BingoFest

Caddie Ganty

August 5th, 2024

5 August Monday

Sunset at Land’s End. How must the first Easterners, having traveled through deep river valleys, wind swept prairies, daunting snow-capped mountains, and sweltering arid deserts, have felt beholding the sea, the journey’s end. I’m glad they did it and not me, it takes twenty minutes in a Lyft from my apartment.

The last few weeks have been staple repertoire, nothing new that you haven’t read about before, assuming you read this little blog at all. I made a ham and spinach quiche, a cheesy cornbread casserole, polenta with poached eggs, Tomato Basil soup with grilled cheese. Oh yes, there it is.

One of the things I am not so great at as a home cook is repeating recipes to the same standard as the first time. It’s like somehow because I’ve done it once it magically doesn’t require as much effort or attention. Both things are wrong. I am making an effort to not cut corners or be careless. So, have I learned anything as a result of these repeats? Yes. What?

I came up with this one myself, I think. At least, I hope. I’d love to get just one good quote into the mainstream culture, maybe this is the one. Ready?

“Simmering is not the beginning of boiling, it is the end of heating.”

Now, think about that. “Simmering is not the beginning of boiling, it is the end of heating.” That could be my big quote, right? Or my first big quote. I mean, it will need some time to catch on, and you could be a big help in that area. You could work it into a few conversations with various friends, and really get something started. I recommend you begin several conversations about poaching eggs. You can do that, right? It’s not hard.

It’s also true, and a great think to have in one’s mind just before one adds a shelled raw egg to simmering water to be poached. The white should be so delicate and tender, holding its mass yet undulating as it is tilted from the spoon.

Soak polenta in cold water for a while before heating the whole pan with the original water when cooking. I never see this step in Italian cookbooks, so maybe it is sacrilege. Whisk the polenta vigorously to make it softer and well emulsified. Add butter, then cheese, then salt. For some reason, adding salt earlier gives the polenta a slightly gray color.

OK, now onward to new and bright things! First a sneak preview of this week’s offerings from Chez Me:

That’s right kids, it’s local wild caught halibut season. This week, we’ll be “having our way with Halibut”, featuring fresh ceviche followed by a quick culinary trip to Alaska for a heapin helpin of Caddy Ganty. What? WHO? What in the world is Caddy Ganty?

Well, it turns out Caddy Ganty was the wife of some guy, Mr. Ganty I guess, who got sick and tired and just fed up, literally, with dry halibut. Did she give up? Did she sit in the corner and sulk? Did she scream into a pillow? Well, maybe, there is no historical record of that. But she did come up with a dish for our noble friend the Halibut, and ensured her niche in history by naming it after herself. Thing is, it sounds delicious. Halibut marinaded in wine, covered in a mixture of sour cream, mayonaise, dill, lemon, paprika, topped with breadcrumbs and baked in the oven. I will serve it with herb rice.

Thar she blows! It’s Caddy Ganty, and boy, is she thrilled with her catch!

That’s a Halibut. They are huge, ugly, and have strong teeth to bite you with, so let’s be happy about killing and eating them.

Wednesday, we Go East, young man! with Salt and Pepper Fried Chicken Wings, Garlic and Ginger braised Broccoli. It will also be Farmer’s Market Day, so hopefully Peach Pie too! Also, Chicken stock making day.

Friday-Chicken Pho, Brownies.

Enough.
Another restaurant favorite, ruined by home cookin

July 25th, 2024

25 July Thursday

First, it is 6 months to the day to Christmas, and that’s not too early to begin thinking about what we may like to do. In fact, I should really start the pudding today if I intend to serve on Christmas Day. Well, a day or two won’t hurt. Will it?

What is your first memory of Pho? I think I remember mine. I say think because it seems that Pho exploded, metaphorically, on the scene, whatever that is, world wide at around the same time. Or, I encountered it twice in a short period of time in two different cities. The first Pho I remember eating was in London. I was with a couple of friends on a rainy evening, we’d spent a few long hours at the public house, we were hungry. London must be the best city in the world for late night dining. So many streets, so many choices. Have I had Pho? What? Pho? Oh, we must go you will love it. It’s noodle soup!

