Tag: recipes

Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons

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My Dear C –

I think you would be better served having our former classmate Darrell as your epistolary blog mate. He keeps posting fascinating foodstuffs he is making that I have to look up. Just this week I think – soubise, tangzhong, and tepache.

Soubise is apparently a French sauce made of onions, butter, and cream – Darrell noted Caramelized onion soy “butter”! From Calvin Eng’s “Salt, Sugar, MSG” cookbook. Really more of a sobuise sauce…so good! He made a rye tangzhong. I had to look it up on Wikipedia and to be honest I still don’t quite get what it is. It’s a roux/gel that makes bread more tender? Tepache is a traditional Mexican fermented beverage, often pineapple-based. That I get.

On that note – my mother made beet-based kvass when I was visiting her. At a farmer’s market foray, she’d bought this quite pricy and delicious tonic and had the inspiration to make her own. She skipped the spices, for better or worse, but it’s still tasty although less concentrated for sure. She basically applied the pickling concept to create it. But I found this recipe that looked good to me, partly because it uses whey – which is great if you make your own farmer’s/cottage cheese, because you’ve got a built in use for that nutritious stuff. I will try my hand at it.

I discovered that all the pickles I’d made last year didn’t get eaten – they just got hoarded and languished in their own brine at the back of the fridge. Super sad. I bought some pickling cucumbers (dubiously fresh) at a Russian store over the weekend and shoved them into the old brine to try to redeem this. We shall see.

Did I tell you I found a Magic Bullet on the street? With 6 containers. I used it to make a pesto yesterday. It’s – excessively smooth. But I used the analogous thing – that my mother found on the street by her house – to make a nicoise dressing and it was quite lovely. I put in a ton of basil and parsley and garlic and spring onion and olive oil and it was delicious.

Trader Joe’s canned tuna in olive oil in full effect. And the first good tomatoes of the season. Plus green beans that I had already made into a salad with a fancy white wine vinegar and shallot dressing.

Back at home the tomatoes aren’t yet ready. But I did get some Japanese eggplant and sweet peppers and zucchini – and picked some makrut lime leaves off a tree nearby – and made a lovely curry. I marinated very firm tofu in red thai curry with a little aminos and soy and rice vinegar.

Sautéed onions in avocado oil – threw in the 4 lime leaves, added the sliced eggplant when the onions were translucent, then a few sliced cloves of garlic and the marinated tofu, followed by the sliced peppers and then the sliced zucchini when everything seemed near cooked. Finally a bit of coconut milk (I had half a can moldering in the fridge – once I took off the bad bits it was probably 1/3 cup or less). Truly one of my better efforts. Despite the overcooked basmati rice on the side. I still haven’t learned to cook rice.

I am feeling like a damaged lemon, hence the title (courtesy of Blonde Redhead).

Much love –

M.

They Say It’s Spring

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My Dear C –

I’m sitting in a tank top and looking at some lovely redi-ish tulips I bought at Trader Joe’s. Yesterday I heard the ethereal song of my first Swainson’s Thrush of the year – so it’s past spring here now. One of the cats is passed out next to the flowers, her paw hung over the edge of the table, lethargic from what we call heat around here.

Just a couple weeks ago, I happened to be passing through the Ferry Plaza in San Francisco – spilling over with pea blossoms and berries and asparagus and lilacs. The market here by me has been – underwhelmingly un-springy.

I wonder what your CSA has this time of year? Never mind – I can just look on their site! Mmm – fennel. That’s a vegetable I changed my mind about as an adult. I used to find it unbearably anise-y in flavor and – also – overused, I suppose. I think there was a period when it was in everything fancy. Not that I was eating fancy, was I? But now perhaps my taste buds have dulled and also it’s no longer the annoyingly ubiquitous darling it was in the early 90s (?). I want to say 80s, though.

Probably 80s. Not that my mother cooked with it, so where would I have been eating it? I wasn’t soire-ing at Star’s, though I can still picture their ad from the NYT of my childhood – I remember it featuring a sketch of an impossibly lanky woman with big hair swirling all around her, and the restaurant’s name in a sophisticated serif script above her head…. I wonder if that’s an accurate recollection. I was fascinated by it.

Once as a kid I was staying over with my mother’s friends in Noe Valley for a couple days, in their Victorian in what was a very different neighborhood than it is now– and they told me they were taking me to Star’s and I got so excited. It turned out they were referring to the bakery down the street famous for its Irish Soda Bread. Star Bakery opened in 1899 and closed in 1998. Jeremiah Towers’ Star’s closed in 1999.

In my short stint as a professional cook, I did learn to make and sort of enjoy fennel braised in orange juice. It was quite a popular appetizer. But then – bread pudding was a popular dessert. So that says a lot about the patrons’ tastes.

