The Lunar New Year begins this weekend, the year of the Water Rabbit. There are many good things said to come in this year, with peace, hope, and positive expectation among them. I choose to believe this is a good theme for the year to come. To celebrate, I am making appropriate Chinese dishes for the season, including noodles, and a new one for me, Lion’s Head Meatballs with crab. But more on these things later. As it has stopped raining and the sun has come out, I decided to stroll through the neighborhood. Of course, I was lured into the community thrift shop, called Community Thrift Shop by the scent of old books and cheap things.
As I have written before, I love to find old cookbooks and root around for the winning recipes. I love to buy used cookbooks and bake from the batter caked pages. I love that I can get these treasures for a dollar. In fact, I never pay more than a dollar fifty for a book at the thrift shop. Today, I was browsing when my eyes caught the green plastic comb binding. Talk About Good! Le LIVRE de la CUISINE de LAFAYETTE is the name of the book, published in Layfayette Louisiana in 1967. I have the the 1971 printing. I thought for sure that I had found some totally obscure work that would not be in my Eat My Books index. Wrong again, Jerry!! It turns out to be a very popular book that was published for nearly forty years. It is amazingly New Orleansy, with lots of different dishes (and drinks) I have never heard of. More in a bit.
If you live in California, you may be feeling what I have been feeling the last few days. It´s as if the New Year hasn´t really started yet, at least in the way we like. It has been raining almost non-stop since the beginning of the year, which is good in one way, not so good in other ways. For instance, the downstairs unit and the area where the garbage and recycling are has flooded, making it almost impossible to remove the refuse. So, it has piled up in my kitchen. It was taken out this morning during a little break in the weather, but it wasn´t exactly pretty.
The other thing is the inclement weather has brought in an unwelcome resident in the form of a tiny mouse, now named Pat-a-Toney, Pat for short. I believe Pat is alone, and it is a fact of life that if you have an active kitchen and pantry in a densely populated urban environment surrounded by eateries of all kinds and you live in a building built at the beginning of the 20th Century, well, you may have to occasionally contend with pests. And ya know, I don´t want him to die, I just want him to move.
These things have worked against my precious agenda of trying new recipes and telling you about them.
It´s a strange moment actually. For a number of reasons, the price of ordinary foodstuffs has risen dramatically, and some common things have become scarce. Right now, it is difficult to find eggs. What a strange beginning to this year, I feel almost outside myself, as though my mind is working through something that the body can´t enact until it´s finished. I hate hate hate having garbage in my house, I usually take some trash out every day. To have it piling up like that was depressing. OK, I´m moving on, this too shall pass, and before you know it, the house will be filled with scent of well-season repast, I will not fear being torn apart by flesh eating monsters when I enter my kitchen, it´ll all be great. Just great.
Let me tell bout a dish we gonna do as soon as work up the courage. It´s a party dish to share with your friends, assuming you´ve made some. It is a recipe from Craig Claiborne, something food critic for the New York Times (1960something-1990something). It is a family recipe from Mississippi, and probably the 1930s. It is called Chicken Spaghetti, and I won´t go into the deep details, but it requires that I simmer the chicken in chicken stock until it is cooked, the meat is removed from the bones and shredded (this includes the cooked giblets) is layered in a casserole with cooked ground beef and pork, a thick tomato sauce, the stock, layers of cheddar cheese, and barely cooked spaghetti where it sits on the countertop for at least four hours before being heated in the oven until the cheese melts, about 30mins. Weird, wacky, wild stuff. Wanna eat some with me?
It was six minutes after one in the morning when I awakened to the sound of heavy rain hittting my bedroom window. I laid in bed, at least half awake listening to it, and instead of being lulled back to sleep, enlivened me. I got up, grabbed a sparkling water, went to the front room and looked out the window. My beloved 18th St. had/has (it´s only 1:28 now), turned into a minor river flowing east. It made me wonder if some day my little food blog would be like Samuel Pepys’ diary, and this deluge would be my Great Fire. Who knows?
Anyway, it got me to thinking about the Mission and what a great neighborhood it is, how much it sparkles in the rain light, and other things that can only be appreciated from a warm and well appointed apartment. Furlenghetti wrote about the light of San Francisco, but I think the city is most magical and itself when it is raining. Is there any place more wonderful? So, with all this romantical thinking, and CA loving-on, I thought about one of my favorite cookbook discoveries of all time, West Coast Cookbook by Helen Evans Brown.
What an interesting choice for the cover design. What do you think she´s holding in her left hand? I first read about Helen in a book by James Beard. He praised her very highly, and gave a recipe from her West Coast Book. Indeed, when I discovered this book in the local thrift shop for the princely sum of seventy five cents, well, I just had to splurge!! She lived much of her life in CA, and is often credited with defining and popularizing California Cuisine, and introducing the wider public to a variety of produce, which included rarities for the time, like avocados, mangoes, guavas, cilantro, garlic, and all sorts of other stuff. It´s a really fun book because she writes about the origin of the foods and the towns of association; she also describes Quesadillas and Guacamole as though the reader had never heard of or tasted them, which was true for the time.
