it on some vegan Web site; that's what I did)
1/2 cup apple juice
Most of a small jar of tropical fruit baby food; (save about 2 tablespoons)
1/4 cup chopped salted, roasted cashews; (set aside two teaspoons for garnish)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 or two pinches dried, shredded coconut; (as much as you like, but let's not make this a dominant flavor)
One or two shakes of ground allspice

Technique: You probably cooked the quinoa in a saucepan and were horrified to discover that it doubles, or even triples, in bulk. You scooped out about half the cooked quinoa and spread it out on a plate to cool and dry off some, and then you returned your attention to the soft-squishy-crunchy quinoa still in the pot. Let it stay in the pot. This is where you'll be working for the next 15 minutes
(Voice in head, inexplicably mellifluous, says: "45 minutes remaining." Hm. Odd. And what's with that tension-building music? (#2) Makes me nervous.)
Add the rest of the ingredients, cover the pot, and simmer (it's more kinda just steaming itself) gently for 15 minutes.
Remove the cover and let the fragrant quinoa blow off some steam for a few minutes while you set up your tripod.
("30 minutes remaining." Did you have to spend so long finding the room with the best light?)
Hurry, because now you're going to stir into the pot with the quinoa:
3 big, sloppy tablespoons plain, whole-milk yogurt
Nearly done.
("Fukui-san!" What? Shut up! Get that camera out of my face!)
Preheat the broiler, and find the ramekins. (They're back there with the seldom-used springform pan and the cookie-cooling racks. You do not bake often.)
("15 minutes remaining." Damn, they were hard to find.)
Fill each ramekin (about 8-ounce size) with the creamy quinoa mixture. Top each with half the reserved cashews. Sprinkle over them:
2 teaspoons brown sugar (one teaspoon on each ramekin)
Run them under the broiler for a minute or two, until the sugar melts and the cashews brown slightly.
Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly while you mix:
2 tablespoons plain whole-milk yogurt
2 tablespoons leftover fruity baby food
Drizzle (or swirl, if you're talented) this surprisingly tasty "sauce" over the nut-sugar brulée portion of our cooking experience today.

Photograph. Eat.
You win, with time to spare!
(Oh, that music (#3) again!)

#1: http://www.moviemusic.com/audio/backdraft_9.mp3
#2: http://www.moviemusic.com/audio/backdraft_6.mp3
#3: http://www.oldies.com/product-view/96072.html (Scroll down to "Tracks" and click on the first song.)

Tagged with: Paper Chef

Let Us Now Praise Parsley

I never appreciated parsley when I was young. It seemed to be nothing more than a plate garnish, along with that goofy twisted half orange slice, that no one ever ate.
When you did venture to taste the parsley, it had an unappealing, frizzy texture in your mouth and a flavor of not much more than "green." You know. Chlorophyll.
And yet, recipes kept calling for the addition of parsley... something I usually omitted, because I saw little value in it. Until the dawn of new awareness in eating, especially here in California, in the 70s. All of a sudden, Flat-Leaf Italian Parsley entered the cook's lexicon. I'd been seeing (and not using) nothing but the curly type.
Even with this new (to me) variety, though, I didn't find much in its flavor profile to wow me, though I did think the absence of curliness felt a lot better in my mouth.
Then I started growing my own flat-leaf parsley, and I gradually got to appreciate its nuances. Within the leaf I learned to taste not only chlorophyll (which is a good flavor), but also traces of licorice, carrot, grass... a sort of meadow-y sweetness.
I can't claim that my homegrown parsley is always at its peak. In fact, the Italian variety is a poor self-seeder, and needs to be replaced every year. So sometimes I buy a bunch at the market, and I'm fortunate to live in an area where the produce at the market is really fresh.
Look for dark green leaves without any sign of yellowing (or — horrors — slime). Big, healthy, robust leaves taste best.
If you aren't growing your own, take the twist-tie off the bundle you buy at the store, wash the whole bunch, and spread it out on a clean dish towel to dry. Then, gather the bundle up again, chop off the lower stems (about an inch), and place the "bouquet" in a glass half-full of water. Place the glass of parsley on a shelf in your fridge and cover it with an inverted plastic bag (loosely). The leaves should stay nice for at least a week.
And when you cook with it, use a lot!
(Click the pic and see the monarch butterfly Bean Sprout is looking at! This was snapped back in June, before Kalyn even dreamed up Weekend Herb blogging.)

Just Pretty

I don't have any plans at the minute for these cruciferous lovelies. I just liked the colors. They all cost the same price per pound at the farmers' market stand this morning, so we piled them into one bag, paid up, and trotted them home.
After we spent a few hours out in the real world, with mostly clear skies and even a ray or two of sun. I needed that.
Here's the dumb thing: I didn't ask the vendor what exactly I was buying (though I did get into good conversations with the potato seller and the cheese lady). But I believe what we're looking at is purple cauliflower, Romanesco cauliflower (those chartreuse fractally-looking ones), and some kind of broccoli (maybe rapini, but I don't know).
I do know that this food vendor's booth was set up in front of a hedge filled with songbirds. How joyous! Chirp, tweet, chirp. Cranky thinks the birds were attracted to the vegetables because they looked like a flower garden.

