an open cupboard

As a child, I craved macaroni and cheese from the box. So do most kids, I guess. But I had an unusual palate. Whenever we had Hershey’s miniatures for a special occasion at school, I’d trade any of the milk chocolate flavors just to get all the “Special Dark” bars. I loved the frozen spinach my mother would steam for dinner, flaky, plain croissants, and crusty European bread, a scarcity in the San Francisco peninsula back then. But the first time I tried that bright orange stuff from the box, I was hooked.

In our health-conscious household, there was precious little junk food. My first opportunity to eat the verboten dish arose at my friend’s house, naturally. I was mesmerized by the oozing, creamy sauce that so thoroughly enveloped the pasta elbows as to drench them. I savored the feel of the pasta between my teeth as I chewed it, and the tangy saltiness of the sauce. I enjoyed the accumulating warmth in my belly as I swallowed each bite.

Even more than a hot bowl of mac and cheese, I loved the cold leftovers with their slightly more al dente pasta and the clumps of sauce, the salty tang emboldened by a rest in the fridge. I knew this was gross, probably worse than my younger brother’s revolting habit of dousing ketchup all over our father’s perfectly cooked spaghetti. But I didn’t care. It tasted that good to me.

At home, I made my own version of cold mac and cheese with leftover pasta and cottage cheese. The tiny squeak of the curds between my teeth was almost as satisfying as the weird orange sauce. The combination of salty, creamy curds and dense pasta was delicious in its own right.

Pasta and cottage cheese—or its sophisticated sister, ricotta—is still one of my favorite comfort foods. It’s the kind of dish you make in a cereal bowl for one.

Climb into your favorite upholstered chair and take a bite. Close your eyes and taste it, familiar as a hug. Smile and remember.

pasta with cottage cheese and spinach for one

This a slightly dressier version of the simple dish, including greens and herbs for a nostalgic one-dish dinner for one.

pasta, cooked, any kind
butter, olive oil
2 handfuls fresh spinach, chopped
half a handful parsley leaves, chopped
1 green garlic leaf (only one piece of the long green part), chopped
good cottage cheese (preferably not nonfat)
salt and pepper

• In the pot you used to cook the pasta, melt some butter with olive oil.
• Cook the spinach until nearly wilted, then add the parsley and garlic greens. Stir.
• Add the pasta, then some of the cottage cheese and stir to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
• Remove from flame and pour into a bowl. Add more cottage cheese and mix to combine.
• Settle into a comfy spot and eat.

Serves 1

Gasp! Random, non-journalist type people are criticizing restaurants on the internet! Restaurateurs are losing money! Food journalists are going the way of the dinosaurs! We must save our jobs! Let’s slam them in the paper, that’ll shut ‘em up!

That’s the short version of what you’ll read here. Sam has already summed up her feelings here. Now I know I’m just an ignorant foodblogger without a degree in journalism or a certificate from Le Cordon Bleu, but I’ll weigh in just the same.

I only recently began reviewing restaurants on the web, and generally small, local restaurants at that. Although I will sometimes bore my husband, friends, and family with my views of an eatery, I feel uncomfortable about sharing my views publicly. Why?

First, no matter how small my voice might be amid the cacophonous din of the web, there’s a minuscule chance my review could affect the livelihood of people who work at the restaurant I criticize. I would feel terrible about contributing in any way to anyone’s unemployment.

Second, I am not an expert. I don’t know what proper bouillabaisse is supposed to taste like, for example. I have not yet been to Provence, nor have I sampled numerous five-star restaurants in several world-class cities. I don’t feel I have the right to tell you whether a technically complex traditional French dish served at a particular expensive restaurant has been executed properly.

But I know good food. I know when a dish is prepared masterfully, delighting all of my senses. Making my skin tingle with pleasure, stopping conversation with its excellence. I know honestly prepared, homey food, with its fresh ingredients and its simple, straight-forward charm. I know passion and care, diligence and exactitude when I see it in a dish lovingly made, a baked good skillfully baked.

I also know careless food, stingy food, food served with arrogance and condescension, sometimes at some of the “better” restaurants in this area.

So, I’ve begun to publish my own little reviews, or “visits.” Certainly, as the article states, I am not bound by the esteemed code of ethics to which food journalists are suggested to adhere. But I am bound directly to you, the reader. And unlike print media critics, I sure as hell am not getting paid for my words.

We foodbloggers are here for a reason. To fill the void left by the corporate ad booklets masquerading as culinary magazines. To cut through the noise of gimmicky television chefs. To bring cooking back home. To share recipes and ideas, successes and failures. To create community.

