an open cupboard

This is Jenny:

She’s half Boxer, half ???. Speculations as to the breed of her father range from German Shepherd, to Pit Bull, to Canaanite. Her face is somewhat German Shepherd-like, yet her coloring is in the typical Canaanite range. She’s still quite the Boxer, though: loyal, territorial, a fierce protector of her pack, and playful as a pup. At seven years old, Jenny enjoys running laps on the lawn and inviting nearly any dog she meets to play.

Here she is sitting on a bench with A, her fearless Alpha male pack leader:

And here are Jenny and A walking off into the sunset at Vista Point:

N.B. Sadly, Jenny’s tail was clipped in her youth, and not by us. Her tail is more of a pom-pom that dances contentedly whenever Jenny’s happy.

Check out the round-up of weekend dog blogging at Sweetnicks!

This little number was fun to cook, as it’s basically a combination of star ingredients—ingredients that, on their own, would be the crowning glory or surprise element of any given dish. Combining apples with greens is a facile yet tasty trick that offers a sweet-tart crisp foil to the dense iron flavor of greens. Bok choy, with its clean, simple flavor and versatility is one of my favorite greens. And bacon and chanterelles, well they brighten just about anything, don’t they?

I don’t generally enjoy creamy pasta sauces, they tend to be too heavy for my palate. But the smoky bacon and earthy chanterelles call out for a smooth, creamy bechamel. If bacon and chanterelle are Romeo and Juliet, bechamel is Verona, for what good is a well-acted play without context?

creamy bacon chanterelle sauce with bok choy and apples

cooked pasta (I used spaghetti, but a small pasta shape or fettuccine might be fun)
2 c simple bechamel sauce (I used 2 TBS flour to 2 TBS butter)
3 rashers good bacon
1 medium shallot, minced
1/2 lb chanterelles, chopped
1 small apple, finely chopped
1 medium bok choy, steamed, leaves separated, chopped
1-2 TBS chopped, fresh parsley
sherry

• Prepare the bechamel sauce and set aside.
• In a large pan, fry the bacon until crisp, and set aside. Pour off most of the bacon fat, leaving only a small amount in the pan. You can pour the bacon grease into a heat-proof container and refrigerate it for a later use.
• Place the pan on medium heat and add the chopped shallot, stirring frequently.
• Add the chanterelles and stir. Let simmer for a minute or two.
• Add the apple and stir, then add the chopped bok choy and parsley.
• Stir in a splash of sherry followed by the bechamel. Pour in a little more sherry to thin the sauce a bit.
• Season to taste with salt and white pepper. Toss pasta with sauce and serve.

Serves 2-3

Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Joyful Kwanza!

Recently, Mr. Fetched, the man behind Tales from FAR asked people to record their earliest holiday memories for a special holiday podcast. Having never podcasted before, I thought I’d give it a try. It was fun. Check out the holiday podcast by Mr. Fetched featuring my holiday stories over at the FAR Manor blog. While you’re there, do check out the blog for some entertaining anecdotes from the chaotic life of Mr. Fetched.

Every Hannukah, my tone-deaf father who sang “in the key of R” would sing “Who put the latkes in Harry Truman’s gatkes?” No, that’s not the name of a song. It’s just a silly phrase that he’d sing intermittently, while preparing the holiday dinner. I have no idea who put potato pancakes in Harry Truman’s underwear, or why, for that matter.

Last night I finally girded my loins to make our first Hannukah dinner for this year. I’ll be making potato pancakes on Friday for a holiday party, so I wanted to make something a little bit different. Hannukah is all about fried foods, potatoes just happen to taste good when fried. So I opted for celeriac carrot pancakes.

These are a little trickier than potato pancakes, as the celeriac and carrots lack the potato starch that helps bind together traditional latke batter. As long as you squeeze out any excess water and fry them at a fairly high heat, these fritters should come out crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. You could use avocado or safflower oils coconut oil or schmaltz for frying, as these fats tend to have a high smoking point (see note below). I used bacon fat to fry the majority of my latkes. It’s cheaper and imparts a subtle smokey flavor to the fritters. Be sure to turn on your kitchen fan to drive out the greasy bacon odors. (The noise of the fan also helps drown out the sound of your Jewish ancestors turning over in their graves.)

