Another Dinner Party

But this time back home, after thorough provisioning at Sahadi and in Chinatown; we're set for exotic staples and condiments for quite a while. Chris, Sirkka, and Nissa came, so I had defrosted some short ribs, and combed through the garden for baby vegetables; this bowl is honestly one of the greatest things I've seen in quite a while. I blanched everything separately to perfect al dente tenderness, and rubbed the skin off beets and carrots to let the pure color show.





















The ribs browned, got aromatics added, and wine, and simmered for about 4 hours. I strained the liquid and poured it back over them on low while I steamed a giant sweet potato, caramelized shiitake, braised pak choi, and made summer rolls with tofu, lettuce, mint, mustard greens, and bean thread noodles for an appetizer (with tangy peanut sauce.) Chris made a mash out of the galia endive, and picked a killer salad while I finished the plates with jus and parsley:














We drank their gorgeous 1990 Batasiolo Barolo "Vigneto Bofani," and our 2000 Hilberg-Pasquero Nebbiolo d'Alba. It's always interesting to compare two wines, and having the same varietal a decade apart from two different producers in adjacent regions shed a lot of light on how many variables can influence a wine.

Dinner Party

Another city trip, and finally we were able to schedule a dinner at Kris' house. Mary came, and Sujit and James, and Sujit's Mom, and Susan. Kris made many courses, most very high-end riffs on simple comfort food. The amuse bouche was a tiny bowl of puréed chard atop a dollop of parmesan cream- like creamed spinach but super refined. Next came ham and eggs- a poached egg with super fancy jamón and a red pepper sauce. Then crab, mango, and avocado in an apple juice-moscato syrup followed by an octopus and potato stew, rich, sweet and oceany, then macaroni and cheese with gorgeous lamb bits and deep Indian spices that took it to a whole other level. Finally, poussin with cabbage and carrots, then cheese, then cake since his birthday was a few days before.

Roughly in order, the wine highlights of the evening were as follows: a 2005 Selbach-Oster Wehlener Sonnenuhr, my 98 Castello dei Rampolla Sammarco and 1983 Drouhin Bonnes Mares, Mary's 98 Gros Richebourg, and Sujit's 86 Jayer-Gilles Echezeaux. Pretty fantastic.

Zuppa del Frigorifero

Somewhat presciently, last night after dinner I thought to make fridge soup for tonight since I suspected I'd be working late. This one was a continuation of last week's, via another iteration we made in Vermont containing the leftover sausage and garden greens (yes, I brought the soup with us to Vermont.) This time around I browned 3 strips of chopped bacon with half an onion, deglazed with wine, and dumped in the earlier soup, a beef bone from takeout night, tricolor orzo, and fresh herbs. Simmered for an hour or so, it gained a whole new depth and direction of flavor and got to sit overnight which always helps. I love these soups; normally more of a winter thing, the availability of fresh or leftover things from the garden plus random meat scraps make the summer version even better. As long as you bring it back to a boil every couple of days, they can keep going indefinitely. This one approaches the two week mark if you count all the way back to the pulled pork which started it all, and there's enough left to add more to tomorrow.

Clean

As if by fate, no sooner had I extolled the many pleasures to be had during and after drinking Thackrey's Andromeda but the email announcing the new release arrived in my inbox. Hooray! We've been waiting for the 2004 for a long time and are most excited to try it (and then leave the rest alone for as long as we can stand it.)

Tonight, a really healthy vegan meal to get us centered after some heavy eating; last night, exhausted, we ordered takeout from the Bear, which was very good, but still meat-o-centric and which left us craving clean green food. So another variation on the faux green papaya salad, this time using japanese yam with serrano chile and homegrown scallion in a peanut/lime/ume/agave/tamari dressing accompanied the last of the tatsoi, (cabbage and cauliflower will go in the empty rows) sautéed, and wok-seared tofu in a hybrid tahini-guacamole sauce: tahini, avocado, lemon and lime juice, truffle and olive oils, and salt. A few black sesame seeds, garden cilantro, and the rest of the scallion to garnish, and another Marques de Cáceres Rioja rosé hastily chilled in the freezer later we were happy and feeling much healthier.

Havin' a Meatwave

A de rigueur trip to the farmer's market was different in one notable way this time around: we bought no vegetables. Our garden provided salad and cooking greens, plus herbs and radishes to last the weekend, so all we needed was cheese, jam, bread, snacks to get us through the market, and of course some of Pascal's mighty sausages. He has recently reopened in a new location, and his charcuterie is as good as ever. We bought the duck crepinettes, plus merguez and pork with cabbage and bacon, and threw them on the grill. I chopped the mixture of greens we brought- chard, radicchio, endive, tatsoi, and spinach- and gave them a quick sautée with garlic and lemon while some couscous cooked. Served on a big platter, with a decanted 1998 Beaucastel CDP, it was a simple yet sublime late Spring meal.