There’s a pattern here. Every DIY movement emerges in response to a bloated, self-perpetuating establishment. Most establishments take heed, self-examine, and change, if they care to stay relevant. Foodbloggers have thrown down the gauntlet. Will traditional food journalists pick it up?

It’s not every day a half pound of freshly foraged chanterelle mushrooms just falls into your lap. Taking them out of their paper bag when I got home, I picked up a large mushroom and inhaled its heady earthiness. It smelled of wet leaves and dirt on the forest floor. I wanted to cook the mushrooms in so many ways, it was hard to settle on just a few dishes.

chanterelles and cheese

Following the advice of the chef (the guy who was buying the mushrooms from the forager), I made an appetizer by slicing a wedge of brie lengthwise and using it to sandwich thin slices of fresh chanterelle. I used Fromager d’Affinois, but any brie would work. (Odd, isn’t it, that the cheese is called “Cheesemonger of Affinois”?) The brie went into a small, well-buttered ramekin and baked in a 350° F oven for about 15 minutes.

I also experimented with some delicious French Munster cheese. I thinly sliced a very small cored apple, and placed some slices a the bottom of a well-buttered ramekin. Smeared some cheese on the apples, placed thin slices of chanterelle on the cheese, then more apples, and so on. I baked this in the oven along with the other ramekin for the same time period.

We ate these on their own after they had cooled down a bit. But I think they’d be even better on toast.

chanterelle crusted puréed potatoes

First, I chopped the mushrooms, slightly bigger than a dice. I chopped half an onion, but a couple of shallots would have been better (per the chef’s recommendations). I sautéed the onions in butter, then added the mushrooms, s and p to taste, and finished it off with some good Madeira wine.

I made an ordinary dish of puréed potatoes, using sour cream instead of milk or cream. After it had cooled somewhat, I added two small beaten eggs and mixed well. The pureed potatoes went into a medium-sized, buttered souffle dish. Then I topped the potatoes with a thin layer of the chanterelle-onion mixture. The crusted puree baked for about 40 minutes at 350° F.

The earthy chanterelles perfectly complemented the potato purée. I particularly enjoyed the contrasting textures of succulent mushrooms on a bed of pillowy potato.

veggies

I served the classic cabbage and apples with onions cooked in butter, with a splash of Madeira. I also prepared steamed, buttered stinging nettles.

chanterelle-stuffed pork loin

I used the rest of the chanterelle-onion mixture to stuff the pork loin. I had two large individual pork loins (serves 2 hungry people), but it would be easier to stuff one large loin. Luckily, the butcher had supplied me with sufficient string to secure the loins. I poked back any bits of mushroom that fell out as I stuffed the loins.

The loins were browned in butter on both sides in a hot cast-iron skillet. Then into the oven they went (350° F).

Following cooking, I deglazed the pan with more Madeira and a little butter and spooned a few drops of sauce on each loin. This was really a no-brainer—pork + chanterelles + Madeira wine = pleasure.

Serves 2, along with a glass each of Madeira wine

Today was supposed to be sunny and temperate. Instead, it was overcast and chilly. A and I took a drive to Marin all the same. Muir Woods was packed, so we went on a mini-hike at Muir Beach.

The beach is dotted by different colored smooth stones that wash up on the beach with the tide.

The beach is surrounded by green hills. There were some flowers out here and there, but I imagine spring will bring more wildflowers.

A hiking trail snaking up a hill.

A holds our lunch in an inside out Whole Foods bag. It was a bit too windy for a picnic lunch, so we ate in the car and watched the ocean from afar.

It pays to walk around your neighborhood sometimes, especially when restaurants like these are your neighbors. I was walking home after running an errand when I passed by two men on the sidewalk. One was leaning against his parked truck and the other was inspecting some sort of produce in a crate. They were standing in front of a restaurant. A buyer or a chef sourcing some veg, I thought, as I walked by.

Hold on, were those mushrooms? (Insert screeching sound and jerky whiplash head turn here.) I immediately turned around and walked over. I was right. These were very dirty chanterelles! And dirt typically means fresh, wild mushrooms.

“Hi! Are those wild chanterelles you’re selling?”
“Yes they are. Are you interested?”
“Definitely!”
“Oh, I don’t usually sell to individuals. How much do you want?”
“Um… half a pound? Actually, maybe a pound. How much do you want for them?”