We ducked in to a lively, well lit open floor restaurant, with large glass topped round tables and tanks filled with little fish. We were enthusiastically seated and handed heavy, plastic matted menus. There is only one thing to get here for sure, I am told. Beef Pho. There was a lazy Susan on the center of the table, which had dishes of mung beans, Thai basil, lime wedges, and hot peppers. I ordered the soup. Thinly sliced beef, broth, spring onion, and the additions from the Susan. Heavenly beyond description, yet I must describe it. Could there be any place in San Francisco that serves such a dish?

It turned out there were many places. Some of the were great. Some of them were meh. I’ve never had a truly awful one, but. But……

Last week, my whole family came for a visit. One night, we decided to have a chicken version of Pho. I got home from a day of pounding tunes on the piano, arms full of chicken backs and tootsies for the broth. Next, oven roasted onions and ginger fingers, two cinnamon sticks, six star anise, ten cardamom pods, a small palm full of black peppercorns, salt. Simmer and simmer and simmer, but not as long as you’d think. Maybe two hours, three, allowing the house to fill with the nourishing scent. Tenderly chop some chicken bits and Gai Lon, which I describe as a mostly spinach like green, with a little nod to broccoli or broccolini. Strain the stock, throw in the bits, stir for about twenty minutes and spoon over some cooked rice noodles with lots of broth in there. Get that broth in there! Lots of crunchy mung beans, the lime juice. Oh, the wonderful tastes and textures.

Now, when I eat Pho, I make it at home.

A little note: This morning, I finished off the Pho. There were no more noodles, a few greens, and a few little bits of now dried out chicken. I ate the greens and few bits of chicken. Then, I strained it again into a large coffee mug. I drank deep into that mug of the most healthy and healing substance on this whole earth, brothers and sisters etc. Drink deep at dawn, and you will be rewarded with a most pleasant morning.
How do you like your eggs, Mrs. Donovan?

July 3rd, 2024

3 July Wednesday

Sounds like the title of a great comedy of manners, from the early 1930’s say. The son of a wealthy railroad magnate falls for a girl from the other side of the tracks. He manages to hide this fact from his folks until a festive society breakfast when she orders her eggs in a way not recommended at finishing school. Gasps are heard, pearls are clutched. Hilarity and mis-identities happen until the last five minutes of the film when suddenly and for no other reason a man in a pith hat appears and announces that our gal is actually a direct descendant of the House of Hanover, she’s worth billions and the problem is over.

But the problems are just beginning. After the reels are back in the can, Mr. and Mrs. will share a lifetime of awkward breakfast orders. Now since the permissive 60s, people can order their eggs any style, without shame. So, I can ask this question without hesitation, How do you like your eggs?

Most people who make eggs at home scramble them. Many take the position that if you destroy the yolks on purpose, it will save the heartbreak of watching them break on accident later. For some reason, I am very picky about the quality of scrambled eggs. First, they must be a uniform pale yellow. If you can see the lines of white and yolk separately, it means the preparer is weak and apathetic. If the eggs are overcooked and bounce on the plate, the preparer is worrisome and apathetic at the same time. If some of the eggs are overcooked and some of them are raw, the preparer is not interested in cooking and is trying to teach you you’re not worth it. You are worth it, and all of the above can hit the road. We can learn a lot of subtly annoying things about our partners, families, and friends by the way they screw up their eggs. Paradoxically, scrambled eggs are easy to goof up in the cooking, whereas another technique that is regarded as “difficult” is actually hard to get wrong. I am talking about poaching.

I have even been to diners here in the city of San Francisco where they will not allow you to order poached eggs because the cook doesn’t make them. Is that nuts? There are all sorts of gadgets and tools meant to help you poach easier which I don’t understand because making poached eggs is one of the easiest things to do. In addition, it is the most healthy way to eat eggs as there is no added fat in the cooking process. Hard boiled eggs I don’t consider eggs in a way, not like you know, breakfast eggs.

Too much, much too much in fact, is made of egg poaching technique. It’s simple. A pan of simmering water, a slotted spoon, an egg. Crack the egg into the slotted spoon to get rid of the excess water, tip the spoon into the simmering water about three minutes, then remove.

There are two poached eggs cooked exactly as I described, peppered with pepper atop a glistening mound of polenta. It’s funny, the line of polenta between the eggs looks like a little nose. If this were on a menu, I’d called it Martian’s bowl.
It was supposed to be fun.