Vermont Weekend

We arrived later than planned, so a quick dinner was required. 4 chicken legs, only partially defrosted, went in the big enamel pan with oil and onion to caramelize a little bit. Then wine to deglaze, and Japanese yam, carrot, zucchini, grape tomato, a quartered lemon, and a mix of Moroccan spices followed by enough water to safely leave it alone to simmer for about 45 minutes. Normally I would have added everything at different times so all was perfect, but this way it attained a certain stewy charm and was dead easy. To celebrate our arrival, and my organizing of the cellar, we opened a 2003 Thackrey Andromeda, which remains a gorgeous paradox; it beats every other California pinot we put it up against, and yet seems to taste hardly at all like pinot noir- it just tastes like Thackrey. It's also a well-documented fact (and not just by me) that ladies LOVE the Andromeda.

Paté

Two meals today featured some homemade charcuterie; I recently got the eponymous book by Ruhlman & Polcyn and have many plans to make some serious stuff this summer. Normally with cookbooks I read them through like a novel and then only occasionally consult them again except for baking and other things where actual measurements are important. For lunch, joined by my cousin Marilyn and her husband Sandy, I picked a lavish salad and made rillettes of trout that Kenny brought by a few days ago and that I smoked this morning. The trout, mixed with local horseradish flavored goat cheese, olive oil, lemon, melted butter and lightly sizzled garlic, herbs, and salt, went in a big bowl and I mashed it with a fork until it was all smooth and creamy (this keeps some texture that the food processor would destroy, and makes it easy to spot any errant bones.) With a crusty baguette, a perfect lunch.

At the same time, I made a paté, but it wasn't ready in time so we had it for dinner with another salad. The rest of the pork, plus rendered bacon fat, spices (cumin, ginger, Vietnamese 5 spice, paprika, herbs, chile) salt, pepper, and a bit of bread soaked in milk all went in the food processor with just enough water to get a good spin going. Then I folded in the chopped bacon and whacked it into a 2 cup pyrex thing with a lid that I rushed out and bought this morning at the hardware store of all places; I was prepared to go to the fancy kitchen store in town but got lucky. Baked in a bain-Marie for a bit over an hour, then cooled and secured with rubber bands, by dinner it was ready and unmolded and sliced beautifully. Garnished traditionellement with cornichons and a good mustard, and the salad on the side, it was a classic country dinner for a perfect Spring evening, enhanced by a 2004 Jadot Meursault. We've been digging the (more affordable) white Burgundies lately, especially with this kind of food.

Ma Po Tofu

This is a standby favorite, and when I went to buy tofu this afternoon there were fresh local snap peas at the store as if to underscore the wisdom of my choice (ours are only just flowering.) So half the ground pork I got on Saturday, plus the tofu, garlic, ginger, hot peppers, and a sauce made from the shrimp/miso broth, tamari, rice vinegar, a drop of agave and flour to thicken it went into the wok in roughly that order. Scallions to garnish, and the bolting tatsoi from the garden cleaned the wok out with some lemon. Served on brown rice, with a Crios Torrontes that has such a strong lychee note that it cries out to go with Chinese food. Although to be fair, if I had made this really hot like it's supposed to be (and like we did pre-Milo) an off-dry riesling would have been the better match. Never one to sweat the wine pairings, Christine made up for the lack of spice by larding hers with sambal oelek.

Kaiseki

Well, not really, but if we had Bento boxes it would have looked pretty close. Christine bought both salmon and shrimp today, because they were both great, so I did a multi-course meal but served them all at once. First, the salmon as sashimi, with garlic-infused sesame oil, tamari, lime juice and pink peppercorns, which was decadently creamy, rich, and elegant. Then, the shrimp, shelled- the shells became a broth with onion and carrot- rubbed with a mix of cumin, cinnamon, ginger, curry powder, and salt, and seared in a pan, which I deglazed with some of the shrimp broth. Fresh chopped and sautéed pak choi from the garden got a splash of the same broth to finish, and then I added red miso to the rest of the broth and poured it over soba for a nice soup. We finished with a mesclun salad, as fresh as can be, with a simple vinaigrette. All together it added up to a nicely varied meal, with lots of textures and flavors, many of which were well complimented by a 2002 Jadot Savigny-lès-Beaune "La Dominode" which is still young and tart but has a gorgeous nose that shows what it might be like in a few years.

