Posted on

Soffritto: (Trying to) Learn from a Master–Part II

BACK HOME
I unload my farmer’s market finds and start prepping. I quickly glance at my copy of Soffrito. The recipe for Ragu is about seven pages—including a lovely picture of a finished Ragu and a three page essay on meat sauces. I force myself to skim the dense paragraphs describing the history of meat sauces and stop at the list of ingredients for the Ragu.

1 1/4 lbs of beefsteak (sirloin, rib eye or round steak)
1 pork sausage
2 chicken livers
1 chicken neck
1 large or 2 small red onion, minced
1 carrot, peeled and minced
1 large stalk celery, minced
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ cup dry red wine
salt
2 fresh or canned tomatoes, peeled
4 cups water
1 piece of lemon zest, cut into thin strips
2-3 tablespoons of butter for dressing the pasta
1 cup Parmesan cheese for serving

Though the list of ingredients calls for beefsteak, it isn’t until I start reading the actual recipe that I realize I was supposed to ask the butcher to mince the meat for me. Upon further reading, Vitali suggests strongly that the butcher must only put the meat through the mincer once in order to “prevent excessive flaccidity.” I try to imagine myself returning to the meat counter with my sirloin and asking the old man for a shot at the mincer. I made a fool of myself in front of him once today. There is no way I’m going back there.

Luckily, a few sentences later, Vitali says a good home mincing is also an ideal for a ragu, but warns the reader that it is not only time consuming, but requires “a certain skill.” Hoping I have the innate skills needed, I commence mincing.



Based on the size of my dice, I decide I have quite possibly succeeded in making a somewhat proper mince. I begin my soffritto and heed Vitali’s advice to do nothing but observe the cooking process of these key three ingredients.

I marvel at the smells of this holy trinity
and admire the way the heat and oil changes the texture of the vegetables over time.

What was once clearly separate becomes one in velvety texture. It is at this point, when the soffritto gets to the “moment before it burns” I toss in the meat and let it brown.

As I do I read Vitali’s advice with the hunger of a starved pupil.

“Don’t be seduced into forgetting what you are doing and letting browning turn to burning. In this recipe you work at full attention, monitoring all operations…as the browning of both the soffritto and the meat should stretch your attention to the maximum. You will need all your senses, including the olfactory one, to prevent disaster.”

I tell myself Vitali is my greatest teacher yet, and continue on. If anyone can teach an Anglo Saxon how to cook like an old school Italian, it’s Vitali. She describes the browning process as one of making the meat “suffer”. Without browning, she explains, the meat will taste like it was boiled.

Sure. Brown the meat. Got that. Check.

I brown the meat for 15 minutes, waiting for the tell tale “crust” to appear on the meat and on the bottom of the pan. When this begins to happen, I add ½ a cup of wine and let it cook off.

With the wine cooked off, I begin to add my two cans of peeled tomatoes.

After adding the first can I realize I have been using the wrong pan for the job.

I re-read the recipe and discover that Vitali calls for a 10 inch diameter POT, not a 10 inch in diameter PAN. Suddenly, I am forced to move all cooking operations into the right sized container.

***It is this moment here, when things began to go astray, that I should have realized there was something wrong. I should have turned off the heat, stepped away from the stove and re-read Vitali’s 7 page recipe. Had I done that, dear reader, I might have discovered that the recipe called for TWO TOMATOES. Not TWO CANS of peeled tomatoes. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I definitely have problems with paying full attention to the little (and some times big) details. Just ask my husband. He’d be the first one to say with a smile that I am one quick moving person of the Aries persuasion. ***

With my meat and two cans (blush) of peeled tomatoes transferred to a pot, I am ready to add the 4 cups of water to the sauce. I lower the flame to minimum, add salt, pepper and lemon zest and leave it for 2 hours.

At the end of the cooking time (no wonder it took my sauce about an hour more to cook down), I remove the chicken neck and pull the meat off the bone. I toss the bones and return the chicken neck meat to the sauce. Delish! While I cook the pasta, I heat up my oven to 100 degrees so I can warm my pasta dishes.

When the pasta is al dente, drain and save some pasta water for thickening the sauce. Pour a ladleful of sauce into the bottom of the pasta bowl with a dab of butter.

Add a serving of drained pasta in the pasta bowl and add more sauce. Turn the pasta with a fork and spoon so as to blend it and serve immediately with grated Parmesan cheese.

Though the meal was a success (the house smelled like Casalinga a favorite Italian trattoria), I know I sti
ll have much to learn. The ragu would have been a true meat sauce had I followed the directions to a T. What I ended up with was a saucy meat sauce.

I have to admit, this dish as prepared, was amazing. Next time, I shall try it with the requested TWO TOMATOES and see what the difference is!

Posted on

Soffritto–(trying to) learn from a master Part 1

There’s something to be said about learning from a master. Curiosity and reading can assist a student in the basic understanding of their subject. Practice and countless attempts may move a student’s understanding forward, but it is the presence of a master and a student’s drive to understand, that can initiate the most profound kind of learning. The eager student that studies with a master will inevitably learn the important nuances that makes proficiency possible.

To behold a master, no matter what it is they do, is to witness artistry. A master distills millions of hours of learning in a dab of paint, the slice of the knife, the turn of a phrase, the swish of the bat, a musical tone or the stillness of their mind in chaos. Despite the power of academia, the whisper of a master may be more important than a shelf-full of books.

And so it is with cooking. Reading can only get you so far. It’s what’s actually done in the kitchen that will get the novice to a place of mastery. It’s in doing that one does. Cookbooks can only get you so far.

Preparing food from “Soffritto: Tradition and Innovation in Tuscan Cooking”, however, is to learn Italian cooking from a master.

If the student is willing, Benedetta Vitali’s cookbook will teach the traditional Tuscan way of cooking in a handful of well-written chapters. Information usually transmitted via hours in the kitchen by an ancient family member, is shared in meandering stories and pointed observations on the aesthetics of cooking. Vitali’s stories are captivating and her voice is like a patient mother doling out the family rules. “One must never leave a Soffritto on the stove unattended,” is the sort of advice that if taken to heart will haunt you every time you start the traditional onion/carrot/celery mixture sautéing on the stove.

No other cookbook I’ve read gives so much personality and passion for the correct way of doing things. When reading Soffritto, you get the feeling there’s a whole army of Vitali’s family ready to start a war over why she would ever give away all the family’s secret recipes.

After eating the multi-course dinner at her restaurant Cibreo in Florence (one of my most memorable meals of 2007), I knew I had witnessed the culmination of years of experience and real mastery of a subject. The food was not only impeccable and representative of Tuscan food, but each and every one of the dishes elevated the common fare to a whole new level. Each course was a revelation. Even, ribolita—a rustic left over stew mixed with bread—was recreated and deconstructed—making it an ultimately sublime experience.

So when I woke up on Sunday morning with the urge for a meat ragu, I knew I had some learning to do from Benedetta.

What follows is my experience cooking Ragu from Soffritto.

MAKING RAGU–SUNDAY MORNING
Always a slow day, I pull myself from bed at 10. After an hour of catching up on the presidential primaries, I head out the door. It’s cold and rainy (an oddity in LA), so traffic is slow going. I make it to the Hollywood Farmer’s market just minutes before the vendors pack up their stalls for the day.