The thought of a fancy dinner out used to thrill me. I racked up a lot of debt satisfying that particular yen – eating at the counters of some of the best restaurants in town. A lot of sushi, which is good for loneliness. It’s the omegas I guess.

The yen for a fancy dinner out still kicks in when someone else is paying, or when I know I’m going to eat with someone who will really appreciate the whole to-do of it. The last meal I had like that checked both boxes: at Boulevard. They still got it, man. And they’re bringing the 80s back – or they never left the premises. I wish I could remember what I ate – but I remember my companion and the joy of it.

These days I eat at home, most of the time. And I’ve jumped on two bandwagons – fancy tinned fish and the Rancho Gordo Bean Club. These two things can go together well. Last week I was making variations on what I call “dirty rice” which is probably not what other people call dirty rice – mine is rice cooked with things thrown in – maybe canned tomatoes, spices, asparagus, sesame oil, greens at the end. What is to hand. Topped with whatever is to hand. Some beans (I made an entire pound bag of Christmas Lima beans and I’m still eating them 2 weeks later) and greens and / or exquisite tinned fish, and some chili crisp or the like.

There’s no turning back from the fancy tinned fish. I had smoked trout from Fishwife and mackerel from a Spanish brand. Maybe Matiz? But I feel like there was a tilde in there somewhere. I must’ve happened on a sale because normally these little cans’ prices are too rich for my blood. Today I opened a can of TJ’s ahi in olive oil and beyond being dry, it was actually gristly. Sheesh. This is what happens, Larry…

The Rancho Gordo Bean Club shipment is quarterly and hard to keep up with, especially for a hoarder. The pile of pound bags grows precarious. So far I think my favorite new bean is the buckeye. I just made a pot of flageolet beans – going to have them with some salmon and greens/asparagus and green garlic. And sometimes I just get a hankering for a gigante bean, because I want to make this, which satisfies at home and for parties.

But back to fennel and your CSA. I wonder if you’re a fan of The Vegetarian Epicure. Maybe we’ve talked about it. It – the original edition, also featuring a woman with big hair on the cover, though quite a different aesthetic than the ad for Star’s, was lying around when I was knocking about alone in a big house a friend let me stay in and cooking wasn’t yet a habit. I made the greens and garlic soup (with feta) and was blown away.

And more recently, with a more practiced cooking hand, I made the chard and fennel – and feta – pie, with a dough from my sourdough starter. (The starter is languishing, long-unfed, in the fridge.) These days I’m a lazier cook than that pie, or even the soup, allows for – got one eye on the clock and the other on the stove, testing to see how quickly I can throw together something satisfying.

Tonight it was a soup of leftover roast chicken I’d frozen, thawed in a pot with soy and coconut aminos, a leek thrown in and a big green garlic shoot, some ginger grated in (I don’t even bother to peel it anymore) and a couple pints of frozen scrap stock. Once that melted – tossed in cauliflower, bok choy, and some lovely Tokyo turnip greens about to be languishing, and the cauliflower leaves, some shirataki noodles and finally finished with a little rice vinegar. Plated and garnished with chopped spring onion and the green garlic top and a drizzle of sesame oil. I think it took me 15 minutes. Maybe 20.

Sending you love and vegetal inspiration –
M.

P.S. I’m googling “How to revive sourdough starter” so I can make that pie again. I bet it can come to life again. I shall report back.

P.P.S. I’m in love with cooking pasta in just enough water so I don’t have to drain it – I don’t care what anyone says.

Pork and beans

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My dear C –

Grocery shopping while hormonal is similar to grocery shopping while drunk. I bought a pork shoulder this morning. Nearly 5 pounds. Or is it a pork butt? It is a bone-in pork shoulder that was sub-labeled as a pork butt. And indeed the internet tells me that pork butt comes from the pig’s shoulder. How confusing. Cuts of meat often are.

The other day I was at a butcher shop and a customer was asking if NY steak is tender and the guy behind the counter thought she was asking if it was tenderloin. I wanted to say it all depends on what you do with it…. but I refrained from ahem butting in.

I don’t know if/when I’ve cooked a pork shoulder before. I used to cook pork tenderloins with fennel braised in orange juice as a line cook but this is a different story and it’s been a couple decades. I did buy a fennel bulb at the market. Along with a $10 bag of mystery produce at my favorite (organic) stand that has yielded: A lovely bunch of Tokyo turnips with excellent tops, chard, several small & lovely lettuces, a tiny red cabbage, nice arugula, cilantro (which – not knowing, I bought another cilantro in my hurry), a sad bag of end of season (thank you, California) tomatoes, a celery, a a delightful broccolini, plus an excellent assortment of peppers. Nothing to sneeze at.

I don’t nearly ever cook pork anymore, living as I do with a no-pork-person. But I thought I might make myself a nice dinner and for some reason decided – a 5 lb cut of pork is the way to go for a simple solo meal. I’ve just frantically salted it and put it back in the fridge.