Changing courses in midstream

As regular readers know, I am a huge fan of fridge soup, wherein all the random scraps and leftovers from a week's worth of meals contribute their various qualities to a rich and efficient pot of goodness that can then be polished off or further transformed depending on quantity. I began dinner thinking that tonight's would be such a dinner, and we had some good stuff to throw in: the pork-flavored tomato sauce from last night, some lentil salad, asian greens, half an onion, carrots, some bacon, and multicolored pasta. And in fact this all did become a pretty damn good soup. But Christine made it known that soup alone might not satisfy, so instead of making goat cheese-kalamata olive-garlic-herb-truffle oil crostini as an appetizer I took the puréed mixture and used it as a sauce for some butternut squash ravioli from the freezer. Now having pasta twice in a row isn't optimal, and I had put some pasta into the soup before this adjustment, and store-bought ravioli don't exactly compare well to homemade fettucine, but at the end of the day she was right and we were full and happy; I also sautéed some zucchini with garlic and wine (a splash of the Mas de Gourgonnier rosé we had with the meal.)

Pastissima

There wasn't enough pulled pork left to make a meal from, so it became the base for a pasta sauce: herbs, onion, garlic, and a can of tomatoes cooked together for a couple of hours to integrate the deep BBQ with the fresh new flavors. Milo and I rolled out some fresh fettucine- half white, half whole wheat flour- and cut turnip greens and mesclun in the garden. There's a fabulous chewy density to fresh pasta, and it takes me right back to the "green door," the unnamed restaurant in Rome behind the school where I would go for artichokes and fettucine on a regular basis. Unlike the cheap red I enjoyed so much back then, this time around we had a 2003 Moreau Saint-Aubin "en Remilly." It's hard to believe that nearly 20 years has gone by since I first lived in Rome, but there's no doubt that that year was the beginning of my trajectory as a self-taught cook; penne all'arrabiata and carciofi alla Romana were the first dishes I ever duplicated without a recipe at home after eating them at restaurants, and they're still two of my go-to specialties.

Pork, Beans

I went to Fleisher's today to stock up- haven't had meat in quite a while- and so was moved upon return home to use the pulled pork in the freezer from last fall in order to make room for a whole lamb shoulder. I pulled up the hon tsai tai from the garden, since it had all bolted, and stripped the leaves, giving them the garlic & oil treatment with a squeeze of lime at the end. Fresh fava beans cooked long and low with oregano and tomato paste were the focus of Milo's dinner, and added a nice counterpoint to the pork, which I served on little corn muffins with the beans spread around the plate. A mash of galia endive from the garden with garlic and oil provided a nice sharp condiment, and we drank a 2006 Marques de Cáceres Rioja rosé.

'Za

I was in the city last night (where I ordered sushi and drank a delicious, citrusy 2004 Jadot Puligny-Montrachet to celebrate my return to wine-drinking) and returned late enough to need a quick dinner plan. Thus pizza, with spinach from the garden plus olives, fresh (local) tomatoes, garlic, and local mozzarella. With salad from the garden and a 2005 Château de Roquefort Corail, it did the trick on a hot, humid evening and made me very glad to be home. This weekend I'm going shopping, and the scale arrived so tomorrow I'm going to wake up the 150 year old sourdough starter and get to work.

Red

Snapper and bell pepper, to be exact, both of which looked good at the store this afternoon. I juiced the peppers, reserved the foam, and reduced the juice with ginger, garlic, and a bit of agave syrup. The fish got a coating of fine and coarse cornmeal, spices, and salt, and cooked in some olive oil in the iron skillet. After the fish finished, I threw in some pak choi fresh from the garden and wilted it, deglazing the pan with lemon juice (this is by far the easiest way to clean an iron pan; all it needed was a rinse and wipe when dinner was over.) Leftover brown rice became creamy & steamy in a small pot with a little water on low. The reduction and foam offered two versions of the essence of pepper- sweet, tangy, and subtle. It would have been killing with a nice rosé, but I can't have any wine until tomorrow.

Parmigianina

Kind of a mannerist take on the original, with the eggplant slices baked in the oven on a cookie sheet with a bit of oil and salt, and alternating layers of caramelized shiitakes between, with sauce full of garden herbs and cheddar and mozzarella on top. It's less work and a lot healthier to do it this way, and tastes fantastic. With a perfect salad to finish, it got us through the second day of rain in fine style.

Potato Pizza

A good lunch for a rainy day, and a great reason to have a mandoline in the cupboard. With rosemary from the herb garden, a drizzle of truffle oil, and fresh mesclun, it really hit the spot. As soon as my scale arrives, I'm going to start making pizza dough from scratch.