With my stomach growling, I quickly buy a cinnamon bun from the Bread Man and eat it out of its plastic bag while I speed shop for my vegetable essentials. I buy a bag of sweet carrots, three perfectly white onions and a hearty bunch of celery for soffritto, the traditional base elements for most Italian dishes. I buy a flowering bok choy, leafy red lettuce, Meyer lemons, and cherry red tomatoes. I taste test blackberries and drip sugary raisins on a bag of dried favas as I reach into my jean pocket for my stash of wrinkled dollar bills. I leave the market before someone shoes me away for ruining their product.

After failing to my friend’s recommended butcher, I fight the weekend traffic and go to the permanent farmer’s market at 3rd and Fairfax. Finding a parking spot is nearly impossible, but I find a space in the 30 minute parking area and run for it.

On my way across the parking lot I call my husband and ask him to read to me the ingredients for the meat ragu from the Soffritto cookbook. As he reads me the ingredients I scribble them onto a scrap of paper I scrounge from my cluttered purse.

“You’re going to need 1 ¼ beef sirloin. 2 chicken livers and one pork sausage” My husband pauses. “Uh, the recipe calls for 1 chicken neck and 2 oz suet. Are you sure about this?”

I shrug. “Why not?”

The forward moving force of limited time (my thirty minute parking spot) and powerful muses (Vitali’s gorgeous Soffritto cookbook has me convinced this is a meal worth eating) has me excited and dodging dawdling mall customers and hurtling at a break-neck pace for the meat counter of my local butchers. Hah! I laugh. Chicken necks and the unknown ingredient “suet” can not deter me.

At the Puritan Poultry, I buy the chicken livers, no problem. They’re fresh and a gorgeous purple brown. The butcher rings up the chicken neck. It weighs next to nothing and it looks like freshly skinned pinky finger. The whole thing costs me less than 50 cents. Who knew a person could get fresh chicken necks at the butcher?

I head over to the Pork and Beef butcher by the Korean food stand. These guys are always busy and their playful meat displays (pig faces made out of pork sausage) always put a smile on my face. Behind the glass case are two young men in white butcher’s coats. A wiry old guy that looks like he’s spent more time chain smoking than actually eating food stands behind them, checking their work at the counter. I carefully check my list of ingredients and prepare to direct my questions to the senior gentleman.

A young man with a thin moustache approaches and offers to help. I rattle off the easy stuff. Instead of purchasing in spicy Italian sausage, the young butcher recommends a small portion of pork sausage meet. When I order 1 and ¼ lbs. of beef sirloin, he finds me the best chuck sirloin. With my basic meat needs met, I wait for the right moment to ask for the suet.

“So, I’m also going to need some suet,” is say as the senior butcher crosses behind the young man with the skinny moustache. “About 2 ounces.”

“What the hell kind of recipe calls for 2 ounces of suet?” The old man laughs at me with spite. “I hate cookbooks like that. Those people don’t even know how we have to sell this stuff. I should sell you a whole pound and let you deal with the rest of it.”

I smile and nod. “I know. Crazy cookbook authors.” I chuckle.

I do my best to try to make the guy understand I’m on his side–not the cookbook’s.

The man disappears into the meat locker and comes out with a plastic bag filled with what looks like a white powder. He shovels a few scoops of the stuff into a white bag and seals it.

“Here’s about a ¼ pound.” The man frowns as he slams the bag down onto the counter.

“What you don’t use, you can freeze.”

I thank the man as I screw up my courage for the question I’ve been saving. Time this wrong, and the innocent act of questioning could turn this transaction seriously sour.

“You wouldn’t mind educating me on what exactly suet is? “ I swallow hard. “Would you?”

The senior butcher pulls the paper hat he’s wearing over what’s left of the hair on his head. “Fat. Suet is the fat that lines the kidney.” With that, the man disappears back into the meat locker. As soon as the door locks behind him I know the old man is swearing underneath his breath at me. I comfort myself with the thought that someone has to ask these questions. Someone has to act stupid so others won’t.

(to be continued…)

Posted on

Employee’s New Years

If you work in the food service industry, chances are you work most holidays. Popular holidays like the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Yom Kippur and in LA, the night of the Academy awards, are practically impossible to not work. So if you’re a traditionalist and insist on getting time off for all the major holidays you can most certainly can kiss your restaurant job good bye. Or you can suck it up, work the holidays, and schedule your life around the restaurant’s required hours of business. And so it goes. That’s just the nature of the food service business.

Most non-industry people see this way of thinking depressing/tradition ruining/frustrating, but I just see it as an opportunity to avoid preconceived notions, required moments of pomp, traffic and crowded shopping. Instead, every year I celebrate holiday MY WAY and on ANY DAY I LIKE.

So while Joe Public is getting messy drunk and spending way too much money on New Years because he feels he has to, Joelyne Server like me makes lots of money I can spend on a less pricey night with a million times less social stresses. Friday or Saturday night on the town with all the rest of the 9 to 5ers? No thanks! I’ll work on the weekends and forgo the line at the door for an amazing meal on the town on a quiet Monday night!

Which brings me to my point. Finally.

Since both my husband and I had to work New Years Eve at our restaurant jobs, we decided to celebrate the beginning of 2008 on first night of the New Year. Though I’m against celebrating big holidays with the masses, I am all about creating a great big traditional meal with friends. So while the rest of LA suffered through their lingering hangovers, husband and I were just gearing up for a night of incredible food and wine with our two wonderful foodie friends, Leah of spicysaltysweet and her boyfriend, Neal.


With the streets clear of drunken idiots and DUI searching cop cars, we were ready to enjoy ourselves.

NEW YEARS NIGHT MENU
Cotechino con lenticchie

With hearts set on making a traditional New Year’s meal, we decided to make Cotechino and Lentils. According to Mario Batali, Cotechino con Lenticchie is the most traditional dish of all Italian New Year’s dishes. The humble dish of pork, it is said, originated in Emiligia-Romana (while others say Modena) with the peasants who made the sausage from left over ends of a newly butchered pigs.

Quick to dive into research, I learned that Pellegrino Artusi, author of Italy’s first popular cooking book in 1891, believed that Cotechino was “not a refined dish” and was fit to be served only to very good friends who wouldn’t mind its rusticity. Undetered, by this information and descriptions of the sausage’s strange “tacky” texture (which comes from the gelatinous matter that is released from the pig skin component of the sausage), Leah and I went in search of Cotechino.

Though Cotechino is sold in two ways: pre-cooked and uncooked, I could only find the pre-cooked variety at local LA gourmet markets. The nice people at Froma on Melrolse sold me Umbrian black lentils and a reasonably priced pre-cooked l lb Cotechino sausage (Under $14). I skipped the $25 cotechino at Joan’s on Third I put my $$ towards a luxury bottle of $40 fresh pressed olive oil (harvested and pressed in October of 2007) from Gianfranco Becchina and a slice of Gorgonzola Torta (A layer “cake” of Gorgonzola and marscapone topped pine nuts).

On New Year’s day I arrived at Leah’s apartment with my ingredients in hand to cook our special meal together. While Leah rolled out her dough on the dining room table,

I started cooking the lentils.

Instead of following a recipe, however, I decided to go on instinct. Here’s what I came up with:

LENTILS

EVOO Olive oil (enough to coat the pan)
1 Onion (finely chopped)
1 Carrot (finely chopped)
A handful of sage
2 cloves of garlic
1 bag of Umbrian lentils (1/2 pound)
Chicken stock (2-3 cups)
1 tbl of tomato paste from a tube
¼ cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup fresh press EVOO
Salt

Chop the onion and carrot finely. Heat a large sautee pan on medium high. When hot, add enough olive oil to coat the pan. Add the finely chopped onion then carrot. Throw in the un-sliced garlic. Sautee down the onion and carrot until they become soft and transformed into cohesive, soft duo of texture. Add the lentils. Sautee for 3 minutes and then begin adding ¼ cups of chicken stock until the pan is filled with liquid. Allow to cook down and continue adding chicken stock and water from the cotechino pot (see below). Cook for 30-60 minutes, depending on the texture. The lentils are done when they are no longer al dente. Finish with vinegar and olive oil. Season to taste.