The flavor of these pancakes is both sweet and earthy, with a touch of the metallic sharpness of celeriac. Apple sauce is redundant here, the carrots are sweet enough. A little sour cream, crème fraîche, or yogurt are fine toppings. A mixed holiday genres by topping his with cranberry sauce. I prefer sour cream.

carrot celeriac latkes

300 grams celeriac, washed, peeled, and trimmed
300 grams carrots, washed and trimmed (don’t bother peeling)
1 small onion, peeled and quartered
3 eggs, beaten
a scant pouring of matzah meal, just a tablespoon or two
about 1-2 TBS freshly minced dill
about 1 scant TBS salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
fat for frying (choose a fat with a high smoking point, such as grapeseed oil, coconut oil, or rendered animal fat such as schmaltz or, ahem, bacon fat)

• Cut the vegetables to fit the chute of your food processor, and process using the grater attachment. If you’ve got time and want to work out your biceps, grate the vegetables manually. Alternate between celeriac, onion, and carrot (the onion prevents the celeriac from oxidizing).
• Mix in the beaten eggs. Add a little matzah meal if the batter looks like it needs help keeping together.
• Season with dill, salt, and pepper and mix well.
• Heat your fat in a heavy frying pan on a medium-high flame (I like cast-iron). Optionally, heat fat in two large pans to more efficiently cook all the latkes.
• When the fat is very hot, place a large soup spoonful of batter in the pan and flatten the batter with the back of the spoon. You want a very thin fritter that just keeps together. Repeat until the pan is full. You want some space between each latke, and you don’t want to crowd the pan. Depending on the size of your pan, you’ll probably be able to fry two to four latkes in each pan.
• When the latkes turn brown at the edges, turn them over with a spatula. Fry until the other side is browned.
• Taste the first batch of latkes. Correct the seasoning if necessary.
• Fry the rest of the batter, allowing the latkes drain on some paper towel.
• As you fry, monitor the heat of the frying pan. You may need to adjust the heat slightly, up or down, as you go along. If the latkes are too brown, you may need to turn the heat down a little. If they take too long to cook and aren’t crisp, you may need to turn the heat up. Be sure to melt more fat in the pan between batches. Then allow enough time for the fat to heat up.

Serve with sour cream or crème fraîche with a bit of dill for garnish, and optionally, a slice or two of gravadlax.

Serves 2-4

Note: Check out this page for a list of oils and their smoking points. Avocado and safflower oils have the highest smoking point.

Dear coughing dude in the adjacent cube,

You cough every five minutes. I could set my clock to the sounds of your hacking. Not content with a small, dainty throat-clearing, you expectorate loudly, with noisy, boar-like grunts. You do this on the phone, mid-sentence. The sounds of your whooping carry over to the hallway on the other side of our floor.

I have taken to wearing soundproof headphones at work to block out your noise. They don’t. I hear your phlegmy hacking over the guitar feedback and high pitched howling of Black Sabbath’s live double album. I have phoned Ozzy, and he wants a word with you.

Do you have tuberculosis? An iron lung? Are you suffering from some unfortunate, debilitating respiratory ailment?

If so, I hear there are excellent sanitoria in the Swiss Alps.

If not, then please, please, for the love of all that is decent, STFU.

Your long-suffering neighbor,

Shelly

Graphic from The Main Point by Michael Main

Folks, today is the last day to nominate blogs for the 2006 Food Blog Awards hosted by the Well Fed Network. To nominate a blog, go to Well Fed’s post on the awards and click a category. Then enter the name and URL of the foodblog you’d like to nominate in the comments for that category. Once all the nominations are in, Well Fed will tally them up and select candidates for voting in each category. The polls will open from December 23 to December 31, during which time you can vote for your favorite nominees. The judges will be announced at the beginning of judging.

