October 2005 Archives

Nope. It's just that I hopped on that beet salad bandwagon. Tejal, Tom Colicchio, all the cool kids are doing it.

What little wonders beets are. The sweetest vegetables on the planet that taste great with the stinkiest of blue cheeses. A fantastic, princess pink color and a fantastic dirt taste. What can't that little root do?

Well, it can't peel itself, that's for sure. I've read a lot lately that it's easier to roast the beets then scrap off the peel. And it's true, that soft roasted skin slides right off. The problem is that after a beet comes out of a 425 degree oven, both it and it's skin are finger-searingly warm. So having done it both ways, I've decided that I prefer to peel prior to roasting. If I'm serious about not staining my hands, I'll peel in a sink of cool water. But I usually don't mind a little pinkening.

Plus, I really think they taste better this way. If you roast with skin, all the good flavor of olive oil, salt, herbs, balsamic and whatever else you roasted them with gets scraped away. When roasted denuded of peel, all those lovely flavors infuse the little roots, making them fragrant and sometimes gently caramelized around the edges. Ready for salads or side dishes, or even greedy snacks with pink-stained fingers.

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Here's the thing. . . I'm just not that enthused about Craft. It feels a little like heresy to admit it when the restaurant is so important, so beloved by so many people whose writing and palates I respect, but it's true. When I first read about it in Amanda Hesser's Cooking for Mr. Latte, it looked exciting. I love that share bites, family style of dining and the sort of mix and match format of the menu seemed fun. But the more I learn about the restaurant, the less interested I become. After reading the recent post on the subject at the always delightful Amateur Gourmet and perusing the menu at menupages.com, if I was in New York, it probably wouldn't be on my To Eat List.

It's not that I don't think the food looks yummy, because I certainly do. I've been reading through chef Tom Colicchio's Craft of Cooking, and most of the recipes look as though they'd be delicious, particularly when made with lovely, high quality farmer's market ingredients. In some ways, that's precisely the problem. It all looks very much like the kind of food I cook myself; fresh ingredients in simple preparations. Beet salad, roasted Atlantic salmon, sauteed sugar snap peas these are many of my favorite foods, but for all the to-do I keep hearing about Craft, I guess I just expected something more. Particularly considering that these dishes are $16, $26, and $11 respectively.

I completely get that quality ingredients simply prepared are beautiful things, but that just seems excessive, particularly for food that is so plainly presented, basically just food on plate on table. I even understand that a person's eyes and palate can become exhausted from plate after plate of elaborate, fussy food and that such a person would long for carrots that taste like carrots and that aren't garnished with crispy fried leeks and a drizzle of tomato oil. In a city like New York where every type of luxurious food is available around almost every corner, a city where the population is constantly seeking out the next new taste, a city where crudo has been done, foam is almost passe, and even smoothies are flavored with yuzu, perhaps less is more. But for me, when I eat at a restaurant marked by five dollars signs in the guidebooks, I want them to do a little more of the work for me. I like tasting menus specifically because I don't have to choose the courses and combinations. My favorite chefs are ones who combine flavors and textures in ways that challenge and surprise me. The idea of lamb on one plate, turnips on another, lettuce on a third, all chosen by me, presumably to complement each other and make a full dining expierance leaves me a little cold. I guess I dine out to enjoy the chef's craft, not my own.

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That questionable pile of chocolate something started out as Alton Brown's ever so rich and sinfully easy Chocolate Lava Muffins, until I began tinkering (the recipe can be found at http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_21729,00.html ). Obviously, when we start messing with things, things do not always turn out how we expect.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, when the sun is filtering through the blinds and one is curled up on the couch, halfway through a Dorothy L. Sayers novel, it's natural that one might desire a little chocolately treat. However, in such a languid state of mind, one might also crave ease. Mr. Brown's muffins seemed a natural choice. I've made them before with great success. They take no time at all and create a bare minimum of dirty dishes. As I began to melt my Scharffen Berger bittersweet, I remembered a jar of wonderful raspberry jam in my fridge. "Ah-ha!" I thought, what could better complement rich chocolate better than tangy raspberry? This was my first mistake. When filling the muffin tins, I added a blop of jam to each, expecting that the gooey chocolate interior would now contain a fruity surprise.