Spring Cleaning

I took some time off, since I was on what they call "la dieta" in the Amazon, which culminated in a healing circle presided over by a Peruvian shaman. Now I'm back, though certain things are still off-limits for a few more days. There's an immense value to paring down from time to time; you realize how little food we need to stay alive, and how the variety and quantity of what we eat is so much more than that. Going without salt in particular really draws your taste out, and lets you find amazing subtleties in the simplest food.

The garden is exploding, and it's already time to start succesive plantings of certain things. I will take pictures as soon as it stops raining.

Toothsome Victuals

I've been thinking about this dish for months- ever since I noticed that the cooked Lebanese couscous is the same size as petits pois sometime last winter while making soup. So I took the chicken broth and reduced it until I had just enough to fill 4 ramekins already filled with cooked couscous and peas, hoping that it would gel strongly enough to hold it all together once I unmolded it. While they were cooling off, I took the chicken meat and made chicken salad with scallions, ramps, and lots of chiffonaded sorrel, plus a vinaigrette with mustard, pesto, olive and truffle oils, and cider and balsamic vinegars. I made some carrot curls with the saladacco and tossed it all together, then put it back in the fridge to marry the flavors while the ramekins got cold enough to unmold.




















The broth was just gelatinous enough, and they unmolded pretty easily. Surrounded with the chicken salad, and garnished with spicy microgreens and baby kale from the garden, they had all the richness of chicken noodle soup but were cool and clean and light for the end of a hot day. The salad had a nice clean comfort kind of flavor too, with creamy chicken, bright sorrel, and sharp alliums bumping another simple staple up a level or two. Another 2005 Turonia albariño showed very well with this dish, although I would have preferred rosé (but we're out again; I don't know how that keeps happening.)

Eating Local Part 2

Tonight, a revised version of what I had planned for last night before the trout showed up: venison loin- the last of what Kenny gave us in the fall- some leftovers, and some other locally grown treats. To begin, and for Milo's dinner, a pizza with pesto, sliced morels, and mozzarella. The morels have the most intensely umami mushroominess and they blended heroically with the sweet cheese and tart pesto.
















The second course, about an hour later (because both Chris and John came over separately to get some unplanted seedlings, dig some mint and nettles out of the field, and take a trout each since we only cooked two last night) was the venison loin, seared in a pan and then finished in the oven with whole garlic cloves, then garnished with a sorrel/goat cheese/horseradish sauce and refried cubes of the polenta from last night. The meat juices completed the plate, and we drank the remaining Mas de Gourgonnier and Turonia that were in the fridge. Pretty great, and almost all grown right in the area; as far as I can tell, only the salt, pepper, wine, and maybe the garlic came from far away.

Eating Local

This morning we had an omelet made from eggs given to me by Kurt at Elijah's Café when I stopped by for a smoothie to cheer Milo up since he has a cold, and ended up leaving with half a pound of fresh morels and the eggs as well. In keeping with such bounty, I was all set to write an entry, using the same heading, featuring the last of the venison Kenny brought us last fall, when lo and behold he showed up while I was weeding the garden this afternoon with four fat trout he caught today up near Mt. Tremper. I went shopping soon after, because we were low on many things, and more importantly out of coffee, so this is what we had tonight (while the venison waits for tomorrow.)

While the fish cooked in parchment with herbs and garlic, the morels and fiddleheads had a light sautée in Vermont butter and garlic and locally grown and ground polenta bubbled nearby with some very unlocal salt and pepper. To finish, a splash of the chicken broth I made at lunch time (local chicken) deglazed chopped sorrel wilted in another bit of butter. Fiddleheads and morels, apart from being two of the most alien looking delicacies, also epitomize Spring and complement each other well. Salt, pepper, and wine aside (2006 Crios Torrontes- lush, floral, perfumed and springy) everything else on the plate came from our area. Best of all, we finished the meal with a salad of baby greens from the garden, which we ate with no dressing of any kind; it was like a greens tasting, with peppery mustard and arugula and funky, meaty bok choy and hon tsai tai. Profound and intense, and cut just minutes before.

Daube

Phillipe and Lea invited us for dinner at their place with John and Debi. Phillipe made daube provençal, one of his specialties, as well as asparagus and tomatoes stuffed with eggplant and rice. The daube was mighty, with intense lamb and herb flavors, a nice spice from marinated olives, perfect potatoes, and melting meat. The company was grand, and John and I both brought wine: a 2000 Gros Noré Bandol, a 1998 Clos des Brusquières CDP, a 1996 Tollot-Beaut Aloxe-Corton, and a 1997 Jaboulet Cornas. Yum.