July 1st, 2024

28 June Friday

It was really meant to be a joke, a little excuse to get together on a Thursday. An invitation-come over, we’ll watch the debate, have a drink, have a nibble, roll our eyes have a laugh. Order pizza? Nah, I’ll make something easy and fun and bring it over. OK, how bout this? I’ll make one dish for each of the candidates. It’ll be a riff on their names or their eating habits or something silly goose like that. Hmm…….There are numerous puns and plays for Joe, like a cup of Jo, Jojos, and of course, Sloppy Joes. For the other debater, I had a harder time. I did some careful thinking, avoiding fast-food related dishes and full-out low brow mockery. I allowed my mind to wander, and I reflected on colors and shapes, themes and ideas that characterize the other debater.

Dough Gods. A perfect metaphor for the other debater. The color on this snapshot is a little muted, but they were deep orange. They were amorphous and rotund. They were loaded with cheese. They were essentially cornmeal and cheese biscuits from Sally Schmitt’s Six California Kitchens, and describe their resemblance to dough gods, which is an euphemism for a pile of cow shit. Again, perfect.

So, there it was. Sloppy Joes, Dough Gods, and as I described it, a green salad will tomato and herb vinaigrette for healing, hope, and peace.

It’s been a long time since I had a sloppy joe. My combo: ground beef, onion, celery, green pepper, ketchup, Worcestershire, Tabasco, salt and pepper. Simmered, served on a bun. Little did we know just how apt my choices would be.

Bullshit and cheese. Sloppy meat sandwiches. Yes. Well, this is not a political blog, it’s about food. This will be important to remember in the next several months. Something that brings friends together to have good food can’t be all bad can it? Maybe next time, we’ll do it in a fallout shelter.
We’ll rise up singin’

June 21st, 2024
21 June Friday

Come on now kids, up at at ’em, a brand new summer just begun, just for you and me. Feeling relaxed, feeling renewed, feeling inspired, dreams are pursued. Let me take a little time and tell you a few things I’ve either learned or re-learned in the last two weeks kitchen-wise speaking, just in time for summer:
1. Chop your onions, chop your herbs.
Clean them well and chop with care. The shape, the size and the moisture of the herbs can change a dish, and ultimately, your life. It says a lot about one, really. Don’t use herb processing as an expression for your dormant rage, wildly hacking them to a pulp. Herbs lose their flavor this way and taste like grass clippings. Save your rage for mowing the lawn. Rinse and dry your parsley and cilantro thoroughly, and again, as soon as you get them safely home. Rinse, and I like to take them outside and shake vigorously and let em sit out for a bit. This time of year, everything is parsley and basil, tarragon and savory. How much spring onion is too much spring onion scattered on a dish? Has anyone ever discovered the answer to this question? This is the best time of year for fresh garlic too.

2. Little tomatoes are here.

Find a new way to dress them. Getting a salad dressing right really makes me feel like a man in a way few other things do, and my new favorite right is Miso dressing. Mirin, neutral oil, miso paste, sesame oil, soy sauce, sesame seeds, white pepper. Oh and yes, a little pinch of sugar. I was recently complimented on my salad dressings, and I was surprised how deeply I was moved by the words. I spent several minutes in silence.

3. Straighten up and fry right.

It’s the details in our work that can make a huge difference. This is my new thinking about deep frying. For thousands of years and across many different cultures and for many different reasons, grandmothers have been feeding their loved ones fried foods, like the salt and pepper chicken wings pictured above.

It is widely known now that deep frying is a unhealthy way of eating., which doesn’t sit well in the stomach with the notion that grandma’s cooking ways were best. Why did grandma do this? She hate us? Did she have a choice? Was there a way of frying that minimized the health downsides? Do yummy things just kill us quicker and that’s all there is to it? And what isn’t killing us, ultimately? Is it twisted logic to remind that more people have been killed across time from drinking water than from Nana’s Fritto Misto?

As far as I can tell, and this is not an academic paper, the fear of deep-fried foods corresponds with their presence in our every day lives vis-a-vis fast food and its numerous kissing cousins. Cheaper oils cooked at lower temps tossed in salt but never dried and tightened up caused many to lose their daddies earlier to early morning driveway heart attacks. So, naturally, bad. Cooking the materials at a higher temperature keeps the food from absorbing the oil, and drying on paper towels or some such thing after words removes any oil from the surface.

