April 2006 Archives

Cookbooks can be an addiction, a voyeuristic portal into an alternate culinary universe. With all those bright pictures and neat columns of ingredients, they present a world where oven tempratures never vary, dirty dishes disappear, and every chicken breast weighs exactly six ounces. I buy them like mad, read them voraciously, but hardly ever actually cook from them. I may pull them down for special occasion recipes, and I often use them for inspiration, but in the sauce-splattered and sticky-fingered universe I inhabit, they hardly ever come into play when just pulling together dinner. Even when I imagine that I am following a recipe, my sideburn growing, motorcycle riding, born to be wild side comes out, and inevitably, I stray from the directive.

However, yesterday I was tired. I felt cranky and unimaginative, and entirely opposed to creativity or invention. I had a vague fish leaning, more from an inclination toward speed than flavor or texture. "Fish," I thought, "easy. I need something easy to do with fish." I saw Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer on the bookshelf and reached for it, remembering that she rarely advocates working any harder than is absolutely necessary.

This morning, I received the folllowing e-mail from my parents:

"We are enjoying Portugal. Warm people, great weather and fresh food (if somewhat simply prepared). Today, we go to Belem to see the sights and try the pasteis de Belem!"

Until my week long stay in Lisbon with Portuguese and Brazilian friends, my understanding of Portuguese culture was basically defined by Bossa Nova made in the 60's (Tip: Brazilian women are tired of being referred to as the Girl from Ipanema. Seriously, no matter how tall, tan, young and lovely they may be. Stop it. Right now, stop). So the first time I heard the term "conventual pastries" I simply thought that my friends were mispronouncing the word conventional. Because pie crust plus eggy custard filling equals a pretty conventional sounding, fuddy-duddy, unadventurous, formula for mediocre pastry. Forgive me.

They meant conventual as in convent. Pasteis de Belem are perhaps the most famous, but almost all of the pastries lining Lisbon's pastelerias were mastered in convents by nuns with an excess of eggs and time, who I imagine found their sweet, guilty, pleasures of the flesh in the making of pastries...the sensual kneading of the dough, the careful lining of small tins, the furious thrashing of the yolks and sugar, the quick stiffening of that wobbly, golden custard, and finally, the teasing aroma of cinnamon, caramelising butter and sugar, that filled the grounds, distracting their sisters and neighbouring clergymen from their vegetable patches, endless copying of manuscripts, counting of gold, self-flagellation--or whatever they were getting up to.

You can still buy pastries from some of the convents directly if you want to: it may involve sliding money towards a pair of eyes behind a tiny, sliding door, and in return, getting your pastries and change through another tiny, sliding door further down. Creepy.

When Stephen and I came to look at the apartment we now live in, I barely glanced at the tiny hole-in-the wall restaurant across the street. I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye and thought something to the effect of, "Huh, dingy." When we asked about the neighborhood, our future landlord mentioned that there was a place to get the best dumplings she'd eaten since she was last in Shanghai. It barely flickered through my mind that she was referring to the restaurant I'd seen before, that tiny establishment then called Shanghai Dumpling Shop.

After we'd moved in and explored, we realized that she could have meant no other place. Our first tentative foray into their menu ranks as one of our most treasured Bay Area surprises. The dumplings are indeed fantastic. So fantastic, some of the devotees like to keep them a secret. We can't help but feel possessive of this neighborhood jewel, tucked into the Outer Richmond, far from Chinatown and yet so much closer to China itself.

The joke is best illustrated by Prince Akeem of Zamunda, in Coming to America, who makes the innocent assumption that a city named Queens is the place to find his own true love. But instead, he meets devil worshippers, cross-dressers, freaky twins, gold-diggers, scary sex fiends, and self-obsessed starlets.

Because it's a kind of international, long-running joke that places named the Grotto, the Dive, the Shack, the Hole--will in fact surprise you with a well chosen wine list, a snooty waiter, vaguely themed small plates, and trendy bathroom decor. On the other hand, establishments with variants on all Regal names--the Palace of Blank, the Queen's Garden of Blank, King Blank's--will in fact turn out to be grotty, dives, shacks and holes in the wall, open 24 hours, cash-only, never any TP in the small unisex loo, maybe Chinese, could be Indian, where you get to watch T.V. at the same time as you eat, sort of joints. With absolutely nothing Royal about them.

But every rule has its exceptions. And just because the parking lot is deserted apart from a couple non-threatening hooded hooligans on too small bicycles, isn't to say staff won't be friendly and generous, and their doughnuts delicious.