New Toy

I got a saladacco, or spiral slicer, the other day and used it tonight for the first time. The cheap ones were not well reviewed, so I sprung for the $60 version and it worked like a charm. Half a sweet potato, peeled, then spun through the gadget using the middle blade yielded a nice bowl of orange curls. Tossed with scallions, half a jalapeño, and a dressing of peanut butter, flax and sesame oils, nam pla, cider vinegar, tamari, and the juice of one lemon, it made a more than adequate substitute for green papaya salad, one of my all-time favorites, that I've been craving lately with the warmer weather. I also banged out a by now pretty standard vegetable curry, with acorn squash, cauliflower, tofu, sweet potato, carrot, chard, and peas in a coconut sauce. A plate of papadums and another standard, the 2005 St. Urbans Hof riesling, completed the meal.

Warming Up

Chris came over, solo, bearing gifts of salad greens and nettles (he's wearing gloves because he was pulling leaves off stems before we steamed them) and I had been to the fish market and bought scallops and halibut to play with. I marinated the scallops in olive oil, pink pepper, Celtic salt, and hebes de Provence that I mashed together in the suribachi, then seared them in the iron pan with a bit of butter, deglazed with wine, and served on a bed of our neighbor Deb's arugula (she got hers planted well before ours.) I also made polenta, and the halibut marinated in a pesto of cilantro and ramps before going in the iron pan as well. A handful of chopped ramps followed the fish and garnished it on top of the polenta (locally grown, stone-ground, and organic.) We started with a Château de Roquefort Corail, then had a splash of Pleiades XV that Chris brought, opened the day before and thus smooth and gorgeous, and then a 2001 Guigal white Hermitage to accompany the main meal. A perfect preview to what lies in store for all of us once all our gardens start producing.

The Raw And The Cooked

It got humid, and I was in the woodshop all day so something light and quick was called for. The leftover brown rice (we always make too much, so there are easy options in the following days) and some wilted watercress became maki, and carrot "noodles" from the peeler tossed in a sauce of cider vinegar, tamari, mustard, and sesame oil with a garnish of black sesame seeds. A bit of ground beef mixed with ginger, garlic, pepper, and scallion went inside wonton skins to make little gyoza- browned in a drop of oil, then steamed, covered, with the addition of a splash of water. They got a drizzle of tamari, ume vinegar, and sesame oil, and a healthy handful of scallions to finish. To go with this mixture of the raw and the cooked, a 2005 Clos de Paulilles Collioure which had enough grip to handle the meat and was still light enough for the veggies, with an herbal quality that did well enough with the Asian condiments.

Soup and Salad

The rib bones from yesterday, still with a bit of meat on them- and lots of flavor left to give- went in a pot with onion, carrot and herbs to brown a bit. Then a bowl of soaked cannelini beans, water, and a bit of salt, and it all bubbled for two hours. I pulled all the good meat off, chucked the rest, and stirred in a handful of chopped oregano from the herb garden. Finished with chives (also from the garden) and accompanied by a salad of local greens (though not yet our own) it was a perfect meal for a cool evening after an absolutely perfect day. We drank a Mas de Gourgonnier rosé, one of my favorites, and a great match. From my old neighborhood in the Lubéron, it has a wonderful minerality that goes with this kind of earthy food, and particularly well with that magical bass-and-treble-at-the-same-time flavor that is white truffles.

Mothers' Day

This tantalizing triskelion is made up of espresso-rubbed, homemade sauce-basted, and apple wood from our tree-smoked pork ribs cut apart and arranged over mashed sweet potatoes and the yams from the night before and garnished with the pineapple salsa. For Mothers' day, we opened one of Christine's favorites: a 2001 Carver Sutro petite sirah, which is finally coming into its own as a rich, gorgeous wine. Next time I want to try it along with a Sirius.

Tropicalia

It was a perfect day, and they had Marlin at the market, so I made a version of the way I had done it in Costa Rica a couple of years ago. First, a pineapple salsa, with jalapeño, lime, scallion, cilantro, and salt, which sat and marinated while I did the rest. A light rub of cinnamon, chile, and pepper on the fish, and Japanese yams went into the steamer. When the yams were done, I threw the fish in the iron pan to sear. Finished fish rested on a plate while I mashed the yams and cleaned the pan with escarole and ponzu. We drank a 2005 Crios rosé, which I like better than last year's; it's drier and less candy-like.

Garden

Here, finally planted (except for two beds of hot-weather things) is the garden. In a couple of weeks we'll be getting the first mesclun, and after that many other things. It was a ton of work, but now that the beds are done they should be pretty easy to prepare in subsequent springs.

