Michael Ruhlman, Superstar

I wanted to like this book.
I like the author: all cute and friendly, showing up everywhere on TV these days. He writes well. And I believe he has learned to cook well.
But when I got to the definition in the photo above, I nearly threw the book down.
Why did Michael Ruhlman even include it in "The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef's Craft for Every Kitchen"?
OK, a little background. The book, one of those things you're tempted to call a slender volume until you remember that you avoid cliches like the plague, is part essay and part glossary. The essays, on cooking fundamentals such as stocks, salt, even eggs, are pretty good. (Though I don't know many average kitchens that want to cope with 10 pounds of veal bones to make stock.)
The glossary, which makes up about 80% of the book, is just pedantic crap Ruhlman gleaned from his touch-and-go education at the Culinary Institute of America (he attended as a journalist, not a student, but he did take classes).
On page 226 we learn that "Three teaspoons equal one tablespoon." On page 227 we discover that "Three teaspoons equal a tablespoon." Thank you, Michael.
There are definitions for all kinds of French items, techniques, tools. But what home cook even gives a damn what the meaning of "soigné" is? (It's "the French term for elegance and excellence of execution; see 'finesse'".)
Taking baby steps outside the world of French cuisine, he defines "kimchi" but not "paella." "Ceviche" but not "pita."
Several of the glossary entries look like space-fillers. For "bread flour," we are referred to "flour." Yes, ditto for "cake flour."
Oh, and the misspellings. "Liquour." "Wala-Wala onion." No!
It's just a maddening hodgepodge.
Is it useful to you to know that a "lowboy" is restaurant slang for an under-counter refrigerator? Or that "dance" refers to the "elegant synchronicity" of line cooking in professional restaurants? Hell, "dance" in my kitchen is defined as "Get out of my way, this baby is hot!"
I know that Ruhlman is busy building his brand. He's written a cookbook for The French Laundry with Thomas Keller, and helped Eric Ripert with his book-cum-travel junket, "A Return to Cooking" (I hated that book too; gave it away). Ruhlman appears on The Food Network and on his pal Tony Bourdain's show now and then.
This newest book is just another rung on his ladder to superstardom.
He's probably working on a signature tagline right now... but, Michael?
"Bam!" is already taken.

Not Mean, Not Mean, Not Mean

I keep biting my tongue.
Not accidentally. On purpose. I'm trying not to say horrible, mean things.
I've read a new book on food that I want to say horrible, mean things about. It's written by someone who, by all accounts, is just a really, really nice guy.
But I hate the book.
So instead, I will think nice thoughts about pie, and crust, and ricotta cheese, and the last ripe tomatoes of the year. Garlic, a few leaves of oregano and thyme, salt... and lard!
Cranky made the crust using 100% local lard, rendered by Bonnie this year from Clark Summit Farm hogs. The lard is almost gooey, not quite as solid as cold butter. Cranky dutifully scooped the amount called for by the recipe, and cut it into the whole-wheat flour. He kept cutting (smashing, really), trying to get the "pea-sized" lumps... But this dough was basically just greasy sand. I think he used too much lard, not following the elements of cooking where you tweak the recipe. I added in a little extra flour and a splash of cream, and it looked OK (and tasted fantastic).
After an hour in the fridge, the dough rolled out easily enough, but it broke into pieces when I tried to pick it up.
However, this is a success story. I picked up the pieces and placed them in the tart pan, patching here and there with extra dough.
The shell was blind-baked for ten minutes, and then we layered in some ricotta, a dusting of parmesan, topped it with the mixture of cut-up tomatoes with salt, herbs and garlic.
OK. Bakey-bake for about 45 minutes (at 375°F), and it came out a little wet. The tomatoes had oozed.
Cranky was crestfallen by this time but I simply tilted the tart dish over the sink and drained off the juice. Amazing how you can fiddle with the rules, man.
Then, and I think this was the move that saved the day, I said "Wait."
The pie needed to cool off a little. And in the waiting, the crust came together. Slices of the pie came out of the tart pan intact.
It's a happy ending!
Maybe tomorrow I'll be mean after all. Heh, heh.

