Zoomie Station

Be A Lamb

2012-01-30T05:42:00.000-08:00

"Be a lamb, will you, and take Cora out for her walk?" I asked My Beloved on the first rainy night in months. That last walk of the evening is usually my responsibility, and it only takes a few minutes, but I was weaseling out. I had gotten spoiled by the past two months of moonlit, starry nights.

He complied. He's sweet that way. That's why it's important to me to return his generosity with meals I think he will enjoy. Like Lamb Loaf.

I had this idea, not an original one, I'm sure, when I took a package of ground lamb out of the freezer. I thought about lamb burgers but we had those fairly recently and, besides, I was in the mood for something different. "What else can one do with ground lamb?" I wondered and the idea came in a flash. Why not make a meat loaf from lamb?

I changed up my usual meatloaf recipe a bit, to highlight the lamb's flavor. Garlic. Mushrooms. Onions. Oh, yes. I also thought about and discarded the notion of serving this meatloaf with catsup - not a happy thought with lamb. Instead, I made a quick tzatziki as counterpoint to the rich meat, and that was a good idea; the mildly astringent sauce complemented very well.

Next time your honeylambsweetiepiedarling does you a favor, lamb loaf may well be the perfect reward.

Honeylambsweetiepiedarling Lamb Loaf

3/4 pound ground lamb

1 large onion, chopped

3 large cloves garlic, minced

6-8 crimini mushrooms, sautéed lightly

2 slices whole wheat bread, torn into little bits

1 egg mixed with a generous splash of milk

In a wide frying pan, sauté the mushrooms over medium high heat in a little olive oil until their liquid has been released and reabsorbed, then add the onions and garlic just to soften. Set aside to cool a bit.

In a large bowl, crumble the ground lamb and the bread, mixing with your hand to distribute evenly. Add the vegetables and mix again. Add the egg mixture and mix again.

Gently pack the meat mixture into a loaf pan (I used an 8"x8" Corning ware casserole) and bake at 400 degrees F for an hour. Cut into slices and serve with tzatziki sauce on the side.

Simple Tzatziki

You can drain the plain Greek yogurt and squeeze the extra moisture out of the cucumber, or you can just do as I did and use them without the preliminaries. Still makes a tasty little sauce.

1/2 cucumber, seeds removed and finely diced

1/2 cup plain Green yogurt

1 teaspoon fresh or dried dill weed (I used dried)

Mix all three ingredients in a small bowl or measuring cup. Let stand for perhaps 30 minutes to meld flavors.

Quick Fix

2012-01-29T06:06:00.000-08:00

I made a big pot of rice as substrate for my oven barbecued spareribs, and had two meals' worth left over. I like rice, especially basmati rice, but three nights in a row of plain white rice might strain relations with My Beloved, who likes variety.

So, the second night, I gently browned some cracked almonds (I cracked raw almonds in a little baggie with a rolling pin) in a dab of butter, then added the rice to heat with the buttery almond goodness.

Big hit.

So the third night, I did the same with pecans, and he liked that even better. Next, I'm going to try this "recipe" with Massa rice, which I fully expect will be swoonworthy.

Quick fix.

Sourpuss Pizza

2012-01-28T05:53:00.000-08:00

Is anyone called a sourpuss any more? I certainly was in my youth, either by my classmates or by my older siblings. Perhaps that would be called bullying today - it certainly seemed like it 'way back then.

These days, however, sour is good and I probably wouldn't resist the moniker. I love plain yogurt and I delight in cornichons and pickled onions. And, when a pal gives me sourdough starter for the second time (I killed the first batch with neglect), I get busy and use it.

We've been enjoying pizzas made at home, and the amount of starter that I was gifted was just about the right amount for two personal size pizzas, so I followed the recipe and rolled it out thinly before topping.

This time, I went "gur-may" with my toppings. I used fresh mozzarella, fresh sautéed crimini mushrooms, and diced, crisped pancetta on one half and spicy Italian sausage on the other. I could hardly believe what an amazing difference those ingredients made. The crust was crisp-chewy with a delightful sour tang. The cheese was super oozy, the simple essence of "dairy" - just the way I like it, even if the bottom of my oven is now smoking from the cheese that ran over the edge of the pizza and self immolated on the oven floor. The mushrooms were rich with funky fungal flavor and I honestly couldn't decide which meat I preferred - they were both out of this world.

The only down side of this sourpuss pizza is that it has spoiled me for ordering delivery from the pizza place down the hill.

Sourdough Pizza Crust, thanks to Jim Sartain

1-1/2 cups mature sourdough starter

1-1/2 cups flour

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 450F. (Some people prefer hotter. Try 550F if your oven will take you there)

Mix ingredients, working in the flour until you have a soft dough (I used my KitchenAid mixer to mix and knead in one step). If the dough gets too dry, add some more starter. If you've used all the starter, add a bit of water.

Knead dough, cover and let rise for 1/2 hour. This lets the dough relax, so forming the pizza is easier. Once the dough has rested, roll out into a flat round shape. Jim rolls his dough on parchment paper, turning the dough 1/8 turn between rolls and only rolling the dough away from him; he says it's easier to make a circular shape that way. If you want thin crust, you'll have a bigger circle.

Once you have a nice, round shell, you can pre-bake it, or top it and bake. To pre-bake, slide the parchment and pie onto a baker's peel, then into the oven. Works better if you use quarry tiles or a baking stone. Bake about 5 minutes - it doesn't take long, so watch carefully. Once the shell is pre-baked, you can cool it and then freeze it, or top it and finish baking*.

When you're ready to top the pizza, rub a bit of olive oil on the surface to keep the crust from getting soggy. Top with your ingredients. (I used fresh mozzarella and it ran over - if you use fresh mozzarella, which I heartily endorse, leave at least an inch between the cheese and the edge of the dough).

Bake for about 10 minutes, but watch carefully to see when the crust gets just brown enough. Pull your incredible, bubbling pizza from the oven using a peel if you have one, cut it in wedges and serve.

*I skipped the pre-baking step and just topped the raw dough after brushing it with a little olive oil. It worked like a champ.

Mother Love

2012-01-27T05:18:00.000-08:00

My mother was not very demonstrative. She sided with my teachers in all disputes and didn't hesitate to let me know when I had disappointed her. She didn't hug and kiss us much and I can't recall her ever telling me in words that she loved me. I knew, however, that it was true.

There were plenty of indications of her fondness. She'd lie in the grass on a spring day and watch clouds with me tucked against her side. Or, on a summer night, she'd show me the constellations. She would brush and braid my hair. She'd read to us at night when I was too young to read for myself, with my sister and me tucked on either side of her in her big bed.

Of course, there were less welcome ways of showing her love, too - like correcting my table manners and making me clean my room - but twenty years after she went to heaven, I tend to remember the good times more than the bad.

One of the ways I knew I was loved was that she made oven barbecued spare ribs for me. The whole family ate them but no one loved them as much as I did. I'd come home from school to the heavenly smell of rich pork bubbling away in the oven, redolent of tomato sauce and allspice, and my mouth would begin to water as soon as I came through the door. It was agony waiting for dinner time. When she saw me grinning and looking hungry, she'd smile into my eyes, sharing my delight. I think she had been waiting all day to share that smile with me.

I decided one day last week to try to duplicate her way with spare ribs, although her recipe has been lost. Sadly, today, it's hard to find the kind of rich, meaty, fatty country spare ribs that used to make that recipe so delicious. Today's leaner pork tends to dry out in the oven and never attain quite that unctuous richness that I so loved as a child. However, I got pretty close with my experiment. I didn't measure, just threw in a bit of this and a splash of that until it smelled about as I remembered.

It was good over rice but it was best the next day in a pulled pork sandwich. I had tried some of those very thin buns that they sell in store now and that was less that wonderful - next time, I'll use Chilebrown's recipe - but the filling was full of sweet, soft onions, tender pork and memory-inducing sauce, laced with mother love.

How does your mother show her love? Or is she one who actually tells you?

Oven Barbecued Pork Spare Ribs

I didn't measure the ingredients, so this is very approximate; that gives you absolute freedom to tweak the recipe to your own taste. I browned the meat in a pan, added the onion and garlic to soften, deglazed, then put that and all the rest of the ingredients in the crock pot for several hours on "high," until it was so tender that it fell apart.

Apple cider vinegar, perhaps 1/4 cup

balsamic vinegar, a generous splash

lemon juice of half a lemon

soy sauce, a generous splash

tomato sauce, one small can

tomato paste, a big squeeze out of the tube, mixed in with the tomato sauce

Sartain's marinade, just had about 1/4 of a cup left, so I used that, then added some water to the bottle and shook it to get the rest and to add a little liquid to the pot.

powdered ginger, perhaps two teaspoons

allspice, one teaspoon and a dash more

garlic, four or five cloves, roughly chopped

onion, one medium, sliced lengthwise through the root to make spears

The first night, I served it over rice. The next day, I pulled the pork apart for the sandwich, adding just a little lettuce and a scrape of mayo laced with a light squeeze of lemon juice to keep the bun from getting soggy.

The Shleppers' Loaf

2012-01-25T05:12:00.000-08:00

My Beloved and I started the New Year with the discovery that Some Creature had been using our downstairs storage area, the part of the house we call Deep Storage, as a hotel room and a dunny.

Deep Storage is where we keep our spare dining room chairs, the extra leaves for our table, and a plethora of other stuff that we can't bear to part with, everything from Christmas decorations and empty luggage and hot tub cleaners to back issues of car racing magazines and memorabilia and books I have read and loved.

From time to time, we have had four-legged boarders in that area, usually shy ones that left behind fecal calling cards but were never actually seen. We would know they were there when either our cats or, more recently, Cora would be peering intently down the heater vents. Apparently they could hear or smell Some Creature down there. When we noticed this, we'd go around the base of the house looking for the entry points and blocking them up. Then peace would reign again for several more years.

One time about ten years ago, there was an entire family of possums down there; these were the only boarders we ever actually confronted. They huddled together in their improvised bed of our pink fiberglass insulation, three or four triangular grey heads with black, shoe button eyes, bare ratlike tails and sharp teeth, hissing and snarling when we turned on the light. Not wanting a confrontation, we carefully built out of boxes and spare chairs a constructed canyon that led from their location, out the door and down the steps to freedom. We left the light on and tiptoed away, hoping they would see the wisdom in using the escape route we had built for them. When we went back the next day, they had departed, so we cleaned up their mess, quickly closed the door, found their entry point and blocked it up.

So, when Cora was again seen doing her imitation of "His Master's Voice" over the heater vent, we knew there was work to be done. We donned our work gloves, pulled on our scruffiest pants and went to do battle in Deep Storage. It was the work of several days to clean out the remnants -including a very dead, dried husk of a rat - of the occupying force and nasty work it was, indeed. We threw away stuff that had been soiled and, while we were at it, organized the rest and covered it to keep it reasonably clean between uses.

We found a small truckload of items for donation to our local theater company, either to sell to raise money or to use as props in their productions, and set those aside for pickup (if you have miscellany that you don't want, try offering it to theatre companies - they love all kinds of odd things for their sets).

We called the pest control guy to do a better job of blocking entrances. He was wonderfully discreet and professional, arriving in an unmarked truck so our neighbors wouldn't know that Some Creature had visited us. He did a fine job of locating the entrance that I never would have found and securing it. It turns out that likely Some Creature was our neighbors cat.

Then, we bagged the trash for transport to the dump and schlepped it all upstairs to be metered out into the waste stream little by little. All in all, it was a solid week's work. Whew!

On the final day, while My Beloved drove the electronic stuff over to Best Buy (they will recycle electronic items safely, three at a time, for free), I made lunch. Before I even began, I changed clothes and had a shower, glad to wash off the dirt and sweat. It had to be a big lunch, as we were both starving, and it had to be a celebratory lunch for two weary workers who finally finished their nasty task.

We happened to have the remnants of four kinds of good bread in the house (challah, sourdough, pain au levain and herb slab), so I used them all, slicing them thinly using my mother's Slice-a-Slice before slathering them with mayo, mustard, horseradish or cranberry sauce and adding sliced cucumber, ham and Swiss, leftover steak and turkey respectively. A frill of lettuce for each and onto the growing stack it went. No sandwich was bigger than three bites and My Beloved devoured one or two in a single, cheek-filling chomp.

We have eaten the dainty Motor Loaf at Tal-y-Tara that features a variety of sandwich fillings and loved it, but this was anything but dainty. We christened it the Schleppers' Loaf and devoured it with relish.

A Grand Read

2012-01-23T05:43:00.000-08:00

It has very little to do with cooking and eating, except for the sage advice about eating on the road that he gives on page 191, "It helps if you make it a rule never to eat in any restaurant with kings, foxes, coaches or horses in the name. Beware of the word "gourmet." If a restaurant says it serves gourmet food, you are going to get a frozen dinner that has been warmed up in the microwave."

It mainly has to do with his life as a peripatetic journalist, first with newspapers and later with CBS. I always loved Kuralt's "On the Road" segments after Walter Cronkite had intoned the news in his sonorous voice, so when I saw Charles' 1990 autobiography on a used book table, I picked it up on a whim.

It's a lovely piece of writing. It flows and dips, brings emotion (just enough!) into the pages and gives you a nice glimpse into his life and his persona. It's not all beer and skittles, either out on the road or in his personal life, but it's all interesting, well written and fun. He has met his share of celebrities but his best stories, as was always the case in the "On the Road" segments, are about the average Joes that he met out there in middle America far from the hot spots.

I guess the best part about him is he was human. Not perfect, not coiffed, not gorgeous. Just warmly human and able through words to convey his humanity to his readers and viewers. After his death, I read about his double life and his reputation should have taken a slide with me at that point, but in an odd way, it just added to his humanity.

If you see it, pick it up and decide for yourself if he was a vile sinner or just grandly human. In any case, it's a good read.

Have A Crabby New Year

2012-01-21T05:26:00.000-08:00

Good Acme bread in a pretty basket that was a holiday gift from a friend. Organic sweet butter from a local dairy. Cracked crab that was peacefully scavenging on the bottom of the ocean just yesterday. The San Francisco Chronicle spread out to catch the juices and the shells, and advertising the delicious new season of Downton Abbey.

It's cliché to say so but, baby, it doesn't get much better than this.

Photo credit, Buzz Baylis.

Hamming It Up

2012-01-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

The other night, when My Beloved was delayed on business up in the mountains, he called to say he wouldn't be home for dinner after all. I was bummed; I had planned on grilling a tri-tip on the Weber, both as a celebration of his homecoming and as a celebration of all this unseasonably sunny weather that we've been having. No fun grilling for one and the tri-tip could wait, so I searched in the fridge for something easy and quick.

If you're a regular reader here, you know I love Brussels sprouts and My Beloved does not. So, when I saw a big bag of the little green cabbages and a container of pre-chopped pancetta, I knew I could please myself and My Beloved by eating them up. I was in business.

I trimmed and halved the sprouts while the pancetta browned in a wide frying pan, then tossed the sprouts in to mingle with all that hammy goodness. I wanted them to be tender but only just, retaining their bright greens and yellows. They were browning fast, so I added just a sip of water and a cover for a few minutes to soften them a bit more.

The ham added quite a bit of salt, which really worked with the sprouts. The texture of the sprouts was just right and the bibbits of ham added their richness. Pouring them out onto a plate, I dined in solitude, but I dined well.

Needle Soup

2012-01-17T05:42:00.000-08:00

I was reading recently in the New York Times a fun article that encouraged me to eat my Christmas tree.

Well, maybe not the whole tree, but some of the needles. It seems that the recent interest in Nordic cooking - the latest fad - has brought evergreens into focus as an ingredient. I admit, I was intrigued.

Each year, when it's time to take off all the baubles and lights and drag the poor, brittle tree out to the curb to be ignominiously cut up and stuffed into the green bin, I feel a little sad and guilty.

It took several years to grow what was a splendid tree and in less than a month it is reduced to a tired, browning husk of its former self. I love having a Christmas tree and I probably won't stop until I'm too weak to drag one home or too poor to bribe some college kid to do the dragging for me, but there always comes that sad day.

Now, here was an article that said I could at least salvage a few meals out of the tree, a sort of nose-to-tail eating for the evergreen set. So, when we cut the tree up, I saved some of the greenest tips with soup in mind.