Here are the categories:

• Best Food Blog – City
• Best Food Blog – Rural
• Best Food Blog – Writing
• Best Food Blog – Humor
• Best Food Blog – Photography
• Best Food Blog – Restaurant Reviews
• Best Food Blog – Family/Kids
• Best New Food Blog
• Best Non-Blogging Food Site
• Best Food Blog – Original Recipes (More than 75%)
• Best Food Blog – Recipes
• Best Food Blog – Group
• Best Blog Covering the Food Industry
• Best Food Blog – Post
• Best Food Blog by a Chef
• Best Food Blog – Theme
• Best Food Blog Covering Drinks (Alcohol/Non-Alcohol)
• Best Overall Food Blog

So step up to the plate and make your voices heard!

This dish seemed to create itself when I brought home the main ingredients. Cabbage and apple were meant to be together, and smoked duck breast is the sultry femme fatale. Who knew that food could have a ménage à trois?

Those little specks of red are not paprika, but rather sumac, a tart spice made of dried sumac berries. Typically used in Middle Eastarn cuisine, sumac lends an exotic flavor to this Hungarian-inspired dish. Its bright sourness is a foil to the sweetness of the cabbage and apples, and the fatty duck.

smoked duck breast with savoy cabbage and apples

bacon fat
1/2 large or 1 small onion, halved and thinly sliced into crescents
1 savoy cabbage, sliced into thin ribbons
1 medium apple, any kind, but preferably a little tart, cored and thinly sliced
1 smoked duck breast, thinly sliced
salt and pepper to taste
garnish: sumac (or lemon juice), and parsley

• Place a large skillet or wok on a medium to low flame, place some bacon fat into the pan.
• Sauté the onions in the skillet. Meanwhile, place a smaller cast-iron skillet on a medium high flame. Melt some bacon fat in the skillet.
• Fry the apple slices in the smaller skillet until golden brown on both sides. You’ll want to fry the apples in batches so as not to crowd the pan.
• Once the onions have turned golden, add a handful or two of cabbage and stir. Cook for a minute and stir again. Then add another handful or two and repeat. Continue until all the cabbage has been added. You want to incorporate the cabbage with the onions and bacon fat without lowering the overall temperature of the cooking vegetables too much. This will also result in varying textures in the cabbage, some will turn out a little more crunchy, and some a little softer. If the pan starts to get dry, add more bacon fat.
• As the apples finish cooking, add them to the cabbage onion mixture. Turn off the flame if most of the cabbage has just turned bright green. You want at least some of the cabbage to be somewhat al dente.
• Fry the sliced duck breast in the skillet in which you fried the apples. Both sides should be slightly carmelized at the edges. Turn off the flame and add duck breast to cabbage mixture. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
• Serve with buttered broad noodles or fettuccine.

Serves 3-4

I once ate white borsch at a friend’s house as a teenager. It was a clear broth with potatoes and green leafies of some sort, and I loved it. This soup was a revelation for me, as my previous encounters with borsch had been entirely unpleasant. The only borsch I had growing up in California came in mass-produced jars bought from the local kosher food store. The jars of purple juice with spherical lumps looked like alien amniotic fluid, and taste about the same. As a result, I had always stayed away from anything that called itself borsch (or borscht), or anything with beets in it, for that matter. That bowl of white borsch opened up a whole new world to me. So this was borsch! It was good, honest traditional food with a harmony of textures.

My second revelation happened at college. My Moscovite friend Ariella had just prepared a fresh pot of red beet borsch, and offered me a bowl. “Oh, I don’t really like borsch, thanks,” I said foolishly. “Just taste a little,” she replied, undeterred. And so I did. It was tart and sweet, warm and delicious. I gladly ate an entire bowl. After that, it was a small leap to beets with goat cheese or gorgonzola and walnuts on a bed of greens.

My eternal thanks to Ariella for re-introducing me to fresh beets.