Speaking of which, her Quesadilla recipe is extra. You bake a cornmeal dough filled with cheese. It definitely takes it to the next level and makes it worthy of a dinner party. Hmmmm….dinner party. Sounds fun. It´s time to try some crazy new things. Here are some from this book.
Cowpuncher´s Sandwich – red onions mixed with oregano, ice water, vinegar, and salt overnight on the counter. Next day, drain and put between two pieces of buttered bread. There ya go.
OK, this sounds amazing. Cassoulet Carpinteria. Just like another cassoulet, except adapted for Carpinteria, I guess. Beans, meat, sausage, white wine, parsley, garlic, breadcrumbs, herbs, butter. I did a quick google search for what the origins of this recipe are and how it came to be associated with Carpinteria, and well, there was absolutely nothing. Maybe Mrs. Brown had simply eaten this dish there, and remembered the recipe by the town. Who knows?
Happy New Year. Let´s start again. The holiday season took some twists and turns, and here we are on the other side. The season was filled with festivity, and many good things were eaten. I´m not into looking back today, but I did learn a couple things.
The Christmas menu was a bust in that I didn´t make it at once. The upside is that we enjoyed it over several days. Christmas Day was Shepherd´s Pie, a slam dunk in the comfort food department. The chocolate orange marmalade cake came next. Touchdown. The Three Kings salad was a surprise delight. Napa Cabbage with Lychee fruit and kiwi fruit, toasted nuts, vinaigrette. Home run. The salad was the perfect companion to the surprise Kung Pao Shrimp I stir fried.
You know how people always tell you that the wok needs to be really hot and no Western stove-top can handle the size of the wok and it always takes longer, ya da ya da ya da? Well, it turns out, in my case at least, to be bunkiss.
I got that wok so hot that when I threw the chiles and Sichuan peppercorns in there, they INSTANTLY blackened, burned, and emitted something that police use to break up protesting crowds. We all began coughing, crying, the nostrils burned, the windows and doors were flung wide open to the winter cold, the guests fled into the streets, screaming, pawing forward into evening traffic. Some of them ended up at the taqueria across the street, the rest of us waited for the room to clear and tried again. So, word to the wise, watch that wok. If the peanut oil smokes on contact, it´s too hot. If I´ve learned one thing in my years of cooking, it´s that you don´t want your family and friends to evacuate the premises at the scent of your dishes. It´s almost as bad as killing people. Don´t do it.
Above are the Three Kings Salad, and the Shrimp Stir-Fry, both apparently taken with the impressionist painting filter on.
Pork and sauerkraut for New Year´s, Pineapple upside down cake for my birthday, and of course, the beloved taco dip, not once, but twice.
Now, the tree is drying out, and it´s time to let the old year go and look forward. What cooking adventures are you looking forward to this year? Now we all know that life is what happens while you make other plans, but I do have a couple of goals. 1. Start using tofu as an ingredient. 2. Make laminated yeast pastries like Danish. 3. Choose one cookbook a month that I haven´t made anything from and, ya know, do it. 4. Cook more. 5. Make bread on a regular basis. 6. Make a galantine of turkey.
Should it taste like Christmas? What does Christmas taste like? This has been a strange holiday season, slow moving yet suddenly upon us. I feel as though I am looking forward to a celebration that has already happened. There have been a few celebrations here and there, but still the streets are mostly quiet. Well, it’s the Tuesday before Christmas. I’ m stuffing the stockings and trimming the tree, the songs blast out day and night.
21 December Wednesday
After a brief and very informal survey of my family and having made it clear that I did not want turkey, Shepherd’s Pie was nominated from a short list of suggestions. Great.
Before I write at length about the shepherds and their dishes, I am going to write about these last few nights before the festivities descend and everything goes mad. A festive platter of nachos, festive nachos.
Now nachos are wonderful and can be a really fun way to get your veggies in. I use my mostly vegetarian system, expect of course, it is entirely vegetarian because there ain’t no meat in it. Here’s the first point on which many have opinions. Sports bar nachos, smothered in low quality chili, then with a layer a third rate pulled pork carnitas crap. This stuff makes me sick, and I hate it. I guess it’s pulled pork sealed in a plastic bag and I hate it. Third rate, gray guacamole, and cooled, melted cheese that has coagulated and holds the other mess in suspension. If it’s particularly disgusting, it will have pickled jalapeno slices all over it.