Also, I baked them for a minute less than when I last made the muffins, hoping to ensure maximum lava-ness. This was my second mistake. When they came out of the oven, I noticed that jam had bubbled up around the edge of each muffin. I began to suspect that something was wrong. In my worry, I only let them sit for a minute or two before trying to unmold them, desperate to see how they'd turned out. This was my third mistake. Instead of neat, firm muffins with a fruity, gooey treat inside, I had a heap of chocolate disaster.

Turns out, the jam layer prevented the top and bottom of the muffin from sealing together. The center was very liquid, probably as a result of jam and slight undercooking. At first, I felt defeated. What an ugly mess, I thought, what a waste. Before I throw them away, maybe just a taste. Revelation! This was so much more than a muffin.

My spoon was filled with chunks of warm, dense cake and velvety chocolate custard streaked with tangy raspberry. The shape was wrong but the taste was oh so right. So I dished some of it up on a plate and added a little scoop of ice cream and relished every unattractive bite.

Next time, I'll bake it in ramekins to skip the folly of unmolding, top them with a dollop of creme fraiche and call them Bittersweet Chocolate and Raspberry Custard Cakes. Sometimes things not turning out as we expect can be the mother of invention.

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So, dear readers, I'm sure you've been biting your nails with worry. . . where has Tasty Martha been? Well, trust me, the answer to that question is far too complicated to breach here, so let me just say that after a whirlwind of friendly visits, family tragedy, work drama and hours and hours spent in airports, I'm back.

And I've got tons coming up. Including but not limited to: a muffin that wasn't a muffin, maybe I just don't like pot roast, certain airports are certainly tastier than others, Aziza, Delifina, and the Girl and the Fig. Stay tuned!

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Stephen and I have cleaned our wee butts off the last few days; my mom is coming to visit, and she's staying with us. Truly, nothing makes as young woman think about soap scum and bookshelf dust quite like the knowledge that her mother is coming to stay. Stephen cleaned the kitchen before he went to work this morning, and I'd planned on avoiding that room completely, for fear of the mess I tend to leave in my wake.

Alas, I woke up hungry, but not for a bagel from the coffeeshop down the block. What, I wondered, could I make for lunch that would be warm and satisying but also quick and easy, and, most of all, not messy?

It was then that I remembered the carefully portioned homemade chicken stock in the freezer. I'd been saving it to make risotto, but this seemed like a low-level emergency, and I thought it would be happy to sacrifice itself to the cause. I sauteed some onion and garlic with a diced carrot and rib of celery. When it was tender, I put in two baggies worth of the amber-colored wonder, still frozen. A few minutes later, it melted and came to a boil, I added a few handfuls of arborio rice, and simmered it until the rice was tender. I finished the soup off with frozen peas, a dollop of heavy cream for richness, and a sprinkling each of parsely and dill for freshness.

As quick as that, I had a hot and comforting lunch. But, perhaps more importantly, I'd only dirtied one saucepan, a knife and my smalled cutting board. If it wasn't for the fantastic aroma lingering in the apartment, you'd hardly know I'd cooked at all.

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I had a birthday! With a cake! And candles! And balloons that look like inchworms!

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Today is special. The honey cake has rested a few days and aged into a proper birthday cake. It's now sandwiched and coated with a sharp ginger frosting, and sprinkled madly with coloured sugar. It's ready for Martha's birthday.

For the first time in months, I'm working a lunch service not dinner. That means lots of things: I'll see Glyn for more than ten sleepy minutes, I'll be out in the daylight in the afternoon with all the other humans, and best of all I'll be meeting friends for cocktails to celebrate Martha. Hooray!