It’s 4 pm on a Sunday in the December of my late middle age and I have no idea what I’m doing with my groceries or my life. At least I’m contemplating that in peace. It’s so comparatively quiet after the stormy days. And I’m speaking literally here. San Francisco had a tornado warning. The first in its history? We also got a tsunami warning last week-ish.

I’ll let you know how it all goes.

Missing you

M.

PS here’s most of my haul from today

PPS I’m using this recipe because I love its tone and I’ve thrown in the sad tomatoes. And my beans are some delightful brown speckled variety that have been sitting in the pantry for a bit…

This is a 2 minute pre-soak…

Under construction…. The beans are in there…

And then I threw in some onions and peppers and there’s garlic in there, too. We shall see. Oh adding some bay leaves (collected from people’s ornamental bushes) and coriander seeds because I have too much.

Now we wait.

Risotto

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Dear C – I went to Palermo in May to visit S., my long-time friend. This isn’t how we met, but some of my initial recollections of S. are swimming in a pool with her. An open air pool ringed with caryatids.

Over many years, we go out – for a walk or a run or a hike or a swim – and we come back for a meal. I suppose it’s not exactly right to say we’ve cooked together for 20 years. We’ve cooked for each other or perhaps, more true, S. has cooked for me. Or I have eaten food she cooked for others.

I remember scones that she made for her boyfriend at the time and left with a sweet note in an arcane language before we went running up a long hill. And then I got to enjoy them after – the scones. I’m not sure how well I remember them, really, but I remember a clean crumble and a warmth and something like currants.

S’s talent – oh just one of many – is creating marvelous dishes out of no effort. Or apparently. A kind of hosting I can only dream to emulate. She favors canned beans, tinned fish, pancetta, good bread, olives, herbs, greens. Salt.

A hosting that is an antidote to the effortful and imposing version I was raised with. That’s another story.

I recently hosted a dinner party – the invitation to return the favor after being hosted so many times was so pointed. I can’t blame them. I’m still recovering, though.

I made whipped feta, and hummus inspired by this recipe. I do follow their tip to whip the tahini and lemon first but the skinning of the chickpeas – that’s a no. Although let’s be honest I did sit there and skin some of the chickpeas after I soaked and boiled them from scratch. A kind of procrastination. I made this – now that I think I may have found a responsible source of shrimp from Imperfect Foods. It is a fantastic recipe – simple and savory and crowd pleasing. And I made a mangled version of a Sicilian street skewer, mangia bevi. Bacon isn’t the same as pancetta – which is what the Sicilians use. But pancetta is wildly expensive here and isn’t easily found in these lovely long strips. I went for pancetta but wonder how bacon might do….

Anyway – after this dinner party many thing languished, cramped in the fridge. I felt like I was gagging from eating grilled vegetables. And then I left to house sit. And I’m keeping it simple.

I have a troubled relationship with risotto – I love it but as anxiously as I follow instructions on how to make it it never turns out toothsome and velvety as I expect. The texture of the rice is inevitably either under or over done. My best results have been from Instant Pot risotto. A comfort food game changer. But it does take the meditative process out of the equation.

One of Palermo’s street foods is a stuffed risotto ball – a kind of risotto dumpling. And also they are loud and proud there that “L’arancina e fimmina”. Since the word is from “arancia” so it makes sense, but the feminine “arancina” is unique to western Sicily. Notwithstanding my love of the femina, I wasn’t impressed by the arancina as foodstuff until I needed emergency hiking food, and then my respect for the arancina’s staying power was um – cemented.

Here in the treehouse I’m sitting in, I made two lovely risottos in a row. The first – I used leftover pancetta as the base fat and then I made a huge batch of pesto from very wilted whole plant spinach and big green garlic stalks that had been lying around for a while that I mixed in. I did have plenty of olive oil and grated parm so the risotto result was rich and restaurant style.

this is some trout my friend left in her fridge being poached in that pesto and I don’t know how to make this a caption

And I followed up with a caution to the wind “cucina povera” version where I washed out the pesto from the Cuisinart and some schmaltz from the bottom of a tupperware of penne in chicken broth, blitzed a big bunch of herbs about to end up in the compost (basil, mint, parsley) and a bean soup that I defrosted. I threw all these in – using the bean soup and the rinsed out schmaltz and pesto as broth. Oh yes – I started with a leek base, I had a bunch of chopped languishing leeks (overdo from the shrimp recipe). And I didn’t have parm / pecorino to grate into it but I did have a fat parmesan rind to cook it with. The rice came out the most perfect texture. And I’m snarfing the softened rind.

L’arancina e femina!

xoxo

With love – M.

PS Here’s a playlist you might enjoy. I wanted to share a different one but Spotify doesn’t have the iconic Pansy Division song Male Model so it was ruined RUINED. XOXO