I’ll admit to a love of chips and dip. I love dips. I remember when salsa got big. Microwave cheese dips. French Onion dip. Hummus. I’ve tried em’all baby. But you know, nothing compares to a boy’s first dip. My mother makes one with refried beans, sour cream with taco spices, shredded lettuce, diced tomato, sliced black olives, scooped up on a tortilla chip. I think she made two pans of it, one for the party, and one for me. I would request this dip on death row, honestly. We’re going to make it for New Year’s, that’s for sure.
Tonight’s nachos need to be heartier; a meal. Here’s what I improvised, I’m gonna try to write this recipe with as few words as possible. A pan, heat, oil, wooden spoon. Tumeric, cumin, smoked paprika, red chile, chili flakes, coriander, black pepper. Pureed together-tomato, cilantro stems, onion, into the pan. Diced green pepper, black beans, salt. Simmer till hungry.
Bowl, chips, bean chili, lettuce, diced onion,tomato, cilantro, sour cream, shredded cheese. That’s not very original, you exclaim. It’s the spice mixture, you must figure out your own. I have mine. I keep it a secret, even from myself. I’m just saying, you’ll be surprised by how much you like the result with homemade nachos.
Now speaking of keeping secrets, I have now half decided on a first draft of our simple, intimate, yet surprising Christmas dinner. Because my guests, my mother, father, brother, sister-in-law, niece, nephew represent ninety percent of my readership, it would be foolish to use this platform to share my menu and recipes, so I’m not going to. However, in the ensuing days and hours, I shall reveal little clues, like opening the doors of an Advent calendar. There are a couple of sides in the works, one of which is a surprising salad that I can’t wait to try. It does not contain lettuce; it’s based on a different winter vegetable. Can you guess which one? It is, oddly and purely coincidentally, named after other characters of the Nativity. Can you guess which one(s)? BTW, Shepherd’s Pie is not named after the shepherds in the bible story. That too, is pure coincidence.
Yes, I made a plan. And as soon as I set it, life laughed. I was invited across the bay to visit friends, have dinner, and soak in the hot tub. Yes please.
Remember that wonderful menu list I put up in my kitchen? All those wonderful menus? I got home on Sunday and discovered that the freezer was filled with bags of frozen spinach tortellini, the bulk of which make it impossible to store anything else, gotta make a little room in this baby. So, pasta it was, not the polenta. I also didn’t get around to the tart. For some reason, I don’t know, it sounds good, but I don’t really want it right now. Never mind, I thought, when I cross the bay, I’ll bring the polenta sans sausage cause they’re vegetarian and the tart.
The following morning, there was a significant BART delay, making traveling back East less appealing and potentially a lot more difficult. It was suggested that I consider the ferry, and consider the ferry I did. Not only consideration either, I rode it. Wait a moment, a delicate tart will not survive such a journey. One heavy whiff of salty brine and it will wilt to sand in my helpless spread fingers. I began to rethink the polenta too. I imagined I was a portly Italian grandmother with a steaming cauldron of hot cereal in front of me, one hand stirring with a wooden spoon, the other grasping my headscarf to keep it from blowing into the cold sea. If I squint my eyes, I can see Lady Liberty, Ellis Island floating on the distant horizon. So, no polenta.
What to do? I wasn’t gonna show up empty handed. This is where that menu really came in handy. I looked at it and saw that I intended to make a carrot cake later in the week. I also remember that I enjoyed a wonderful carrot cake at my host’s birthday party several years ago. Carrot cake it is!
It was wonderful. Now I called this post Bending with the Road because of the funny little change in plans. The other thing of it is, this is the third time I’ve written this post. Something upset my computer or something, and the first two drafts were deleted. Since the original writing, I lost a little interest in this story, although I will say with great pride that I can make a cake that can survive harsh maritime conditions. I guess could say “she’s seaworthy”! Ha!! Anyway, I’ve moved on, and we need to get seriously serious about Christmas, which is chasing us like the devil.
I’ve had it with Ina Garten. She’s built an entire career advocating for the homemade meals, recipes, cookbooks, shows devoted to cooking at home, finding great ingredients, serving them to our loved ones? Now, she is advocating pre-made foods, even saying she loves Trader Joe’s Apple Tart. Now, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with Trader Joe’s Apple Tart, I am saying that Ina Garten is a home cook, a passionate advocate for home cooking, someone who is trying to help you develop your cooking creativity. It’s not that we don’t find little short cuts here and there, get the frozen phyllo!! That’s not what’s up with Ina these days. She’s saying, pre-made dishes and meals are ok. She said it saves a lot of stress. For those of us that still love cooking, it is not stressful. Going to a restaurant or having one delivered does not make anyone a cook. I don’t understand. Maybe she doesn’t understand. If she is getting tired of always making the food, if she’d rather shake a martini and hang out with her husband, I completely understand that. But don’t tell your public, who are younger and looking for solid, home cooking advice from a well known expert, that it is just as good and less stressful to buy ready made meals as it is to make one. It isn’t.