A beautiful African Grey lived in the hallway of my grandparents' house. Anyone daft enough to stick a finger in the cage would see the bird swoop from one end of the cage to the other in one swift jump, beak first, making for the wiggling finger tip, drawing flesh and blood right down to the bone. It was best to stay on this bird's good side. One did this by feeding him raw green and red chillies--holding the stem cautiously outside of the bars of course. He would snatch the chilli, eyeing you with the googly look of an addict, examine it: seeds, placenta (or, membrane), skins, and gobble the whole.

I was terrified, always imagining him to be a bit of a scary sadomasochist bird--but, as it turns out, birds aren't sensitive like we are to capsaicin--that chemical found in chilli peppers and ladies' handbags equipped with pepper spray. This means that for the innocent parrot, it was just a tasty, crunchy snack rich with vitamin C, pro-vitamin A, B vitamins, potassium, magnesium, and iron. And as a bonus for the chilli, the bird, munching his nutritious snack, inadvertently became a vehicle for spreading the seeds, which passed through his body whole. Perfectly natural.

As it turns out, I'm the girl who enjoys those endorphins released by the pain experience that is the chilli pepper. As it turns out, I'm the bird with masochistic tendencies.

Or, if I'm feeling respectable, Southeast Asian Beef Noodle Salad. Or, to be honest, Everything But the Kitchen Sink Noodle Salad. I like the first name best (borrowed, as it is, from Houston's Evil Jungle Thai Noodle Salad). Stephen calls it the John Coltrane salad; it's got layers, he says, lots of different textures. Maybe it seems a little chaotic, but there's a hidden logic waiting to reward the adventurous. No two bites taste the same, and all the disparate elements are tied together with a tingling acidity and slow burning heat.

It's quite a jazzy salad, made up of riffs of hot and cold, soft and crunchy, spicy and sweet. The chile paste-laced dressing plays a trick on the tongue. It sneaks up, hidden behind vegetables and noodles. When suddenly you find your mouth warming up, it seems logical to have another bite, expecting the cucumber and mango to cool it. This, of course, only brings more chile dressing and more burn. An evil cycle, but a pleasurable one.

In conjunction with Becks & Posh and Jam Faced we are celebrating the oft ignored St. George's Day, and thus the nation of England herself, with dessert. Tejal, being both British and a pastry chef, has the credentials; I'm just riding her coattails because, heck, I'm always up for a sweet treat.

And truly, almost nobody loves their treats as sweet and gooey as the English. They've turned syrup and sugar, butter and eggs into an art form. Pudding is serious business. We've pulled together a few of our favorite indulgent ingredients, namely marmalade, custard, caramel, and chocolate to make desserts to honor this proud tradition. As they say in Henry V, "God for Harry, England and St George." And of course, for pud as well.

Every afternoon, all over England, people sit down with a cup of tea and a biscuit. A daily reminder of Queen Victoria and and a long vanished empire, this ritual occupies a position of utmost social and cultural importance. It is a snack that defines a nation. However, when it comes to dessert, the English palate tends toward richer, sweeter, more indulgent treats. This is, after all, the nation that thinks nothing of enriching desserts with rendered beef fat, that reveres custard so much, the French named creme anglaise in their honor, and the nation that invented a tart so sugary we reference it when we call a sappy movie treacly.

To celebrate St. George's Day, I wanted to make a dessert that combined these the English devotion to Camellia sinensis and their love of all things pudding. Tea and a biscuit that was suitable for afters, if you will. The Jaffa cake seemed like the ideal way to bridge the institutions. Either a biscuit or a cake, depending on who you ask, this often contentious treat is restrained enough for a snack, but elaborate enough to seem like dessert. The 2 Tasty Ladies are clearly passionate for marmalade and chocolate together, so I couldn't help but be drawn to the marvelous little cookie. I borrowed the combination of sponge cake, chocolate, and "smashing orangey bit" to make my Messy Jaffas. Made with a fluffy genoise, and soaked with a mixture of marmelade and caramel, unlike original Jaffas, they are unequivicably cakes rather than biscuits. To go alongside, I made Earl Grey Ice Cream, essentially a frozen creme anglaise perfumed with the fragrant bergamot tea. Since it is, technically, both a snack and a dessert, I plan on having some this afternoon at four and again later after dinner. All to honor St. George, of course.

In the tradition of giving Stephen things for which he is too old--em, not that he's old...

Last year: Zap Brannigan ray gun

This year: rice krispy treats

These chewy squares are serious birthday food, made just like on the side of the box, and sprinkled with coloured sugar.

6 cups rice krispies
10 oz bag of marshmallows
4 tbs butter
pinch of salt

In a large pot, melt the butter over a low heat. Once melted, add the marshmallows and salt and stir till melted. Take the pan off the heat and add the rice krispies. Stir till evenly coated. Then, scrape out into a flat tray and roll to shape. In ten miniutes or so, when the shape doesn't give easily, cut with a sharp knife and eat trimmings only (the real squares are for when Stephen gets here, it's his birthday!)