Sausage and bean soup, with pine needles. Or, actually, fir needles because, in my view, if it's not a Douglas fir, it's not Christmas.

I chopped and browned and brothed and simmered but the bad news is that I have to admit that the evergreen tang I was hoping for was not there. Either my tree was too dry, I used too few needles, or Douglas firs are not ideal for culinary adventures. I'm still intrigued and I will keep experimenting with the fresh needles off evergreens I pass on my dog walking routes. The good news is that the soup was delicious anyway, so I'll go ahead and give you the recipe in case you're in a mood to try something similar.

Needle Soup with Sausage and Swiss Chard

3 fresh garlic sausages, about 1/2 pound in all

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

3-4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1-2 ribs of celery chopped, with the leaves

1-2 large carrots, chopped

1 16oz can white beans (I use Navy beans out of sentiment)

1 16 oz can chopped tomatoes

6 (approx) cups chicken broth

1 Tablespoon fir needles, finely minced

3-4 large leaves of Swiss chard, roughly chopped (or you could use spinach, or other greens, but you'd probably need to cook the other greens longer to soften them)

In a large kettle or pot, heat the olive oil to shimmering. Squeeze the sausage out of its casing in little bibbits, sautéing them until nicely browned. Add the rest of the vegetables in this order: onion, garlic, celery, carrot, cooking each successive veggie for a few minutes over medium heat. Add the beans, tomatoes, chicken broth and fir needles, bring to a boil, then cover and reduce the heat to simmer for about an hour. Add the Swiss chard and cover until the chard softens and relaxes, perhaps 5 more minutes. Ladle into bowls.

You will need pepper but you may not need salt, depending on how salty your sausage is. With the tang of pine missing, you might want to add some rosemary, too. I'm imagining that they would taste similarly.

Back To Jacques

2012-01-15T05:24:00.000-08:00

I spent an entire day last week taking down the Christmas tree. Not only had we loaded it with lights and baubles, we had also forgotten to water it for a few days, so it was pretty crisp and shedding needles like crazy.

As I wound the lights up on their storage spindles, carefully placed all the ornaments in their sectioned box for another year, and tracked down and boxed all the other miscellania that I use to decorate the house, I got more and more weary. I had to vacuum at least three times to catch most of the needles. By dinner time, I was bushed.

Luckily, I had taken a couple of chicken breasts out of the freezer but was without a single idea about what to do with them and, frankly, by that point I really didn't care. But I was hungry and so was My Beloved, who emerged from his home office to sniff around the kitchen like a bear leaving hibernation.

Back to Jacques. I have been cooking almost exclusively out of Jacques Pépin's newest big book, "Essential Pépin," and all of the recipes I have tried have been simple, quick and delicious. He has an unfussy, straightforward way with ingredients that I really like. I bought it out of hero worship but I'm learning that my high regard for him is justified. He made our chicken breasts, even when I didn't have all the right ingredients, into something quite special.

Essentially, all I did was grill the breasts and smear on a flavored butter. In this case, a tarragon and lemon flavored butter. The overall taste was similar to Béarnaise sauce but brighter and fresher. The butter was mixed with an equal measurement of olive oil, then swirled with lemon juice and fresh tarragon in a blender. I didn't have fresh tarragon and I was reluctant to get out my blender for a tablespoon or so of sauce, so I just mixed the softened butter in a small bowl with a whisk and it worked like a champ. The butter melted upon contact with the warm chicken breasts, spreading the scents of tarragon and lemon and putting an appetizing shine on the golden chicken.

Next time you are beat to your knees, remember Jacques and you've got dinner in the bag.

Recycling

2012-01-13T05:13:00.000-08:00

I'm a firm believer in recycling. Not just at the curb, but also in the kitchen.

When we made pizza the other day using ground lamb as a topping, we ended up with some lamb left over, just enough for a good lunch for the two of us.

So, we recycled it into small patties, quickly sautéed in a pan and laid on top of a nest of the garlicky Swiss chard and tangy goat cheese we had also used on the pizza. Even the buns were recycled, two I froze when I made Chilebrown's recipe for whole wheat hamburger buns. We toasted them on the grill and put them to work.

It was as good, and maybe even a little better, than the original pizza. Lamb loves garlic and garlic loves Swiss chard and Swiss chard loves goat cheese and goat cheese loves whole wheat. It was a love fest all around and we were glad to be invited to the orgy.

New Years Resolution

2012-01-11T05:43:00.000-08:00

I have made a New Years resolution not to make any more New Years resolutions. If something needs improvement in my life, I want to get on it right away, not wait until New Years to burden myself (and, frankly, others who love me) with the crabby person I become when I'm trying to self-improve. Besides, who knows if I'll be here to improve myself next year? I'm not being morbid, just practical.

The truth is that likely I won't make any major changes this late in life anyway. And, if I admit it, I'm actually pretty happy with my life and my current state of health. I could eat less and lose a few but I'm up to three times per week of swimming for an hour (most weeks) and I walk with Cora a mile or two twice a day up and down the hills of our little town. I figure that's enough character-building for now. And I love to eat.

We eat well. We eat too much, but we eat fresh, well-prepared food for the most part, and we eat a wide variety of foods. We are both pretty healthy (knock wood) and I think that's testament to something, if only to our genes.

Our social life is pretty busy, too - we seem run a welcome B&B and our friends like to eat out so we let the pros cook for us from time to time. In this area, with its plethora of good restaurants, that translates to even better food than I make at home.

A case in point, New Year's Day lunch in Point Reyes Station with our pal Bonnie, one of the inmates - uh, students - 50 years ago when I was boarding at a school in Cannes, France called Cours Maintenon. She and I are both Navy juniors and we reconnected here in California after many years apart and have been good friends ever since. She lives out in West Marin in a quirky and wonderful house in Inverness, so we sometimes meet in PRS to catch up. This time, we met at Stellina, always a good start.

I was about to dig in to my seafood stew when My Beloved, who has lived with a food blogger for about five years now, noted that it was a beautiful plate that I might like to photograph. He was right - the blue-black of the mussels with the bright pink-orange of the shrimp made a pretty contrast with the gray of the clam shells and the sprinkle of fresh parsley. I snapped a quick picture before diving in to the rich flavors wafting up to fog the lens of my camera.

Stellina never disappoints. The stew was full of ocean flavors and piqued with little bits of a mildly spicy sausage. The broth was a little salty, as befits a seafood dish, and redolent of garlic and fennel. Lovely stuff. Make it your New Year's resolution to go there and get some. It beats the heck out of a gym membership.

I'm Doing My Best

2012-01-10T05:29:00.000-08:00

Here in NOCA, it should be raining by now.

We have two seasons rather than four, the Wet and the Dry. Most years, you can count on a dry summer from April to October and a wet winter from November to March - the temperature doesn't vary that much seasonally but the amount of rain does. The fear mongers on the nightly news are already talking drought.

I furled and put away my umbrella. I bought a brand new bag of charcoal for our outdoor grill. I had my car washed. I put out the cushions on our outdoor furniture.

In short, I'm going everything I can think of to encourage the rain gods, but nothing seems to work. For most of December and, so far, all of January we have had day after day of sunny, bright weather and glorious sunsets. My Beloved calls this, "the upside of drought."

I have to admit that I am loving it. I know there may be a price to pay with water restrictions later in the year but, for now, I am reveling in the chance to walk my dog without a raincoat, to enjoy night after night of glorious sunsets and morning after morning of pearly dawns. Since there is nothing I can do about it, I'm just going to wallow in it.

Or maybe I'll try leaving the top down on my convertible overnight. That's a sure-fire rain dance.

Pizza, Take Two

2012-01-08T05:43:00.000-08:00

When we made pizza with the new - ta-da! - Kitchen Aid, we ended up with enough crust for four servings, so I popped the extra two into a baggie in the fridge for later.

What went in had lots of elbow room; what came out was plump and filled to the corners. The baggie nearly burst overnight, as that dough kept rising even in the chilly fridge. Because it smelled yeasty and a little sour, I had high hopes for the flavor.

So, we had pizza again the second night. I punched down the dough, rolled it out thinly again, and slathered it this time with a more traditional mixture of tomato sauce and tomato paste with plenty of oregano mixed in, then topped with mozzarella, slices of dry salami and sautéed mushrooms.

Abbondanza!

Sadly, the sour smell wafted away in the oven and we were left with a similar taste to the night before, but the texture was a little better this time, more elastic and crisp-chewy than the first night. If I use this recipe again, I'll make it a day ahead. But, I'm in the mood to go searching for The Perfect Pizza Dough, so I'll be trying others, keeping this one as a really, really good fallback. There are worse fates than new pizza recipes to try.

More Holiday Gifting

2012-01-06T05:33:00.000-08:00

Damn, but these cell phone cameras are getting good! Pretty soon, no one will bother with stand-alone cameras, they'll just point their phone at the view and shazam!

Which is what happened last week when My Beloved wanted to document the progress of our Christmas turkey to send to his daughters, who were both out of town for Christmas this year.

He got a great shot of my new silicone basting brush, a gift from my sister. Her gift last year was better - last year, she climbed into her little car and came out to visit us - but I like the baster, too.

It's pretty big, so it holds a lot of juice and the yellow head removes to go in the dishwasher, keeping the wooden handle in good shape for a long time to come. It did a fine job in helping the turkey to get nicely browned while keeping the inside moist.

There was a theme to my gifts this holiday season. I think everyone in my life reads me like a book. Jacques Pépin's autobiography, to be exact - another gift from My Beloved.

I'm Keeping It Out On The Counter

2012-01-04T05:11:00.000-08:00

Whenever you get a new appliance, it's important to keep it out on the counter, not just so you can boast about it to anyone who comes by, but also so you learn to use it.

If it's hiding in a cupboard and you're used to doing things one way, you just sigh and think, "Okay, next time I'll get it out - I'm too busy right now." But if it's out there, close to hand and guilting you with every glance, you will pick up the manual and learn how it works.

So, I'm leaving my new amazing appliance on the counter. It paid off this week when I was suddenly hungry for pizza. Usually when that happens, I call down to the village and have them bring me up a medium mushroom pie and a large salad. It's fast unless I have a yen for pizza on a Friday night, that apparently being pizza night for most of the folks in our little town, and the pizza is better than average. This time, however, I saw the Kitchen Aid and thought, "Dough hook! It has a dough hook! I can make my own!"

I delved into my stash of cookbooks and found a recipe that Jamie Oliver likes. It took a few minutes to figure out how to put the dough hook into the machine and turn it on but, sheesh, isn't this why I went to college?

I did eventually get it done.

Almost literally dumped all the ingredients into the bowl and let it become dough. Like magic!

Even though I halved the recipe, it still made enough for four pizzas, so I stashed enough for two into the fridge and rolled out the other two to rough circles about eight inches across, very thin. For toppings, I had some ground lamb in the fridge, a tub of goat cheese and some Swiss chard, which I quickly sautéed in garlic and butter. I brushed the raw crusts with olive oil, laid down a pattern of goat cheese, topped that with limp and redolent Swiss chard, and dotted it with bibbits of ground lamb.

Into a hot, hot oven onto the pizza stone, they cooked for perhaps 10-12 minutes before I fished them out with the pizza peel and My Beloved sliced them into eight small pieces. With the rising, the whole thing took only about an hour, no more than calling the local pizza parlor would have taken on a Friday night.

We are still on the trail of the perfect pizza crust but this combination of toppings was truly swoon-worthy. And the pizzas were Goldilocks size - not too much, not too little, just right.

And all because I kept the Kitchen Aid out on the counter.

Soup Fatigue

2012-01-02T05:33:00.000-08:00

That big pot of soup is good for a few meals, but toward the end, we got tired of the same flavors. Each time it was reheated, the soup got richer and deeper, but it was essentially the same. My Beloved is a variety guy, so the fourth time I mentioned it for lunch, his expression was not exactly joyful.

Clearly he had soup fatigue. Time for a change.

We had been to a happy party the night before, cousin Jan's annual stocking party to which the guests bring a silly little gift for each of the other guests and Jan provides the stockings to put them in. Then, after a delicious dinner that Jan prepares, we all open stockings filled with great little treasures. This year, she had a great big, bone-in ham, smoky, porky and really, really good. My Beloved carved it for her and, after the party, everyone got to take some home - and Jan has the bone to make soup from. Now, does that sound like a great party, or what?

Anyway, when My Beloved gave his half-hearted smile at the idea of soup again, I pulled out our package full of ham and cubed a slice to add to the pot, changing the entire character of the soup in a flash. Magically, now it was hearty ham and bean soup - and My Beloved slurped down every last drop with a big smile.

When you have made a pot of soup that seems bottomless, think of cousin Jan and the instant remedy for soup fatigue.

Holiday Gifting

2012-01-01T05:24:00.000-08:00

Now, this is what I call a good holiday present!

It wasn't a surprise, since the daughters wanted to assure that I or My Beloved didn't go out and buy me the same thing, but it really is a delight.

I have wanted a KitchenAid mixer since God was a child, but I never quite got up the oomph to buy one for myself. I just kneaded and whipped the old fashioned way, eschewing recipes that called for very much of either of those activities. For example, I have always wanted to try making a Bûche de Noel but the thought of all the beating necessary to make the cake batter smooth and ribbony - well, I settled for store bought bûches with their too-sweet icing.

Now, I'm liberated, able to tackle just about any kitchen task. Empowered, that's what I am. Isn't that the definition of a really great holiday gift?

Cheek By Jowl

2011-12-31T05:25:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve was the only day in the past week when My Beloved and I didn't have some kind of social engagement - the holiday season is like that - all feast, no famine. We love it and we wouldn't change it, but it's nice every now and then to have a quiet day with not much on the agenda.

That morning, I slept late - we had been out caroling the night before and I was tired. I'm a lousy singer who can't carry a tune in a bucket so keeping that under wraps is exhausting. I love caroling, all except for the subterfuge.

When I arose, it felt like breakfast. I had half of a strudel that my pal Cricket makes and sent to us this year - delicious with bacon (or without!). So I delved into the freezer for a package of bacon and got out my trusty frying pan.

This bacon is jowl bacon from pigs raised by Langley Ranch in Sonoma, then cured, lightly smoked and sold by Marin Sun Farms. When we bought it at the Kensington farmers market, the young woman behind the counter said that once people taste jowl bacon, they refuse to eat anything else. I'm not the adamant type, and I'm unlikely to pass up other bacon in the future, but I have to say this was great bacon and quite different from the belly kind.

For one thing, it's funkier. It's hard to describe the difference, except that jowl bacon has a deep, meaty aftertaste that belly bacon doesn't have. It's not as salty as most bacon and we liked that aspect - a little salt goes a long way with us. The rashers are smaller, perhaps four inches long, so what looks like a mess of bacon is really a pretty modest portion for two. We loved it and wolfed down all but a single piece that we saved for Cora - and she loved it, too.

Served on a plate, cheek by jowl with Cricket's strudel and a cup of Kona coffee, it's a breakfast fit for a king and, in this case, two queens.

Happy New Year! May 2012 be your best year yet, but not your best year ever.

Change Of Pace

2011-12-29T05:58:00.000-08:00

I'm half Irish, so it goes without saying that I love potatoes. Any kind of potatoes. Fixed any way. If it's a potato, bring it on.

But every now and then even I get a little tired of potatoes to round out my dinner plate. When that happens, an infrequent occasion to be sure, I either serve another green veggie or go looking for an alternative starch. Rice is nice, beans are great, but in the winter for some reason, sweet potatoes rule.

I don't make a big fuss over them - no mixing with sugar or topping with marshmallows - I just bake them in their skins, slice them open and add salt and butter. The color perks up the dull palette of winter foods and the naturally sweet taste shines as brightly as the hue. I even eat the skin - my mother always told me that was the part with all the vitamins in it but I don't eat it for health; I eat it because it tastes so good.

Next time you have the winter blahs pick up some of these humble beauties and chase the blues with all that bright orange. It makes a good change of pace.

A Big Pot Of Soup

2011-12-27T05:56:00.000-08:00

Usually, when we finish a roasted chicken, I use the bones to make broth and freeze it for future meals. This time, I just kept going, all the way to soup.