COTECHINO (pre-cooked prep)

Prick the Cotechino sausage with a toothpick and then drop into a pot of cold water. Bring the water to a boil—approx. 20-30 minutes. The sausage is done when it appears plump and a new shade of pink.

**Save the Cotechino water for adding to the lentils.
Slice the Cotechino and serve on the Umbrian Lentils. Serve with Mostarda di frutta or Salsa Verde (a sort of pesto of olive oil, parsley, garlic, S&P).

Our NEW YEARS MEAL:

Leah’s homemade ravioli (stuffed with Butternut squash, asiago cheese, and walnuts) and for later the Torta di Gorganzola

Cotechino and Lentils, Swiss Chard, Mostarda di fruita

Happy New Year!

Posted on

Hello Goodbye

Good bye 2007.
Thank you for everything you’ve given me.
A husband. A whole new family to call my own. Stories. Friends. Inspiration. Amazing meals. Travel to incredible places. Knowledge. Love.

Hello 2008
I look forward to making the most of all the days you have to give me.

I raise my glass to all that has come before me and all that is yet to be. Here’s to life, to love, to inspiration!

Posted on

Umami in my Sunday Market Seen-Better-Days Vegetable Soup!

Almost every Sunday you can find me at the Hollywood Farmer’s market with a smile on my face and a pocket full of dollar bills. If you see me just before noon, you’ll see me struggling to carry a cup of coffee in one hand and a week’s worth of fresh fruit and vegetables in my overloaded Lady of Guadalupe shopping bag, in the other. I like to limit myself to one bag, because it keeps me from buying too much produce that I’ll never get around to using.

Usually by week’s end, I am successful in creating dishes that include all of my market fresh ingredients. But come Saturday night when almost a full week has passed, I can usually find a few neglected vegetables in the refrigerator’s crisper that need using. Take for example last week. Even though I intended on cooking a beautiful Christmas dinner with some friends, the electricity was intermittent because of the Santa Anna winds, so at the last minute my husband and I ended up eating take-out Chinese instead. We enjoyed not cooking, but come Sunday morning when it was time to take accounting of what was needed at the market, I discovered a crisper full of wilted bunch of carrots with the greens still on, a head of cauliflower just starting to show signs of turning, a butternut squash and a handful of onions. Being mindful of our household budget, I decided to skip the market and make a pot of soup for the week from the vegetables at hand.

SUNDAY MARKET SEEN-BETTER-DAYS VEGETABLE SOUP
*only to be made as penance for when you’ve failed at making use of most or a good amount of your market vegetables.

Open the crisper. Take out all the produce you haven’t used all week. Forgive yourself for being lazy/busy/distracted by your life.

Separate the fresh ingredients from the produce that looks like it has seen better days. Seen-better-days produce like wilted veggies, limp carrots, half used onions and any other green that has lost its spunk, should be used for building the stock. The other vegetables should be saved for adding to the soup once the stock is made.

Put a large stock pot of water on the stove on high. While the water heats up, add the stock making vegetables. The fun part about this, is everything can go in. Carrots with the tops on. The whole bunch of wilted celery. Half up a few onions and whatever else you have laying around. Don’t worry about making this stuff look pretty. It’s all going to get tossed out once the vegetables are cooked down.

**Cook’s note: If you have one of those amazing pasta stock pots with the internal pasta basket, throw the vegetables in there. That way it will be easy to remove the cooked down/stock making vegetables.

Bring the water/vegetable pot to a boil and immediately bring down to a simmer. Let stock simmer until your kitchen fills with the aromatic smell of soup. At least an hour or more. While this is happening, prep your semi-fresh or fresh vegetables. Good veggies for soup are cauliflower, squash, kale, pea tendrils, onion, carrot, celery, etc. Cut your ingredients into uniformed bite sized pieces.

The stock is ready when the water has a distinctly new color (green/brown) and should have a sweet, vegetable flavor. When the broth is almost sweet with vegetable flavor, remove the cooked down vegetables from the broth.

Add the fresh ingredients, a bay leaf and some salt. Simmer for at least an hour.

Begin tasting your soup for seasoning. Enjoy this moment as you taste all of the flavors of the market intermingling. What flavors are more pronounced?

Once you know the basic flavor of the soup, add at least two to three tablespoons of soy sauce to the soup. Taste again. Believe it or not, this little step is going to make a HUGE difference in improving the flavor. By simply adding soy, suddenly the soup tastes hearty, as if you added chicken or beef stock. **Why is this? Well, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, there’s something in soy sauce that elevates food to a whole other level and gives it a FIFTH FLAVOR. The Japanese call this satisfying meaty/savory flavor, Umami. But I digress. Add more soy if needed, according to your taste.

Simmer for another hour if you want the flavors to really come through. For a hearty soup, add hearty pasta noodles or leftover rice. You can also serve the soup over day old bread.

Serve the soup in warm bowls and finish it with grated Parmesean, to bring out even more satisfying flavors of umami!

Keep some soup in fridge for tomorrow and freeze what’s left in to-go containers or Tupperware for later in the week! Enjoy!

Posted on

Top ten tastes of 2007

As inspired by Ed Levine at Serious Eats

1) The tasting menu at Cibreo, Florence
The deconstructed Ribolita and the tomato aspic were the meal’s highlight.

2)The Gelato (Fresh Cream and the Candied Fruit) at Grom in Florence, Italy

3)The number 13 La Cazuela (Bowl of hot cheese and chopped tomatoes) at Superica, Santa Barbara

4) Bistecca Fiorentina on the grill at my chef friend’s house in Panicale, Italy

5) The Funghi Misti Pizza at Mozza, LA

6) A bowl of fresh ricotta covered in honey at Osteria Aquacheta Montepulciano, Italy

7)The squash and pecorino Fresca dish at Ostera Aquacheta in Montepulciano, Italy (see earlier post “An Obsession is Born”)

8) The Chocolate Croissant at Tartin, SF

9) The Salt Cod breakfast dish at the Hungry Cat, Hollywood

10) A handpicked cheese selection including air-dried Fici Figs by Chester at Joan’s on Third, Los Angeles

Posted on

Blending with Paige 23

I ran into my wine maker friend Chris Keller the other night at the restaurant I work at. Chris was in a good mood and celebrating over a great meal with an even better bottle of wine. Chris is the wine maker of Paige 23, and, in general is one of the happiest guys I know. In any given exchange, Chris has been known to quote Buddhist philosophers, Bruce Springsteen, Monty Python and well-known LA chefs. Maybe Chris’ perma-grin is from being married to a beautiful and sweet woman named Hahn. Or maybe it’s because he’s producing some undeniably gorgeous and elegant wines out of a garage in Santa Ynez.

Whatever it is that makes Chris Keller tick is a good thing. Because his wines rock.

It was a busy night at the restaurant. On my way past Chris, he stopped me. “How’d you like to come up north and help me come up with some killer blends of my wine?”

When a wine maker friend asks if you want to come and taste his wine straight from the barrel and weigh in Bordeaux blend, you just can’t say no. Especially not if you call yourself a student of food and wine. One must say yes and prepare for a wonderful education in grape varietals.