I toasted my spice mix, which is a personal variation of Kenji Lopez-Alt’s from The Wok cookbook. You can look that up yourself, but I’ll tell you I increase the amount of Sichuan pepper and cloves, and that’s basically my variation. I toasted them with the other ingredients (look it up) in a dry wok and carefully, so no one went running into the streets with burning eyes, you had to be there. Good times!

The temperature of the oil is paramount, and keeping the oil at the ideal temp is not something you can’t pay attention to. You can, you must. Don’t crowd the pan, cook a minute or two longer than you think you should. The food should be a dark golden brown. Then, dry it off with paper towels completely thoroughly. It tastes so good and has no grease on the outside, it’s dry and light crisp and salty spicy.

Take these broken wings and learn to fly.

4. Make the most of everything while we may.

I’d cooked a chicken and saved the carcass. I wrapped it in plastic, popped it in the fridge, and promptly forgot about it. When I noticed it was there too many days later, it was horribly useless, like an ancient rotting barn of dry grey planks you see from the highway. There’s no saving you baby!

So when I made my weekly chicken several days ago, I didn’t wait. I put it in the stock pot while my guests were still here! Next, I came into a glut of fresh summer basil that was clearly not going to survive the night. So, I made several jars of fresh pesto. Last night, dinnertime arrives, the wolves are gathering in the tummy. I heat some of the stock and I swirl in several tablespoons of pesto. This dish is profoundly delicious, maybe one of the most wonderful things I ever tasted.

It was the summer solstice. Windy cold grey in the outside. I took a warm bath, drank a large bowl of this deeply satisfying soup, and decided to pop on a movie. My app recommended in its featured classics, Don’t Look Now, starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, who died yesterday. It is one of the most creepy strange movies I’ve ever seen, and I think for the time being at least, I won’t be able to eat pesto without thinking about this film. Most of the film takes place in Venice, so it was fitting that I had something Italianate on the tongue.

A really nifty cake from a really nifty gal called Grandma Rose, who had a cafe in Portland Oregon in the 60s-80s I guess, and she put out a couple of cookbooks that are real dandies. I made the Fresh Plum Sour Cream Cake with Streusel topping, which was more desserty than breakfasty type-a coffee cakey type-a thingy. It was served with a thick whip of creme fraiche. The only word that I could describe that wonderful consistency of creme fraiche is clabber. Clabber clabber clabber it’s the sound of the cream and sour cream slippity slopping around the bowl until it comes together in a noble emulsion of strength, gentility, extravagance, and humility all at once. This lightly tart cream on top of the sturdy cake, tart fruit, and toasted cinnamon caramel streusel made for real good eating. OK kids, stay cool out there, and remember, if you get hungry, eat something.
Another summer at our doorstep

June 5th, 2024

5 June Wednesday

Let me tell you kids, it’s another scorcher by the bay. There is a pleasant breeze off the coast and the sun is at her blazing best. The sky is so perfectly cloudless I think I can see into deep space. It is a good time to be and do the simple. It is Wednesday, my special day to feel like a French woman, to saunter around the farmers market and be dismayed that the peaches are not quite ripe or the tomatoes have no scent.

This week has been a parade of yummy foods and happy meals. Fresh strawberry banana smoothies, baked chicken swaddled in cream and tangy mustard, fresh cherry tomato dressing, crisp salad greens, risotto. Rice in fact, a few times. Asparagus, height of season. All sorts of lemony things.

I must tell you I have always hated the word smoothie. It is a horrible word for a wonderful food stuff. Smoothie is a word that, to me, describes a con artist, or some young man that courts rich elderly widows.

Ha! I just looked it up. In British English a smoothie refers to a person who is polite and persuasive. Also, that He’s A Smoothie was the name of some kind of award-winning Canadian horse. In other words, it doesn’t uniquely describe a food, and these nifty not-just-for-breakfast drinks deserve one!

What could we call a smoothie instead? Something two syllables does seem appropriate. One syllable is too short, too sharp for the silken texture of the thing, like Slump or Grunt or Oat or Loaf- another horrible word. Too many syllables make it seem less serious, portmanteau that are almost as bad as smoothie. Fruigurtwhirlly. Yogwhispies. Fruipwhirls is OK. Yogswhirls? That’s better. Or just Yogu or Guyog or Gooyug. Go You! You Go, Gurl!! I guess smoothie is OK. I doubt even if I came up with a good name that anyone would start using it. I would need like, at least several million more subscribers and faithful readers to coin a new term, no?

