How I Spent My Last Two Days

This is not a review.
I'm just about finished reading Anthony Bourdain's new book, Medium Raw. One may have issues with Bourdain, but one loves this book.
I saw somewhere that it might even outsell his breakout book, Kitchen Confidential, which is (gasp) ten years old now. It's brisk, brash and full of braggadoccio, as you might expect.
But it's also tender and humble and hopeful. And nice. Bourdain's a fat old daddy, now, after all. No more boozin' and chasin' skirts. Well, he might still be boozin' but he's off the drugs and even the cigarettes.
What's it about? It's a series of essays, mostly unrelated. He tells about the reckless, drunk, stoned heiress he found himself following around in the Caribbean until she got to be too much for him, and he... ditched her! Flew off the island, left her bills unpaid, got his sanity back.
There's a chapter on his heroes and villains in the restaurant business. Rachael Ray is neither. (Well, she might be, but she goes unmentioned. He ragged on her so relentlessly in an earlier, ugly incarnation of himself that she... sent him a fruit basket! His heart melted, and now he leaves her alone.) The heroes and villains include names like Gael Greene, Fergus Henderson and Jamie Oliver. Guess which is which. (Alice Waters gets her own, whole chapter.)
My favorite chapter is not about Bourdain. It's about the guy who skins, guts, scales and filets 700 pounds of fish every day for Le Bernardin. Jeez, Tony! You're being a reporter! It's a good read, charming, clinical, almost (but never) emotional. Anyone who gets weepy, you're just a sissy-ass.
Oh, yeah, the language. Still vintage Bourdain, so if you wither at the thought of four- and three- and seven- and (sheesh, how many?) letter words, take a pass. I found it very natural and a lot of fun. It just made me want to start a new blog where I use my "other" vocabulary. My louche lexicon.
Bourdain is a damn good writer. It's what he does now. He's no longer a chef; he's a damn good writer.
This sounds like a review, doesn't it? Eek, sorry.

Lardo Is... Hardo

You can't scare me, strange-meat world.
Jellyfish tentacles? Ate some.
Tripe? Oh, don't make me laugh.
Brain? I was eating scrapple as a toddler.
I haven't tried all the organs of all the species, not by a long shot.
But, cockscombs? Had a bowl of them, with duck tongues!
So how hard could lardo be? The cured fatback of pork, seasoned with herbs. I'd heard so many stories about cutting luscious thin slices of the stuff, and mashing it into bread, almost like butter.
First, I could hardly cut it. It's fibrous and dense. Butter does not come to mind.
Second, when I took a bite, I nearly gagged on the texture. OK, I did gag. I could hardly close my teeth on the ropy tissue. Grease with gristle?
It tasted good. We served our little strips on bread, drizzled with a thin thread of honey and sprinkled with a few grains of Maldon salt.
It was even better once we gave up on the lardo and ate the bread with honey and salt (and that nice smear of fat left behind).
I've got a whole slab of this trembling white product. I think I'm going to have to apply heat.

How Hot Was It?

It was so hot here yesterday, I fired up the oven to cool off the kitchen.
It was so hot, I had to hold my cold beverage in my hand. The drink coaster was set on "boil."
It was so hot, everything electric or electronic stopped working. Garage door. Phone. Internet service.
It was so hot, running a fan in the bedroom was like Satan laughing at me with stinky breath.
It was so hot — and this is true, eerie, sad — that bumblebees died in midair and fell out of the sky. We actually watched it happen and picked up their carcasses.

The Pressure of Bounty

This is my fourth summer of unrelenting pear harvest.
The first year was so daunting, I forced about 30 friends to come over for a party. The rule was, no one could leave without a sack of pears.
We are taking it a little more casually now. Cranky likes to deliver little loads of the perfect fruit to his friends when he's out on coffee patrol. If the pears get too ripe, we cavalierly dump them into the green can. (I have NOT convinced myself to throw them on the compost heap. Rats? Raccoons? Eep.)
Still, we have a lot of pears. And I'm not even talking about the plum tree. Yes, I am. Daunting. Making some sort of plum sludge in a hot pot today; really, better than it sounds.
Fortunately, the harvest of both trees is nearly finished. A few more breakfasts of sliced cold pears, and I'll probably be looking forward to next year.
That plum sludge? Not so sure.

