B O O !

I guess I'll make good on my promise to pull out the backyard tomato plants on Halloween.
This wee, spooky critter just gives me courage, after all. Nothing's ripening out there anymore, and if they're going to make scary faces at me, then I'll yank their pathetic little feet out of the earth. Trick or treat, indeed!
First, of course, I will collect all the green tomatoes for roasting. There are quite a few green tomatoes.

Austin Powers Lunch

Well, I say if the weather is going to go all gray and soggy, we might as well be eating après-ski food in the chalet.
The chalet, of course, would be this old 1963 house in inner suburbia. Hard to tear yourself away when there are ukuleles on the bookshelves and Roy Orbison on the CD.
The chalet food would be raclette. Stinky French-Swissy cheese, melted and smeared on boiled potatoes, accompanied by cornichons and cocktail onions.
Cranky's innovation was to melt the cheese on top of the potatoes (under the broiler). Their warmth kept the cheese melty.
Not very "ukulele" food, but terribly groovy and James Bondy.

Local Cornmeal

This is pretty exciting, just on the grounds of my being a mostly local eater: Local cornmeal from Full Belly Farm. Because there isn't a lot of corn processed into second-generation products in my area.
Fresh corn, I can get.
But local cornmeal earned a squeal of delight.
Turns out it's even more exciting, on the grounds of It Tastes Good. Much more complex and sweeter than any stone-ground polenta I've ever tasted. It tastes not so much like "corn," but "lots of corn." Fresh, summery corn, dried and ground up.
Cooked into a polenta-like consistency and then refrigerated, it doesn't seem to set up so well. You won't be able to cut it into fancy shapes; it's a little wet.
And there is a tiny flaw in the farm's production of cornmeal. They seem not to have figured out how to filter the kernel skin from the meal. So when you cook it up you'll find little glassy shards in the mix. I may take the trouble of sieving it out myself.
But the flavor is definitely worth the dental pain.
UPDATE: I want to be fair to the farmers. I just examined a bag of cornmeal we bought more recently, and it appears to be more finely ground. It's a shame to lose that great, gritty texture, but perhaps the kernel skins are more pulverized. I'll cook some up and let you know.

The End of Mayonnaise Season

October. Such a fickle month. One day hot, the next day cool and breezy. Pumpkin weather, I always call it. A little bit of summer left in the air, but the dry leaves are blowing across the patio.
Magnificently, some tomatoes are still ripening on the vines. Lovely bacon is always to be had from Prather Ranch. There's bread, of course, and nice, crisp lettuce.
Since the horrendous fires in Southern California, we learned that the avocado crop had been harmed. And yet, today avocados were on sale at our local market. We stocked up.
So, for probably the last meal of Mayonnaise Season, we had BLATs. Bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato sandwiches.
With mayonnaise.

A Crazy Cooking Synergy

Sorry to bother you again with the lobster bisque (see previous post).
But we did a kind of ballet in the kitchen, Cranky and I.
I'm so proud. And I'm still burping happy, creamy, little oceanic burps.
It was that good.
Cranky created the serious backbone for our soup. He boiled the shells and aromatics in a make-do broth of whatever was on hand. I can't believe how red and crustacean-y it turned out. He didn't know how good he could be.
Then he stepped away from the stove and I took over.
I made a roux; cooked it well so it didn't taste raw, but it stayed blond. I stirred in lobster stock, just so, whisking.
Poured the lobster "bechamel" back into the rest of the stock, and added a few blorps of cream. And a slug of sherry. Oh, a couple of gratings of nutmeg, too.
I ladled the soup into the new bowls, and tossed in the fine-diced lobster meat. (It sank; not visible in photo.)
We are so impressed by our collaboration.

Red Sox Supper

When Cranky and I joined Jack and Pamela for lunch at the Old Port Lobster Shack, all the way down in Redwood City (a good drive), I knew exactly what I'd be ordering.
I mean, come on! It's the Lobster Shack, not the Clam Chowder Shack.
I asked for steamed lobster, and the instant I ordered it, Cranky capitulated on his cheap-out plan of a lobster roll. (I find the very idea of a cold, mayonnaise-dressed sandwich of lobster chunks in a hot dog bun disgusting, but I'm California born and raised.) He ordered a steamed lobster too.
What you should know is that we had smuggled a couple of plastic bags into the restaurant. We were going to bring the shells home!
As it turned out, the lobster tail portion I ate (really, really tasty... more tasty than distant memories of lobster, even in New England) was quite enough to fill me up, along with the half cob of corn, some particularly interesting cole slaw and a plate of housemade fries. So we had a couple of claws' worth of meat to smuggle home, too.
The lobster meat is still in the fridge (oh, there may have been a little left in those skinny, difficult legs you see in the pic).
But I'm so proud to show you what Cranky made this afternoon: lobster stock. He sort of availed himself of a French recipe, but we didn't really have all the ingredients. It was a Wing It. Hefty splashes of vermouth. Squirts of tomato paste. Beer. Water. Vegetables! Carrots and celery and shallots. Herbs! Local fennel pollen and backyard bay leaves.
We have just now strained off all the solids, and in a little while, we're going to chop up the meager lobster meat and stir it in with some cream.
Because I've been rather sad lately. And Cranky sneaked off and bought me some soup bowls a couple of days ago for a surprise present.
Tonight, lobster bisque.