I like soup at any time of the year but it's particularly welcome during the holidays when I'm inclined to eat too much of all the wrong things. Homemade soup grounds me and reminds me that eating healthy foods can taste really good, too. Once made, it's easy and quick to reheat, no waiting around while Christmas cookies are calling to me. It's a nice, lean meal in a season of excess.

The broth started with onions, carrots and celery bubbled for hours with the chicken carcass, so it was already flavorful and aromatic when I added cannellini beans, a handful of dried mushrooms, chopped leek, carrot, zucchini, (sad winter) tomato and fennel. A pretty serious handful of Herbes de Provence. The chicken meat from picking the bones and chopped dry salami. Cooked until the veggies were tender but still toothy. I don't use anything to thicken the broth - we like it clear and fresh.

When I ladled it into bowls, I added a sprinkle of green onion and served it, steaming, to My Beloved who just sat and inhaled the aromas before starting to eat. It's a hearty soup, rib sticking even though it's not high in calories. With a piece of toast or nice bread alongside, it's the perfect winter meal.

And it makes a lot. So, you have a big pot of soup on the stove to reheat as needed over several days. You can share some with a friend if you get tired of it but, really, what's not to like?

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T05:02:00.000-08:00

Naomi and Sam are in England with her parents. Lea and Whit will be back east with their families. Katie and André will be on their belated honeymoon. Sarah and Jim and our grandchildren will be in Boston with his family. Mark and Pamela will be in Michigan with their parents.

My Beloved and I will be home with Cora - we just couldn't face another separation and another airplane ride, so we're staying put despite multiple invitations. We bought a tree from the Bulldogs again this year and Janie, Jodie and Jack are coming for Christmas dinner. Even the crew of HMS Ocean is home for Christmas (even if you've seen that video before, be sure to click the link again - it's wonderful!).

In other words, everything is exactly as it should be. We hope you have a deliciously Merry Christmas and a great start to the New Year.

Unlikely Cocktailian

2011-12-23T05:05:00.000-08:00

As you probably know, I'm not a big drinker. My father, who art in heaven, used to chide me for having only one gin and tonic with him on the lanai while we had our spirited political discussions. He used to warn me, with a twinkle, "Pam, you are not protecting yourself from the Forces of Evil." Somewhat ironic as he is the same man who also cautioned me in my youth about drinking too much at parties. Parents can be so contrary!

What he perhaps didn't realize is that one drink is plenty to give me that warm-to-the-toes buzz that makes alcohol such a pleasure - and two drinks - well, you just don't want to go there with me.

But, when the opportunity presents itself, I'm not averse to a libation. Such an event happened this week when my Fairy Godson drove up from LA for a pre-Christmas visit and I happened to fill his stocking with a bunch of goofy things, including a box of green apple Fizzies. If you are of my generation, you probably remember Fizzies, the Pop Rocks of the Baby Boomer generation, except that we dissolved them in water and drank them like Kool-Aid.

My Fairy Godson leaped from the soft drink to the idea of a cocktail in no time - he's of the Millennial generation - and suggested Fizzie-tinis. We couldn't imagine green apple and gin would be any good, however, so we decided on vodka "martinis" and the mixology began.

I don't have a cocktail shaker, having ceded my father's sterling silver one to my younger brother, but I had a good-sized stainless steel water bottle, so we opted for that. Added vodka and ice and shook it briefly before pouring it into wine glasses that we had rinsed with vermouth (sadly, my cupboards don't run to martini glasses) and dropping the Fizzies tablets into the chilled vodka. They fizzed quietly, slowly turning the clear drink an improbable green, before the last bit floated to the top, signally the end of the fizzing phase.

Sip. It tasted like cough syrup, 'way too sweet and truly nasty.

So, we decided to add lime juice, and that improved it quite a bit but it wasn't until My Beloved suggested adding a splash of water that it really came together. I like my drinks really cold, so I added rocks and a little paper umbrella and happily slurped that puppy right down.

Making dinner afterwards was a challenge. Luckily, I had opted for a simple dinner of raclette, salumi and a salad, or I might have embarrassed myself.

Parenthetically, I have been having trouble sleeping lately. That night, I slept like a baby.

Leave It To Jacques

2011-12-21T05:51:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago, I had the thrill of meeting Jacques Pépin, one of my culinary heroes, and asking him to sign my copy of his new book, a weighty tome called, "Essential Pépin." Can I admit that I bought it more out of hero worship than out of a real sense that I would use it to cook from?

Well, how wrong can a person be?

The very first recipe I looked at sounded simple and delicious - Grilled Thyme Pork Chops. Since we love pork and thyme, it looked like a winner. And only five ingredients - pork chops, thyme, salt, pepper and olive oil - what could be easier?

Turns out, the magic is not in the ingredients but in the technique. Not a big surprise, coming from the guy who literally wrote the book, "La Technique." All you do is sprinkle the chops with the salt, pepper, thyme, and coat them with the olive oil, then grill them for 4 minutes a side on a hot grill (we've tried both our outdoor charcoal grill and the indoor JennAir, and even browned them in a frying pan and they all work), then let them rest in a warm (about 150 degree) oven for 5-10 minutes, where they finish cooking by their own residual heat.

Now, I've cooked my fair share of pork chops and I'm here to tell you, they try to be dry and tough. The pig's revenge is to toughen and shrivel up. Even thick ones have this uncompromising attitude toward heat. I have tried adding water and steaming toward the end of the cooking, covering them with moist sauces, and even eating them so rare that I feared trichinosis, but as often as not, they went to their fallback position - leathery and dry.

No longer. Every time we have used Jacques' recipe, they have been pale pink, juicy and perfect. One time, My Beloved, who thinks he's not much of a cook, used the recipe while I was out for the evening, and even he had a smashing success.

Leave it to Jacques to figure out how to keep pork chops juicy while making the preparation simple and easy. You even get some light goozle in the bottom of the pan to drizzle over your absolutely perfect chops.

The Miracle

2011-12-19T05:07:00.000-08:00

Sometimes after my Masters swimming coach has worked us especially hard, I take myself out to one of the two Chinese restaurants in our little town and let someone else make my lunch.

This last time, my dessert fortune cookie said, "You will soon witness a miracle." I've never before had such a lovely message from a fortune cookie. Made me wish they all said that, so everyone who eats Chinese would feel the sense of delicious anticipation that I felt.

All week, I waited for my miracle. Was it the spectacular sunset that very same evening? It certainly seemed otherworldly in its fiery splendor. Was it the simple sound of My Beloved's car pulling into the carport after a long business trip? Maybe it was watching the progress on my neighbor's water heater - he has a serious illness and a friend of his gave three days of struggling to help him put in a new one. As lovely as those things were, nothing seemed quite to rise to the level of "miracle," but I was out there looking.

Wednesday rolled around, as it does every week; in my little world, that means tutoring in the early morning. I struggle out of bed and, rather than don my bathrobe and fuzzy flipflops, I actually hit the shower and get dressed as if I was still going to my job. Feed the dog and walk her quickly around the block, hoping for a little extra time to stop for a to-go cup of coffee before heading over to the school.

This week, I had little presents for my students to mark their progress and the holidays. A funny little bookmark for Maria - I'm a reading tutor, after all. A cute little stuffed hamster with a Santa hat for Yadira - she loves animals. And a small foam ball that is printed like a globe for Jay - boys are hard to buy for if you are looking for something non-violent. I gave them each the choice of opening the present right away or saving it for Christmas; unanimously, they chose immediacy. Bright wrappings gave way to smiles - a small triumph for me since I do not have children of my own and have to guess what second graders might like.

Jay has not been as open a child as either Maria or Yadira who, when they aren't reading, are chattering away about their lives and their families. Jay is polite and sweet and earnest, but there is a reserve about him that I haven't melted in nearly five months. After Jay's turn at reading, I offered him his present. When he opened his globe ball, he smiled his shy smile and said, wonderingly, "It's the world!" meeting my eyes and twinkling, turning the colorful globe this way and that, and bouncing it experimentally on the floor. He gave me his brief, stiff little hug and went back to his desk still examining his present.

Maria was next and halfway through her lesson, Jay came running back, so excited that he interrupted us to say, "Ms Pam! Ms Pam! I found Sweden!" pointing proudly to the bright yellow country on the blue background.

And there was my miracle, shining out of his dark eyes - his sharing of that discovery with me, barriers broken down for that instant, getting to witness that spark of the pleasure of discovery in his young face.

I'm saving that little slip of fortune cookie paper carefully, taping it into the spiral bound notebook where I keep important quotes and ideas. Who knows what other miracles I may witness in the future?

Something I'd Hate To Lose

2011-12-17T05:35:00.000-08:00

Whenever we go to the Kensington farmer's market, we look for Scott at the Fifth Quarter booth - he always has something wonderful to try. If it's not smoked tongue, it's wonderful pancetta or mouthwatering salumi.

This time, he urged me to try his Toulouse sausage. It's a pork sausage, like sweet Italian sausage except for the flavorings, which are completely different and which stopped My Beloved in mid-bite to moan with pleasure.

The label states that Toulouse sausage is made with heritage pork, white wine, organic garlic, organic herbs, spices and sea salt. Scott said that the herbs include thyme, which has to be my all-time favorite herb, so I was sold.

Rather than serve them simply as sausages, I decided to squeeze out bibbits of the meat into a hot frying pan to make meatballs for a simple pasta dish. Once the meatballs were richly browned, I removed them to a plate, poured off the extra fat and, in turn, sautéed onion, garlic, mushrooms, celery and broccoli in the same pan.

When the veggies were mostly done, I added a couple of small ladlefuls of the pasta water to the pan, stirring it around to collect the caramelized gold off the bottom of the pan, and added just a splash of cream (half and half) to the pan to make a brownish sauce. That's why my pasta looks like whole wheat when it was really just plain white.

I rolled the meatballs back into the pan along with the juices that had collected, stirred that all in and covered it briefly just to finish steaming the veggies and warming the meatballs. Drain the pasta and throw it in with the rest for another toss with all that goodness and plate. What could be simpler?

This is one of those dishes that will go into frequent rotation at our house. Anything that makes my man stop, close his big blue eyes and groan with pleasure is my kind of meal, one that I'd hate to lose.

T'is The Season(ing)

2011-12-15T05:37:00.000-08:00

When we visit Hawaii, we always bring back a little something for our neighbors who kindly accept packages for us and generally keep an eye on our house while we are away. It's also the holiday season, a traditional time for gift giving. So, in grocery stores or shops in Hawaii, I'm always on the lookout for something fun to pique their interest.

This time, I found several different rubs from a new-to-me company, Aloha Spice Company in Hanapepe on the island of Kaua'i.

The ingredients on the label of Pele's Smokey Coffee Rub, the first one I tried, are organic herbs and spices, Kaua'i coffee, Hawaiian 'Alaea sea Salt, organic sugar and natural smoke flavor. Some of the spice is clearly from peppers - it has a little of Pele's heat in it.

The package recommended it for use on steaks, chicken or pork and we had a small chicken from Marin Sun Farms in the freezer, so that was our choice. We rubbed it lightly on the chicken and, laying the chicken on a square of foil to deflect the heat of the coals, grilled it for about 40 minutes on the Weber. The coffee flavor was pronounced, the heat was light and sneaky, the salt was more of an undertone than a strong presence, just the way we like it.

Clearly, this is a product we will be happy to share with our good neighbors. It was great on the chicken but I can imagine it on grilled pineapple and even roasted potatoes. I'll try that one day soon and let you know what I think.

A certain couple I know is considering going vegan for a while, and this might make that effort even more interesting, as all the ingredients are organic and vegetable or mineral based.

If you'd like to learn about the company or order some of their products, here's the website: www.alohaspice.com

Eggs That Dr. Seuss Would Have Loved

2011-12-13T05:02:00.000-08:00

Since I run the circus,

at least in my kitchen,

I cook as I like,

Don't listen to no bitchin'.

If I feel like poaching eggs

In the same water as veggies

We all have to eat them,

Even pale green and edgy.

The mushrooms were browned

And the broccoli quite green

The toast was all toasty,

Our appetites were keen.

Don't worry too much about the strange hue,

Green eggs or white eggs,

Both are fabu!

(With apologies to the late, great Dr. Seuss)

Groovy Tongue

2011-12-12T05:47:00.000-08:00

When I was a newlywed the first time, my then-husband revealed a dirty little secret he didn't tell me before we took the vows - he loved tongue.

Boiling tongue, even if you like it, is not a job for the faint of heart. And when your new hubby is a grad student on a serious budget, you don't go to the deli to get it - you cook it yourself, at home.

Now, I like a nice tongue sandwich, but I'm really not sure I'd have married him had I known that beforehand.

First, you have to get past the size of the darn thing - who knew tongues, even tongues from cows, could possibly be that big. It's hard to find a pot roomy enough to fit it in.

Then there's the texture, as rough as a cat's tongue and, being a cat lover as I am, the comparisons with beloved pets leap horribly to mind.

Then you boil the thing forever (otherwise, it's tough as old boots) and, after it cools, you have to skin it. The skin peels off pretty easily - pallid, rubbery and leathery.

Are you ready for dinner yet? I certainly wasn't. I'd feed my young hus the same night but I could never face tongue without an intervening day or so while my brain suppressed all the revolting steps of preparation.

So, you can imagine my delight when I found thinly-sliced, already-smoked tongue from the Fifth Quarter at the Kensington farmers' market last Sunday! Huzzah! Scott Brennan had done all the icky bits himself, including the smoking, and saved me the trauma. If that isn't a groovy find, I don't know what is.

Variations On A Theme

2011-12-10T05:35:00.000-08:00

Now that I know how easy it is to make pot pie, it seems I'm making one nearly every time I roast a chicken, or have leftover lamb. Sometimes, I top the lamb ones with mashed potatoes, magically transforming them into shepherd's pie, but mostly I just use the Star Dough that I have learned to love and rely on.

Usually there's enough chicken left for two pies, one for us and one for my neighbor, who is having a very busy time right now. If I'm not in the mood for pot pie right after having had the chicken, I freeze it for later - they freeze beautifully.

This variation included sautéed crimini mushrooms and triangles of Star Dough instead of a full crust - otherwise, I made it just like this one. They are all variations on a theme, but the theme is so delicious, My Beloved who generally loves variety doesn't seem to mind.

In fact, his first bite of the one with mushrooms made him close his eyes, all the more to savor the flavors. That's always a good sign around here.

Thanksgiving

2011-12-09T05:23:00.000-08:00

This year, Thanksgiving fell on a Tuesday.

We had spent the traditional Thanksgiving day on the Big Island, then flew to Oahu to my brother's house. That Tuesday, we all gathered around their big teak dining table and enjoyed a real family Thanksgiving, complete with ham and squash, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy.

Cousin Jan was with us (she's in the bright blue shirt) and, of course, Litheia, who has been our friend for more than 40 years, plus my brother and his family, me and My Beloved.

I learned many years ago from my pal Wendy that Thanksgiving doesn't necessarily happen on the fourth Thursday of November - it happens whenever your people get together and celebrate the good things in life. Good health, good food, good spirits, good friends. It doesn't matter if the china matches or if you get out the good silverware. All that matters is that you join hands around the table and thank whatever deity you choose for all the pleasures of the year.

Hawaiian Seduction

2011-12-08T05:03:00.000-08:00

Whenever I visit my family in Hawaii, I try to eat mostly foods that I can only find in Hawaii - malasadas, fresh fish, plate lunch and truly ripe pineapples. Of course, that doesn't restrict one to poi and pulled pork from the imu these days - all the other cultures that have flavored Hawaii have brought their own favorites with them.

Like this one. Spam™ musubi (pronounced moo-soo-bee with the accent on the bee). The sticky rice, the nori (seaweed wrapper) and the name are all obviously Japanese in origin, but the Spam™ is pure "coast haole" food, transplanted to Hawaii from some Mainland factory. I suppose Spam™ became popular in the Islands because the can keeps it fresh on the long ocean voyage, because it keeps in the pantry virtually forever - and because it is simply delicious. Call it a guilty pleasure if you will, but when I'm in Hawaii, I am actively on the hunt for Spam™musubi.

You can get "Hawaiian food" on the Mainland but it's never the same. The fish is never as fresh, the rice is never as sticky, the pineapple is never as sweet. There is something about eating in the open air with a soft, warm breeze teasing your hair and a flower tucked behind one ear that makes the whole meal special.