Another classic from another time: James Beard’s amazing recipe for chicken breast baked with mushrooms, parsley, and dijon mustard. A naughty splash of cream, a little lemon juice at the end, and you got yourself one tasty dish there. Add some fluffy “dirty rice”. I put that in quotes cause it is really only partially dirtied.

Dirty rice, as it is called in Cajun cooking, is rice that is cooked in various organ meats and vegetables and of course, stock, and don’t forget the hot sauce! My dirty rice was meant to accompany a highly and singularly flavored dish with Dijon Mustard, and I didn’t want anything to interfere with that taste. In fact, in my original source material (The New James Beard 1981) the author specifically wrote that the chicken should be served with only plain boiled rice. Thing was, I already had a couple o’cups of chicken stock with some giblets I intended to make a gravy with a few nights before. The gravy never got made, in a story too boring to even mention. So, it was dirty in just that one way, like Uncle Gary.

Freshly boiled green beans, frantically tossed in black pepper and butter and lemon juice and a very interesting Cyprian lemon zest sea salt type thing make for a lovely salad. If Beethoven says “only the pure of heart can make a soup” then I’d assert that only the truly nervous can make a salad. It inspired me to write this poem:

I’ll tell you what June means to me,

She means green beans.

I means to tell you what me June,

this afternoon.

Again, the ole Forty-Nine bus whisked me off to civic center. Today, pretty standard fare. Fresh young golden potatoes, big fat leeks, perfect for the soup. Beautiful, tight heads of broccoli for a beef stir fry. Two enormous heads of Romaine, spring onions, garlic, and the amazing cherry tomatoes i found last time. I didn’t get any strawberries, I didn’t want to tempt fate with the bus on this particularly hot day. You know what heat does to strawberries? With people, it’s even worse! And another thing-the Civic Center Farmer’s Market is in the middle of an open area with absolutely no trees. Even at 8:30 in the morning when I was there it was full sun exposure. Merciless.

My Apartment has basically a north- south orientation, with the rest of my building to the east and the building next door to the west. This means that I get interesting slivers of sunlight both in my parlor (morning) and kitchen (afternoon) but that everything in-between is in permanent twilight or gets no sun at all, like my hallway. It’s nice to lie down on the floor there on really hot day like today.

Oh the heavenly scent of leeks cooking in butter! Is there anything better? I feel another poem coming on:

Amidst the fevered foodie freaks,

and even grander gourmet geeks,

Some Italians, many Greeks

humble peasants, fancy sheiks,

could expound for weeks and weeks

about undying love of leeks.

So, if your heart is feeling weak,

and your figure’s less than sleek,

and the prospect’s pretty bleak,

and your life-style needs a tweak.

Here’s the answer that you seek:

I suggest you eat a leek.

The first recipe in Mastering the Art of French cooking is for Leek and Potato Soup, or as the French call it, Potage Parmentier. Dear Julia explained that this dish is everything wonderful about French cuisine. Very few, simple ingredients cooked carefully to velvet emulsion with butter. It is so delicious that is surprises people when they ask what’s in it. Leeks, potatoes, water, butter, salt, pepper.

Here are some fun leek facts you can share with your family and friends. You could even make a fun leek trivia.

What do the French call leeks, informally? Because leeks grow plentifully in damp soil and swamps, it was called asperges du pauvre, asparagus of the poor.

Where does the word leek come from? It is an old English word that originally meant garlic.

What is the only vegetable that has a major city named for it? The leek.

What city is it? Chicago, an Algonquin word meaning striped onion or wild leek, which once grew in the enormous swamp on which the city is built.

Enough. Play the game, eat the soup, have a good time.

Now, listen here, you little sneak,

I’ll give you a little peek,

I’ll not break my winnning streak

of rhymes or of Potato Leek.
Happiness is a destination

May 28th, 2024

23 May Thursday

Author Rachel Simon writes “Happiness, I have grasped, is a destination, like strawberry fields.” Thus I find myself on the trusty Forty-Nine bus rolling towards our noble Civic Center, home of the San Francisco Public Library, and on Wednesdays, the Heart of the City Farmer’s Market. There’s an added treat: the Friends of the Public Library sale tables they set out once a week. I dropped my book into the return minidumpster looking thing, looked at the sale tables, and made my way to the market.