Creativity, Simplified

There are so many divine food purveyors in the Bay Area.
For those days when I just can't be bothered to whip up something wonderful, but I still want to eat something wonderful, I have learned to use the fast food of local artisans.
Yeah!
Chris Cosentino and Mark Santore Pastore (I got it wrong) are providing spaghetti sauce in a jar. They'd never call it that. It's ragu. And it's made from the pointy tip ends of salami, the parts that can't be sliced. These seasoned little meat nuggets get ground up and blended with tomatoes and who knows what else. It's thick, so at home you thin the sauce with a little pasta water or whatever. Making a sort of expensive purchase ($12) go a long way. We got three meals each for the two of us.
However (and sorry, Chris and Mark), I'm now thinking of making my own ragu from a similar formulation and freezing it in packets for emergency suppers. Might even use Boccalone sausage (of course I will!). I could flavor it differently each time, as the mood strikes. Extra tomato. Garlic. Hot chiles. Fun.
Today we flavored ours with mushrooms, and if you think mushrooms are a tired old pasta cliche, think again. Really good to eat.
So, I'm actually excited about this. It's comfort food, made in a most comforting fashion.

NEWSFLASH: We cooked the pasta in water, duh, with a sprig of fresh bay leaves. We had never before cooked pasta with bay leaves in the water. It was so smart. So proper. It's an "always," now.

I Wish This Was Me Today

But, no. I'm tending to necessitudes, like mailing off a wedding present. Dumb store didn't even have the imagination to wrap it festively, so I'm doing that too. After a trip to the festive store.
If you've even read this far, here's what the old dude on the beach and I have to tell you.
Don't Use Soap. (When you shower; it's fine for your greasy dishes.)
Oh, and of course you can use some soap "here and there" for freshness, yome sane? Your armpits, hm?
But for the rest of your body, just get wet and scrub with a washcloth. It takes off the schmutz and the dead skin and the graffiti and bedbugs. (Eek! Kidding.)
(Do people still have washcloths? You could use a loofah mitt. But be advised, it'll need to be laundered every couple of showers.)
For your face, use a special face scrubber pad from the store if you want, but no soap. The residual makeup and whatever else you put on your skin will wash away, along with the day's pollutants.
Seriously. Your skin will feel dewy, not chemically and dry.
I've been doing this for a few weeks now, and I'm happy.
Nobody recoils in horror.

It's Still Summer

Fall's more than a month away. Why am I seeing "End-of-Summer" stories and stuff?
I know the poor kids have to go back to school in August (and it's a good thing that wasn't the law when I was in grade school or I'd have found some way to go postal. I'd still be in San Quentin, marking X's on the wall in my childish handwriting).
I really don't need to be reminded of fall clothing, if you don't mind. I've got boots and scarves and hats; don't need to see Old Navy ads.
Nor do I particularly want to look at any swimsuit sales. It's been a bit brisk, meteorologically, this season, and goosebumps in my backyard? Not a lovely sight.
I'll tell you what's a lovely sight in my backyard. I have two eggplant babies, starting to grow. It looks like I will have several ripe tomatoes in about a week.
The tomatillos and the pattypan squash were complete duds.
But, we have cucumbers. Crispy, slicy cukes, needing nothing more than a dash of liquids from the condiment shelf.
I'm huddled out there, my fleece pulled up to my ears, snacking on those munchy tubes. Pretending it's still summer.

The 80s -- SO Over

These corn kernels are cooked within an inch of their life. No, I think they died and went to heaven.
I have been on a butter-braise streak, and the latest vegetable to fall under the sway of hot dairy grease is corn.
We always cook corn the frantic way: Boil the water, throw in the corn, remove from heat, fret, worry, are we al dente and cool enough?
Unless water is an ingredient I'm going to eat, I'm off water. No soggying up my veggies. (I probably will have exceptions; not sure yet. Maybe not.)
Two ears of corn, kernels shaved off. Gross, egregious pat of butter. (My diet is fairly Spartan; I can afford to go nuts on butter.) A minced cayenne chili, fresh off the vine. Salt.
Some heat, a pan, a lid. Some time. A half hour. Do not be afraid about the time. You are aiming for caramelization here and there, and you will love it.
Please do this while there's still corn.

Not Ugly! Not Ugly!