Summa cum laude

Seriously muggy and hot today, with afternoon thundershowers giving us our first rain in a full week. Nice to give the sprinkler a break, especially since I was doing some space-mandated editing in the garden; rhubarb came out of a bed and into the ground near the fence, carrots got reduced to make room for salsify, burdock, scorzonera and parsnip, and tomorrow the celery/celeriac gets cut in half to make room for daikon and radish.

So tonight, with the heat and the vegetables foremost in mind, a vegan feast. Pappadums, sautéed zucchini, radicchio salad with truffle oil, blue lentils with leek, mint and scallion, and tempeh with the very poular BBQ sauce. Washed down with the bright 04 Turonia albariño since we're out of rosé, a condition which I will remedy tomorrow.

Chez Liz

Liz invited a few people over for a dinner and bonfire. Everyone brought something, and we grilled many veggies- eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, radicchio, onions, asparagus- plus fish and chicken. Phillipe made a crazy leek salad, Sirkka made roasted potatoes, John made salad and brought an intense daikon and ikura relish, and Chris manned the grill while I dealt with squid and tuna; a pesto/umeboshi/lime mixture went in & outside the squid, then they cooked over a hot fire for a minute per side, and the tuna got a good sear before slicing into strips and getting a jalapeño slice and sesame-soy drizzle. All this was thoroughly enjoyed outside by a roaring fire. Dessert was Liz's trademark cashew pudding on fruit, and we drank lots of good wine- the standouts were a 1999 Kistler chard (my last), and a 1997 Brunello and a 1989 Côte Rôtie that John brought (I forgot to write down the producers.)

Christine's Birthday

I rubbed and roasted a whole chicken, and threw a bunch of sweet potatoes into the oven as well, with lots of garlic and thyme. Crimini mushrooms, sautéed with garlic and deglazed with white wine, went into the blender with the burdock from a couple of days before plus just enough water to spin into a thick purée. Once the bird came out, I made a roux with the fat in the roasting pan and then added white wine, water and, once it reached a good consistency, the mushroom/burdock mixture. On top, trumpet mushrooms, also sautéed with garlic and parsley, and deglazed with wine. On the side, escarole done the usual way. We drank a 2005 Étude pinot noir, which is a yummy wine but was much too young and tart. Dessert was birthday cake- dairy free, juice-sweetened banana cake. Milo was near-hysterical about it.

Another Dinner

This time at Rick and Julie's house, where they've been playing with sous-vide cooking, using a vacuum sealer and a hot water bath to slow-cook meat and fish so that they're perfect all the way through. In this case, New York strips that he had dry-aged for a month in a special fridge, then cooked at 128˚ for 4 hours, each in its own bag, then seared up in a pan to put a good crust on the outside. Along with these, Julie made a wicked salad, roasted sweet potatoes, cooked kale in a little chicken broth, and asparagus with a bit of bacon. To go with this feast, Rick went deep into the cellar; we began with a 1971 Bouchard Le Corton, then opened a 1966 Beaulieu Georges de la Tour Reserve, then finished a 1990 Sorrel Hermitage they had opened a few days earlier. Dessert was a fantastic mango-banana sorbet accompanied by a 1988 Bonny Doon Muscat vin de glacière. There is simply nothing like decades-old great wine, and being able to switch back and forth between pinot noir, cabernet, and syrah from such old and wonderful bottles was a treat.

Chef Jeff

We went to visit Jeff, Eve, and their two boys for an early dinner on a beautiful day. It was at their house during grad school that the tradition of epic dinners really embedded itself in my psyche as an essential component of life. Good ingredients, improvisation, and great people all combined to make some meals that I'll never forget. Jeff had made his trademark grilled squid, and pan-roasted salmon in a sauce of puréed greens, chiles, and cream. Eve made wild rice, and a cooked beet and carrot salad with goat cheese. Dessert was fruit salad and dark chocolate. It's too bad we see them so rarely.

Visit

In Evanston, visiting Christine's Mom, I wanted to give her a night off so I made dinner (having shopped earlier in the day.) Seared bluefin tuna, dressed with hot garlic-infused sesame oil, got two contrasting salads: a mango salsa with red onion, tomato, cucumber, and lime and radicchio chopped fine with salt and truffle oil. The sweet mango complemented the slightly bitter radicchio. I also cooked some burdock and a big bowl of chopped bok choy.

Comfort food, but healthy

A cold, crappy day, that hindered the installation of the garden fence so it will take another morning to complete. In response, something comfortable and simple: roasted chicken thighs with a spice rub perched on sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, and herbs that roasted on the rack below the chicken. We drank another 1997 Teófilo Reyes Ribera del Duero.