I like to walk around, amble really if I’m honest and look at the various fresh produce and etc. very carefully and deliberately. I love showing people that I am not in a hurry. My tote sack over my right shoulder, I accept a slice of fresh nectarine, a shiny red cherry, I nibble each and nod thoughtfully and approvingly, the way I imagine a French woman might. That’s it friends, going to the farmer’s market allows me to pretend to be a French woman who knows a lot about vegetables. Sophisticated.

Small and squeaky purple onions, check. Crisp heads of baby lettuce, bingo. Plump and pleasant first of season cherry tomatoes, you bet. Then, at the mouth of the market where the sidewalk meets the street, a vendor tent with one item and one item only. There, in large flats, glistening in the spring sunlight, a chorus of large, ruby red and picture perfect strawberries, their heads pointing toward the celestial conductor awaiting the cue to open in song. Like a bunch of Audry 2s from Little Shop of Horrors, they seem to be calling out to me, beckoning me forth. I imagine I’d have to open a vein or at least a capillary to feed these little guys, keep them ruby red, but no. The vendor was calling out to me, fruit in hand. I tasted the fruit. Perfection.

It was a little later in the afternoon, when farmers start to worry they will have to take some produce back to the farm (which they don’t want to do), so bargains are struck. One flat? $5. Three flats? 10. I was offered six flats for $15. So, I took my huge flimsy cardboard box of delicate strawberries back onto the Forty-Nine filled now with screaming teenagers, and got them home, an achievement on its own.

Another achievement- A new fridge is in place. An old fridge has been retired. It took a minute, but all is well and right and good. Then, I got ill. So, I convalesce. Chicken noodle soup.

New fridge interior. Exciting, I know. Regard the strawberries, bottom right.
I love it because it’s trash

May 21st, 2024

20 May Monday

Monday is my work from home sorta day, I reply to emails, review dates and meetings and plans for the week, do chores, make sure money gets shuffled around to where it’s supposed to go, and the other thrilling minutiae of self-sufficiency. When days are slow and it’s dishes and vacuuming and laundry, I’ll put on a “stupid” movie channel as my grandfather would’ve called it, and let it play away. My favorite at the moment is COMET, featuring sci-fi, thrillers and horror, many of the B variety. And tonight’s prime-time flick is a new one to me. The Roger Corman(RIP) produced, Harvey Korman starring (in two roles), 1986 masterpiece, Munchies. It is a riff, a take, a what do you call it? Rip off of Gremlins, except it’s much funnier and deliberately goofy. It gets bad reviews everywhere, and they are undeserved, this is a funny movie and a terrific picture, in a trashy, silly rip-off, low-brow sort of way. The puppets are hilariously cheap looking, the budget constraints painfully obvious.

Now, why am I sharing this movie news on my little food nibble bloggy woggy? I don’t honestly know, it was the only big thing that happened in my life today. Didn’t Don Delillo write that there used to be a thing called taste? Andy Warhol changed all that. Now there is camp, there is kitsch. It became ok to love things done in poor taste, things so bad they are good. I didn’t put quotes around it because it’s not an exact quote. I’m not even sure that it is Delillo, but I’m pretty sure. I don’t have time to go hunting around for it. Also, please don’t get hung up on the Andy Warhol part, it doesn’t matter for my purposes that we identify the person that did this, it is important to acknowledge that it has happened. This wider acceptance of stuff that we all know isn’t good (movies and tv lend themselves well to this acceptance) is a new and fun thing. It brings people with bad taste together without shame. This is true also in the world of food and drink.

I speak not of nostalgia. Neither speak I of reconstructed or deconstructed versions of dishes. Or real fancy versions of typically pedestrian victuals, I’m talking about genuine trash foods. Like, I had a friend that made a dish every Christmas that was intended to look like his kittycat had made lots of poopies in a pan of that mini gravel crap that gets all over the house of anyone that has a cat. I think it’s like little fudge clumps in crumbled-up oreos or something horrible like that. That’s an extreme example. Another example is serving carnival food at dinner parties.

High spring fog moves in over our peninsula. Anyway, here comes another one. I’m talking about really fancy $$$ gala dinner parties for private donors, special friends of private donors dinner parties, and private friend diners of donor dinners. A cotton candy machine. Donuts and waffles fried on demand. Hush puppies. Corn dogs. Yes, yes, the ole corn dog, she was barking up my pant leg the other day, but I shook her. A friend’s birthday request for deep fried goodies went awry when I fell asleep, a putrid and peaceless sleep indeed. I awoke twenty minutes before guests arrived having prepared exactly nothing. I’m glad I didn’t turn the oil on before I snoozed. I guess I don’t really care right now. I was happy. Guests were happy. Hot dogs (Hebrew National) on grilled bleach-white buns, simmered onions, hot sauerkraut, and mustard. Magnificence on a bun.

