No Photo

Chowder looks like throw-up.
There must be some dreamy way to light a bowl of the stuff for a non-gag-worthy picture. To get a seductive angle. To use a perfect dish. A drape of silverware, an artistically posed cracker or two. Candles? Grandma's antique napkins?
Well, I didn't think of any of that. I had a hot pot of soup that needed eating, and all I could do was slop some in a bowl and click away in the wan winter light.
Gag.
Throw-up.
OK! Right, then! Now you're in the mood to hear how good it was.
It was very good.
We had some smoky smoked salmon. It was sort of an accidental purchase, and it needed a destination.
Potatoes and onions, natch. A little bag of frozen corn kernels from last summer. Milk and butter, and some (alternative) flour. Salt and pepper.
I liked the technique: Melt too much butter in a heavy pot, and sizzle your chopped onions in it until they're soft. Then, toss a little flour all over it. Stir, cook, stir. Now add your milk. This chowder is at least half solid chunks, so you're not going to need a lot of liquid to sate your appetite. Stir, cook, stir; the onions in the pot are making it easy for you to get an emulsion without whisking. Throw in cubed potatoes (not much; I used half a tater for two appetites) and get them cooking. I added (dried!) dill and parsley at this point. Could have used a bay leaf but I forgot. Don't know why I didn't think of celery, but didn't really need any. Finally, add chopped smoked salmon (easy does it, seriously, just a little) and corn kernels. Salt, pepper. Taste. This is really a fast chowder.
I concocted it all without tasting it even once, until the end. It was perfect. I don't know why, but it really was.
It didn't look like something you wouldn't put in your mouth.
Until I processed the photos. Urgh. Thank goodness I had already eaten.

'Tis the Season

Dungeness crab season.
Local boats have been bringing in some very fine specimens.
I remember reading the words of a great food writer, calling Dungeness "sweet." She called it sweet more than once, so she meant it.
I had never applied the adjective to crab, myself. It tasted crabby and fresh and oceany, but not sweet. We always bought our crab from reliable purveyors, so we knew it was not "off" or old. (Cracked and cleaned, already. Let somebody else do the murdering.)
Well, this year the crab was sweet. We couldn't even disguise the bling-flavor with additions of garlic, ginger, chile flakes and lemon juice. Did I mention butter? The meat was sweet.
I feel bad for what I've been missing out on all these years, even though I always enjoyed my Dungeness. I'm going to buy a couple more crabs soon, and cross my fingers that it'll still be sweet.

No Way! Yes, Way.

I must have been very, very good.
I think my screaming was louder than any noise the neighbors will ever hear.
Shiny. Pretty.
Decibels.

Don We Now Our Gay Apparel

While traipsing through The Container Store not long ago, I felt a familiar dread.
"Do I have to buy wrapping paper? Arrrghh."
In a flash decision, I voted no. I would use scarves and socks to wrap my gifts. Totally reusable, no paper waste, and kind of fetching in a cute-ugly way.
Since I was draping laundry on presents, I figured I might as well use clothespins to anchor it.
And then I got inspiration for tree decorations. Clothespins! And... um... fake laundry.
In another startling fit of recycling greenness, I grabbed an old magazine and cut little paper-doll sized garments out of the pretty colored pages. Sometimes a pattern on the page would be vivid enough to dictate the clothing. See the "puffy coat"? I can't remember for sure, but it might have been a photo of pastry.
You should see the tighty-whities. But. No.

Happy Winter Stoltz!

Oh, wait. Did I get that wrong?
Must go to bed early. It's getting dark.

Comforting Food

I love it when I come up with an idea for a completely novel dish, and it works!
It's probably not completely novel; I'll Google it in a few minutes to see how unoriginal I really am.
But I've never seen or tasted this: A baked dish of rice and eggs, studded with shrimp and scallions. The eggs, which we stirred directly into the cold, cooked rice, were seasoned with Sriracha sauce, fish sauce, and a bit of sesame oil. The casserole was oiled. The food baked (covered) at 350ºF for less than a half-hour.
It came out fluffy, warm and inviting. You just scoop out servings, and add extra seasonings at the table.
I couldn't help but think of this as a sort of alternative to bread pudding... And my mind is filled with possibilities for flavors next time, including a sweet version.

Must Go Confit Shopping

I know.
I live in the Bay Area. I can drive to a boutique charcuterie less than an hour away and load up on duck confit; we usually get legs because I like dark meat and they're so useable.
We ate up the last of our duck confit the other day. It freezes well, but it will not last forever if your winter diet includes cassoulet.
Oh, wait! I'm thinking winter salad, too. With shreds of duck leg. Oh, I have to try that soon.
But I need the confit. Which means a drive to Napa, to The Fatted Calf. Which probably also means a lunch at Ubuntu. Which sounds very Christmassy, come to think of it, even if it's not Christmassy at all. Just festive and wintry.
So what's stopping me?
The dog.
She is slowly becoming accustomed to staying alone, but we haven't tested her for the length of time it would take to do the Napa trip.
I say, what the hell. Leave her.
I gotta get some confit.