This soup combines the tart freshness of sorrel with the sweetness of white beets. Potatoes ground the soup with their earthy flavor and dense, creamy texture. I didn’t bother peeling the potatoes, you don’t notice the skins when the soup is blended.

white beet sorrel potato soup

butter and olive oil
1/2 large or 1 small onion, chopped
4 medium potatoes, chopped
4 medium white or golden beets, peeled and chopped
stock and/or water
2/3 lb sorrel, washed, drained, stems removed
salt and white pepper

• Melt the butter and olive oil in a large pot on medium heat. Add the onions and stir.
• When the onions are nearly golden, stir in the potatoes, then the beets.
• Cook for a few minutes, then pour in stock or water to cover. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer for about 15-20 minutes, or until the potatoes and beets have softened.
• Meanwhile, coarsely chop the sorrel. Stir in the sorrel and simmer until the sorrel begins to change color. Turn off the flame.
• Using an immersion blender, blend the soup to a thick, creamy consistency. You can leave the soup a little chunky or blend it until it’s very smooth. I like it a little chunky.
• Season to taste with salt and white pepper. Taste and correct seasoning.
• Serve hot with a dollop of sour cream, or a splash of whole milk stirred in.

Serves 4-6

Wandering around the blogosphere, I often run into an interesting little tidbit and make a mental note to talk about it here. Naturally, this happens quite a bit and the little tidbits tend to add up. But my brain can only keep track of so many little morsels. Allow me to present them to you before my grey matter pulls a Control-Alt-Delete.

• Menu for Hope: The foodblogosphere is abuzz with posts about this year’s third annual Menu for Hope campaign. Menu for Hope is a very successful online campaign organized by Pim to raise money for charity. Last year’s fundraiser benefited Tsunami victims in Asia. This year’s campaign aims to raise funds for the UN World Food Programme, an organization that fights hunger worldwide. Each $10 donation buys a raffle ticket with a chance to win your choice of prizes donated by foodbloggers. Prizes are organized by geographical region, with a fooblogger volunteer organizing each region. Each representative regional foodblogger hosts a writeup of all the foodbloggers offering raffle prizes in their region. Head over to Pim’s for more information.
• Health care for restaurant workers: A professional chef, Shuna talks about the need for health care and adequate pay in the restaurant industry. I find it shocking that a person who works behind a desk, like me, receives subsidized healthcare benefits from my employer while people who work in a kitchen do not. Check out the article for a thought-provoking insider’s look at employee benefits in the restaurant industry.
• Eating Around the World: I stumbled across this site while poking around delightfulblogs.com. The tagline is “Who said that models don’t eat?” and the profile reads “I am a fashion model in Paris and New York. I write about my passion for food, gastronomy and restaurants.” But please, don’t hate her because she’s beautiful (and because she eats food cooked by Guy Savoy and Joel Robuchon more often than most of us do in a lifetime.) Aiste provides a window into a mouth-watering gastronomical world, complete with photos of beautiful dishes us non-jetsetting non-models dream of eating.
• Ebay for the home cook: Am I the last person on earth who’s only just discovered eBay? There are some lovely kitchen items up for auction on eBay, some of them reasonably priced. I recently bought a manual wooden spice grinder, a vintage wooden recipe box, and a pizza peel, all for decent prices, including shipping. I’ve got my eye on a heavy old rolling pin, and possibly a pot. If, like me, you prefer good old enamel cast iron over non-stick, eBay is one place to find these items for less than what you’d pay at one of the big chain kitchen stores.
• Habeas Brulee: This is what my blog wants to be when it grows up. My god, the photos. I obviously need to spend much more of my free time exploring the blogosphere, as this one seems to have slipped right under my radar.

You’ve met Sheba before, most notoriously as Sheba the Shack, Jabba the Hut’s third cousin twice removed.

Sheba is quite a character. When she’s not meowing at the neighbors or wriggling out of some wily human’s grasp, she likes to run around outdoors.

This morning was beautifully crisp and bright, with a cool smell of winter in the air, so we took the dog out to run around the yard. Naturally, Sheba followed along. Don’t get her wrong, she goes outside or inside whenever she feels like it, and not because the human can openers are around. But it was sunny out, so out Sheba went…

Sheba loves to play.

And hide among the shrubbery near the neighbors’ basement window.

She ponders the great questions of the universe…

… until she gets bored.

Then off to another hiding place, this one with better camouflage.

She crouches in the bushes, panther-like, awaiting her prey. What will she catch? A pillbug? A spider? Perhaps a small bird? Sheba is clearly the queen of this back yard.