I’m sorry I called it trash food, it isn’t. Cotton Candy is trash food, my buddy’s kitty litter snack is trash. Is it? Does that make it bad? This Harvey Korman movie is bad, but I’d recommend it to anyone. In fact, I am recommending it to everyone. I hope they see this. Munchies, the little monsters that eat and prank and maybe even kill their way through Southern California desert towns.

Night descends on the quiet city. Let’s contemplate potato salad together. I remember the first time I ate potato salad. It was made by my grandmother or perhaps someone else, but it was definitely someone, and it was cold and quite mayonnaise-y, with thick chunks of celery in it. I remember a friend making a large bowl of her “special” potato salad for a picnic in high school. I don’t remember what was special about it except that it didn’t smell great, it doubled as an ash tray when no other was at hand, her constantly shedding cat loved hopping on and off the kitchen counter, and I always gave it a miss. Potato salads show up everywhere- a dish that seems to cross class lines, which doesn’t happen that often. Here’s what I did with mine:

With large, solid hands (mine), I peeled and plunged cubed Russets into water where they simmered in foamy, starchy, scum water until texture achieval. I poured off all the water and immediately showered the freshly texturally achieved morsels in a plague rain of apple cider vinegar and salt. Celery, yes. Onion, yes. Scallion, to be sure. Yella mustard, is the pope Catholic? Garlic, does a bear shit in the woods? Black Pepper, who’s buried in Grant’s tomb? Hard-boiled egg all chopped up. Paprika, sure. Parsley. Put it in the fridge, get it nice and chilly. I didn’t do this the other evening. We enjoyed the salad at room temperature. Which wasn’t as good.

A streusel and cherry pie cheesecake straight from the freezer, no baking required did the trick with dessert. All is right and well and good.
Into the pantry!

May 15th, 2024

15 May Wednesday

Mysterious cereals. Little jars of spice. Most of them were labeled at some point. Many of the labels fell off. Some of them contain a spice that is not the spice named on the label. I remember telling myself to remember that the Oregano is now Marjoram, then forgetting if that was the one that was changed or was it the dried chives. I dip my finger in and touch it to my tongue. Nothing. It doesn’t matter, it tastes only of dust now. Bottles and bottles of sauces and condiments. Enough mulling spice to host a Christmas party every week of the year. Four types of rice, five types of pasta, six types of flour. It’s nice to be spoiled for choice, it really is. Like anything else, it can be overwhelming. It’s also deep, my pantry that is, so to get the bread flour one must move three hundred other items. Pantry feng shui can be a challenge. You’ve heard this all from me before. But this is different. This is about ingredients that are labeled, that have flavor and are in great condition, I just don’t have any clue what to do with them. Let’s discuss a few.

Freekeh. A food of North African origin, it is toasted green durum wheat that is crushed. It is used in making all sorts of dishes, mostly as a grain side dish. What do you do? Well, before we all freak out, let’s do a little research. No one has more to say on this subject than Yotam Ottolenghi, one of the greats of our age. In his amazing book, Jerusalem, he has a number of recipes that have me real deal excited to eat this stuff. Spicy Freekeh soup with meatballs. Poached chicken with sweet-spiced Freekeh. I can also use it to produce falafel, which I’ve never made. That soup especially, that sounds like one tasty dish.

Course toasted semolina- I know this is your question, I know you. Benji, you don’t know how to use semolina? Yes, I’d snap defensively, yes I know how use semolina. But, course semolina? It looks different. A little quick research teaches me that course semolina is preferred for cakes, puddings, and items with longer cook times. Finer semolina (flour) is preferred for silky pastas and gnocchi. Lesson learned. It turns out that Ottolenghi has a recipe for Semolina, Marmalade, and Coconut cake, which sounds delightful. Also, a pair of semolina and date cakes in Paula Wolfert’s Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean, another classic. I have a lot of dates too. The food, not the social outing. I have social dates too, but this is not dear diary.