OMG! Vegetarian Thanksgiving!

Cranky came down with a sore throat on Thanksgiving. The day we were to be treated to a meal of roast suckling pig, courtesy of a secret meat forager.
Well, he didn't want to drag his contagious, achy self anywhere healthy people would be gathering, so we stayed home. Rats.
But we had Thanksgiving food. The dishes I was going to bring to my hosts.
Pan-fried delicata squash in half moons, smothered with a whisper (is that an oxymoron?) of pear chutney and finished in the oven.
A braise of garden-grown celery and leeks, with chicken stock (Aha! It wasn't vegetarian after all) and butter and sage.
It tasted like Thanksgiving.

Snowy Rice With Floating Scallions

Thanksgiving is in three days. How should I be eating beforehand? Light, so I'll be hungry on the big day, or full-on protein training, so I'll be in shape?
We're actually doing a little of both, and with my own personal appetite making a good recovery from a month of anguish, I think I'll be able to put a dent in my dinner Thursday.
My only rule around here during the conditioning phase is no meat on the menu. It's driving Cranky crazy.
Don't worry, honey. Pretty soon we'll get to pig out.
Literally.

Other People's Food

The food blogosphere is a generous community, I've discovered.
You can hardly meet a fellow blogger without being given something to eat.
I've even observed competitive giving in social settings, but what's wrong with that? A little potlatch behavior is fine if it doesn't go too far.
Some of us use our food bounties as an excuse for getting together. A friend invited me and Cranky for lunch recently to help harvest her apple tree. I had a group of pals over to strip my pear tree in August, and we all turned it into a potluck, potlatch party with homemade (and gifted, by a guest) pear brandy.
Sometimes the food offerings are of a less gardeny variety. On at least two occasions, the Rev. Dr. Biggles has schlepped meat (and charcoaled wood) over to my house to dazzle me with fire and animal flesh.
I was recently the grateful recipient of wild mushrooms from the friend of a friend.
Some of my food gifts to bloggers have been simple, regional foragings of wild fennel pollen and seeds.
But the other day, one of my pals brought lunch. Oh, he didn't stay around to actually eat it. It was a tub of frozen soup. For later.
The Sourdough Monkey Wrangler says this recipe for minestrone has been handed down in his family for 150 years. He told me how to cook it (add a little water; some egg tagliarini would be nice) and he even included a cute little cube of Romano cheese to grate over the soup.
Oh, and he brought some apple/pear cider made, in part, with pears from my tree. Plus a sack of produce gleaned from his in-laws' property.
Well, what could we do in return?
I had already put aside a jar of pickled serrano chiles from my yard, commingled with jalapeños from Meathenge Labs. What a wimpy offering.
So we traipsed out into the yard and, with a knife, hacked off a vivid bunch of celery, two leeks, one eggplant, and tossed them into a bag, dirt and all.
On top of that went a huge handful of Smarties, the Canadian candies left over in a big metal bowl from Halloween. (Wrapped in cellophane! Come on!)
Best I could do.
Anyway. The soup? Wow. It tasted like Not My Cooking. Other People's Food.
Strange new flavors. Deep, texture-y, potent.
What a fun life we've stumbled into.

Hey, Blog Already!

OK. This is what I saw at the market this morning (in addition to stunning arrays of persimmons, squash, carrots — a lotta orange stuff, almost blinding in the harsh autumn sun).
It's heartening to know the farmers will bring their produce the day before Thanksgiving, and I bet the market will be busy.
But. "Thursday farmers market is on Wednesday"? That makes it a Wednesday Thursday market.
Sign-making is such a charming art. It's almost like there's a rule food signs have to be a little naive, a little goofy.
I will spare you a photo of the sign I spotted outside a local restaurant, offering "potato-leak soup." I did take a picture, but I didn't take a leak.