Light

The warm weather and impending garden are inspiring so many culinary thoughts these days; when the plants wake up it seems crazy not to have every meal centered around them, with meat or fish as a garnish, or a rich side dish. So tonight, on the eve of the garden fence going in (and thus despite the lack of any actual vegetables) wild Alaskan salmon was an appetizer to a very simple plate of rice, steamed sweet potato, and sautéed bok choy, all with a tahini/miso/mustard/lemon sauce. The sashimi had the usual sesame oil heated with smashed garlic, then nama shoyu and lemon added after sauce- so the hot oil and then the lemon juice cook the fish a tiny bit- and it was garnished with garlic chives from the yard.

Spring!

This pic is from lunch, actually; I almost made potato salad last night but the spuds ended up in the curry instead. So today I steamed cubed new potatoes and tossed them with olives, pickles, ramps, scallions, parsley, thyme, rosemary, and a dressing of olive oil, cider & balsamic vinegar, mustard, and lemon juice. Really tangy, creamy, and addictive, and served on a bed of mesclun.


















For dinner, brown rice, pinto beans (soaked, then simmered with cumin and coriander seeds, onion, garlic, chile powder, cinnamon, and paprika) and a salsa of grape tomatoes, jalapeño, onion, cilantro, and lime. Rolled up in a whole wheat tortilla with avo, they hit the spot. Both of these meals show how quickly the gears shift when the weather warms up.

Melting Pot

The many-flavored sauce entered the home stretch with this one, as it became a curry with cauliflower and fingerling potatoes added, plus the requisite spices (and a couple of ramps; they just arrived, and we're eating half of them and planting the other half.) It keeps getting richer and deeper, and may be the first recorded instance of sopressata ending up in a curry.) I also made little rolls with wonton skins, filled with shiitake, shredded kale, and scallion. They look deep-fried, but I used only a tablespoon of olive oil on the pan. Their sauce was ponzu/soy/rice vinegar/honey and we drank another Turonia albariño.

The same, but different

Chicken thighs, leeks, and some sliced shiitakes browned in the big sautée pan, while sliced burdock cooked with more shiitakes until soft, then had the rest of the oyster soup added to it, along with the last spoon of osso buco demi-glace, parsley, cumin, cinnamon, and pepper. Then the sauce went in the chicken pan (deglazed first with a splash of red wine) and it all cooked together for a bit while I steamed some broccoli- which I can't seem to get enough of these days- to go on the side. This kind of hovered between chicken with gravy (specifically the burdock-mushroom gravy from Xmas) and turkey with oyster stuffing, and meshed well with the lavish pleasures of a Pleiades XV.

Two if by sea

The leftover oysters went in a pot with cubed new potato, the rest of the turnip/daikon mash, a bit of tomato paste, garlic, a squeeze of lemon, and water to cook into a chowder of sorts; in order to amplify the chowderness (chowderivity? chowdertude? chowderosity?) I whisked in a bit of yogurt and butter at the end, along with some halved grape tomatoes for color and contrast with the paste. The corn meal from the oysters did a great job of thickening this up to a rich stewy consistency.

While the soup was cooking, I made rolls of smoked salmon, avocado, pea shoot, and garlic chive (from the yard) with a peanut/lemon/miso/ponzu/truffle, olive, and sesame oil sauce with grape tomatoes as a garnish. We ate this first, and drank a 2006 Château Roquefort Corail- the first rosé of the season (which might be optimistic, given the storm right now bearing down on us like a shotgun full of snow.)

Pizza Plus

I got some shucked oysters from the market, rolled them in corn meal and spices and browned them in a pan. They weren't quite the fried oysters we had at Uglesich's in New Orleans a few years back, but they weren't bad- and no doubt a tad healthier- especially with a horseradish mayonnaise I whipped up. I was sad to hear that they decided to close, but given what happened soon after it seemed like a prescient decision. Having the waiter there tell us "You have ordered well, Jedi" ranked up there with having the snarky indie-record store clerk compliment me on my purchases once years earlier back in the city.

To go with the oysters, a pizza with artichoke, roasted pepper, olive, herb, garlic, parmesan and topped with pea shoots when it came out. We drank a 2001 Belpoggio Brunello, which has the finesse of that great year, but none of the funk and whallop one looks for in a great Brunello.

Osso Buco

Another cold, snowy day warranted some hearty food, so pasture-raised Veal shanks from the freezer got a good long braise in the dutch oven along with carrot, leek, onion, parsley, fennel seed, herbes de Provence, dried porcini, and red wine. Meanwhile, I steamed cubed turnip and daikon and whisked polenta with parmesan and pepper. I was trying to make two identical-looking creamy bases for the rich meat, but didn't get the roots soft enough (even though I did match the colors pretty well.)