How do you know that your hot sauce addiction has gone too far? The above bottle of chipotle Tabasco had been in my possession for a mere 24 hours when that photo was taken. During the course of that day, I ate it on a grilled cheese, I used it in a marinade for fajitas, I had a snack of it on tortilla chips, and then ate it on the fajitas themselves.

When your daily hot sauce consumption can be measured in ounces, that's probably how you know. So, okay, maybe I'm addicted. It's my brother's fault, really. On a visit home last year, I saw him shaking it onto a slice of pepperoni pizza. "It's good," he said, "It's really good." One bite and I was hooked.

It was during Queen Victoria's sovreignty that the British Empire made its enormous expansion to superpower, a water mould destroyed the potatoe crops of Ireland, and the country entered into the Crimean War. She was the first known carrier of haemophilia in the royal line--the disease that would not affect her, but her great-grandson Alexei, you know the one. She is famous for evading numerous assasination attempts and outliving three of her children; and she is remembered still for the white dress of her wedding--which sealed the tradition of white weddings, if it did not begin it--and the black she wore after her Albert died, til her death. Among other things.

And yet, when I think of her--the Empress of India, the Famine Queen, the Widow of Windsor, the Monty Python Skit--it is not her porcelain profile on a Red Penny postage stamp but a yellow sponge cake that floats to the front. The cake is sandwiched with raspberry preserves and served, if it be that time of the month for her majesty, with a cup of cannabis tea. The Victoria Sponge.

It was recently brought to my attention that, although I mention roast chickens all the time, I've never actually given a recipe. I'll seek to remedy that shortly, but first, I should mention something of my history with the dish. I more or less taught myself to cook through experimentation and hours spent watching Graham Kerr, The Frugal Gourmet and, Great Chefs every day after school. By the time I was thirteen, nearly every meal prepared in our house had passed through my mostly untrained hands.

As I got older, I began to apply myself with more direction, attempting to master specific dishes and techniques. In college, I wanted to learn to roast chicken. I began by researching the topic, and was thrown into confusion by the masses of contradictory information. To baste or not to baste? Breast up or breast down? Low oven or high oven? There seemed to be very little agreement, so I assumed that it must be tremendously difficult to produce an edible bird.

Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef helped to change my mind. Now, it can be argued that Mr. Oliver is almost a parody of himself, too cute and too buoyant to be taken seriously. Whether or not this is true, I still love his books. I actually cook from them regularly, sometimes a rare thing with important, glossy chef books. He focuses less on recipes, times and temperatures, and more on tasting, poking and not taking the whole thing so seriously. He convinced me that roasting a chicken didn't have to be stressful, and much of my own technique is borrowed from him. I'll give both my favorite roast chicken and later the slightly simpler flavored, lower effort version.

No one is more pleased than Milton when we decide to let the clean kitchen remain so, and order one medium pepperoni pizza from Harbour Pizza down the road. The pizza is pretty good, with a thick tasty crust that's actually cooked crispy and brown, and a tangy, sweet tomatoe sauce. When it's all gone, Milton likes to sit on top of the empty box and destroy it--spitting out pieces of cardboard all over the floor. And since I pretty much let him do whatever he wants, because it's so cute, I thought I'd take a picture.

If you're a cream puff fan (and what sensible person isn't?) and you live in San Francisco, this is very good news.

Because, dear readers, I must always be honest with you,

I don't like natural peanut butter very much. This may be because I don't particularly care for peanuts unless they are made into peanut sauce, garnishing kung pao chicken or ground into a smooth paste with sugar and oil. I'd rather have Jiff than the gritty, oily natural stuff any day.

I do like corn dogs. So much.

Ditto White Castle burgers. Also Wendy's.

I like foie gras very much, but I don't luuuurve it, particularly for the price.

Sometimes, when I am feeling cranky and kitchen-phobic, we eat grocery store rotisserie chicken for dinner with broccoli and rice pilaf from a box.

I'm still working on my egg fear.

Lately, I'm putting Tabasco sauce on nearly everything.

The texture of nori makes me gag.

Last week, we ordered Chinese on Friday night and Sunday night.

(And, another topic entirely, but I just saw that we got a link from SFist's food blogger roundup. To paraphrase the words of Eeyore, thanks for noticin' us! We are entirely honored.)