We found this hearty musubi, made from a slab of Spam™ cut the long way from the loaf, up by the volcano where we stopped for a lunch. Cousin Jan, who graced us with her company on this trip, was initially skeptical about taking a bite, but we cajoled and urged until she caved and tried it. "Not horrible," was her comment; I'm convinced that with repetition she will grow to love it. Everyone does, sooner or later.

Spam@musubi is like Hawaii - seductive.

Big Island Baby

2011-12-07T04:08:00.000-08:00

While in Hawaii last week, we went to the Big Island where we had one of the better dinners it has been my distinct pleasure to consume. We ate at Monette's in the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel.

If you've never been the the Big Island, or never visited the Mauna Kea, I can certainly recommend both. The Big Island really is big, as big in area as the state of Connecticut and very diverse as to climate and landscape. There can be snow on the top of Mauna Kea when it's 85 degrees in Kailua Kona and 60 degrees and raining at the steaming vents of the volcano. The newly formed land looks like a moonscape but the older parts are as lushly green and tropical as the travel posters of Hawaii always promise. We enjoy the diversity of landscape on the Big Island, and the change of weather from place to place.

And the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel is a wonderful place. It's down on the coast, where it's warm and mostly always sunny. It is one of the few large hotels that is designed to give you that true, open air Hawaiian experience. All the public rooms are open to the breeze and all have stunning views. The beach is lovely, fine white sand. A friend of mine who lived in Hawaii for many years remarked that the Mauna Kea "is the way God would have done a resort if He had had the money." I'm inclined to agree. We can't afford to stay there but we have enjoyed meals in their restaurants and watching the sunset from their lanai with a drink and a plate of pupus to hand.

We had a splendid dinner but what was really memorable was a fresh, ripe, local tomato salad in late November. Red all the way to the center and dressed simply with a tad of goat cheese, some nippy little greens and a light vinaigrette, they were richly, ripely delicious. And they were grown less than 10 miles away.

They are growing lots of local produce on the Big Island now and Waimea tomatoes are some of the best. We visited a couple of farmer's markets in Kamuela and found lettuce so beautiful that it could have been used ornamentally in a garden, local fresh fruits and vegetables, poi, Hawaiian plate lunches, local fresh fish and even malasadas hot from the oil and crinkling with sugar. Less and less is being imported from the Mainland as Hawaiians take full advantage of their climate to grow fresh veggies right there.

The Big Island has always been ranching country, home to one of the largest privately owned ranches in the United States, the Parker Ranch. The beef is wonderful and we saw many sheep as we drove along. The Big Island is shaping up to be a foodie heaven.

We always enjoy our trips to the Big Island of Hawaii and look forward to the next one each time we leave. I could easily become a Big Island baby - just give me the chance!

Shave Ice

2011-12-06T04:06:00.000-08:00

It had beans in the bottom.

Yes, beans.

Guess where we went.

New All-Time Low

2011-12-04T05:22:00.000-08:00

WARNING: RANT IN PROGRESS

I thought air travel had gotten about as bad as it was possible to be. I've been flying so long that I can actually remember when the stewardess (as flight attendants were called in antediluvian times) would cook your filet mignon to order - yes, on a commercial airline. Back then, the airlines competed with service, trying to lure passengers by being the most friendly, delicious, accommodating, helpful.

Along came deregulation, and airlines began competing on price alone, and the services, one by one, were dropped. No more helpful reservations people who would even book you for a connecting flight on a different airline if their own flight wasn't convenient. Now, we all go to discount websites and look for the cheapest flights. Even as a frequent flyer, those open seats became very hard to schedule and required more and more miles before eligibility.

Luggage, something that was once included in your ticket price as long as you didn't exceed two enormously heavy bags, has also changed. Now, they charge (except for Southwest, bless their hearts!) for even the first bag - and it's a hefty charge. Overweight bags are even more. The result has been that everyone tries to cram their entire wardrobe into a roll-aboard bag that is really too big to fit in the overhead compartments, but they try to stuff them in regardless. Since many passengers haven't the upper body strength or the height to hoist that weight over their heads and into a bin, the risk to already-seated passengers is real and immediate. More than once, I have had to duck falling luggage. The flight attendants, who didn't sign up to be baggage handlers, must hate this, too.

Long lines. I frankly don't believe that the safety screenings at airports will deter a determined terrorist - in my view, it's a colossal waste of money and time. However, I'm willing to undergo the invasive screenings and the long lines if it helps other people feel safe. But, when the long lines form at understaffed ticket counters where they have inadequate staff to teach the average bozo how to print out his own boarding pass, that truly honks me off. Lines to check your luggage, lines to go through security, lines to board the aircraft, lines to pick up your luggage (surprisingly, the number of lost bags seems to have declined over the years - a small triumph for airline travel) - if there was any real alternative, I'd avoid all these #*&#%* lines and never fly again.

Food quality dropped along with the prices, too. No more macadamia nuts; now, you're lucky to get peanuts instead of some random pretzel thingie - if you get anything at all for free - even on cross-country flights. Now most airlines will sell you an overpriced "snack box" of stuff that Michael Pollan aptly labeled "food-like substances." Only soft drinks are still free, and I'm pretty sure beancounters at the airlines will soon clamor to charge for those, too.

I thought air travel had gotten about as bad as it was possible to be. I was wrong. It has reached a new all-time low.

On a recent flight to visit family, I was offered a cup of coffee. Sure, why not?

This is what came - instant coffee in a packet and a cup of warm water to dissolve it in. Holy crap! What is this world coming to when even coffee, that staple drink of pilots, isn't brewed on board any more? I don't expect 100% Kona coffee, but couldn't it at least be brewed? All the cutesy slogans printed on the paper napkins won't make up for the lousy service, the long lines, the narrow seats, the crummy food and the all-around discomfort of flying.

United lost my 40-year loyalty on this last trip, even though the flights themselves were on time and the pilots did a good job of landing those giant airplanes, kissing down on the runway like a butterfly both times. The hassle just isn't worth it.

Okay, if you read all that, thanks for letting me get it off my chest. If you didn't, I can hardly blame you, so I hope you'll come back tomorrow, when things will be more cheerful around here.

END OF RANT. Whew!

15 Things I'd Miss

2011-12-02T05:04:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I happened across David Leibovitz's article entitled "15 Things I'd Miss About Paris If I Moved Away." It inspired me to think about what I would miss about the Bay area if I moved away.

1. The Bridges. Many people here think of the bridges across the bay as a nuisance to be avoided if possible. I don't. I love crossing them, admiring them, photographing them. Even the Erector ™ of the Richmond bridge is stunning in certain lights.

2. The Beauty. It staggers me every day. The land, the hills juxtaposed against the always-changing water. Never boring and always inspirational.

3. The Bay. The water, the opportunities for recreation, the light reflected from it. In it, on it, whatever.

4. My Beloved - he might not move. He LOVES this area and even becomes slightly defensive if anyone criticizes it.

5. The Produce - I can get good meats anywhere, and seafood in many places, but the veggies...

6. My Neighbors - I figure my friends would visit me, but maybe not my neighbors. They are an important part of life here and I would miss knowing their day-to-days.

7. Mount Tam. Visible from my kitchen window, it seems almost sacred to me. I'm not at all religious, but there are places in nature that touch the spiritual side of my nature. Mount Tamalpais is one of those.

8. Diversity. One of the first and best things I noticed about the bay area is the wonderful diversity here. In Rochester, "diversity" meant either black or white, with a sprinkling of Asian. Here, it means every possible color, creed, food and culture, all living in relative harmony and mutual tolerance and reading quietly on the BART. I love the variety.

9. Openmindedness/Acceptance of difference. I have seen people being panhandled in San Francisco and looking annoyed, until a policeman started hassling the panhandler, whereupon the panhandlee started defending the beggar. "He's not hurting anyone. Let him be." It's a small example but a powerful one to me of how accepting people here are of individual lifestyle choices. Laissez-faire is the watchword here, and I enjoy that.

10. Dungeness Crab. I have enjoyed Alaska's king crabs and the east coast's blue crabs but none can compare with Dungeness crab. And it's crab season again! Hooray!

11. The Hills. Walking the hills of this area has strengthened my legs and my wind. I also like that they lift me up high enough to get lovely vistas to enjoy after all that exercise. And, from the hills themselves are beautiful. I have learned to drive competently on hills here, another small triumph. I'm a fan of hills.

12. The Absence of Bugs and Humidity. Even living as we do close to the water, the humidity level is rarely oppressive. It can be hot in the sun but as soon as you reach shade, it's cool again. Lovely. No one except perhaps an entomologist loves insects and even entomologists don't necessarily want to live with them. We only have screens on our bedroom windows - for the most part, the few insects that fly in to the rest of the house just fly back out after they have spent a little time circling.

13. The Plunge. Our municipal swimming pool is as close to ideal as it's possible to have. Solar heated and saline cleaned, it's warm, huge and inviting. Those folks in the early 1920s really knew how to build a community resource and I'm proud that my generation paid to have it renovated and improved.

14. The San Francisco Chronicle. For all it's quirky reporting (the headline often implies the opposite of what the body of the article says), I love the green and pink sections, the goofy stories they find, the columnists and editorials. It may not be world class but it's homey and it's ours. I love hearing the early morning thump that signals its arrival on our doorstep, unfolding the big pages, reading the comics and Dear Abby first, then tackling the hard news of the day. The Chronicle is struggling now, like so much of print journalism - I hope it survives.

***

One of the good things about moving every two years in the Navy was the realization that each place has its pluses and minuses - and no place is perfect. Newfoundland, for example, has a rugged, grudging climate, but also breathcatching natural beauty. Japan's ancient culture is as amazing and refined as its benjo ditches are smelly. Hawaii's beauty is unsurpassed in the world, but it is insect heaven.

Thinking about this gave me a fine appreciation for the everyday pleasures of living here. It's an interesting exercise to do wherever you live, and whether or not you actually like the place where you are living.

15. I'll leave the 15th open for you to tell me what you'd miss most about California (or your current location) if you moved away.

New Best Friend

2011-11-30T05:37:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when I'm reading comments on a friend's blog, I come across submissions so clever or interesting that they prompt me to visit the commenter's blog to see if I want to add them to my reading list. I have to admit, it doesn't often result in a new blog to add - I don't suffer badly written blogs gladly.

Recently, however, I added a new one. The Hungry Dog. Not only does she feature food that sounds good, she writes in a clear, humorous, warm style that I enjoy. And she likes dogs. I think I like this lady.

In her Thanksgiving post she featured a link to a cauliflower gratin that she was planning to share with friends on Turkey Day. It sounded so good that I rushed right down to my neighborhood store to pick up the ingredients. Thanksgiving, phooey! I wanted it now!

Talk about your total, instant gratification!

It was as rich as mac and cheese - and, by the way, the recipe reads just about the same - but lighter because the cauliflower isn't as heavy as macaroni. And the addition of horseradish to the cracker crumb topping is inspired, lifting the dish from predictable to delectable.

I changed the recipe just a bit, using cream-style horseradish instead of the fiery kind and sprinkling the gratin with finely chopped fresh rosemary for additional flavor. I liked both of my tweaks and would do them again.

We are facing a long winter with lots of cauliflower in it. My new best friend has me actually looking forward to it.

Saving The Day

2011-11-28T05:17:00.000-08:00

When I purchased those few shrimp, I was thinking of an appetizer. When they became, through a comedy of errors, dinner - I needed to find a way to stretch them a bit. We are hearty eaters.

Remembering how our lobster carbonara had combined pancetta (cured meat) with the lobster (seafood), I thought perhaps I could add a little Italian sausage, which I had in the fridge, to this recipe to make it go a bit farther.

Luisa turned me on to this recipe a couple of years ago, and I keep coming back to it - it's relatively easy and quick, and unfailingly delicious.

I sliced the pre-cooked Italian sausage and tossed them with the seasonings before roasting. I find it surprising that meats and seafood go together - I've never been a big fan of "surf and turf" meals. This one, however, despite my roasting it a bit too long while waiting for My Beloved and Cora to get back from a walk, was quite, quite delicious.

The shrimp and sausage loved each other and the broccoli and lemon juice lightened an otherwise rich meal. Another time, I wouldn't start the broccoli ahead of the shrimp and sausage, I'd just roast them all together for about 10 minutes; I'd like the broccoli to be greener. But overall, it was a big success and it saved the day.

Thoughtful?

2011-11-26T05:40:00.000-08:00

My Beloved and I have a deal - the one who cooks doesn't have to do dishes. In our house, that translates most of the time to me cooking and he washing the dishes. He can cook perfectly well but he says I'm better at it. While that's debatable, I have to admit I prefer cooking to washing dishes, so I don't fight his perceptions very hard.

But, because he's so sweet about doing the dishes most nights, I try not to test his patience by using too many pots and pans. No sense in killing the goose that laid the golden egg, right?

This dinner came together with just two, a small saucepan for the rice and a large, wide pan for the Swiss chard and salmon. Aren't I thoughtful?

While the rice was bubbling away on the back burner, I melted a little butter in the wide pan and minced some garlic, gently cooking the garlic chips for a few minutes before laying in the washed, de-stemmed Swiss chard leaves. Once the leaves had wilted, which only takes a few minutes with Swiss chard, I pushed them to one side of the pan and laid the salmon, skin side down, in the same pan. Using that same gentle heat, I cooked the salmon until I could see the paler cooked color inching through the fillet, then flipped it and easily removed the skin and the dark, strong-tasting flesh just under the skin with a spatula.

When the fish was done to our liking (still a bit rare for My Beloved and fully cooked but still moist for me), I played around with the plating for a change, making a wreath of rice around the dark green chard and laying the salmon on top.

Garlic and salmon are good friends, so the fish benefitted from some time bathing in that garlicky butter left at the bottom of the pan. Swiss chard and salmon are also good friends, the slightly astringent chard balancing the oiliness of the fish. And brown rice, really good brown rice like this, rounds out the meal perfectly.

Two plates, two glasses, two sets of silverware, two serving utensils and two pans. Not too many dishes to wash after a delicious meal.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T05:03:00.000-08:00

I'm thankful for so much in my life.

My Beloved

My goofy Cora

Good family

Funny grandchildren

Good friends

Good neighbors

Good health

Enough wealth

My homey house

Beauty in the world

Protestors

Happy memories

The Plunge

A career spent helping students

An interesting and restful retirement

and much, much more.

Thanksgiving is far and away my favorite holiday. No gifting hassles, no nonsense, just friends and family gathering around a table to enjoy one of life's greatest pleasures, sharing food and gratitude. It's an equal opportunity holiday in a not very egalitarian world - everyone has reasons to be grateful and this day gives us all a chance to reflect on them. Even when life isn't fair, there's family and hope.

Okay, enough Pollyanna for one day. Have a Happy Thanksgiving, all of you, and I hope your dinner is delicious, your family is healthy and you have inspired ideas for the leftovers.

Fall Weather

2011-11-23T05:26:00.000-08:00

I'm always a little sad when fall weather rolls in; summers are never quite long enough for me. I do relish the crisp air and the hard blue of a fall sky, but almost always find myself wishing for just one more really warm day, one without socks or sweatshirts.

Still, I don't live in Hawaii and I don't miss the sticky summers back east, so I can't really complain. And fall foods are always a bonus.

Take this risotto, for example. I'd never have contemplated it in the heat of the summer - too much stirring over a steaming pot. Now, steaming pots are welcome. Plus, I didn't have kabocha squash in the summer - I was playing in Zucchiniland back then. And, Brussels sprouts seems so perfect for fall - mini cabbages.

The risotto came about when the steaks I had planned for dinner didn't thaw in time. Luckily, I had the makings for risotto in the fridge - a few small portobello mushrooms, two slices of cooked bacon left from breakfast, onion, shallot, white wine, parmesan cheese and some roasted kabocha squash already scooped out of its shell. All I needed to add was arborio rice, chicken broth and thyme.

I won't go into all the steps of prepping a risotto - they are out there on the web - but I'll give you the shorthand: In a heavy saucepan, soften the alliums of your choice in generous butter, then add the mushrooms, chopped bacon and thyme, and toss those in the butter. Add the rice next and toss it, too, until the grains are coated and cook it for a few minutes, stirring constantly. When the rice turns opaque, pour in a splash of white wine and stir to coat. When the wine has more or less absorbed, start adding the chicken broth a little at a time, stirring with each addition.