Winter Food

Aaack! I am stuffed silly.
I've been eating vast quantities of nourishing, warming winter food: soups, stews, cassoulets, polentas, sausages, potatoes, cabbage...
I am full.
Yesterday I needed a salad. Just a simple salad.
Cranky trimmed some baby hearts of Romaine lettuce, and whipped up a blue cheese/ranch dressing (you mix some sour cream into some buttermilk, and crumble in the blue cheese; salt and pepper, dried herbs if you insist, and that's it).
You wouldn't think a simple salad would fill you up, but it was a good plateful and I ate every bite.

A Whole Latke Shakin' Goin' On

Well, looky here. Two salmon posts in a row, and I just said we don't eat salmon all that often.
We'll be eating it more than we expected to, though, because we bought a pack of smoked salmon that ended up being too smoky for this dish. It will be used in a pasta dish I've been making for years.
This second pack of salmon, Nova by genre, is tender and mild (thought I'd use some Christmas carol lyrics there; we got our tree today).
The idea was simple. I saw an image of a poached egg atop a potato latke the other day. I thought, "How can I get that a little closer to Eggs Benedict?" Totally gluten-free to begin with, yet a slice of ham would be so wrong. Especially tonight, when the first Hanukkah candle is lit. So salmon it was.
I mulled the Hollandaise sauce issue, and with the help of a wise friend, concluded NO. But I wanted a drizzle of something, so I decided on brown butter.
The latkes were too thick (it was Cranky's first time, and he was a trooper, even if he was trying to sculpt an English muffin from a pile of wet tuber shavings). Next time, thinner and crisper.
But the concept and the flavors were just right. Molten yolk on velvety salmon. The imperative brown butter. Oy.
I would totally make this meal again. I'll have to; there's a ton of salmon in the fridge.

Food Esthetics

We cook salmon once in a while. It's not in heavy rotation, but now and then we get the urge.
We have a bunch of ways to cook salmon. But for some reason, whenever I marinate a salmon fillet (in miso, or in this case, peanut butter), Cranky manages to deliver blackened fish. Bleh.
I don't complain; if I'm not personally manning the stove I've got no right to carp. I just thought he was being careless. It is way too easy to burn a marinade.
But this time I asked him. "Why the black spots?"
Him: "I thought it looked cool!"
He did it on purpose.
(Don't worry; we have a pre-nup.)

Who Pooped on the Rug This Morning?

Dang. Just when I thought we had it all under control.
A couple of days ago I decreed that Bartlett was finally housebroken. She had learned to find a way to tell us when she needed to relieve herself. (Wriggling, scratching, a sharp intelligent look if we asked if she wanted to go outside.)
We thought she was empty this morning and gave her a bit of unsupervised floor time.
I was way down at one end of the house (see, this isn't MY fault) and Cranky was doing something in the kitchen. He heard Bartlett barking at the door.
Bartlett doesn't know how to bark at the door! Whatever could it have meant? Nothing, right?
Shortly afterward, she came to tell me she had to pee. So I took her out, and *jackpot.* I even rewarded her with a treat. Jeez, peeing for cookies.
When we went back inside, Bartlett walked over to a suspicious brown lump on the rug near the door. A poop! In the house!
To her credit, two things: She tried to get somebody to open the door when it was necessary. And she made sure I found the fresh, quivering mass before somebody stepped in it.
What a good girl!

The Poutine Routine

In a recent issue of The New Yorker, Calvin Trillin tackled the topic of poutine, the Quebecois dish of french fries, cheese curds, and brown gravy.
To paraphrase the kids on the old Life cereal commercial with Mikey, "he liked it!"
Nothing against Mr. Trillin, a long-standing favorite food writer of mine, but I thought of it first.
No, not before the Canadians thought of it. I just thought of eating some before the New Yorker article appeared.
We're a long way from Montreal here in the SF Bay Area, so my hopes of sampling a poutine depended on pluck and determination. (Well, I could go to a local restaurant, I suppose; poutine is invading the lower 48 at an amazing pace.)
And my poutine would depend on gravy.
I made (as usual, and yes, I'm boasting) a fantastic turkey gravy for Thanksgiving. Local, except for the gluten-free flour I used to thicken it (which gave it a new-to-me glossy sheen).
Cranky made local french fries (he cooks them in a skillet with very little oil).
And our farmers market sells local cheese curds. Wow.
So how do you assemble it? You just dump it all together on a plate. The cheese softens in the heat, and the gravy drenches everything.
Was it authentic? I have no idea.
But it was so yummy (I had envisioned giving it a hold-your-nose polite taste) that I gobbled everything up and want to have it again, soon. Really, you don't have to be drunk to like it.
I'm writing a song. "If my butt don't fit through that door, blame Canada."