And so I did.

Chris Keller’s wine is Paige 23. Respected by wine makers and restaurants around the world, this small winery operating out of a garage, creates beautiful wines from French varietals such as Grenache, Syrah, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Paige 23 is a labor of love for Chris and his business partner, Joe Kalina.

When Chris isn’t making wine, he works as a wine consultant selling wine and creating wine lists for several LA restaurants—which is where I first met Chris. It was at the tail end of my work as General Manager of a busy Culver City restaurant. There were so many difficult things about my 16-hour a day job that made me want to hang up the suit and quit the business all together, but my weekly meetings with Chris made me want to stick it out a little bit longer so that I could have thoughtful discussions of food and wine and taste wines with him and other incredible wine makers he represented for his consulting business. I eventually quit my job in Culver City and luckily, Chris and I have remained friends ever since.

MONDAY MORNING

Hans and I wake up early enough to get a cup of coffee and a tank full of gas and still be on the road before 9am. The usual 2-hour drive up to Santa Ynez is easy and relatively free of traffic. We make it up to Buellton before 10:30. Enough time to get some eggs at the local greasy spoon.

11 am. Meet Chris outside his wine garage. Inside it’s cold. There is a line of half bottles labeled and filled with wine just pulled from the barrel.


After we grab a few glasses and a plastic jug for a makeshift spit bucked, we’re ready to go. It’s time to start tasting.


ROUSSANE ’07. Practically fresh off the vine, it’s a surprise tasting something that has wine flavors, even after being picked just two months ago. Still in that early, juicy stage. The wine tastes sweet like apple pie with butter, nutmeg, Christmas seasonings and apricot.

SAUVIGNON BLANC ’07 Santa Barbara Highlands. Aged in Stainless. Floral, green, pineapple and kiwi. Juicy and balanced with a grapefruit finish.

VIOGNIER 07. Here is where my mind gets blown. The wine is aged in stainless steel and, unlike other wine makers Chris skips the 2ndary fermentation stage. The result, a wine that tastes of honey, lemon blossom and nuts and has a real viscosity that makes me realize that Viognier doesn’t have to taste like perfume and white flowers.

**This wine is amazing as it is. Chris decides to bottle this as is.

GRENACHE BLANC ’07 Tank fermented. This wine tastes like red licorice surrounded by a layer of spicy tannin. Still very much alive and working towards becoming what it will be, the wine feels alive and jumpy.

**Chris decides this wine is great as it is and decides to bottle it without blending it.

CABERNET FRANC ’07. From the Westerly Vineyard. More Red licorice dried plum and apricot, clove, rosemary and mulling spices. This will be one of the blending grapes for the Bordeaux blend.

Santa Barbara Highlands 06 MERLOT: Violets, cinnamon, blue notes on the mid palate with a spicy finish. This will be one of the blending grapes for the Bordeaux blend.

CABERNET ’06. Westerly vineyard. Plum, cranberry, chocolate. Beautiful acidity with nice aromatics. This will also be one of the blending grapes for the Bordeaux blend.

After tasting through the wines, we begin concocting our plan for blending. Here’s where things start to get interesting.

THE 1/3 BLEND

We blend equal parts of each varietal (Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Cabernet) and taste. What we discover is that this 1/3 blending isn’t cohesive at all. There’s the red fruit of the Cab Franc up front (and all over the place), the acidity of the Cabernet tries to make it through but the whole things ends too quickly. The finish is almost dusty. Something is clearly not right.

40/40/20 SPLIT

We re-group and decide on a blend of 40% Merlot, 40% Cabernet and 20% Cabernet Franc. We hope reducing the percentage of it in the blend will lessen the aggressive flavors of the Cab Franc. The result is significantly different. The wine is balanced from beginning to end. There are blue notes of violets and other fruit, acidity and balanced tannin. The blending is a success!

What I learned

I think the most incredible thing about tasting wines straight from the barrel, was realizing that it really doesn’t take all that long for wine to become wine. It takes years, however, for the wine to become what it truly should be.

There’s an art to blending. Once you know the characteristics of a varietal (What flavors a Cabernet has to offer vs. Cabernet Franc), you can start to understand t
he process of blending. By blending, you can take the best qualities of two or more wine varietals, and use them to create another, more nuanced wine. How one blends the wines together and in what proportion becomes just as much an art form as growing and making the wine.

Posted on

Favorite Holiday Foods: A Recipe for Finnish Sweet Bread

Ever since I was a little girl, Christmas morning always began with freshly toasted Nisu, a Finnish sweet bread, slathered in soft butter. My grandmother, Hilja, would put on a pot of tea and while she toasted thick slices of the spiced sweet bread for the family. Though the idea of opening gifts had us giddy, the smell of Grammie’s Nisu could entice us away from our presents and have us running to the kitchen for a fresh a bite of this special sweet bread.

Nisu, a Finnish sweet bread, is braided and blonde like a Finnish girl’s hair. The sweet bread (also called Pulla) is flavored with freshly ground cardamom and a touch of sugar. Every holiday my grandmother would bake us a loaf and smuggle it into the house and hide it, so that the family wasn’t tempted to tear into it before Christmas morning. The braided loaf is soft, like a delicate challah bread, but sweet and perfumed with the exotic flavors of cardamom. Of all the breads I’ve tasted, no other uses cardamom in such an intoxicating way.

Though it’s been almost a decade since I left my family home in Gloucester, Massachusetts (the town where my Finnish ancestors settled), I have never lost the taste for Nisu.

Continue For a Family Nisu Bread Recipe »

Posted on

Waste not want not


Waste not want not, originally uploaded by Foodwoolf.

While making my two batches of Nisu, a braided Finnish Cardamom sweet bread, I found myself with a couple extra handfuls of shelled cardamom.

Here is my recipe for a great, fast cup of home made chai:

1 bag of black tea
A teaspoon of cardamom (fresh out of their pods)
one black peppercorn
a pinch of cinnamon
a pinch of pinch of nutmeg
a cup and a half of milk

Simmer all together until warm. Should be the color of caramel when the tea bag is brewed and flavored with the spices. Add a sugar to taste and serve!


Cardamom Chai, originally uploaded by Foodwoolf.

Posted on

What's in it for the Virus

When you’ve got the flu, your insides are turning inside out and you think you’re going to die, have you ever wondered what’s in it for the virus?

I mean, what possibly could a virus get out of all of this? I started thinking about this question and wondered if viruses were more like marauding teenagers. Maybe the point is to make their mark on the weak by destroying what they hold most dear. Maybe Viruses just get off on destroying.

Clearly, I’m no scientist. I just like to eat food and hate anything that keeps me from enjoying my meal. Bad service, bad food and being cash poor are the usual suspects. But now, VIRUSES are on my radar.

Why does a virus have to go in and mess with ME?

I’ve been doing a little research and from what I can tell, viruses know that they’re insipid little organisms and their time is short. So they, like angry little teenage marauders, like to cause as much havoc they can and then jump hosts and start all over again. They don’t like to stay in one place too long, else get caught. So they vini-vidi-vici a person and then, change their look a little, and move on. That way, they can keep on messing with people until the end of time.

Vicious little *(7*&(&8%@’s!

According to the J. Craig Venter Institute, the flu I’m talking about is a Type A influenza.

Researchers classify type A influenzas according to structural variations in two surface proteins: hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). Like changing coats, the influenza virus changes the shape of these HA or NA proteins when it accumulates minor mutations or reassorts more dramatically. The human immune system no longer recognizes the virus, and infection begins anew.