Around the midpoint of the rice, I added the kabocha squash. It wasn't a purée, just sort of roughly chunked so there were little pieces of squash discernible in the finished risotto.

While the rice cooks, grate a goodly hill of Parmesan cheese and add that just at the end, when all your broth has been absorbed. Stir in the cheese and plate the risotto in shallow bowls. I didn't add salt and pepper until it hit the table - with bacon and cheese in the risotto, there may be plenty of salt.

The Brussels sprouts were simply butter-steamed on very low heat, to bring out their sweet nuttiness rather than their strong cabbage-family side. The ticket with them is not to overcook - they should still be brightly green and firm when served. Even Brussels sprout haters respond well to this gentle treatment.

With dinner like this on the table, I say bring on the fall! Even if it means rainy days and chill, I can face it with a stomach full of gooey rice and sprouts.

Catching Up

2011-11-21T05:45:00.000-08:00

I have a lifelong friend named Cricket. She didn't start life with that name but she adopted it once she turned 21 because everyone called her by her nickname, anyway, and because she loved the quirky idea of being a seriously competent doctor with the rather frivolous name of Cricket. Once the judge pronounced her legally Cricket, she charged penalty fees if we forgot to use her new name. Whenever I think of her before the name change "Linda" comes to mind; my memories after age 21 are all labeled "Cricket."

Cricket and I have been friends literally from the playpen on - our mothers were great pals, our fathers were close and dear friends, and the two families each had four children of roughly the same ages, so we all got along like a house afire. Their big, rambling house in Michigan was a home base for us, one of the few unchanging things in a Navy life.

Crick and I have taken very different paths in life - she to medical school and obstetrics; I, via a somewhat wandering and checkered route, to career counseling with college students. She had three kids; I abstained. She chose Seattle; I left the west coast for Rochester, NY. But, whenever Crick and I get together, our friendship blossoms like a flower. Even when we haven't seen or talked to one another in a long time, we pick right up where we left off, as comfortable and easy as if we had seen each other just the day before. We differ politically but we share great memories and a sometimes wicked sense of humor.

All this as prelude so that you can imagine what a pleasure it was to get a call last week from one of Cricket's sons, a young pilot who was in the area getting some additional flight time. We met him out in Danville at a restaurant called the Peasant and the Pear, which we had heard about on "Check Please, Bay Area." It's a good show and has steered us to some very good meals.

As we caught up with Peter's doings and learned about his plans for the future, My Beloved and I each enjoyed a dish of Lobster Carbonara. Although it was the most expensive thing on the menu, it was only a couple of dollars more than the other choices, so we each ordered a glass of prosecco and went for it.

The restaurant lighting does wonders for my complexion, not so much for the photograph - but the dish was as close to heaven as I expect to get before dying. The sauce was creamy and lemony, rich and delicious. The pasta was wide, thin and silky. The lobster meat was generous, tender, perfectly cooked and simply out of this world. The carbonara had little squares of crisped pancetta and a handful of fresh peas, topped with a sprinkle of chopped parsley. And the serving was so fulsome that I had to bring some of it home.

I enjoy a chance to know Cricket's kids as adults, now that they are all grown up. It's another frame in the film of memories we have unreeled over our lifetimes. I have always respected Cricket's ambition, profession and quirky sense of humor, but it's fun to learn through her children that I respect her parenting, too.

I'll have to call her soon - it's time we caught up.

Tickled Pink

2011-11-19T05:02:00.000-08:00

"Tickled pink" is an expression I associate with my Dad. When he heard good news, he declared himself to be tickled pink. If a favorite person was coming to visit, again, he'd be tickled pink. Or perhaps it was a particularly welcome Christmas present - he'd look me in the eye and say, "Honey, thank you! I'm tickled pink!" and, indeed, he was a little flushed with pleasure.

I don't associate beets with my father at all. I'm pretty sure he didn't like beets, as we rarely had them growing up. If he had an aversion to a particular food but Mom liked it, she would save it to serve to us when he was out at sea. She spoiled him, and he loved it. I learned a lot about the care and feeding of husbands from her.

I've always rather liked beets. I like them sweet or pickled and the color always amazes me - talk about your vegetable dyes! If I'm not careful, I get indelible hot pink stains down the front of my clothes. I'm sure beet juice would make a knockout ink.

I had some nice, round dark purple beets that I had roasted in foil, so decided to try making a sort of scallop with potatoes and onions and, for that slightly pickled taste, plain yogurt. I sliced them all thinly (except the yogurt, of course) and layered potatoes, then onions, then beets, then a slather of yogurt into a shallow dish. When I was finished layering, it didn't seem quite moist enough, so I dotted some butter on the top and sneaked a little half-and-half down the side to bubble in the oven. The cream immediately turned bright pink.

I baked the dish for about two hours (scalloped things take a surprisingly long time) at about 350 degrees F. The top was browned a dark chocolate color but the layers inside were brightly pink. It looked kinda cool on the plate. The taste was slightly sour along with creamy, but I have to admit it wasn't the kind of dish that makes you pound the table and nod with delight. It's a quieter pleasure than that.

All in all, it was good, but I wasn't tickled pink.

Harvest Fare

2011-11-17T05:55:00.000-08:00

I was reading the local fishwrapper, better known as the San Francisco Chronicle, last Sunday and came across a marvelous article I hope you all read.

If you didn't, read it now - you'll thank me.

It showcases several area organic farmers and each farmer has contributed a recipe using what they grow. So many cool ideas for Thanksgiving - and earlier.

Like right now.

I have never thought of stuffing a squash. Now, that's crazy, because squashes all come with a hollow where the seeds and strings used to be, just begging for something to fill it up. I've seen soup served in pumpkins and my mother used to fill the hollow of acorn squash with a dab of butter and brown sugar to tempt us, but somehow I have until now missed the simple brilliance of making stuffing not for the bird but for the squash.

I was so inspired that I immediately got out the butternut I've been harboring in the crisper for a week wondering what to do with it. I could always roast it, or make soup, or whatever, but nothing appealed until the article sparked an idea.

I decided to use a rice stuffing, starting with that killer Massa brown rice and some bacon we had left over from breakfast. Five or six little brown mushrooms, a big yellow onion... it sprang nearly fully formed in my head.

First, I halved the squash and set it on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper in a 350 degree F oven for about half an hour, until it pierced easily with a knife. I cooked the rice separately in chicken stock while the squash baked. While all that was happening, I chopped about four rashers of the bacon and browned the bits in a wide pan. After the bacon was nearly done, I reserved half of it, leaving half in the pan, poured off the extra grease and sautéed the onion and mushrooms in the same pan. Once the squash came out of the oven, I scooped out a trench in the neck of the roasted squash, minced the scoopings, and added them to the stuffing mixture.When the rice was done, I mixed it in and stuffed it all into the halved, roasted, seed-and-neck-scooped squash.

Back into the oven for a nice warming - perhaps 20 minutes - and it was ready to serve. Sprinkled with chopped green onion, the rest of the bacon, and s&p.

I had a small squash and that's all we had for dinner except a couple of spears of steamed broccoli, so each of us got an entire half to eat, but if you make a large squash, you can cut it into slices to serve and save the rest.

It was hearty and filling, rich with harvest flavors. The mushrooms added depth, the bacon added heft and the onions added sweetness. And if you've never tried Massa rice, you are missing a major treat - I was never a brown rice fan until I found Massa.

This is fare that will make you look forward to harvest time.

Bacon Lovers

2011-11-15T05:14:00.000-08:00

I take a fair amount of good-natured ribbing from a certain meat-loving food blogger about my insistence on organic, local, seasonal, pastured or free-range food choices. He thinks I'm a little silly, and he's probably right. Still, in most things, I remain adamant; he says I'm stubborn. I prefer the word steadfast.

One thing we do agree on, however, is bacon. We both love it.

I have always said that Nueske's Bacon is my gold standard. It has the perfect balance of smoke, sweet, texture and salt to please me. Unfortunately, it isn't made locally, so it has to be ordered from afar and that's not exactly local, is it?

So, I'm always on the lookout for good bacon from closer than Wisconsin. I love Coleman's hot dogs, so when I happened upon a package of their bacon at my local market, I decided to give it a try. It's from Colorado - still not local - but closer than WI, right?

We cooked up the bacon for our long, leisurely Sunday breakfast with eggs, wheatberry toast with Meyer lemon marmalade and coffee. The rashers are thinner than the local artisan bacons we mostly buy, but they are thicker than many national brands. They cooked up perfectly - crisp for me and slightly droopy for My Beloved. The flavors of pig, salt and sweet were there but, sadly, no smoke. It's hard to complain about bacon - I mean, what's not to like? - but I have to say that Nueske's still wins for that smoky profile that signals bacon perfection.

The search for perfect local bacon continues. I'm happy to shoulder the task, with help from my blogging pal. Stay tuned.

The Soup of Human Kindness

2011-11-13T05:57:00.000-08:00

Cousin Jan.

What can I say? She is such a good friend to us.

She's the one who lent us her house and her car in Belgium for two weeks - we had a simply unforgettable time there, thanks to her, living in a Belgian neighborhood and getting a taste of everyday life in that lovely little country.

As if that were not enough, she drives down frequently from her current home in Petaluma to swim with me in the Plunge (she's a much better swimmer than I; she keeps me motivated), is always up for an adventure, and frequently finds me funny and delightful things at garage sales.

When we returned home from two weeks back east, we arrived too late to pick Cora up from the dog spa where she was romping with her pals, so Jan collected her for us and delivered her home. So welcoming to come home to ecstatic tail wags instead of a cold, still house!

And Jan left a bouquet of flowers, too, bright sunflowers and fall-toned mums. This gal thinks of everything.

After the greetings were accomplished, we read Jan's note directing us to the fridge where she had stashed a big sandwich for our dinner and a bowl of tomato chipotle soup, plus an assortment of cookies, all from Whole Foods. The soup was warm in more ways than one - quite spicy and so nice not to have to go in search of dinner after our long flight.

My mother used to quote Shakespeare about people she liked, saying that they were full of the milk of human kindness. In Jan's case, it's the soup of human kindness, warm, generous and filling the heart with smiles.

Nostalgia

2011-11-11T05:26:00.000-08:00

I suppose we all have foods about which we feel nostalgic, foods that we associate with growing up or pleasures we enjoyed as children. I certainly do. Vernor's soda pop when we visited Michigan. Malasadas in Hawaii. Seven Layer Cake.

Seven Layer Cake was served at our birthdays whenever we were stationed in the Washington, DC area, close to Baltimore where one of Dad's best friends and our dear family friend, Uncle Sam Silber, ran the family bakery. Uncle Sam was no relation - he was a friend of Dad's from the war, a highly decorated fighter pilot who was just so beloved that we dubbed him our uncle and always looked forward to his visits.

Uncle Sam's bakery made the most marvelous seven layer cake on earth - the whole thing was no bigger than an eight inch cube, seven delicate layers of cake with mocha frosting spread thinly between them, topped with chocolate ganache. It was so rich that even greedy teenagers could only eat a thin slice. Silber's bakery is closed now, but the memory of that cake and Uncle Sam's smiling face over the top of the box in which he brought it will always stay with me.

And here's one from My Beloved's childhood, Checkerberry Syrup made in Guilford, Connecticut where his family spent many a summer when he was growing up. It has a wintergreen flavor and is very, very sweet.

You can make a float with an ounce of syrup, vanilla ice cream and soda water, or you can use it as syrup on an ice cream sundae. You can even make a milk shake. It comes in a bright red bottle but what pours out is clear - apparently the red bottle subs for the red dye they used to color the product years ago.

So, what My Beloved enjoyed when he was a boy was likely bright pink in color. His sister slipped a bottle of Checkerberry Syrup into our rental car as we were leaving, a fun little gift of nostalgia for him. When we got home, we opened the bottle and, using it as one would use the syrup for an Italian soda, we mixed an ounce of the syrup with eight ounces of club soda and ice. Just lightly sweet when mixed liberally with soda water, it made a refreshing and novel drink.

It's still made in the same little Connecticut town by a company called House of Checkerberry. The plant from which it is derived, Gaultheria procumbens, or American wintergreen, grows wild in a huge range from Newfoundland to Manitoba and south to Alabama, so you might even find the plant yourself and consider a small distillation experiment if you can find instructions on the interwebs. The bottle doesn't even list a website, but there's an email address should you want to give it a try without traveling to Connecticut or hiring a botanist to help you. kdudley@cox.net.

A sip of this takes us back to long summer days in Connecticut, water skiing in the morning when Long Island Sound is flat, sailing in little boats once the wind picks up and, in the warm, humid evenings after dinner, going for ice cream at the Maple Shade, the local creamery.

Tell me about your food nostalgia - what do you recall fondly from your childhood?

Dem Bones

2011-11-09T05:37:00.000-08:00

Arriving home from snowy New England to find 75 degree temperatures and blue skies, the grass fed beef ribs in Andronico's (by the way, good news! They have new investors, so they are open and fully stocked again) were simply too much to resist. Indian Summer's warmth and barbecuing opportunities are not to be squandered.

These were the back ribs - we also grilled a couple of short ribs. I roasted them all in a 300 degree oven for a couple of hours to render most of the fat, tenderize the meat and shorten the barbecuing time, then put them over gray coals with a light coating of Aloha brand teriyaki glaze. I am sentimental about this brand - it takes me back to my years in Hawaii.

Just a few minutes on the grill imparted that smoky flavor that makes ribs, well, ribs. We used our fingers and gnawed the sweet, mildly spicy meat off dem bones in true caveman style. With a side of garlicky Swiss chard, they made a deeply satisfying late summer meal. We even have leftovers for lunch today.

It's always fun to go visiting but it's also wonderful to come home, especially when there is grilling weather left before the rains begin.

Pastis - The Secret Ingredient

2011-11-07T05:17:00.000-08:00

Arriving home from Back East, My Beloved and I decided to take it easy the first day, doing laundry, catching up on email and generally picking up our routines in a leisurely way.

One of the tasks that awaited our return was to pick up some wines we had purchased at a Schramsberg wine tasting dinner that we attended just before we left. It was nearly noon so we decided to have lunch at Bistro Liaison while we were in Berkeley on that errand.

Okay, all I can say about this preparation for mussels is "brilliant." It was easily the best plate of mussels I have enjoyed since I visited Belgium. Most of the ingredients listed on the menu were standard, shallots, broth, yadda, but the addition of pastis and fresh spinach lightly wilted in the broth made this, to me, into a whole new dish.

The broth was rich with flavor, not as buttery as some, and that was perfect for lunch. The combination of plump mussels with spinach on each forkful did something angelic to each. The little dry toasts soaked up the broth and, when all the mussels were gone, I enjoyed the rest of the wilted spinach floating in the marvelous anise-flavored broth.

This is the third delicious meal we have enjoyed at Bistro Liaison. We stood outside in the sunshine afterwards, chatting with owner/chef Todd, a burly young man from our area of Connecticut, getting tips on restaurants to visit next time we head east. If you find yourself in the East Bay, we can recommend Liaison highly.

Especially the mussels with spinach and pastis.

Back East

2011-11-05T05:58:00.000-07:00

Both My Beloved and I have family back east. Once a year or so, we grit our teeth, board an airplane (flying has become a cattle drive rather than the exciting adventure it once was), and fly back east to visit.

This time, our visit was in two parts - to Connecticut to help with emptying My Beloved's mother's house after Hurricane Irene damaged it, and to the Boston area to visit with My Beloved's daughter and her family.

The drive between Connecticut and Massachusetts was lovely with fall colors just starting in the trees and the rocky bones of the land jutting out here and there. We arrived in time for Hallowe'en. So did the early winter snowstorm that dumped about five inches of snow on the carefully carved pumpkins.

It was heavy, wet snow, what we used to call "heart attack snow" when I lived in Rochester. The leaves were still on most of the trees, too, so the heavy snow broke branches onto power lines, leaving millions of families in the dark. We were lucky, we kept power the whole time, so we could just enjoy the novelty.

My granddaughter and I made snow angels and had a snowball fight. Because neither of us has good aim, it remained playful. She decided to slide down her snow-covered slide, too - she's four, so a cold bum doesn't stop her. The snow made the slide even slipperier - she flew about two feet beyond the end of the slide, landing laughing into soft snow. Gotta do it again! And again!