Cool aside: Jack, not a food blogger himself, found out about the Lobster Shack from our very own Restaurant Whore!

You Have to Do This

I've been lax and complacent about my household dishware for a long time.
Yes, I collect eclectic plates. Yes, I have several settings of "grownup" dishes.
Ew. Tiresome and repetitive. Boring.
This is my new love: A gathering of four different-colored shallow bowls, hideously wide and fantastically "Alice in Wonderland." Eat me!
Today. A goat meat stew cooked with slightly acidic green tomatoes (they will not ripen; they've had their chance; off with their heads!). Seasonings of backyard mild chili pepper, garlic, onion, cumin. Splash of red wine and a blurp of chicken broth (liquidiness was needed). Cooked pink beans.
My serving was placed in a misty blue bowl. So pretty.
And, the food was really good. Thanks, Cranky.

Bowled Over

Hi. Welcome back.
I needed a few weeks off to... I don't know. I needed a few weeks off.
So here's my cheese sandwich blog post: What I ate for lunch today.
This was strictly Cranky's doing. Damn, that man is getting good in the kitchen.
Our meal was inspired partly by food in the house that needed eating, and partly by these fabulous new dishes we bought yesterday. Heath Ceramics. Foot-wide shallow bowls (yeah, they're gargantuan) in subtle, suave glazes. (You have to go. They're having a sale.)
I can see servings of pasta in these bowls, or beans and braised lamb. Stewy things.
Today, Cranky heated up some leftover polenta and cut it into quarters. He oven-roasted some of the last of our backyard tomatoes. And then he sauteed shiitake mushrooms with onion and a little warm (not hot) backyard chili pepper.
Oh, dear god, it was better than the French Laundry. And easier.

A Time for Time Off

I'm going to be taking a little break from blogging.
I'm in perfectly good health; you needn't worry. I just think this is a good juncture for me to cool things down for a while.
So, sadly, adieu for now.

Too Sad to Blog

Zack's funeral was yesterday. Along with a vast turnout of family, friends and teammates from the 82nd Airborne, Senator John Kerry and the Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, were in attendance.
There was a military fly-by, with the tear-jerking missing-man formation. Flags and bugles and eulogies.
Zack's dad had a little chat with Kerry, telling the senator he has a bad situation on his hands and really needs to do something about it.
Kerry agreed, but it's too late for Zack.

This Is Not a Review

Come along with me for a fun, madcap look at a much ballyhooed new restaurant in remote, coastal Marin County. It's the collaboration between an acclaimed Bay Area restaurant designer I like a lot, and his chef-partner, who earned huge accolades for his seafood whimsies at an upscale San Francisco place with delightful crustacean lighting fixtures.
It's an endeavor, this new place is. It took eight years and a galumphagillion dollars to renovate the aged joint on Tomales Bay to its original splendor from back in the 1930s. Except now it looks like Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. You know, cutesy. "Acquired" decor items, such as a fishing pole. A weathered littleneck clam sign from Port Townsend, Washington. Ahem. We are supposed to be in Marin, home of Tomales Bay oysters.
But, see, it's fun. Cleaned up and ready to go.
This picture is of my table for the first, oh, hour or so of my visit. Yes, free of food. No food came. I saw tables turning all around me, some twice, even. And I couldn't get one lousy plate of barbecued oysters? (Sorry about the strand of hair on the silverware; trust me, I believe it's one of my own flaxen tresses.)
My food did come eventually, and it wasn't bad. Honestly. Not bad. But that's all: not bad. Not good enough. A little too sweet; plasticky minced parsley that jammed in my gums like fish scales. Shucking errors had occurred: shell shards in the bivalves. But! It was on a fun-FUN! plate from ancient history, with authentic cracks and chips. No, really, I love that stuff. Fun.
Even so, Cranky's oysters didn't come, and kept on not coming.
When they finally came, they were an obviously different variety of oyster (which is OK, because the menu specifically didn't say that Cookiecrumb was getting the big Pacifics, and Cranky was getting the little Preston Points). Oh, and Cranky didn't get that cool plate, because by this time, it was in the dishwasher. Hey, I don't mind. I understand they only had one cool old plate.
Cranky thought his crabcake was just dumb. Shreddy, stringy, filled with celery. But then he remembered local crabs are out of season, and it was he who was dumb.
To be nicer (ow, it hurts to be nice), our table mates thought their food was OK. You know. OK. Oof. But still, shell bits in the oysters. High expectations not met, thank you for the high expectations.
I think at this point I should just not complain vociferously about the horrible driving directions to the restaurant posted on its Web site. If you go to this restaurant, ask me how to get there. I think I can save you about 30 minutes on your trip.
Oh, one more thing. There are lovely cabins associated with the restaurant, some remodeled (one looks just like a boat!) and several more across the road, apparently still being finished, all modern and Craftsman and shingly. Expensive, but maybe you'd expect that. Except you'd think you might be getting a cabin with a kitchen. Nope. You have to eat the crabcakes.

My Nephew Was Just Killed in Afghanistan

Goddamnit.
Godfuckingdamnit.