Steven Salzberg, senior author of the Nature paper, says the new work illustrates this chain of molecular events. “The study demonstrates that these influenza subpopulations, or variant strains, represent a pool of genetic resources that the influenza virus can draw upon,” says Salzberg, a researcher at TIGR and also director of the University of Maryland ‘s Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. “Pockets of distinct flu strains spread locally, with flu evolving in different directions. Then, when one strain mingles with another, a new, dominant strain can emerge.”

Maybe it’s because I’m a writer and I want to know the motivation for things, but some how, knowing WHY a virus would need to do such vicious stuff makes me feel more understanding of it.

I know. I’m sick.

Posted on

A Viral State of Mind

Okay, so it happened. I got the flu virus that’s been going around. I knew it would happen eventually. I work in a restaurant, for god’s sake. I touch dirty dishes and have people sneezing on me all night. I don’t know why I thought I’d be immune. I wash my hands all the time and am careful not to touch my mouth or face while I’m working…But then again, I am want to share a sip of wine with my co-workers at the end of the night. I just should have known better.

So I got it. From what I can tell, it was probably some mutant strain of the Norwalk Virus or some nasty virus like that. At first I thought I had food poisoning, the way my body reacted so violently, but when I got a fever I knew it was the flu. Once I could see straight I did a little Googling to find out more about what I was dealing with. According to USA Today, this viral strain has hit CA hard and it has killed thousands of people.

I can see why. Damn.

If you’ve had this flu, you’ll know the symptoms very intimately. Goes something like this…Everything’s fine and then one minute, say at four o-clock in the morning while you’re sleeping, you’re suddenly sitting up in bed acutely aware that something is terribly wrong with the body you’re inhabiting. And you better run to the bathroom. Fast. And then, well… all hell breaks out. Maybe for like ten minutes your stomach bloats out and moves around like there’s an alien trapped inside you and you wonder—is there an alien trapped inside my body? And then you realize it’s something much, much worse than that and everything that was once inside you is immediately ejected—any way possible.

Flash forward though the nasty bits. You struggle through chills, cramps, fever and general discomfort associated with turning your insides out. You’re free of food and liquid and stay far away from anything that resembles anything with a scent. You wait through it—maybe a day or two or three– and beg for it to end. And eventually, it does if you’re young, strong or without a compromised immune system.

After two days without food, I feel more alive then ever. Almost appreciative. Granted, going through the Norwalk virus isn’t pleasant, but when it’s over, life is SOOOOO much better. I can smell food again. I can drink tea. Sip soup. Chew on a noodle or two. And for the first time in a while, I can think about the food that I’m eating in terms of nutrition and what effect it might have on my body. Because, dear reader, for the past few months (ah, admit it Brooke…Years), I’ve been eating for the taste of FOOD. Not for its benefits.

So maybe, just in time for the New Year, I’ve been given a chance to rearrange the way I think about the things I’m eating. Instead of thinking about flavor first, I’m thinking about my body, THEN flavor.

So who knows what that means. For the time being though, I’ll be doing a lot of thinking about soup. Really, really good soup.

Posted on

Knife Skills Illustrated

Sometimes when I pick up my chef’s knife I get a sort of stage fright. Everything will be going along just fine with my dicing of an onion and then all of a sudden it happens. I try to focus on the vegetable or the fruit I need to cut, and suddenly my attempts to clear my mind of judgement fails and I have to stop. I can’t cut a thing. Even though there’s no one in my kitchen checking my knife sills, I can feel the presence of a great chef judging me.

I think it was last year when my knife skills problem started.

It all began when I saw this one episode of THE NEXT FOOD NETWORK STAR. It was the show when Iron Chef Morimoto tests the hopeful TV chefs with a quick challenge. He hands the contestants a chef’s knife and a fish and tells them to filet the thing.

It was horrifying what happened next. In this pool of talented food professionals, most of the contestants couldn’t filet the fish. One or two skilled people were able to de-bone the fish in just a few minutes, but all the other kitchen jocks just destroyed the fish. It was embarrassing. One woman did such a bad job Morimoto couldn’t even look at her.

He just stared at the messy pile of wasted fish and frowned. “Uh, basically,” he said, “you have no knife skills.”

And that, as they say, was that.

Now every time I step up to my chopping board, I hear Morimoto saying the very same thing to me.

Over and over again.

“Uh, basically, you have no knife skills.”

No matter how swift (“Uh, basically, you have no knife skills”) or how uniformed my technique (“Uh, basically, you have no knife skills”), I feel Morimoto’s critical gaze checking my work. Sometimes, even my husband says the dreaded phrase (“Uh, basically, you have no knife skills”)—just to mess with me.

But all of that is over now.

Thanks to the Cooks Library and swell guy named Peter Hertzmann and his book Knife Skills Illustrated, I’ll be slicing my onions like a master.

This book is my new bible. Whenever I’m ready to slice and dice, I pick up my Knife Skills book and get reading. The pages are full of great illustrations that make learning knife skills from a book absolutely possible.


Like this illustration, for example. Basically, I had no idea I was holding the knife wrong. According to Hertzman, if you want to have great knife skills, it’s all about the pinch grip.

I’m so down with the pinch grip.


This is not the pinch grip.


This, my friends, is me doing the pinch grip.

I have to agree with my new friend Peter, the pinch grip gives me way more control over the knife. Holding the knife like this hurts a little at first (tender hands of a novice), but very soon I’ll get a knife-skills-blister just like the pros! I’m so excited!

I’m so excited, I even took pictures of myself cutting brussels sprouts. Because I’m a big fat food blogging nerd.

I’m beside myself happy. There are just so many vegetables to be sliced. Multitudes of onions to practice on. I can’t wait to perfect the art of deboning a chicken! Just you wait Morimoto. I’ll have knife skills yet!

Posted on

For Your Consideration…

Casey Affleck bad diner
Image from Gone Baby Gone

It’s Thursday night and the restaurant is packed. It’s nine o’clock and there’s a line out the door. The manager’s i-pod shuffles through a rock set. Diners yell to hear each other. Servers like me, bend and spin around crowded tables.

Upstairs in the office, it’s quiet, except for the constant ringing of the phone lines.

A solitary receptionist hits the blinking lights that represent anxious people in search of a reservation.

“Thank you for calling _____, please hold, thank you for calling______please hold, thank you for calling _____, please hold. ” She saves breathing for after the last blinking light is touched.

She inhales and clicks onto a line. The receptionist can tell from the crackle of traffic and men talking in the background, that she’s on speaker phone.

“Thank you for holding. Can I help you?”

The voice on the other end yells to be heard. “Yeah. Hi. This is Casey Affleck. I need a table for four in fifteen minutes.”

The receptionist explains that the restaurant is booked. That the reservations are booked one month to the day in advance. The actor insists. He’s Casey Affleck. He’s in the neighborhood. He needs a table now.

The receptionist recalls the name, but can’t quite place his face. Other than being Ben’s brother, who is Casey Affleck again? The receptionist calls the manager for help. Is there something that can be done?

While the curly haired woman waits for an answer, she IMDB’s the actor’s name. So, he’s been in the Ocean 11 movies. That’s right, she thinks. He’s the funny side kick guy. Oh, and he was in that Boston movie about a girl getting kidnapped. Never did see that movie, she muses.

The manager steps in and suggests there could be an opening. A reservation has no-showed. He’ll do his best to squeeze in Affleck, along with the rest of the walk-in’s. Before the receptionist hangs up, the manager offers one small caveat: “Tell him he might have to wait a while.”

A while later, the curly haired actor (and his mini-posse) is seated.