After escorting our Little Mermaid on her Trick or Treating rounds (our grandson dressed up as a little red crab, but he fell asleep in the stroller so he'll have to learn about Hallowe'en next year), we packed up our stuff and headed back west, arriving to unseasonably warm temperatures (thank you, weather gods!) and blue skies. Back East is fun and we miss those folks when we are home, but Out West is even better.

I'm A Fan

2011-11-04T05:39:00.000-07:00

There are few famous chefs that I truly admire. I love Jamie Oliver, his style and his food, and I respect what he's trying to do for school food. I chuckle at Guy Fieri, even though most of the food he goes in search of is not to my taste - I just dig the 'do. But most of the celebrity chefs leave me cold. Either they are too smug, or too obviously coiffed, or smarmy, or something.

But Jacques Pépin has always been a favorite of mine. I have a video of him cooking with Julia Child that never fails to make me laugh - they had a wonderful rapport in the kitchen, even if she was always sneaking more butter into his recipes. I watch him as much for his skill and his frugality as for his recipes, and he never fails to impress the heck out of me.

So, when we were back east last week, helping to clear out My Beloved's mother's house after Hurricane Irene burst in with eighteen inches of sea water, I was thrilled to see a notice in the local bookshop that Jacques Pépin was giving an author's talk about his latest book, Essential Pépin, in the very town where we were staying. Needless to say, I reserved places for me and My Beloved. We took a break from packing up water-soaked books and linens to go to the local Congregational church for his talk.

I came away even more impressed. He is as charming in person as on television, but also warmer, sweetly diplomatic and gentlemanly. Faced with an audience question about his favorite restaurant in the Mexican town where he goes each winter, he deflected it with the answer that he usually cooks at home, having been to the farmers market. Pressed for an answer, he smiled and said, "You must just try them all until you find the one you like best."

He answered questions for perhaps half an hour and then started signing books. The organizer assured us that photographs with him were allowed, so here I am, flushed with excitement, next to one of my heroes. I'm always tongue-tied around famous people, so all I said was "Thank you" but it's a moment I won't soon forget. I'm a fan for life.

Holy Cow!

2011-11-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

When I make hamburgers, I like to make them from scratch. I usually buy a tri-tip roast or top round, and chop it in my food processor. My Beloved likes to eat the first bit raw; I don't trust hamburger chopped by someone else for raw consumption so I do it myself to be sure it's fresh. He'd probably prefer eating his entire burger raw, for that matter, but he restrains his cannibalistic tendencies while I cook the burgers.

So, here's the masterpiece: Chilebrown's buns, freshly chopped and seared burger, a big slice of ripe tomato, some sautéed mushrooms, a dab of mayo and a frill of lettuce.

Holy Cow, that's good!

Nothing Spooky

2011-10-31T05:51:00.000-07:00

When I made Chilebrown's hamburger buns, they were baked by eleven in the morning, cooling on a rack on the counter. They looked perfect and smelled even better. I had made them for our hamburger dinner but they were sending out olfactory invitations that I simply couldn't resist.

Luckily, the recipe made eight buns, plenty for dinner, the freezer, and a summer sandwich, too.

Is there anything better in the world than a ripe tomato sandwich? If there is, you'd have to convince me. And, if you can make it with a freshly-baked soft roll - well, now you're approaching nirvana.

Go ahead. Make the rolls and slice the tomatoes thickly. Slather on a little mayo and don't forget the salt and pepper. It's even better if you have a lemon to squeeze over the tomatoes, but even without that embellishment, it's going to be one of the best sandwiches you will ever eat. At least, until next summer.

Nothing spooky, here. Happy Hallowe'en!

Firm Buns

2011-10-29T05:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, I admit it. I used that title in the hope that it will draw in more readers. They may be a little disappointed when they learn that this blog is not usually oriented toward buffed body parts, but when they read about Chilebrown's hamburger buns, I'm convinced they will return again and again.

I have long been an admirer of Chilebrown's baking; he makes all kinds of breads and rolls, some in a Dutch oven and others in a regular oven, but they always look and sound wonderful. He also makes it sound easy.

And it was. My Beloved bemoans storebought hamburger buns, declaring them to be made of sawdust and air. I was planning hamburgers for dinner so, on the spur of the moment, decided to try making buns from scratch.I used his recipe for buns made with 1/3 whole wheat and 2/3 white flour.

These buns use ingredients you will likely have on hand - they are not at all complicated. They take a little time as they rise twice but the recipe is simple. I started them in the late morning and they were more than ready by supper time.

They have a sweetly nutty flavor and a beefier texture than the packaged buns, but they are airy enough that they soak up the hamburger juices like a tasty sponge. We toasted ours lightly on the grill to bring out even more of the nutty flavor and enjoyed them greatly. At last, buns as firm as My Beloved's.

Estate Sales

2011-10-27T05:20:00.000-07:00

Did you know that there's an entire etiquette of estate sales? Mostly, I have just gone to small ones, like Janine's, where nothing is priced and the agents just eyeball your selections and hazard a guess. They are usually willing to take less, if you dicker a bit, too, although I didn't learn this until after I had been to a few.

Some people actually watch the paper for estate sale notices and shop there every weekend, buying everything from bed linens to brick-a-brack. At the last estate sale I attended, I met a woman who does just that. She was very chatty and open about her hobby, more than willing to clue in a newcomer.

I met her in line - yes, estate sales usually have a long line of hopeful buyers waiting to get in - and she took me under her wing. You have to get here early, she said, and be among the first to go in. Otherwise, you wait until someone comes out, then the next in line can go in. It makes sense, really - otherwise, there might be the kind of chaos one finds at after-Christmas sales but we waited nearly an hour for our turn.

It's also nice to be tidy, according to my estate sale teacher. If you open a drawer, for example, don't just paw through the contents, but look carefully and replace things nicely. I was astonished to learn that one actually opens drawers in someone else's house; it seems so intrusive and rude. She just laughed at my naiveté, and told me I must open all drawers, look up high and down low, even opening medicine cabinets in search of treasures.

I don't think I'm cut out for the cutthroat world of estate saleing. I felt squeamish opening up someone's drawers and walking through their garden. I did find a few treasures, like the sturdy baking rack pictured above, which holds a full dozen of cookies, but all in all, I think I'm more comfortable with garage sales. I won't be checking Craigslist weekly, as she does. But, I'm glad to know the etiquette should I ever go again.

Summer

2011-10-25T05:03:00.000-07:00

Just when I think we have skipped summer altogether here in northern California, October rolls around and brings us lovely, warm days. Just when the rest of the country is donning sweaters, we are pulling out shorts and flipflops. I don't need a long, sweaty summer but I do relish a few weeks of hot weather to make me grateful when the cooler days arrive for good.

We've had quite a foggy, cool "summer," so it was a huge pleasure to have a day so warm that I remembered with excitement that I had a cucumber in the fridge. Cucumber sandwiches almost define summer for me.

I get out my mother's ancient Slice-a-Slice, so well used that the wooden stop at the bottom is splintered from decades of cutting, and make bread so thin as to be lacy. A scrape of mayo and thick slices of cuke are all that is needed. The cukes always fall out, lubricated by the mayo I suppose, but I patiently put them back in and relish the result.

Sometimes, I challenge the seasons and make this sandwich in midwinter, just to remind myself that summer is coming, but it's always better when I can take it out onto the deck under a tree, wearing shorts and flipflops.

Cover Crop

2011-10-23T05:46:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been out the Fairfax in Marin county recently, you might want to go. I had lunch there recently with a friend of mine who lives in west Marin, and we enjoyed a lovely afternoon of poking through the shops and catching up.

You must certainly pop your head in to the Fairfax Variety store. I discovered it a few years ago and whenever I'm feeling down in the mouth, I go there to be cheered by the most amazing jumble of wonderful things. It's like an old-time five-and-dime store, only slightly updated. They carry everything from cooking utensils to greeting cards to Hallowe'en costumes but the kids' aisle is the best part. If you need bubble stuff or a fridge crawler or silly, gruesome finger puppets, you can find them all there - and much, much more.

Outside the Italian restaurant on the main street was a shady tree. In most towns, you'd see a metal grating around the base of the tree, or maybe just bare earth. In Fairfax, they have a unique cover crop - hundreds of wine corks.

If you haven't been out there, you might want to go. These seem like fun folks, don't you think?

Chez Panisse Again

2011-10-21T05:44:00.000-07:00

The first time I had dinner at Chez Panisse, frankly, I was disappointed. It wasn't that the food wasn't good - it certainly was - but the experience didn't live up to its stellar reputation. We were seated in a small room with a loud party at the next table and while all the food was well cooked and presented, only the desserts were spectacular. That was ten years ago.

So, when Naomi's parents were in town and wanted to treat us to dinner at Chez Panisse as a way of thanking us (completely unnecessarily) for our kindness to their daughter, I nearly suggested we go somewhere else.

I'm so glad I took General Eisenhower's advice and kept my big mouth shut!

We started with a salad of Asian pear slices, quartered figs and rocket in a light dressing of sublime perfection. Everything complemented everything else - a little sweet from the fruits, a little bitter from the rocket, all smoothed with a dressing that brought it brightly together.

My main course (sorry for the photo) was a sort of gnocchi, but nothing like I imagined gnocchi to be - for one thing, it wasn't boiled. Our waiter warned me that it wouldn't be like any gnocchi I had ever had before and when I confessed that I was trying gnocchi for the first time, he declared that I would measure all future gnocchi against this one. He was right. This was lightly sautéed, slightly crisp on the outside but savory with cheese and the airiest possible cloud potato on the inside. Topped with sautéed chanterelle mushrooms and Parmesan shavings, it may well have been the best thing I have ever tasted.

Accompanying the gnocchi was a light green salad and a pair of beautiful little roasted pimientos, richly cinnabar red and black with bright green stems. I'm not usually a lover of all things pepper, but these little gems were a whole different story. Tender and rushing with internal juice, they were mild and sweet.

For dessert, smooth, unctuous raspberry ice cream topped with intense little fresh raspberries, the tiniest and the most flavorful ever.

Perhaps the best part is that we weren't stuffed by the end of the meal. Everyone certainly had plenty but the portions were just the right size to satisfy but not to overfill. The waiter was attentive and extremely knowledgeable but also willing to ask someone else when he didn't know the answer to our questions.

If I have a complaint this time, it would be with our table. We were seated directly across from the ovens in a three-across-three booth which made conversation awkward, service difficult and we were all uncomfortably warm by the end of the meal. Had I not thought to bring a fan with me, I'd have melted.

But, I'm just nitpicking here; it was small price to pay for an ambrosial meal and a remarkably generous gesture by our charming hosts. They are British and we rather expected the stereotypical reserved English people; nothing could have been further from the truth. They were open and friendly, giving California-style hugs and double cheek kisses upon arrival and openly sharing stories of their life in England and South Africa. The entire evening was delightful, so much so that I felt vaguely guilty at being thanked for something that had been nothing but a pleasure.

Chestnut Chicken

2011-10-19T05:13:00.000-07:00

I have been making this particular chicken dish forever. In fact, I may even have posted about it before - I'm too lazy to scroll back through nearly five years of posts to confirm or deny. It is always delicious, even though it's an old chestnut.

The secret is in the browning. The chicken pieces, the mushrooms and the onions all need to be well browned before you proceed, or you'll get a dish that looks as if it needs a transfusion.

I'm an impatient browner. That's a lowering confession from one who prides herself on her cooking skills, but it's the truth. Browning is boring. Because it takes so long to do it right, I usually start reading a book and end up almost blackening, which is nearly as bad as wimpy browning.

You, of course, will never have that problem. You will heat your skillet, drop in to sizzle the olive oil and butter, and brown the chicken beautifully, removing to a plate each piece to rest as it reaches golden perfection. Then you will brown your mushroom pieces (I like chunks) and your peeled pearl onions in that same lovely chickeny pan. When your mushrooms have a nice crust and the onions are dark in spots, you'll add back your chicken pieces and any juices that have collected, nestling them down amongst the vegetables, and you'll add your garlic chips stirring for a few seconds, your chopped tomatoes and a glug of white wine. You will add some herbs, too, either fresh or dried - if you're like me, Provençal herbs will be featured strongly, but bay leaf is a nice addition, too.

You will cover the pan and lower the flame to simmer for about 20 minutes, perhaps lifting the lid once or twice to baste the chicken with the pan juices and to fill your kitchen (and your entire house) with scents designed to bring your significant other in from another room and your dog to hover under your feet. Even cats become attentive and eager to please when this chicken is cooking. You may leave the lid off for the last several minutes to concentrate the sauce before plating.

Make it now, while there are still ripe tomatoes to be enjoyed. It may be a chestnut but it's a golden oldie.

Prettying It Up

2011-10-17T05:50:00.000-07:00

I made bean soup the other day, with no clear idea of how I wanted it to taste - I was just hungry for beans and I had about six cups of smoky chicken stock made from that same, well-loved chicken.

After soaking the flageolet beans overnight, I sautéed the usual suspects together (onion, garlic, celery), added the beans and the chicken broth and set them to simmering. Simmered for perhaps an hour. The color was an uninspiring yellowish brown. The taste was pretty, but not yet gorgeous, so I added some corn, chopped carrot and frozen peas. As it got lovelier, it also got tastier.

Sip, taste, still not beautiful, so I chopped a couple of chicken apple sausages and added them. Better, but still lacking a certain style. A healthy squirt of sriracha helped quite a bit and a sprinkle of fresh cilantro got us nearly there. The pièce de résistence was the juice from a quarter of a lime squirted into the soup at the table, partly for its flavor but also for the extra color.

Fabu soup for eye, tongue and tum.

Toasting

2011-10-15T05:48:00.000-07:00

In our twelve years of marriage, My Beloved and I have owned perhaps five toasters. I think my parents, in more than fifty years of wedded bliss, owned one. What is it with toasters these days?

When I moved to California, I left my toaster behind. Moving only my most cherished belongings was already horribly expensive, so the toaster had to go. I figured I'd just buy another one on the Left Coast. And that's what I did, the first of several that just didn't do the job.

It seems that with modern toasters there is no setting between "anemic" and "charred." At first, I thought I had just bought the wrong toaster so when I got Toaster Rage for the nth time I would go out and buy another, more expensive toaster, always hoping to find the Cadillac of toasters. Nothing worked. My toast was still either pale and pliant or rigid and blackened, unless I watched it carefully and popped it up manually when it was done. An ongoing mystery.

Then, last week, I purchased on a whim a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread, the kind of raisin bread I recall with pleasure from my childhood, what my mother would have called "gooshy bread" in a bright red plastic bag. This raisin toast was a rare treat in our household - it probably cost more, delivered less nutrition, and almost certainly was eaten up faster, something my frugal mother would only occasionally allow.

I got out the butter, dropped a couple of slices in the most recent of our long line of toasters, set it to a medium heat, and up popped perfectly toasted bread, nicely browned but not burned. For once, my toaster performed perfectly. Hallelujah!

And, finally, the penny dropped with me about toast - it's not the toasters, it's the bread! I don't normally buy national brand breads. Most of the toast I make is from leftover "artisan" bread that we had with dinner the night before, breads that no mainstream toaster is designed to toast. All along, I've been blaming the toasters when all I had to do is give them gooshy bread and they would have toasted like a champ!

Now, if you are a toaster engineer out there who happens to be reading this, would you please design a toaster that loves hearty, dense, handmade breads? I'd be your first customer.

Crusty, Smoky Story

2011-10-13T05:30:00.000-07:00

I had big plans for that smoky pastured chicken - it may have been expensive initially but I was going to reduce the cost/meal ratio dramatically by using it all up.

After our initial meal - which was ambrosial, by the way - I decided to pick the meat off the carcass for another go at chicken pot pie. I was pretty sure that smoky flavor would be transformative to that lowly dish. I was correct.

I made two pot pies out of the leftover chicken, one for us and one for my neighbors, who are experiencing a very busy time right now. If I had wanted to be just slightly less generous to the neighbors, I could have squeezed three pot pies out of the remainder of the chicken and no one would have felt cheated. I added the usual veggies - sautéed pearl onions, garlic, diced carrots, peas (next time, I'm going for mushrooms, too) - sauced it as usual, and topped with the scraps left over from the show-off crust on the neighbors' pie.