Finally, what do you do with a giant sack of sesame seeds? Well, there are a million things, you just gotta do them. Sesame cookies, sesame balls, sesame seeds all over your bagels and buns. But I am thinking that I’m gonna take a crack at my own tahini. I mean, what could go wrong?

OK, that’s it, just wanted to share. It’s funny that lately my food exploration has turned decidedly to the Middle East and North Africa. Coincidence? Yes, I think so. You can’t decide to work on kebabs and not expect that many of the recipes would come from this region.

OK, that’s it. If you’ve read this far, you’ve reached the end of this post, congratulations. I hope you learned something new and are running to the nearest market to buy farm fresh ingredients which you are going to whip into the most delectable dishes smothered in this and that sauce, pulling hot loaves of crisp bread from the oven, trimming crust from the edge of a ready to bake pie crust, stirring deep kettles of fragrant stew with long ladles, cranking yellow roads of fresh pasta onto the marble countertop, swirling ivory castles of whipped cream out of thin air, basting roasting meats in their succulent juices, deftly cracking perfect eggs into batters and doughs. I hope you are doing that. Instead of reading this post, which substantively ended several paragraphs ago.

OK, that’s it, basically. Though, one thing. Earlier I wrote that Ottolenghi had more to say about freekeh than anyone else, and it occurs to me that it might not be true. I don’t know everyone, let alone people who know more about anything than anyone, let alone freekeh, and I’m comfortable extending that to the entire world of cereals and grains. I had a mildly paranoid fantasy that for some reason Ottolenghi read this blog entry and decided to sue me for defamation of character, not for misapprehending his knowledge of freekeh, but because his image is one of a humble man, not a braggard as I cast him.

OK, that’s it. Hope everyone is well. Family Feud coming on.
slow adventures

May 9th, 2024

9 May Thursday

fresh baby spinach, toasted pecans, blue cheese, purple onion, roasted strawberries, vinaigrette.

Penne pasta, canned tuna, capers, garlic, butter, parsley

Romaine lettuce, cucumbers (mostly peeled, though not entirely), cherry tomatoes, feta, oil and lemon juice.

Fried egg on a toasted Banh Mi with pickled Jalapenos, hash browns, jack cheese, arugula, a little hot sauce.

Yesterday, I bought a bag of fresh cherries, the first of the year. Ruby red and tasty tangy sweet.

Sometimes, it happens. You or I, let’s say we, catch a tiny little glimpse of an adventure happening. It may have been happening for some time, or maybe it just sparked off, but you catch it, and only for a second before it disappears, but you it’s enough to know that it is happening. And be satisfied with that. Or joyful even.

What is this adventure of which I speak? The adventure of leaning into our life, the thrill of trusting ourselves. It’s a slow and emerging adventure, so I can’t say specifically what the outcome will be. If I did, it would hardly be an adventure. Music where there was silence, food where there is hunger, you get the picture. Creation, it is called. Going out, enjoying, smiling, and being free. Turning on that grill, chopping fresh vegetables, popping trays of things into the oven. The best adventures happen slowly.

This adventure began with a few simple decisions. First, I would set my phone to notify me of everything I need to do to attend to physical needs including bed times, wake times, meal times, exercise times, and media use times. At first I was frustrated that I was not “obeying” the calendar and either sleeping in, staying up too late, not eating, eating too late, etc. etc. Lately, I’ve noticed that my schedule is starting to align with this calendar with surprising effect. A personal routine is an amazing thing, having a relationship with yourself.

Next, I decided to simply omit certain items from my diet: Instant Ramen, Taqueria burritos, and frozen pizzas. Why? They are cheap, easy, and assuage hunger instantly, if only for an instant. They also take away the need for me to mindful of my meals. There is something calming and liberating about meal planning and eating at designated times.

A wall of Thunbergia black-eyed Susan. Not recommended for eating in fresh salads.

In addition to the dishes described above, I have a couple of other meals in mind:

Tofu pudding with scrambled egg mixed in, baked, sprinkled with soy sauce and sesame oil, served with steamed rice and kimchi.

Yakitori- Japanese chicken kebabs marinated in Mirin, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, and orange zest, skewered and grilled with bell pepper, spring onion, and mushrooms. Chicken livers sometimes, but optional. (I think I should go with the livers!)

Spoleto kebab- pork loin, lamb chop, chicken breast, cut into cubes, olive oil, rosemary, juniper berries, sage, and bacon. A very special celebration this will be.