I've been in butter-braise bliss, lately.
We're talking about vegetables, here. A pan with a lid. Some salt. A hunk of butter. And about 20 minutes of your time.
I first experienced butter-braise bliss with asparagus, and then applied the trick to a handful of whole, baby carrots.
Not long ago I bathed peas in butter, long past the al dente stage, and... bliss.
I was in a hurry last week when I wanted to caramelize some corn kernels in butter, and I didn't reach happy. But there is fresh corn in the house, and I'm trying again, maybe today.
However, then. This is the winner (so far): Artichoke bottoms.
My whole life, I've only cooked artichokes with moisture, either in boiling water, or steamed in a pressure cooker. It's fine. But only now do I realize how waterlogged the leaves and heart get. Not appallingly, but just sad.
I had a bag of artichokes from the plants in the front yard. They were getting kinda old, I'm embarrassed to say. So I plucked off the leaves (a deft little snap that actually keeps a bit of flesh attached to the globe). Cut them in half, pole-wise. Yanked out all the fuzzy choke.
Now it gets easy. Melt lots of butter in the pan, not too hot. Lay the groomed artichokes in the grease, cut side (or choke side) down. Put on the lid and WALK AWAY. (Well, it's OK if you want to peek to adjust the temperature.) You can wait almost an hour, while the artichokes develop a sweet, soft-chewy texture. Garden candy. Vegetable pudding. Use a spoon.
Bliss.
What else should I butter-braise?

Fried Mortadella Sandwich

Never had a fried bologna sandwich.
Never wanted one.
Then, I wanted one. Because I would do it right. Good bread, good meat, good technique.
That sounds really braggy.
Anyway, I used thin slices of mortadella, four per sandwich. It wasn't enough. You want a pile. Sizzle them in some fat, bunched up like rosebuds, until they brown here and there. We used Fra' Mani mortadella, which is local and very nice. We happen to have two more sources of local, artisan mortadella in these parts (one stack in the fridge, even as we speak), so I plan on nailing this sandwich. I will try again.
OK, spread a thin layer of decent mustard on one slice of bread, and a thin layer of mayo on the other (these are now the insides). Thick it up if you want; this is junk food with superior ingredients, and only abject overdo-ness will ruin your sammie.
Pull the sizzled rosebuds of meat from the frying pan and heap them evenly over one slice of bread. Top with the other slice and place the sandwich in the greasy skillet; grill on both sides, aiming for a golden brown crust. Nothing's gonna melt in there, so just let it go as long as you can stand.
You could embellish with slices of cheese, lettuce or tomatoes. Sheesh. That sounds like a lunchbox sandwich from 1959, and, no. Let's keep it pure meat and bread.
Remove the sandwich with a spatula, cut the sandwich artistically, and decorate with basil flowers.
Take picture, snort a couple of chuckles, and then ditch the basil flowers. Don't wanna eat the flowers.
Should I be morta-fried? I'm not.

60s Food Rejiggered for Style

If anyone even tries a version of this robust tapas dish, I will be amazed and flattered.
I mean, tuna, beans and mushrooms? Gack. And whaddup with the white drizzle over it all?
It was inspired by a pseudo-gourmet casserole my mom used to make in the early, pseudo-gourmet 60s. A simple assemblage of a can of tuna, a can of mushrooms, a box of frozen baby limas, all draped with sour cream (which must have been diluted somehow).
I loved that casserole, even if it never really all came together. It was just mouthful after mouthful of discrete food chunks, barely bound by the cream. The flavors were good, as odd as that may sound.
These days I tend to adore small plates, snazzy little samples of good tastes.
We recently bought some proper canned tuna (sustainable, yadda), and I know Cranky is always ready to cook beans in our little Crock Pot. It so happens Cranky had just simmered up a cauldron of fresh vegetable stock, made fragrant with empty pea pods, stripped corncobs, herbs, a few fennel fronds and, and, and. It would make a delicious simmering medium for white beans (and it did).
It was my job to marinate some mushrooms. So easy. Why don't I do it more often?
Assembly: Strew beans across plate. Heap tuna chunks on one side and mushrooms on the other (and spoon lots of the marinade over everything.
Top with a squirt of creme fraiche and a snowfall of minced parsley.
I won't blame you for not trying this silly little meal (though we thought it was insanely good).
If nothing else, though, please promise you will cook white beans in vegetable stock.
And if you have read this far, thank you and you're welcome.

Little Jack Horner's Olives

See this jar of little misshapen potatoes?
They are plums, not potatoes.
They don't look like plums, and they certainly don't look like the umeboshi I was aiming for.
Well, they weren't ume plums to begin with, so what did I expect? They were unripe green gage plums, a little large, a little thick of skin. I tried anyway.
I couldn't be bothered to find fresh red shiso leaves, so I settled for a jar of dried red shiso flakes seasoned with salt and sugar.
The only other ingredient in the recipe is salt. As a first timer, I decided to shoot for a midrange level of saltiness, but day after day I found myself sprinkling in more shiso flakes, and the salt that came with them.
The plums never did turn red. They turned salty. But, to be fair, they taste deliciously of shiso. It's a magic, sort of licorice-y flavor.
At the end of the curing and drying period, Cranky and I sampled one plum. Salty. But, oh! It's... it's... an olive! With that magic shiso flavor.
I'd call it a success.