I don't cook with salt so it needed a sprinkle at the table but, otherwise, it was splendid. The smokiness made everything else taste new and unexpected, almost exotic, if one can say that about so pedestrian a dish. Scheherazade might have served this to Shahryar as she spun her tales for him, and he'd have spared her for her pot pie alone.

Chicken Races

2011-10-11T05:17:00.000-07:00

I purchased this chicken at Baron's Meats in Alameda. It is apparently a former racing chicken. What else would explain the leggy, lean style? It was the normal weight for a frying chicken, but taller, leaner and, well, racier. It was the Amanda Beard of chickens.

The package stated that this chicken was raised in a pasture with a place to roost for safety at night and a place to get out of the rain (what rain? - it's a local chicken raised this summer) but with freedom to come and go, to chase bugs in tall grass and to take dust baths, so I was happy that it led a normal chicken's life before it ended up on my plate.

I planked the chicken on a cedar shingle over hot coals after stuffing it with a chunk of onion and one of lemon. The skin darkened to this mahogany color and the meat roasted to a deep, smoky deliciousness. We simply carved and enjoyed it the first day with veggies on the side, and reveled in the lean but juicy flavor.

But that's not all I plan for this bird - I'll fashion at least two other meals from it. I'm off to the (chicken) races!

Sweets To The Sweet

2011-10-09T05:57:00.000-07:00

My Beloved has a favorite cake. Pineapple upside down cake makes his day. He can't recall when he obtained this particular addiction but he's had it as long as he can remember.

When his birthday dawned without my having a single idea for presents, I decided to bake him his favorite cake. Off to the grocery store for a can of Dole pineapple rings; I already had a jar of maraschino cherries left over from the Alley Rats party.

A little online research revealed Betty Crocker's recipe for upside down cake - it looked easy and, best of all, so very apropos for such an old-fashioned dessert to be following Betty's instructions. I had to make some changes to the recipe - to substitute real butter for the margarine (that stuff always seems evil to me), to change out the brown sugar for maple sugar (which is less sweet, spoon for spoon, and adds an interesting flavor) and to bake it in a heart-shaped pan. Oh, and rather than use a cake mix, I just made a quick yellow cake batter I found on the interwebs.

The cake batter ran over and made a mess of my oven, the cake tried to stick to the pan and I had to rearrange the pineapple on top once the cake was out of the pan, but you can see from his reaction that none of that mattered. He was tickled pink with his birthday cake.

The old expression, "Sweets to the sweet" has never been more appropriate.

Thanks, Steve

2011-10-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's an Apple laptop amongst the clutter on my desk. I'm sad that Steve Jobs is gone.

In the early '80s, when I was back in college as an adult student finishing my long-delayed Bachelor and then Master degrees, I used to write my papers long hand, putting down ideas in any order, then literally cutting the pages apart with scissors, taping them back together in a logical sequence, then polishing and laboriously typing them. At that time, I was typing approximately 10 words per minute. You can imagine my delight when a much younger fellow student introduced me to my first Macintosh computer.

I was initially skeptical of this whole computing biz, so she started me on their "MacPaint" program where I played with the tools and learned to love the funny little square Mac with the smiley face that greeted me each time I turned it on. Then, she showed me word processing where all that laborious cutting and pasting, and corrections, were done with a few simple keystrokes - it was truly a revelation. I was hooked.

I bought the top of the line Mac at a huge student discount, hooked it all up by myself in an hour, and was learning programs that first day. That computer lasted 12 years and saved my ass in more classes than I care to remember. It made me look good. Oh, occasionally, I would get the "bomb" screen and lose all my work, but it was reliable for the most part, easy to use and even a little fun. Finally, one day as I was emailing a friend, the screen went dark and a little wisp of white smoke wafted out of the back.

That was the first of several Apple computers I have owned and loved. Currently, I'm enjoying my MacBook Pro for all the same reasons and more that I loved my first Mac. And for Christmas last year, My Beloved gave me Paddy, my iPad. I'm an Apple lover from 'way back.

So, when I heard that Steve Jobs' screen had gone dark and his little wisp of white smoke had wafted out, I was sorry in a very personal way. There will be lots written about him this week but I needed to add my two cents' worth. Thanks, Steve.

En Congé

2011-09-27T05:30:00.000-07:00

I found myself putting up a picture of a panzanella I ate last week, and stopped. The picture was fine and the salad was even better but I realized I had absolutely nothing worth saying about that meal.

Also noticeable that only my most stalwart and faithful blogging friends are leaving comments here these days, and some days even they can't think of anything worth saying, telling me that they are pretty bored, too.

Time to take a break. I'll still be reading your blogs and commenting but, for a while, I'm on vacation.

Book Review

2011-09-25T05:22:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, there are other things of interest to me than cooking. If all you know of someone is what they share on their blog, you get a very one-sided view of someone's life. Maybe a delicious view, but still...

So, even though this is primarily a food blog, I'm going to share a book with you today, as I have one or two amazing others in the past. It was given to me as a hostess gift by those two food-loving newlyweds, Naomi and Sam, but that's really the only connection with food.

It is one of the best, most engrossing books I have read in a long, long time. Beautifully written, it follows the author's legacy of a collection of Japanese netsuke from the recipient back through the history of the collection to the original collector, an ancestor of the author's, to his nephew to whom he gave them for a wedding present, to their eventual return to Japan with the nephew's son. If that sounds a little dry, keep in mind that they were collected during the wave of Japonisme that fascinated the Parisian art world where the ancestor lived, then traveled to Vienna where the nephew lived just at the turn of the last century and beyond at the height of Viennese culture and its subsequent crash into war, then back to Japan in the post-World War Two period.

It's a family story but it's also a story of cultures and times and amazing events. I'd love to tell you all about it but I don't want to spoil the richness of this book for you. Get it. Read it. You will love it.

Creativity

2011-09-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

Creativity is a wonderful quality. I love to see how people express a new idea or address a problem in a new way. Sometimes, it's amazing, like Picasso's bull's head made from a bicycle seat and handlebars. Other times it's quieter, such as Naomi and Sam's use of their wedding cards garlanded on loops of string to grace a bare fireplace.

Sometimes it's delicious.

One of Naomi and Sam's wedding presents was a ice cream attachment for their KitchenAid mixer. Naomi made raspberry sorbet for dessert - but the creative part was the addition of minced mint in the sorbet mixture. It was a wonderful combination, lifting the sweet raspberry flavor into freshness.

A lovely and creative ending to a perfect Sunday lunch.

Newlyweds and Oldieweds

2011-09-23T05:41:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, we were invited to Sunday lunch chez newlyweds Naomi and Sam, a proper British Sunday lunch, complete with a roast. (She is British and he spent years at Oxford getting his doctoral degree, so he's even more English than the English). We accepted happily, anticipating a good meal and a chance to catch up and see the new apartment.

It was fabu, by the way, filled with strong California light and very airy, with windows on all sides that frame views reminiscent of Robert Bechtle paintings. We were tickled to see our wedding present to them displayed and enjoyed the garland of wedding cards they had used to decorate the fireplace.

Sam is loving the job he landed in a single day and Naomi is settling in to her teaching/student role, while they both work to put the apartment in order. There were a few boxes here and there but they are mostly settled and furnished, thanks to a charming collection of things from Ikea, garage sales, family heirlooms and street finds.

We toasted their first home with a little sparkling wine and chatted while the roast filled the sunny space with aromas. I can cut to the chase here and tell you that everything was delicious and perfectly cooked and arrived all at the same time, hot and ready. The carrots were a wonderfully bright orange, enhanced by a sprinkle of chopped fresh parsley and Sam had even stuffed the bird.

It's fun spending time with newlyweds, watching them work around each other and hold hands under the table. Especially nice as we oldyweds were holding hands under the table, too.

The $5 Challenge

2011-09-22T05:05:00.000-07:00

When I entered the $5 Challenge sponsored by Slow Food USA, I cheated.

Everything I used in my chicken pot pie dinner for four was a leftover except for the Star Dough crust.

The crust itself costs $10 a package, so you'd think I was already over the limit, but the chicken pot pie I made used only one of the two crusts in the package and served four people amply. The rest of the ingredients were organic and "free," in that they had already fed four house guests.

The contents of the pie were chicken picked from the carcass that had fed four - about 1-1/2 cups of meat; a handful of frozen peas, four small leftover roasted potatoes, about a quarter cup of barbouille from a previous meal; four small red onions, quartered and sautéed until soft; and about a cup of sauce made with one tablespoon of butter, one tablespoon of flour and about one cup of organic chicken broth. I wouldn't even count the cost of the broth if I had had my own homemade on hand - it would have been "free," too, since it would have been made from the remains of a previous meal.

Even with the cost of the crust - I figure about $1.25 per person - the rest of the ingredients wouldn't even add up to $5.00 per person if I had purchased them expressly for this meal.

Was it good? Oh, my, yes! My Beloved wanted seconds before he even finished his firsts. My memories of chicken pot pie at school had left me lukewarm about making this dish, but the result was really delicious in a wonderfully homey sort of way. It was nothing like the heavy, floury stuff of the lunchroom cafeteria. The chicken broth in the sauce enhanced the chicken flavor and Star Dough crust is always a winner.

I had frozen this earlier in the week with the idea of serving it on the challenge day; it froze beautifully, thawed all afternoon on my counter and took only 30 minutes in a 400 degree oven to emerge bubbling and fragrant.

So, you might call this cheating, but we all won.

Late Summer Pie

2011-09-21T05:01:00.000-07:00

Remember when I told you a few days ago about the yellow peach pie?

Turns out it works great with white peaches and raspberries, too.

Just sayin'.

Kitchen Aesthetic

2011-09-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

I guess anyone who spends much time cooking loves utensils that add to the fun with their color or clever design, things are are a pleasure to use, like Janine's gratin dish, or Peter Barrett's pottery, or this little tangerine bowl.

My Fairy Godson and I drove out to Davis the other day to escape the omnipresent fog we have experienced this summer. In just under an hour, we whisked out from under the coastal cloud cover into sunny skies and warm temperatures. We left home at 65 degrees and gained 20 degrees as we drove.

We strolled around Davis wearing flipflops and short sleeved shirts, poking our noses into an excellent toy store, Alphabet Moon, where I found a gift for my grandson's first birthday; a gelato shop where we indulged while basking at a sidewalk table; and the Artery, an artists' co-op that always has interesting stuff. Sometimes, I go to Davis just for the Artery.

The color of the tangerine bowl caught my eye. When I picked it up, the funny little button design made sense - one's thumb nestles snugly into the dimple in the button, or firmly alongside. It's just the right size for scrambling eggs or making a sauce or a salad dressing, and it's beautifully hand thrown so it's light for its size.

Each time I use it, it reminds me of a fun day out with one of my favorite people on earth, enjoying each other's company and the warmth of a late summer day.

Gringo Churro

2011-09-19T05:26:00.000-07:00

I made a chicken pot pie for the freezer and you'll read about that when it emerges for our dinner, but with the leftover crust I made a nice little snack to nibble with a cup of something hot.

All I did was arrange the leftover pieces of Star Dough on a cookie sheet, sprinkle them lightly with sugar and cinnamon (got a little too heavy-handed with the cinnamon on the big piece) and baked them in a 400 degree F oven for 10 minutes.

I could have timed them by the scent alone - when I noticed that rich cinnamon smell, it was time.

The buttery crust crisped and browned - it was like cinnamon toast with less bread, or a churro with less fat. I sat down with a cup of coffee and enjoyed the dual rewards of a tasty nibble and the smug knowledge that I have a good dinner tucked away in the freezer.

House Guests

2011-09-18T05:39:00.000-07:00

For the past five weeks, we've been enjoying house guests. Maybe you'll think we're nuts, but we do enjoy having people come to visit and stay for long enough to get some serious catching up done. And when the house guests are as easy and cooperative as these three couples have been, it's a joy.

We waved goodbye yesterday to the last one for a while, although I did get a call from my cousin who might be coming for a short stay at the end of the month.

But what I really wanted to tell you about was a restaurant My Beloved and I tried on the last night Mark, my Fairy Godson, was here. It's in Berkeley, has been there for ten years, and is a wonderful find.

It's called Liaison. As you enter, there is a funny little sign affixed to the reception desk; it say, in French, "The chef is always right." The sign is correct.

If you like traditional French bistro cooking, this is the place for you. We tasted each other's dinners and all were excellent. I had Tarte Flambée to start and it would have easily been a meal in itself - I brought home some of both courses I ordered. It was delicious, really well made and perfectly cooked. My Beloved and Mark had the onion soup, which was similarly hearty - almost a meal in itself and intensely, richly beefyoniony.

For the main course, Mark had Boeuf Bourginon, which melted in the mouth, and My Beloved had sweetbreads, which he said were easily the best he has ever eaten, mild, sweet and tender. I tried the steak and frites just to see how their version of that standard stacked up; the steak with Bearnaise sauce was perfectly cooked and the sauce perfectly composed. The frites were not in the French style, sadly, but the aioli served with the frites was a revelation for garlic lovers like me. Dipped in the aioli, those fries were out of this world.

When the waiter came around with the dessert menu which, delightfully, she stamped onto the paper table cloth in front of each of us from a huge rubber stamp, we were all too full for dessert and more's the pity as each looked more tempting than the last. We settled for coffees, decaf for us and espresso for Mark (he's young). Mark said the espresso was simply delicious, as were our decafs. For me, the coffee at the end of the meal can make or break a restaurant - this one confirmed that we will be coming back.

Best of all, each coffee was served with a small square of dark chocolate on the saucer, as they frequently do in France and Belgium. It was the perfect ending to a spectacular meal - easily the best dark chocolate I have eaten in a decade. The shiny surface said it had been well tempered and the flavor was an explosion. It melted between my fingers within a few seconds, too - a sure sign that it hasn't had wax added to give it longer shelf life. Even better, it is locally made at Le Belge Chocolatier in Napa so hopefully I can get some for my own future dinner parties.

On the way out, I asked the hostess to thank the chef for such a lovely meal and she gave me two additional squares of chocolate for the road, so to speak. A small gesture that gave so much good will.

If you'd like a special night out at a very nice East Bay location, you can't go far wrong with Liaison. The wait staff was attentive but not overpowering, the ambiance is busy but not frantic, the food is really, really good and that chocolate...! Mon dieu, that chocolate was nearly as good as waving goodbye to the last house guest.

Waiting For Peaches

2011-09-17T05:12:00.000-07:00

My little peach tree is rather sad this year. It rained when the flowers were blooming, so just a few peaches were set. It also is struggling with peach leaf curl without any assistance from me - I'm a bad steward. But it is game - slowly, the six peaches it set this year are ripening.

I got impatient, as I do every year. My tree is a late variety so there are fat, juicy peaches in the markets weeks before my homegrown ones are ready. I finally succumbed to three store bought beauties this week and decided to make a croustade from them.

When you use Star Dough, as I do with pride because it is headquartered here in our small town, making a croustade is a snap.

All I did was roll out the dough (it is wrapped in plastic, so your rolling pin doesn't even get dirty), skim off the top plastic and place on a rimmed baking sheet, remove the other plastic, top the middle 2/3 with crushed amaretti cookies, lay in the sugared and seasoned fruit (to your taste - I like scant sugar), and carefully fold up the pastry to partially surround the fruit, pinching to seal any holes. Bake at 400 for about 45 minutes and you've got a lovely dessert. My pastry leaked juice, so I took that and brushed it over the fruit and the pastry, then sprinkled a little more coarse sugar over it. The juice caused the sugar to stick to the pastry and gave it a subtle little shine and twinkle.

The croustade tasted mostly of sweet, ripe peaches with a hint of buttery crust. One of the nice things about using Star Dough is that it's already rolled out very thin, so you don't have a heavy lump of crust.

I'm off to the farmer's market again this afternoon, in search of peaches and blackberries for another croustade. Star Dough comes with two crusts in each package and I'm not waiting for my own peaches to use up that second pastry. Too impatient.

Hashing It Out

2011-09-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

I seem to be on a Fifth Quarter kick. I went a little crazy when I found their booth at the Kensington farmer's market a couple of weeks ago, so we've been feasting every few days.