A server like me, but not me, approaches the table. She greets Casey Affleck and his friends with a smile. They look up from their menus with Los Angeles upper crust disdain. Casey Affleck nods to the server. She blushes a little when he stares at her, all intense with his semi-famous dark eyes.

“Listen,” he says. “People usually send out appetizers for me when I come in. You can let the kitchen know I’m a vegan.”

The server does a double take. What did he just say? The server spins away from the table, dazed.

The server approaches the kitchen and pulls the chef aside. She repeats verbatim what Casey Affleck–the actor–has just told her.

“So…Uh, are we going to send him out some beets or something?” the waitress asks.

The chef calmly nods his head. “Hell no.”

_______________________

For your consideration…

Posted on

The fighting continues…

I really don’t get what all these Bon Appétit readers are so upset about.

What I read on Josh Ozersky’s post on Grub Street, was a statement about Bon Appétit’s attempt to attract a younger, more hip audience by changing the typeface of their magazine. I read his skepticism and frustration with an old way of thinking and saw his challenge to Bon Appétit to think out of the box and to take more chances in its attempt to find a more hip readership. I read a post that suggested that maybe it takes a little more than all lowercase letters and a vowel’s monthly color change, to create a buzz that would appeal to a younger fan base.

But that’s what I read. Hundreds of other food-blog readers scanned Ozersky’s post and saw red. They read insult and accusation. They read Ozersky’s comments and felt he had slighted them for liking to cook at home.

Blame it on my potentially poor speed-reading skills or my single-minded need to find proofs for my personal opinions on the food industry, but I did not feel at the very least bashed by Josh Ozersky’s post. Instead, I got happy. Really happy.

Finally, someone was saying what I was thinking! These big glossy food magazines have gotten so big and lofty in their appreciation of “the bigger things” (more on that later), that they’d forgotten how to appeal to a much broader audience. They might say they want to skew younger but they’ve forgotten what “new” really means.

Ozersky mentioned the biggest problem the big-gun food magazines face is, is that they “will never be any hipper or friskier…because no magazine about upscale entertaining can ever speak to people that don’t have big houses and plenty of time on their hands”.

This, I think, is where people started to see red.

Sure, he said that the magazine appealed to people with money and was written for people who “ate in”. But isn’t that true? Isn’t Bon Appétit targeted for people who have the time and money to cook and appreciate food? Look at the ads between the stories and you’ll know exactly whom the advertising department is aiming at. These are people with great outfits, go on European vacations, have well equipped kitchens, don’t worry about their food budget (going to Whole Foods/Whole Paycheck doesn’t make them sweat) and most definitely like to throw extravagant parties.

Sure, people like me with six-figure debt (thanks film school!) read the magazine and diligently cook from it, but the glossy isn’t TARGETED for my financial bracket. Just ask my accountant. My financial bracket shouldn’t even spend the amount of money I do on food and think I’ll ever get ahead.

But back to Josh Ozersky. After he posted his little side bar about Bon Appetit, Grub Street post was immediately bombarded by angry readers’ comments. And boy were they pissed. They ranted and raved and stated that he was terribly wrong and that there was nothing antiquated about their beloved magazine. They said Bon Appetit was their bible and that it is written for everyone that loves food—regardless if they eat in or out.

Even my hero, the Amateur Gourmet, had something to say about the Grub Street post. He said the blog didn’t make him mad until he reached the end of the article. He wrote that Ozersky’s comment that Bon Appétit is for people who eat in” was what fired him up.

He said:

Personally, I see some truth to what he’s saying: cooking at home isn’t as exciting as going out…but you’re not engaged with the outside world the way you are when you wait two hours in the cold for your table at The Spotted Pig…. You may not find us in the glossy pages of New York Magazine, but you will find us at our kitchen table, laughing with friends, and digging into a slice of homemade apple pie. I don’t know where you’d rather be, but I know where I’ll be tomorrow night.”

I don’t think this is what Ozersky meant to say. In just this little side bar, Ozersky states that Bon App has lost its edge because it appeals to a class of people. What I think he’s saying is that in appealing to the rich it eliminates all of us. Bon App is a lifestyle magazine, not a recipe for a universal way of thinking about food.

As food lovers, we read about food because we love it. We love to think, taste and discuss it everywhere and anywhere. If you’re young and interested in food, or a food lover with a tight budget or a person who wants to know something new and extraordinary, you’re more than likely not going to turn to bon appetit for the scoop. You’re going to go to the Internet, or the Cook’s Library, or a number of different locations to see what people are saying.

To truly love food, one must understand all the aspects of it. There is taste, aroma and texture. There is personal style, history and traditions. To be wise, one must be well read, well versed and experienced. Bon Appétit has served its purpose in the early years. Back when the magazine was first published, the articles were edgy. It did take chances. The magazine was a bible for my mother’s generation and brought to a new level of culinary appreciation to millions of men and women. But now it’s the 00’s and Bon Appétit isn’t cutting edge any more. The Internet is. Google searches lead readers to the answer to almost any culinary question.

I cook at home. I obsess over ingredients. I study cookbooks. I eat in inspiring restaurants. I work in one. I read Bon Appetit.

But the fact of the matter is, I still don’t LOVE Bon Appétit. I never have. And the reason I don’t love Bon Appétit is because I’ve never felt like that magazine was written for ME. I might not have a big house, a big budget, all the right shaped pots and pans the recipe calls for, or the state of the art stove, but I can most certainly appreciate the articles and recipes. If these flagship magazines don’t change the direction of their editorial content, they won’t have the staying power to change the culinary lives of next generation of readers.

But we’re all selective readers, I suppose. We see what we want to see.

Posted on

jumping the shark


When TV shows lose their way, the viewing public sometimes says the series has “Jumped the Shark”. It’s a funny way to say that something that was once entertaining has become droll, trite and nothing but a waste of time. Usually, not long after “jumping the shark”, the show dies a miserable, lonely death. The origins of the phrase “Jump the Shark”, of course, comes from a dismal season finale of the show, Happy Days. It was the episode when the Fonz had to jump a tank of sharks on his motorcycle. It was a lame trick and didn’t make any sense and the viewers weren’t interested in watching aliens (Mork from Ork) or Fonz try to fight unnecessary foes. It became clear after the shark episode that Happy Days no longer had anywhere they could go with their characters or plot lines. The show was going through the motions and nobody cared anymore.

And so it is with food magazines.

According to the NY Times, Bon Appetit announced it would be “courting younger readers by adjusting its logo”. You see, from now on starting in January, Bon Appetit will be bon appetit (oh! how hip!) and the “O” in Bon Appetit will be a different color than the rest of the letters every month.

Every month the o will be different? Really? Oh, Barbara. It’s going to take a lot more than turning the title of the magazine to lower caps and changing the color of your “O” ever month to make the kids want to read your magazine.

How about hiring someone young? How about allowing freelancers like me (ahem) a shot at a column every once in a while?

I don’t know why this surprises me. I’ve known ever since 2003 when the October issue of Gourmet came out that something bad was about to befall the big guns of food publishing.

Maybe you remember the cover. The image was so out of place you might have stopped dead in your tracks in the check out lane. I recall dropping my bag of muffin mix and gasping an audible “Oh no!” when I saw it. It was the cover that decried “CHEF’S ROCK!” and featured a handful of chefs (LA’s own Suzanne Goin, Eric Ripert , Scott Conant and Laurent Gras) dressed up like rock stars and playing kitchen equipment instead of instruments. The cover made no sense, had no accompanying story that justified the cover and appeared to be quite honest, desperate to appear hip.