At six this morning, it started drizzling. I could hear it gently tapping on the tin rooftop of the parklet in front of my building. It was calling me. I put on my shoes and scarf and went for a second predawn walk. No one was out at all, I actually walked down the center of Valencia Street, letting the little droplets bead on my face. It was so lovely. I came inside, with a new idea, more on that in a moment.
I was going to run to the grocery store, but it’s seven thirty now and the wind is howling with rain drops like cold little darts. Gotta stay in, but here’s the idea: I have a little bulletin board which I have affixed to the kitchen door. Affixed to this affixture with little tacks are two sheets of paper-one that has my dinner menus and the other with shopping needs. It is the product of vision, I saw it perfectly as if in a dream. Every color, detail, and symbol rich with meaning. Here it is.
It fell off the door. Nothing stays put anymore. If you can read type that small you’ll see that tomorrow night for dinner we’re having Baked Polenta with sausage and cheese roasted Brussels Sprouts, and finishing with an Apple almond custard tart. Boo-hoo. Let’s finish with a little Christmas cheer.
One Christmas, a friend suggested I think outside the so-called box when planning my dinner and directed my attention to a website where I could purchase whole saddle of kangaroo. I checked out the site, and there were many zoo animals one could purchase as food. I was forced to admit an uncomfortable truth- I am not that adventurous in the kitchen. Fortunately for me and at least one kangaroo, this deal was not available in the United States. We went with chicken.
I think I’ve got what you’d call the Old rotten prune blues. It happens. It happens to a man. Here I am, facing a stuffed pantry, almost overwhelming. Here I am, a man with time on his hands to devote to cooking and writing. Here I am, a man of limited means and limitless imagination. How to make the most of what we have is the key to artistry. Leonard Bernstein said something great about it once, but I can’t remember exactly how it goes.
If I’m honest, I still smart from that pack of sour prunes that ruined my Thanksgiving stuffing. I woke up at four thirty this morning and lay in bed listening for the rain. Silence. I get out of bed, put the coffee on and my shoes. I put the tv on very quietly, and it is presenting Laurel and Hardy’s Way Out West, one of their best, with the famous dancing scene. The storm is moving in, scheduled to arrive by six. I’ll have to take my morning walk now, in the dark. I go outside, and it has rained, the sidewalks are damp, and the air smells so clean and fresh, the perfect accompaniment for a hot cup of coffee. It is quiet, I am alone. My thoughts turn again to spoiled prunes. Why can something so sweet and lovely turn rancid and heinous as though on purpose? And in front of guests? What are these prunes trying to teach me? There is no joy in hiding treasures, you can’t enjoy tomorrow what is only fresh today.
In my fruit basket, there are a dozen fresh apples, picked right off a tree in Oakland. They are firm, crisp, incredibly juicy and completely natural, having never been sprayed or treated in any way. They have the occasional worm, and they deteriorate as things do in nature, which is to say quickly. Life is like this, now isn’t it? Eat the apple today, there is no later.
Inspired by mortality, I decided to do a pantry inventory of chocolate, nuts, dried fruits, and flours. All is good and well and right, but I must make use of these ingredients while we’re still in our prime. Let’s see what I come up with. My food is teaching me so much this week!
In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, on the trail of the lonesome pine. This is one of Stan and Ollie’s best films, it seems more improvised and free, the great James Finlayson at his mustache twisting villainous best.
Deep golden broth gently rolling, tossing little colorful pieces of celery and carrot around. A small mountain of rich turkey thigh and leg, and long pieces of fusilli. Turkey Noodle Soup. Eat well, that’s what I do.
Days later, we are in December. The 6th to precise. The turkey noodle soup was wonderful, as was the dish I made last night with the very last of the turkey. You probably have never heard of it, I found it in a cookbook from 1951 called French Country Cooking by the great Elizabeth David. It is intended to be made with the “old and cold” end of the turkey, its final bow. I cooked the bones and veg to make a stock, cooked some vegetables in a pan added whatever meat I managed to scrape off the bones which had also been finely minced. Then, add the sauce ladle by ladle full. It thickens. Yes indeedy yes, it thickens. Then take a pot of cooked rice and make a ring of it in a dish, then fill the center with the turkey. In a final dash, add a handful of crisp cooked bacon, and a scattering of parsley. The dish is called Turkey a la Chevalerie. I can’t find any recipes online or anywhere. I found it in my collection by typing “old turkey” in the subject line of the database.
Now the fridge is emptying out again, getting ready for the next big festival. Where Thanksgiving is somewhat rigid in its food traditions, Christmas is anything goes.
BingoFest 