So the mashed parsnip mixture became quenelles instead, and the strained and reduced braising liquid became a sauce for all. Pea shoots wilted in a pat of butter with salt and lemon went on top. We drank a 2002 Fagus de Coto de Hayas Selección Especial old vine grenache that John brought for paella night but we didn't get to. It has all the red fruit and tanginess you expect from grenache, with good depth and smooth tannins. New world style, but without the cloying sweetness; old vines and good winemaking make this well worth a try.

Cold outside

I had made a broth from a chicken leg bone and the steak trimmings from the other night plus carrot, celery root, and onion, and tonight added galangal, ginger, garlic, and lemon juice. After simmering for a bit, I strained out the pieces and added the two leftover baked squash halves and the soft carrot from the original broth, then stick-blended it all smooth and added back tiny bits of the super-tender steak. To complete the meal, a salad, and soba with a tahini/soy/nam pla/vinegar/sauerkraut juice sauce and black sesame seeds. We drank a 2004 Leitz Dragonstone riesling, which worked particularly well with the floral galangal and sweet squash flavors in the soup.

Yummy

Chris, Liz, and Nissa came for dinner while Sirkka and Christine were in the city. Chris brought a big steak, and a bottle of 1990 Batasiolo Barolo that was tragically corked. We grilled the steak, baked acorn squash, braised burdock with galangal and ginger, sautéed bok choy, and made a salad. I opened a 1999 Martinetti Barolo "Marasco" which was gorgeous. Liz made an amazing cashew-vanilla-grapefruit cream that we ate on grapefruit and blood oranges with toasted almonds.

Oh, Cod

Christine bought some cod, and some mushroom fettucine, so I got to work. For the pasta, a simple idea ended up as a pretty complex sauce: turkey bacon, spicy green olives, dried tomatoes in oil, parsley, garlic, and pepper all cooked in a bit of butter and olive oil until lightly caramelized, at which point I added a pinch of flour to turn it into a roux. Then yogurt, parmesan, and white wine completed the emulsion, which, along with some green peas and a drop of truffle oil, coated the pasta beautifully. The fish got a bit of pesto rubbed on it, then cooked low until just done. We finished the Turonia and Numanthia from paella night; the former still elegant, flowery, with great acidity for food, and the latter still tasting like Australian movie-candy wine, as if the 5 days siting open on the counter never happened. It's an open question whether any of this kind of wine will bear aging, or just lose its sweetness altogether and be finished in 5-10 years.

⁄⁄¡Ole!

Christine got me a big Paella pan for my birthday back in November, and we finally got around to using it. First off, I made homemade merguez and chorizo the day before, and let them sit in the fridge overnight before forming the meat around wooden skewers and grilling them up. Shrimp shells made a broth with vegetables and wine, and red pepper, peas, shrimp, mussels, clams, and bay scallops rounded it out. Everybody brought something good and the table was plenty full- salads, pizzas, cheese, and a bunch of desserts. All the wine was Spanish: a 2004 Turonia Rias Baixas for an aperitif, then a 1998 "Les Terrasses", a 1995 Tinto Pesquera, a 1996 Flor de Pingus, a 2002 "La Viña de Andres Romero" and a 2004 Numanthia. I liked the Pesquera best, but the Pingus and les Terrasses were good too. The Romero tasted more like a Cali pinot than anything else (in a good way) and the Numanthia is very new-world style but powerful and elegant. I'll be interested to see how it ages.

Meat & Potatoes

I went to Fleisher's today, to get fixins for tomorrow's paella, and couldn't not get one of their dry-aged top sirloin steaks (on account of how gorgeous they are and also we haven't had one since Christmas.) I baked some sweet potatoes, and quick-braised a head of escarole, just like last time, and made a pan sauce with red wine and a pat of butter; the meat had salt, pepper, and herbes de Provence for a simple rub. All these remarkably sophisticated flavors did well by a 2003 Finca Sandoval Manchuela, which could use a bit more time, but has a lusciousness that makes it enjoyable now. And if you think we've been hitting the Spanish wines hard lately, just wait until the post about tomorrow...

Maki

Completely exhausted from rototilling the garden, and with next to nothing in the fridge, I punted; the brown rice allowed for efficient use of the few things we had. Fillings included roasted acorn squash, chopped wasabi peas, avocado, carrot (shaved super-thin with the peeler) and minced ume plum. That was it. No sides, no wine, just simple food and then bed.