Get Well, Mom

Eh. I got nothin' today.
I'm going to hand over the blog to my mom, who's been suffering from a dreadful cold for over a week, and finally went to the doctor today. I haven't heard from her or my dad, which is probably a sign that nothing too serious is going on. Good.
Mom is a talented watercolorist (she did this painting of grapes just a few years ago), although she's been away from the drawing board for some time, due to difficulties with her cataract surgery. And now this cold. Poor dear.
I'm looking forward to a fresh batch of food paintings, so get well, and get on it, mom!

I'm Not a Joiner #2

Strictly by coincidence, my lunch today fits the criteria of Sweetnicks' brand-new weekly food event: ARF/5-a-Day. Which means "antioxidant-rich food" (and that 5-a-Day means how many servings I should be eating of fruits and vegetables, and I'm afraid I fall down on the job there).
But fortunately, it's natural for Cranky and me to have a house full of ARFs: We love nuts and whole grains. The more richly colored the fruits and vegetables, the more we like them. (Dark colors signal the presence of phytonutrients, which is what you want in an ARF.) Deep-green, leafy things dominate the crisper drawer. Garlic and tomatoes, also good ARFs, are in constant use at our house, as are all manner of dried beans. Then, of course, there's our usual cup or two of tea every morning.
So it's no trouble incorporating these foods into our diet. No trouble at all; it's what we eat.
Of course we also eat white food, and I do love it: bread, rice, cheese, potatoes... Wait!
Look at that picture: That's not ham (thank goodness) and it's not hamachi.
Today's lunch was a salad composed of a bed of raw spinach leaves, topped by cooked Huckleberry potatoes — they're ruby-skinned and pink fleshed! — strewn with watercress. Flavored with a couple sprigs of chive, and a dressing of Spanish sherry vinegar and olive oil. Sea salt, a crack of pepper.
To chew a mouthful of cooked potatoes mingled with raw greens is bliss.
The potatoes (first time I've had this variety) are waxy and firm, and have a delicious flavor of, well, dirt. Good, clean, healthy dirt. And hey, they've got the added benefit of a teeny-tiny tinge of color.
I guess I'll bend my rules and send this off to Sweetnicks. It's too good not to share.

Happy New Year, Dammit

To steal brazenly (and to paraphrase) from Jean Shepherd, who wrote (and narrated) the classic seasonal movie A Christmas Story: "In the heat of battle, I wove a tapestry of obscenity, that as far as we know, is still hanging in space over the Civic Center lagoon."
I was making the black-eyed pea soup yesterday, fortified with chopped chard and shredded leftover Kentucky country ham. (For some reason, I just cannot cut ham into cubes; I have to shred it into succulent chunks.)
First disaster: I salted the onions as they cooked in oil. Forgetting that I'd be adding a can of commercial chicken broth (don't ask), sodium and all. Forgetting that the Kentucky ham is freakin' SALTY. Cranky tasted the simmering liquid (I had added something like three times as much plain H2O to the chicken broth), pronounced it salty, and then added diplomatically, "It's nice." I tasted it. It was not nice.
We fetched a clean colander and a large bowl, grabbed the potholders, and dumped at least two-thirds of the super-salinated solution out of the pot. Returned the solids to the pot, added more pure water, and tasted. Full recovery! Huzzah.
Second disaster: The beans and chard are cooked, the ham has relinquished its residual salt (but not too much) to the broth, and we taste for seasoning. TOO HOT. Tongue-burn. Entire umami region of taste buds scalded. Ruins rest of flavor experience for the rest of the night. Except for:
Third disaster: I had read a recipe that suggested throwing some of the ham rind into the pot for extra flavor. Not that we needed extra flavor with this incredible (but freakin' SALTY) ham. But I did it anyway. Of course, I pulled them out of the soup the instant we detected the oversaltiness. But some of the shreds of ham must still have had microscopic remnants of rind attached. And as we all know but sometimes don't bother to remember, country ham can be moldy on the outside. You may recall that I have zero tolerance for the taste of unwanted mold (most cheeses are fine with me, but even there I can get a little spooked). Not every mouthful had a moldy taste; only one or two bites did. Overall, the soup was very good — Cranky adored it. But damn, those moldy mouthfuls just about wrecked it for me.
And this was supposed to be a good-luck-in-the-new-year meal.
Well, I did have good luck with the tripod and the adorable little yellow lotus bowl that Jen (Life Begins at 30) gave me just for photographing difficult food. It got a real workout, Jen.

2006: The Year of Global Wetting

Oh, man, it's been wet around here. Some of my Marin neighbors haven't fared so well during the torrential downpours and wind storms that kept Cranky and me locked inside over New Year's Eve.
The store where I bought my camera (and where Cranky just bought me a tripod for Christmas) was flooded by four feet of water; probably huge losses.
But we're safe and snug at home. Today we'll make a soup of black-eyed peas, leftover frozen ham, and a bunch of collard greens. For luck. I do feel lucky, to tell the truth.
And look at this: I still have tomatoes, on January first! They're not lovely tomatoes, to be sure, and the vines look terrible. But how amazing. So, for Weekend Herb Blogging (thanks, Kalyn), I present Bean Sprout and the Bedraggled Tomaters. (You can actually consider tomato leaves to be an herb; add one or two to tomato sauce while it's simmering for some bosky punch — look that up, Biggles — and then remove them if you can still find them.)