Whether Herodotus is the father of history, or the father of lies, is completely irrelevant. I remain deeply attached to the image of the Egyptian Plover bird--its black crown, white head, and gaudy orange belly--hopping around and performing simple dentistry in the open mouth of a crocodile. It's a sweet picture: a deadly croc half way up the shore, it's great mouth open, in desperate need of a good flossing, and a little bird being welcomed in to pick off the decaying bits of meat. Because it's not a trick, the crocodile is not waiting for the right moment to snap the bird shut in its jaws. It's symbiosis. It's mutualism--the croc gets his teeth cleaned, his body combed for insects and parasites, and the bird gets a snack as well as protection from other predators. Everyone is happy.

I remember asking my cousin about this--the Asia-Pacific migratory water bird conservationist and educator--referring him of course, to a clear illustration by Quentin Blake, only to be given a confusing answer which I didn't really understand. Which brings me back to believing, wholeheartedly, in adorable situations in which smaller animals help out larger animals and trick evolution into gambling on them together, despite their weaknesses.

What's round, crunchy, salty, and excellent for snacking? Potato chips, obviously, but why limit yourself? For the last year or so, here at Chez Marthe, radishes have been a snack food of choice. It sounds like one of those healthy eating lies. Fat free yogurt is not as good melting into black bean soup as sour cream. Portobello mushrooms, though delicious, don't really taste like steak at all. But a radish, sliced into crimson-rimmed coins and dipped in your best sea salt, have all the makings of a healthy snack for the ages.

I read once about a scientific study about why we like noisy, crunchy foods. If I recall correctly, they tested corn chips. Apparently, we love the violence of the sound, the louder the better. A cold, fresh radish crunched between the teeth certainly meets those criteria. And while they may not taste like cool ranch, when their natural pepperiness is augmented with salt, they are anything but bland.

If you're feeling a little indulgent, radishes and salt served with generously buttered bread and a glass of Sancerre makes for one of my favorite cocktail hour treats. Or if it's already time for dinner, I like to cut the radishes into wedges and toss them with raw sugar snaps or blanched green beans, mesclun, and sherry vinaigrette for an excellent accompaniment to Tejal's Oeurves en Cocotte.

I also love these rosy beauties julienned in with the cabbage for fish tacos, topping sesame noodles, or tossed into spicy stir-fries at the very last minute. I stir thin-sliced radishes and apples into chicken salad and diced ones into couscous with currants, almonds, and herbs. Still, no matter what I use them for, I always slice off a few fat disks and sprinkle them lightly with salt. I'm always in the mood for a snack.

It's hard to say which was the first of my happy accidents yesterday. Without a mobile phone--I forgot--or my friend's apartment number--I forgot--I was stranded on a sunny afternoon outside El Dorado Apartments, scanning the list again and again for my friend's name. I crossed out married couples and gay couples--this left me with about twenty apartments. I knew she was in one of them, expecting me. I began to ring each bell.

The unmistakable sound of an electric wheelchair came closer, accompanied by the smell of smoke, a throaty cough. Bob, a resident of El Dorado for the past thirty-three years, finished his afternoon cigarette and offered to help me find my friend.

"I have an idea," he said. He punched in his code.
"Get the door," he ordered as the buzzer sounded, putting forward a purple finger with a long, yellow nail.

Last weekend, Stephen came home from the grocery store with a six-pack (yes, quite literally six bottles in a little cardboard holder) of wines of such questionable provenance and low cost as to elicit shame in even the most value-conscious drinker. It contained two bottles each merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and sauvignon blanc labeled with no region more specific than "California" and with no date whatsoever, all for the price of $10.00.

I must admit, for wine that cost around $1.67 a bottle, it wasn't bad. For a rainy weekend spent primarily curled up under the duvet, watching endless DVDs of Inspector Lynley and Midsomer Murders, it was a perfect match. Honesty, I'd say the reds were not as tannic as I'd feared and the white not as sour; they were worth $3.00 a bottle, easy.

However, some wines deserve an accompaniment more refined that delivery pizza, good company, and BBC mysteries.

It took me a while to embrace my Southern heritage. Perhaps it is truly that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but after years spent trying to minimize my accent and be perceived as a generically cosmopolitan citizen of the world, pieces of my Tennessee self have become unexpectedly dear to me. For instance, I didn't love bluegrass music until I moved to Boston, and I didn't understand the glory of the iron skillet until I came to California.

In any of my grandmothers' houses, the iron skillet occupies a permanent spot on top of the stove. Used daily and rarely washed, they develop an onyx-black patina and a nearly nonstick surface. Combined with its near-mythic heat retention, suitability on a burner or in the oven, low price, and nigh-indestructibility, it seems strange that I could ignore such a cooking vessel.

Alas, I couldn't see these traits. I associated iron skillets with bacon grease, soggy vegetables, and bland, gray gravy. It was heavy, ugly, and hard to care for. It didn't seem to have a place in my modern kitchen. That is, until, one day last summer when I was craving a hamburger.