Back when Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazine were introduced to the American reader, there were a plenty of exciting things to report on. There were unexplored cooking techniques (deglazing! sous vides!), unknown ingredients (lemon grass! Harissa!) and culinary traditions to be adopted from around the world. Bon Appetit wrote about chefs before celebrity chefs existed. Gourmet magazine explored food before there were Food centric networks and culinary blogs. But with the powerful force of the Food Network and the multitude of self-published blogs, these figureheads of the culinary publishing world have lost their relevance.

For a fresh angle, I’ll go to Amateur Gourmet, Orangette.blogspot, or Spicysaltysweet.com. I’ll pour over my Bill Buford New Yorker articles and the gorgeous food reporting of Saveur. I will continue to love me my Jonathan Gold, Patrick Kuh of Los Angeles Magazine and a handful of LA Times food writers (not snide Leslie Brenner, that’s for sure). I’ll watch TV food stars and read my Waverly Root, my Marcella Hazan, my Best of Food Writing collection or any other of my weekly purchases from the Cooks Library. I’ll read and read and read, but I more than likely will flip through the bon appetit. It’s rare when I get swept up by one of their stories. Even more rare is when I actually cook one of their epic dinner party recipes.

It’s true. Things are getting competitive in the culinary publishing world. Perhaps the antiquated icons of food publishing will collapse under the weight of their ancient ideas and arcane way of doing things. Maybe they never will. But as I look at the current state of food publishing, I can’t help but think there’s another way to make room for more innovative publishing concepts. Surely there’s room for a few more great food stories.

So until my big break as the next great food blogger, I’ll continue writing, keep on waiting tables job, carry on trading stories about great meals, and always, persist in finding the next great dish.

Posted on

Profumo del Chianti

Profumo del Chianti is a simple enough thing. Snowy white Italian sea salt, finely ground and infused with highly aromatic herbs including rosemary and lavender. It’s sold to tourists in jars and vacuum packed bags that are perfect for travel.

But the man behind this uncomplicated, aromatic seasoning is no simpleton.

Dario Cecchini, the Dante quoting butcher from Bill Buford’s book “Heat”, is a culinary rock star. Tour busses carrying food lovers from around the world speed past ancient churches and art museums and head directly for the tiny butcher shop tucked into the hills of Chianti. Dario’s butcher shop, Antica Macelleria Cecchini, has catered to locals for over 250 years. Thanks to Dario and his larger than life personality, the Antica Macelleria Cecchini now serves finely whipped lardo, beautifully butchered meat and gorgeous salume to thousands of meat loving tourists from around the world.

If you are in Italy, all you need is a GPS set to Panzano Italy and then look for the crowd of people milling around the sidewalk with glasses of wine and slices of salame in their hands. Step inside the meat locker sized shop and take in the sights: there’s a wood table decorated with a cutting board covered in sliced meats, jars of spicy marmalade, a bowl of whipped lardo with rosemary. There are house cured salumes hanging from the ceiling and a painting of Dante on the wall.




While on our honeymoon, my husband and I visited the Antica Macelleria Cecchini twice in one week. On the first day, we walked in the door and immediately knew we had found Dario when we saw the big chested man in a leather vest. There may be a handful of men working at Antica Macelleria Cecchini, but Dario Cecchini is impossible to miss. His larger than life personality and the constant swarm of people around him make Dario the obvious center of attention.

I watched Dario with star-struck reverence as he spoke Italian with the booming voice of a stage performer. Though I couldn’t understand a word of what he said, there was a lot I could surmise by his dramatic hand gestures and expressive face. I feared that my skills of pantomime would not translate well, so I kept my head down and avoided asking questions about the unfamiliar products he offered up for sale on his shelves. Looking for something that would travel well in our tightly packed suitcases, my husband and I bought a number of vacuum packed bags of white stuff labled Profumo. Though we had no idea what it was we were buying or how we would cook with it, the label made us think what we were purchasing was just what we needed. We both smiled when we read in loosely translated English: “breathe in deeply for sudden attacks of nostalgia”.

Luckily, on day two of our trip to Panzano, we learned the best way to use our Profumo. Sprinkled on a plate and submerged in a bath of olive oil, the Profumo makes an excellent dipping sauce for crudite. At Cecchini’s beautiful new restaurant, Solociccia, they offered freshly picked vegetables and profumo in oil to guests as an antipasti course. The guests oohed and aaahed over the incredible flavors. The Profumo elevates the food, without drowning out the true essence of the ingredients.

Hans and I were in heaven nibbling on a carrot that was dipped in the olive oil, salt and herb mixture. We shook our heads in shock. How could something so simple be so good? Certainly this is what Alice Waters thinks of when she serves a perfectly ripe fruit for dessert or the why Sushi Chef Nozawa refuses to put anything on an amazingly fresh piece of fish. Let the fresh ingredients speak for themselves.

It’s been little more than a month since our return from our honeymoon, and already I’m experiencing extreme attacks of nostalgia. After my trip to the farmer’s market I cut up the world’s largest radish,

A bunch of carrots and fresh top celery. I poured a bit of profumo into a dish and covered it in golden, extra virgin olive oil.

My eyes rolled back as I studied the sweetness of the carrot and how it played against the saltiness of the Profumo. I savored the crunch of the radish and its peppery spice. I brought the dish of oil and profumo to my nose and took in a deep breath until I was back again in Panzano.

In my dream, Dario smiled at me and nodded knowingly. I had come back to Panzano once more. And this time, I understood exactly what he was saying.

Posted on

Church of the Market

Thanks to my New Age mother and my unusual upbringing as a yogi-blessed protestant that received yearly psychic, rune and tarot readings as well as comprehensive astrological charts, I’ve been the kind of person that could find God (a higher power that touches everyone and everything), just about anywhere. I’ve found God in incense scented temples, Renaissance churches, and quiet road side shrines. I’ve felt God in the crashing waves of the Atlantic, in the olive groves of Italy, in the tall branches of the California redwoods, in the smile of a newborn and, most recently at the Hollywood Farmer’s market.

It’s not surprising that I’d find God at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. The city I live in is, after all, named after angels and the streets there are paved with stars. Look around the block and it’s not too hard to find bleeding heart Jesus’ on a tee shirt and a brightly painted picture of the Lady of Guadalupe tacked to the taco truck’s window. Not far from the fresh fruit vendors stands, I’ve seen Hasidic Jews on roller blades talking about the Talmud on their cell phones.

Going to the Hollywood Farmer’s market gives me the chance to settle down, be quiet and get right with God. I swear the vegetables talk to me. I get whole sermons from a juicy Clementine. I’ve heard homilies in a freshly cut peony. At the church of the market, the choir is made up of chefs in a produce trance, the blind guitar player named Pepe, and red-faced babies in strollers, busy chewing on a handful of grapes. The freshly cut samples, pierced through by a toothpicks, are my communion.

I don’t know what it is about the bright colors of the fruits and the earthy smells of the vegetables, but every Sunday I go to the farmer’s market I come back a better person.  Tasting a sun warmed grape or a glistening orange slice silences me immediately. I close my eyes and become mindful of every flavor. Some times, when I smell a ripe apple or a juicy pear, I remember what it was like to be a five year old enjoying a piece of fruit. In those moments, I am both a child and an adult, overwhelmed with happiness, humility and the appreciation of the simple things. My worries melt away and the incessant buzzing of my brain working out the details of my life quiets down to nothing.