The latest offering was a chunky, macho serving of corned beef hash, conveniently vacuum sealed - all I did was cut it open, heat the contents in a frying pan and plop a poached egg on top.

My Beloved is very fond of corned beef hash and he considers himself a good judge of it. His gold standard is the hash they sling at the Parkside in Stinson Beach - no one has yet measured up to theirs. This from Fifth Quarter, however, looked to give the Parkside a run for their money.

Pink dice of meat and golden dice of potatoes, seasoned with Anaheim chiles, onion and spices, it was a hearty portion for two and might easily have fed four lighter eaters. My Beloved would have liked more onion and I thought it could use a bit more salt and pepper but that's just nitpicking. This was delicious hash, meaty and flavorful - if we had never been to the Parkside, this would have been our all-time favorite.

Kool-Aid Foodie

2011-09-15T05:49:00.000-07:00

Well, you know you've drunk the foodie Kool-Aid when your hot dogs come from The Fifth Quarter, and you grill them on your Jennair and serve them on buns made by splitting Acme Herb Slab bread. Even the mustard was fancypants and the greenie beanies were organic and local.

Sheesh.

To come down out of the clouds a bit, I smeared 'em with sweet pickle relish and good old catsup from a squeeze bottle. I only tell you that so you'll understand who you are dealing with when I confess that I like Coleman's hot dogs better.

These Fifth Quarter hot dogs were no doubt superior, made from fine ingredients lovingly by hand. They cooked up beautifully and had that wonderful little *snap* you get when you bite into a natural casing. They were well seasoned and had a little more texture than the average. The only thing they really lacked was smoke, and I could have added that by cooking them over charcoal. There's really no logic to this - it comes down to personal preference. When it comes to hot dogs, give me Coleman's every time.

Even if I am a card-carrying foodie.

Gifts

2011-09-14T05:35:00.000-07:00

My friend Maria was also my hairdresser for about 15 years. She took my unruly, thin, fine hair and actually made it look good.

But that's not all she did for me - she has been my friend and confidante, my pal and giggle twin. She saw me through recovery from divorce and rejoiced with me in my happy second marriage. She had a bout with serious illness about 10 years ago and we prayed and laughed her through it.

We are about the same age and had similar upbringings, albeit in different countries. The nuns in her life succeeded in shaping her into a good woman, wife and mother - they despaired of me. We laugh at the same things and deplore the same things. We both love to eat - she has more of a sweet tooth than I, but not by much.

She retired about a year ago and I was afraid I might lose her. But I didn't - we are still good pals.

We get together every now and then, as often as our busy retired schedules allow, to catch up on each other's lives, to compare pictures of our grandchildren (hers are simply adorable and she has two more than I do), and to bask in the memories of a long friendship. We bring each other little presents sometimes, when we find things we know the other will enjoy. Last time we got together, she brought these because she knows I loved my Belgian vacation - she patiently viewed my zillions of photos when I returned.

Belgian Chocolate Thins. They are like Pringles potato chips in that they are shaped like those precise chips, neatly stacked together in a long, thin box, and they have a little crunch inside, as if the world's tiniest Rice Krispies were inside. They melt on the tongue, flooding the mouth with rich, sweet chocolate flavor. And just one or two is enough, as they pack a lot of chocolate punch into a small, light wafer.

I have been savoring this little gift for almost a month now, sometimes sharing with My Beloved or our parade of house guests, but mostly I just keep them for myself. Each time I take one out to enjoy it, I am also savoring the gift of a rich friendship.

Unlikely

2011-09-13T05:17:00.000-07:00

The toast got too dark. The egg poached for a minute too long. The light was not good for a photo, and the plate shone in all the wrong places.

But the liverwurst underneath the egg redeemed it all.

Such a strange pairing! My Beloved was making liverwurst sandwiches for his lunch while I was poaching an egg for mine and the idea just popped into my head.

It made a simply elegant lunch - with a tad more refinement, it could have been poached egg on a bed of paté. The hot egg softened and nearly melted the wurst, and the mingled flavors just worked. I can't describe how and why it worked - it just did.

Next time, well, yes, I'd just toast the toast rather than incinerate it, but I'd still slightly overcook the egg and I'd definitely spread a slice of liverwurst onto the bread before topping. Sometimes, the best lunch ideas are the most unlikely.

Bodacious Brown Lump

2011-09-12T06:32:00.000-07:00

Here's another of those foods that people either love or despise - liverwurst.

While we were at the Kensington farmer's market, we purchased from The Fifth Quarter several items, including a six-inch long fat roll of liverwurst. We opened the vacuum seal this weekend and made sandwiches.

Like the paté, another offering from Scott Brennan, this too had more texture than the usual liverwurst one buys at the deli counter, and it convinced us that this is how liverwurst should be. It tasted mild, homey and authentic, with just enough texture to make it interesting but not enough to definitively reveal what it was made from - a happy balance, in my view. I love liverwurst but I don't need (or want) to know what's in there.

I'd love to see an artful picture of liverwurst, but I doubt that is possible. It's bodacious, but it's really just a brown lump.

Flag Waver

2011-09-11T06:43:00.001-07:00

Ten years ago, I awoke in the middle of the night with a roaring headache, so intense that I couldn't sleep. I went to our guest room so I wouldn't wake My Beloved and, after several hours, finally got back to sleep. I have always wondered if in some way I perceived the evil that was brewing that night. He woke me with the news that New York and Washington had been attacked.

My own personal reaction was stunned disbelief and hurt. I couldn't figure out, and I still can't, how the attackers could live with us for years and not see that, for all their flaws, Americans are pretty well-meaning, kind people. I have lived in three other countries for just a year each and I fell in love with the people of those countries and became fascinated with their cultures in just that short time. Our attackers lived among us for years but held on to their hate; how could that be? I am still baffled.

I didn't agree with the retaliation of bombing Afghanistan - I was one of those who sent a little packet of rice to then-President Bush, imploring him to send those people aid rather than explosives. And I certainly didn't agree with the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which had zero to do with Al Qaeda in any case and was clearly just Shrub's way of impressing his slightly more impressive father and Cheney's way of starting another war for Halliburton to profit from. Disgusting stuff. Better writers than I have deplored the loss of America's standing and respect in the world as a result.

I'm not usually a flag-waver; American doesn't need blindly loyal citizens. America needs critical, contentious, conscientious citizens who question authority loudly and demand kinder treatment for those who have less. But I have my flag out today. I don't fly it thinking that we were completely without fault in those terrible attacks - I know that actions so dreadful are never simply one-sided. But I do fly it in remembrance for the people who died in the twin towers, for the people who crashed their plane in Shanksville, for the firefighters and policemen who lost their lives, and for the folks in the Pentagon who gave theirs.

Channeling Nietzsche

2011-09-10T05:29:00.000-07:00

As I was mashing three avocados with the garlic, onion, cilantro, tomato, lemon juice and hot sauce, the bowl went flying out of my hand, slipped off the counter and plopped face down with a crash and a splat. About half of the guacamole stayed in the bowl but the other half pancaked onto the kitchen floor.

Dirty words!

So, then the internal debate begins - do I scrape it up and throw it away as any decent person would do, or do I figure that I'll strengthen our immune systems by challenging them with whatever biological mysteries are lurking on my kitchen floor?

Does the Five Second Rule really apply? And, if so, is it affected by the length of time since the floor was last washed? Did Nietzsche actually know whereof he spoke or was he just winging it?

Perhaps you know us well enough by now to know exactly what we did.

We ate it anyway. It was delicious.

Cheating

2011-09-09T05:39:00.000-07:00

I won't blame you if you take one look at this, read a little, and go away in disgust. I'm really cheating here - too simple a dinner for a whole blog post but it was so darn good that I want to write about it anyway.

More a reminder than an actual description. Next time you do a pork roast, do two things. One, fire up your charcoal grill. Two, once the coals are ready, separate them in two piles, insert a drip pan between them, and cook the roast by indirect heat.

Ours was a funny little rolled roast from Marin Sun Farms (they feature pork from a local producer), neatly tied in an elastic net - a pork snood. It cooked for just about an hour and emerged smoky and juicy, with just enough fat to make it flavoricious in that satisfying, down-home, porky way. It was one of the better meals I have cooked this foggy summer - I had almost forgotten that a charcoal grill can be used even when it's chilly and overcast.

So, no recipe, no additions of any kind, other than s & p at the table.

No wonder you are digusted with me. Just phoning it in.

The Fifth Quarter

2011-09-08T05:44:00.000-07:00

Here in the East Bay, there has been a little buzz going on about the Fifth Quarter, a charcuterie started by the head butcher at Café Rouge in Berkeley. Heaven knows, I have enjoyed his output when I go to Café Rouge, so I was pretty sure I'd enjoy his work when we found it at the Kensington farmer's market last Sunday.

Scott Brennan was there himself selling his meaty marvels, so I took a few minutes to check out the goodies in his galvanized, ice-filled buckets. There were wonderful sausages (we bought lamb) and patés (we chose duck liver) and head cheese and liverwurst and blood sausages and jerky - well, I could go on and on! The long and short of it is that I spent 'way more money than I had intended and now I have a freezer full of wonderful meals ahead.

Yesterday, the sun came out in the afternoon, warming the air enough to sit out on the deck, so we made a platter of two kinds of cheese and the duck liver paté and headed outside to enjoy the fresh air. Our friends Annette and Dave are here staying with us, so we swapped stories while we whittled away on the snacks. Cora hovered.

The paté was simply lovely. It has a tad more texture than the ones I buy in the store and we liked that. The flavor was mild and rich, but not as unctuous as chicken liver patés - and that's a good thing. This was meaty and a little hearty, halfway between a paté de campagne and a smooth paté. It rapidly and completely disappeared, which says all you really need to know about it.

If you get a chance to visit the Kensington farmer's market, stop and introduce yourself to Scott. He's a nice guy, proud of his work, and well deserving of the buzz he has created.

Jamón A Roll

2011-09-07T05:17:00.000-07:00

I don't know much Spanish, to my shame. Living in California, where many of the towns and streets - not to mention the state itself - are named in Spanish, I should know more than I do. There are also many Spanish-speaking people in my town - it would be fun to be able to speak to them in their own language. I learned French as a child and have continued with that but Spanish would make more sense for my life now.

Many years ago, I worked at a dorm at Stanford University where the maintenance man was a Mexican gentleman named Juan. He was a nice guy and we had good talks about his life and his family in Mexico. He also taught me a few words of Spanish when we had time. I learned to say, "I'm learning to ride horses," (because I was) and "There's a mushroom growing in the hall carpet," (because there was), still the only two full sentences I know. He saved me from saying, "Tengo caliente," which in Mexican Spanish means "I'm turned on," when what I really meant was "Tengo calor," referring to the weather rather than to my sexual readiness.

I moved away after a couple of years in California and returned twenty-some years later no wiser about Spanish than I had been when I left. Rochester, NY isn't exactly diverse. It's not much of an excuse, however, since I've been back for nearly fifteen years and I still know just a few words of Spanish.

One of the reasons I'd like a bit more Spanish is the food truck. Next to the gas station where I fill up once every other month (I don't drive a lot now that I'm retired), at noon there is a food truck that serves Mexican food. When I am by myself, it often makes me lunch or dinner.

The guy inside has a big smile, and it gets wider when I try to pronounce Spanish words. Jamón, for example, is pronounced hah-mon, not jah-mon. I learned that just last week when I stopped for a sandwich. I knew the word meant ham, but didn't realize that it is pronounced very much like the English word, "ham." When I ordered Torta de Jamón, I thought I was getting a sort of quiche with ham but it turned out to be a ham sammie, albeit with Mexican flavors and made on a soft roll. It took quite some time for the smiling guy to produce my ham sandwich, richly striped by his grill and loaded with lettuce, tomato, avocado, onion and jalapeño peppers, not to mention the jamón. It was a meal for two of me or one hard-working person, complete with chips and salsa in the paper bag.

I'm learning Spanish one word at a time.

Jamón = ham.

Torta = Sandwich.

Gracias = "Thank you for teaching me two new words in Spanish and for a delicious ham sandwich."

Old Fashioned Spuds

2011-09-06T05:51:00.000-07:00

Scalloped potatoes, layered with chopped onion, minced corned beef and wafer-thin Yukon golds. Bathed in milk and baked in Janine's little gratin dish. Salt, pepper. No cheese this time, just topped with a dot or two of butter here and there. Put the gratin dish on a baking sheet with sides, as it will likely bubble over.

350 degrees F. One hour.

Deeply, comfortingly delicious to my half-Irish heart.

Zucchini Season

2011-09-05T05:31:00.000-07:00

I have been resisting Zucchini Season. Once it begins, it feels like a forced march - zucchinis everywhere, offered free by friends, left like orphaned babies at your doorstep in the dark of the night, on special at the supermarket. All those zucchinis, begging to be made into something. So much need. It's enough to make me retreat to bed with a good book, even when I'm not growing them myself.

This week at the farmer's market, I finally succumbed to Zucchini Season. My Beloved found four absolutely beautiful, medium-sized, dark green and bright yellow summer squashes, plus a nice bright red bell pepper and a couple of tomatoes, so we brought them home to make barbouille, which may or may not be a classic dish. I sort of invented it many years ago in Zucchini Season. I keep coming back to it because neither My Beloved nor I like eggplant, so the other most common Zucchini Season dish, ratatouille, is not in our kitchen vocabulary.

Barbouille is like ratatouille without the eggplant. I cut up onions in spears through the root end, which makes them mysteriously sweeter than chopping, mince a few (or sometimes several) cloves of garlic, sautéing them in olive oil, then add slices of bright summer squashes, coarsely chopped bell pepper and tomato, and a glug of white wine of some kind, plus herbs.

I often use thyme and oregano from the garden but sometimes I'm too lazy to saunter out to the front steps, so I just sprinkle in some dried Herbes de Provence, s & p, cover and let it simmer for at least half an hour. If the squashes and tomatoes are very juicy, you can lift the cover for the last 20 minutes or so to concentrate the pan juices. It's better if you cook this one day and eat it the next day, but even the first day, it's delicious. You can serve it over rice or pasta, or simply scoop it into bowls and eat it plain. You can also grate some cheese over it if you want but I like it just the way it comes from the pan. This time, I added some of the bright yellow flowers from the wild fennel plant that is volunteering outside my front door for a little sweet licorice kick.

When you succumb to Zucchini Season, I can recommend barbouille as an alternative to hiding in your bed.

Reubenesque

2011-09-04T05:46:00.000-07:00

Tender, pink, corned beef, rather than pastrami - like a lady's cheek. Soft, creamy Taleggio cheese rather than Swiss - like soft, rounded limbs. Crackly wheatberry bread - can't think of a sexy descriptor for that.

No nasty sauerkraut.

Sizzle slowly in a buttered pan (rather than buttering the bread - that's too rich) until the cheese runs out and the bread browns and crisps (the low heat is important - otherwise the butter burns before the cheese melts).

Wait two minutes after plating before taking your first bite, or you'll scorch your tongue.

A masterpiece of a lunch.

Chicken Little

2011-09-03T05:21:00.000-07:00

When I purchased Janine's kitchen wares from her estate sale, I bought her little enameled gratin dish more because I admired the look of it than because I thought it would be useful. It looks a bit funky and battered, romantically hinting at dinners past. I imagined displaying it in some way or using it as a serving piece. Turns out, I was completely wrong - I use it almost daily.

It's just the right size for an entrée for two or veggies for four. When I make hearty meals like mac and cheese, it holds plenty for both of us, with leftovers for lunch the next day. Janine knew what she was doing when she bought it.

For example, I laid in it two chicken legs that I had sprinkled with Herbs de Provence, then tumbled on top a generous handful of the roasted cherry tomatoes that I made yesterday, half of a chopped onion, two minced garlic cloves and five chopped mushrooms.

There was just a bit left of Sam and Naomi's bottle of dry sherry, so I poured about a shot's worth of that around the veggies and slid the pan into a 350 degree F oven for about an hour. It's an on-going mystery to me why any part of a chicken, or a tiny Cornish hen, takes the same hour to roast as a full-sized roasting chicken, but it's true.

I may have basted once or twice. At the end of the hour, out came dinner, all golden brown and wading in a beautiful confetti of veggies, complete but for the bright green peas.

If you happen across one of these little pans, be sure to snag it. Janine's looks like it has been well used, and now I know why.