I Grew It, I'm Eating It, Damnit

Not the potatoes. Not the salt, black pepper, vinegar or olive oil.
No. I grew the red cayenne pepper and a few thyme leaves. I didn't really even grow the thyme leaves; I just transplanted the source into dirt on my patio. It's mine, OK?
What a lousy harvest this year. We had a terribly late start to any kind of sun. It's reliably sunny now, but there's not a lot of food coming in from the backyard. One cucumber. Three tomatoes. That cayenne pepper.
Some plants are stunted and confused; the pattypan squash is producing only male blossoms, and is only six inches tall. The tomatillo is covered with blossoms, but I'm having a hard time detecting any other development.
Anyway. Not really complaining. I knew it was going to be weird this year.
I saw that red cayenne, and decided to honor it, to showcase it. I made it the centerpiece of a potato salad (not counting the potatoes). I wanted it to be a wicked, dark, Transylvanian potato salad, so I left out Hello Kitty Hard-Cooked Eggs and Flopsy Bunny Mayonnaise.
Therefore: excellent oil and vinegar, large clods of cracked black pepper, minced cayenne and thyme leaves. Topped with flakes of Maldon salt.
I guess that sounds ordinary, but it was evil and nasty and fantastic, just the way I wanted it.

The Dog Dreams of Summer

Bartlett's first birthday is next week.
It couldn't come too soon, even though it's always sad to see puppyhood end.
But this puppy was a pogo stick, a motorcycle, an escape artist. Hard to handle, unpredictable.
To all my wise friends who suggested I'd have a rough time of it, and then she would begin to mellow out, you were right. Thanks for the advice.
Her maturation, plus the incessant training we give her, have produced a nice dog. She will come when we call. Stranger (and better) still, she will wait when we tell her to. In the middle of whatever she's doing, she'll stand stock still and let me pick her up for nuzzles. She finally figured out that the nuzzles were far better than the joy she got from being defiant.
She's not perfect. I suppose no dog is.
But she's nice. Smart. Athletic. Cute. Cuddly.
She doesn't beg for human food, because we never give her any.
She has only slept in one place since we brought her home: our bed.
She has developed a gentle independent nature, where she will just wander off into another room and chew on a stick, alone.
She is comfortable staying by herself when we go out. We zip her into her playpen and she goes to sleep. Easy.
She thinks we really like her poo, because she watches us wrap it up in a napkin and put it in a "special place."
She's a big girl.

Just Beautiful

It's hash, OK? (As if you couldn't tell.)
What's worse, it's meatloaf hash, which is a fancy way of saying hamburger hash (and I just had a dizzying flashback to the junior high cafeteria).
So, yeah, it's ugly.
But as hash goes, it's beautiful. The perfect brown crust. The scattering of freshly picked chopped parsley (and it could have used more). The meltingly soft potatoes — leftover mashed potatoes — that enfold it all.
The meatloaf was made using one Italian sausage, which lent some nice spiciness to the mix. But for this hash, I wanted to see if I could make it reminiscent of corned beef hash, so I sprinkled in some ground allspice. (And some ground cumin, because ground cumin makes everything better.) The meatloaf also contained chopped onion, but I added more to the hash. Not a lot.
In a departure (for me), I decided to cook the hash in olive oil instead of butter. Butter is so very welcoming to food. It says, "Hey, come on in! Let's get friendly." Oil is all stoic, arms folded at chest. "Come in, let's get it over with but then I never want to see you again." In a funny accent, no less.
What I'm trying to say is that I got a crisper result from the oil. Better (and faster) browning. And as one who has stood at the stove for an hour or more trying to get that crust with butter, well, I'm converted.
My final tip, if you're inclined to try hash. Once you get your meat, potatoes, onions and seasonings mixed, splash in a good few tablespoons of milk. Not for the liquidity, but because it sinks to the bottom and makes a brown crust.
(Scientifically, I could be wrong about the milk sinking. Because the other side also browns up beautifully when you turn it.)
Medium-high heat. Leave it alone while you chop the parsley, and then turn it after about five or six minutes. Second side, five or six minutes.
It was very, very tasty. Not like meatloaf at all (and not like corned beef hash). Sweet, creamy, chewy. Hashy.
I might do this again.