Going to the Hollywood Farmer’s market not only feeds my belly for the week, it satisfies my soul. I find solace in the Swiss chard. I get comfort in a handful of ripe tomatoes. I won’t say that religion is the answer for everyone. But I’m willing offer a guess that a visit to the Hollywood Farmer’s market might be.

Posted on

Cheek by jowl

“If you would please me—and there are thousands like me—you would write books of travel and adventure, and research and scholarship, and history and biography, and criticism and philosophy and science. By so doing you will certainly profit the art of fiction. For books have a way of influencing each other. Fiction will be much the better for standing cheek by jowl with poetry and philosophy…Thus when I ask you to write more books…I am urging you to do what will be for your good and for the good of the world at large…” Virgina Woolf

And so it is with food blogging. There is not limit to the kind of food websites there are in the blogosphere. Chowhound riles up the locals to give their two cents. The Amateur Gourmet makes short films with a dozen eggs and Broadway musical soundtracks. Orangette makes preserves for her wedding and photographs the jars with the care of an artist.

I want to stand cheek by jowl with the greats and write about the rustic restaurants I’ve discovered in small towns and the great meals I’ve made in my tiny, galley kitchen. I want to describe the flesh of a pear and the meatiness of a beautiful Barolo. I want to share my secret getaways and culinary inspirations. I want to recommend and rant. I want to photograph and document.

Food blogging not only begets writing, but it also inspires a lot of creativity in and out of the kitchen. Moved by the wry wit of the Amateur Gourmet, my pantry has become a casting agency. A big mouthed tea canister, a blustery pile of flour, a cluster of shriveled raisins would make a great cast for my culinary shoot-em up! My wedding day decorations went from the typical choices of roses and got a culinary focus when I turned to my food blogging friends for inspiration. Overly ornate centerpieces became milk bottles filled with wild flowers. My wedding bouquet smelled of mint and basil instead of lightly perfumed white roses. Complicated canapés were cancelled and rustic prosciutto wrapped breadsticks were served in their place.

There will be many journeys here and beyond my kitchen. I look forward to sharing them here with you.

Posted on

A master comments…

After getting over a bit of performance anxiety, I brought my butternut squash dish to work to be critiqued by the chefs at the restaurant I worked at.  I did my best to appear cool and calm and slid the plastic to-go container holding the contents of my labors to the chef.

“Here’s that butternut squash dish I’ve been obsessing over,” I said with studied nonchalance. “Heat it up whenever you think you have the time.”

I started to walk away. Chef Bryant stopped me as I turned to leave.

“Hold up. We’re gonna eat it now.”

I quickly gave him my re-heating instructions and disappeared around a corner. I was hoping to see if Nancy Silverton, my boss and my culinary hero, was somewhere nearby. I scanned the back kitchen.  The only people I could find were the dishwashers and some cooks prepping clams.

For a moment I considered slicing off a portion of sizzling butternut squash and bubbling Pecorino and bringing it to her, but changed my mind.  I feared I’d look foolish or inconsiderate forcing a nugget of orange squash on the city’s most celebrated bread bakers. With just minutes before service, surely someone in charge would kill me for distracting Nancy.

So instead, I busied myself with preparing a frothy cappuccino. Anything to keep my hands busy and my eyes off the mouths of the chefs that were most likely eating my dish by now. I downed my caffeinated drink and returned to the floor of the Pizzeria.

One of the chefs, Joe, stopped me as I passed by. “ Hey–it’s good,” he said.

I stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t stem the rising of octaves in my voice. I practically sang a high-soprano “Really?”

“It could use a little salt. But it’s good.” He smiled. Continue reading “A master comments…”

Posted on

A butternut squash obsession is born

Matt Damon, Paula Poundstone, Ted Kennedy, Janine Garafolo, and Dennis Leary are your typical New Englanders. They might not be California good looking, but they’re whipsmart and tough as nails. Which is probably why, as a born and raised New England girl, I feel such an affinity for Butternut Squash.

If there was any one vegetable that could represent a New Englander’s sensibility, it would definitely be the ever-reliable butternut. Hearty, thick-skinned and slightly awkward, the butternut squash is undeniably bright and sweet. With sunset orange meat, its straightforward flavor is a perfect counterpoint to its hearty packaging. This tough on the outside, tender on the inside little vegetable saves the traditional Thanksgiving meal of stuffing, gravy and turkey from being nothing but a blur of woodsy browns and earthy tans. Get to know the butternut squash and you’ll suddenly realize, like any other good New Englander, it’s a real charmer.

A LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE

Imagine my surprise, after a lifetime of eating baked and puréed squash, to discover a whole new way to eat Butternut. I was on my honeymoon in Italy when it happened. It was lunchtime in Montepulciano and My husband and I avoided the tourist trap restaurants with English menus in the windows and searched for an eatery that catered to the locals. We were almost to the end of town when we found the Osteria Aquacheta, a quaint little restaurant owned by a food obsessed owner, in the heart of downtown Montepulciano.

We took a seat at one of the last paper-covered tables in the tiny dining room and ordered a pasta course and a primi course with some accompanying sides. Our meal started simply with ricotta stuffed ravioli in butter and a hearty ragu over pici (a local thick, round pasta). Our plates were cleared to make way for the primi course, or main dish. It was then that the pleasant waitress delivered the side dishes and the main course. Though there were beautifully sliced zucchini and a gorgeous braised beef in buttered breadcrumbs, I never noticed them. It was the side dish of Butternut Squash with Pecorino Fresca that held my complete attention.

If I remember correctly, I was speechless.

This is a picture of my dish before I devoured its hot, gooey deliciousness. The meat is tender but not overcooked. The sheep’s milk cheese’s buttery, earthy and nutty flavors compliment the sweetness of the Butternut perfectly without overpowering it. Olive oil, Butternut Squash and soft, fresh Pecorino baked together created a heavenly symphony of flavor. It was a revolution of simplicity. It was in that first bite of the layered squash dish that I really started to understand the understated elegance of Italian cuisine. Use fresh ingredients and get out of the way.

And in that moment, I was reborn.

As soon as my plane landed on November 8th, I’ve been working out the details of the recipe. I’ve tried Pecorino Toscana (nice nutty flavor, but too dry to cook with) and Ricotta Salada (looks creamy enough but doesn’t go gooey like it should) and found that really the only cheese that works is Pecorino Fresca, a hard to find, and slightly soft sheep’s milk cheese that is perfect for cooking.

After purchasing my Pecorino Fresca at the newly improved Joan’s on Third (Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles) and butternut squash from the Hollywood Farmer’s Market, I was ready to go. I made this for Thanksgiving and probably will for the rest of my life.

Butternut Squash Gratin

2 Butternut Squash cut 1 inch rounds from the neck of the squash. Reserve the bottom circles of the squash for another use.
½ lb Pecorino Fresca (cut into ¼ inch thick squared slices)
Olive oil to drizzle
Malden Sea salt

Preheat oven to 375. Peel the squash, cut into rounds and drizzle with a little olive oil. Use your fingers to coat every side of the squash rounds with the oil.

**If you like uniformity, use a can (coffee can? Soup can?) to make all the rounds the same size and shape.

Bake the squash rounds for 20-30 minutes or until the squash is nearly finished cooking. It will be tender to the touch of a fork. Set aside to cool enough to work with.

Now you are ready to bake the dish with the Pecorino Fresca. As if you were making lasagna, vary the layers of squash rounds and squares of pecorino fresca. Bake until the cheese is runny and gooey.


Turn the oven to broil and put the baking dish under the flames until the cheese is caramelized.

Enjoy. It’s a wicked good dish.