Stephen is working from 4:00PM to 1:00AM today, which leaves me with quite a bit of quality time with myself this evening. After a week of work stress and baseball-tension (no one makes me wring my hands quite like the Red Sox) and before a long weekend with my mom visiting, the timing seems fortuitous. I'd planned on eating some spaghetti with garlic and olive oil and maybe a tomato salad then curling up for a long evening on the couch with a book. Then I remembered a little treat stashed away in my freezer. A few weeks ago a made steak frites, a dish that is surprisingly time-consuming and dish-dirtying for simple bistro fare. I bought three steaks, cooked two, and hid one away for some later occasion.

Tonight turned into that occasion. For my solitary dinner I had the unintentionally alterative Strip Steak with Stilton-Shallot Butter. I've always liked doing luxurious things for myself for no reason, and this dish seemed to fit the bill. However, it's also simple enough not to mess up the kitchen when one is dining alone. In deference to my own extreme fondness for the cocktail and to Julia Child's assertion that the secret to her long life was red meat and gin, I also had a Bombay Sapphire martini, not too dry.

Strip Steak with Stilton-Shallot Butter
(Serves 1)

For the compound butter:

1 tbl. butter, softened
1 1/2 tbl Stilton (or other quality, stinky blue cheese) crumbled
3/4 tsp finely minced shallot
Scant 1/4 tsp minced fresh thyme
Lemon juice,
Pepper
Worcestershire sauce (optional, but it adds a nice depth if you're using unexceptional supermarket butter)

Mush together the butter, Stilton, shallots, and thyme. Season with a few drops of lemon juice, four good grinds of pepper and no more than two drops of Worcestershire sauce. Store covered in the fridge until dinner.

Classically, compound butter is formed into a neat log wrapped in parchment or plastic wrap. When it's just me, I don't bother with this step. Any leftover compound butter is wonderful melted over green beans.

For the steak:

Remove 1 strip steak from the refrigerator, rinse, and pat until very dry with paper towels. Let it sit at room temperature for at least half an hour.

Heat a heavy (preferably cast iron) pan over medium-high heat.

Pat the steak dry again. Rub it all over lightly with olive oil and generously season with coarse salt and pepper. Turn on the exhaust fan over the stove or open a window. Cook 2-4 minutes (depending on the thickness of the steak and how well done you like it) on each side. Don't panic about the smoke.

Remove the steak from the pan and let it rest, tented loosely with foil, for a few minutes. Slice it on the bias and serve with a generous dollop of the compound butter, a big green salad, and preferably, a cold gin martini.

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Everyone told me that summer in San Francisco would be dismal. I believed them, but it is one thing to logically understand wretched weather and something else entirely to actually wake up to it everyday. Four years of winter in Boston did a good job acclimating me to the reality of everyday being more depressing than the last. Still, summer in San Francisco required its own sort of fortitude. In my apartment merely blocks from a frigid, shark-infested beach, the fog was particularly pervasive. The sun might struggle out in Union Square, but at my house, the gray wooley blanket and desperate chill descended in June and didn't let up until the end of September.

But now that's all in the past. It's October and everything is lovely. I had a dream about a house full of pumpkins last night, but the weather doesn't even hint of fall. It's been around 70 degrees, sunny and breezy. Two days ago I put on a sun hat, walked to a playground, sat on a bench and read. Outside. It was fantastic.

But it reminded me of some weeks ago when everything was not so lovely and Stephen and I had picnic on the bed. I'd just gotten a new haircut and was feeling festive, plus Stephen had hurt his back and was in no shape to sit at the table, let alone help with the dishes. So I stopped by a couple of shops to pick up a few tasty nibbles to eat, Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe, or rather, sur le lit style, I guess.

I bough a roast chicken to eat smeared with green peppercorn dijon, a baguette, apples, grapes, three types of cheese (taleggio, aged gouda and cambozola, a sort of camembert innoculated with gorgonzola mold), and a big, purplish heirloom tomato that I dressed with olive oil and fleur de sel.

I spread one of my grandmother's vintage tablecloths on the bed, poured some wine and we ate everything with our fingers, Stephen propped up on a pile of pillows. And believe it or not, even though it was August in San Francisco, it almost felt like summer.

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