Veterans Day

This is my nephew, Zack, returning to the U.S. from Afghanistan last month.
He didn't get to be a veteran.

Seasons

It's hard to comprehend, having just spent a few hours outside under an achingly clear blue sky, the sun on my shoulder, that yesterday it rained.
It poured. It rained cats and dogs and frogs and squirrels and ponies. There are dead earthworms all over the patio today, apparently having crawled from their flooded homes onto dry ground. But the sun got them today. They are worm jerky.
It rained so hard that Bean Sprout did not get his usual bedtime trip out to the lawn. He had to hold it all night. (He would have freaked out there anyway.)
And yet today, there are still purple blossoms on the eggplant bush; maybe it's not finished producing. There are still serranos on the pepper plant, dead-set against turning red-ripe, but that's fine.
The pears of summer are long gone, and the oranges of winter are turning... orange!
It's sunny and warm and breezy.
But yesterday we had the first rain of the season.
And the first fire in the fireplace.

Grand

When I was a teenager, my best friend's big sister was an accomplished classical guitarist. She had studied with a maestro who was, himself, a student of Andrés Segovia.
So my friend's sister called herself a "grandstudent" of Segovia.
Hey. Why not?
I took a couple of lessons from her, on my brother's fake Spanish guitar. I sucked. But... I'm a great-grandstudent of Segovia!
[Grabs steering wheel and turns hard here for not-so-gentle segue into my meal of locally foraged chanterelles and porcino (just the one) on toast.]
My pal Kudzu (whom you've seen in comments, but who is too busy in the real world of dead-tree media to blog) gave me and Cranky a sumptuous gift, a generous portion of the package of Mendocino myco-goodness that had just been mailed (yes!) to her by fungi friends.
I don't know the friends, but they seem to have inadvertently "grandgifted" me. I'm a grandrecipient of foresty, fall-y wonder!
Hey. Why not?
Kudzu said she wondered what I'd do with this fresh, wild fortune. I told her I'd probably put it on buttered toast. I think I saw a flicker of doubt, or maybe disappointment, on her face. But really, I just didn't want to mess with Mother Nature. The purer, the better.
So I dry-sautéed the slivered mushrooms in a whisper of butter; added a minced scallion from the yard (and a lot more butter); two sprinklings of salt (had to get it just right); and finished with a glug of Dry Sack sherry.
We piled this fragrant stew on toasted sweet batard bread. It tasted magnificent, although not as in-your-face king bolete as I anticipated.
Eating these mushrooms was a mystical experience. I know that every chanterelle and cepe you have ever bought was foraged, but they go through a middleman and we blithely procure them as mere market commodities.
These mushrooms were picked by my "grandfriends"!
Very good. Happy.
Grand.

Harmony Convergence

I'm going back.
I loved my lunch at Harmony Restaurant, in the Strawberry shopping center in Mill Valley.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with any of the six dim sum plates we ordered, and there was absolutely something right with three of them.
Let's see. Six times a possible four stars minus six times three equals... Oh, how nutty; that's not even right. I'll give them four stars for three plates and three stars for three plates, which adds up to...
Well, there's a harmonic conversion in there somewhere, and I'm a convert.

I Know, Cheese Sandwich

Some times of year, a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of warm tomato soup are recommended — nay, required.
Today I required a grilled cheese sandwich, but the weather flipped back into summer temporarily... so it was recommended that the bowl of tomatoes be raw wedges, blipped with good olive oil and dinked with good salt.
For the sandwiches we used a sweet batard (undense crumb, not a lot of flavor intrusion) and white local cheddar. Pretty basic. The bread grilled up into sublime laciness.
And the house has an aromatic veil of cooked butter, a little different from room to room.
Heaven.