Folks, I got half a pound of gorgeous, fresh, wild chanterelles for five US dollars. Five dollars! Meanwhile, the chef strikes up a conversation with me, giving me all sorts of tips on how to cook them. He tells me they sell chanterelles at most shops for $49 a pound! This sounds about right—I remember similar prices at local shops for chanterelles that aren’t nearly this fresh.

The mushroom guy says he likes to cook chanterelles with some fresh crab and eat it on a hot roll (mmmm!). The chef says he stuffs a pork loin or a chicken breast with sauteed chanterelles and shallots. For the chicken breast, he adds a bit of fresh mozarella. He also suggests slicing a round of brie lengthwise, sandwiching some chanterelle slices in between, and baking it in the oven (heavenly!).

I thank them both profusely, and ask the mushroom guy when he generally comes around. They both laugh and explain that he’s really not supposed to sell to people on the street, but how European of me to ask.

Stay tuned to find out what I did with the chanterelles!

The rain is back. It’s been crisp and sunny lately, almost t-shirt weather—not quite cold but not too hot either. Just the other day I saw some geese waddling around the pond near my work. A cozy duck couple have been sunbathing on the grass, napping lazily with their bills tucked into their wings. This morning the sky was drab as a Soviet era apartment building. And asphalt looks so depressing when it’s wet.

I wonder if this weather means no more green garlic at the market? Fewer pastured eggs? Less flavorful goat cheese? Just as I had begun to crave salads and cool watermelon with feta cheese, must I turn my appetite back to hot soups and heavy stews? While Nature vacillates between renewal and hibernation, the natural world can’t decide whether to bloom or go back to sleep for the winter. It’s enough to force a person to eat bread and water in utter seasonal confusion.

But a person cannot live on bread alone. And if this damn weather keeps harking back to winter, what can you do but create your own spring?

bok choy flowers with grapefruit jewels

At the farmers market, I came across tiny little bok choy greens crowned by tinier butter-yellow flowers. The crisp greens are the backdrop to bittersweet, soft fillets of oro blanco grapefruit, which in turn, cut the plump creaminess of the avocado pieces. Candied almonds bring it all together with their sweet crunch. The tiny bok choy buds bring spring indoors, even if the weather says otherwise. The pale gold grapefruit segments are jewels of sunlight shimmering through leafy bok choy branches.

3 handfuls flowering bok choy or other mild greens, coarsely chopped
1 oro blanco grapefruit or small pomelo, filleted
1/2-3/4 of an avocado
olive oil
salt and pepper
mandarin orange roasted almonds, or other candied almonds

• In a large bowl, combine the bok choy with the grapefruit.
• Cut the avocado in half and remove the pit.
• Make lengthwise cuts in the avocado, cutting down to but not through the skin.
• Make two crosswise cuts in the avocado, cutting the lengthwise slices into thirds.
• Turn the skin of the avocado inside out and push out the slices with your finger or the end of your knife.
• Combine the avocado with the greens and fruit.
• Pour over olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper, toss to combine.
• Plate and garnish with candied almonds.

Serves 2-3

Mango lassi, anyone? Check out my review of Flavors of India, a local Indian restaurant.

Crisp and chewy, sweet with notes of sesame bitterness, Armenian tehina bread is probably unlike any bread you’ve ever eaten. This recipe caught my eye, leafing through the Saveur 100, which described the bread as a cross between halvah and a croissant. Naturally, I had to try it.

The process is a bit peculiar. The recipe begins as most breads do, with some yeast and flour, sugar and water, a little kneading, a bit of rising. Then the recipe veers off into strange territory. The next step is rolling out the dough, pizza style, and spreading it with copious amounts of tehina paste. Instead of mozzarell, you sprinkle the pie with sugar. Now your pizza pie becomes a doughnut as you poke a hole in its middle and gradually roll the edges of the hole into the pie. Finally, you get a circular rope of dough, plump with tehina and sugar. You cut the rope into segments, roll them into cinnamon buns, and flatten them. A spritz of water and into the oven. C’est tout.

The result is, well, homely—flattish browned discs leaking a bit of sugary tehina in spots. Odd appearances aside, these breads are wonderfully crunchy and chewy, especially when they’re still warm. Perfect with a glass of hot tea. I took them to a birthday party where they were devoured faster than the birthday cake. Careful whom you feed them to. By the end of the night I got two marriage proposals from perfect strangers.

armenian tahini bread
adapted from Saveur magazine

I halved the recipe and used natural cane sugar and organic, whole (dark) tehina. I’m curious as to whether the recipe is traditionally prepared with sugar or honey. A Veggie Venture includes an alternative (and less messy) method for filling and rolling the dough into ropes.

3 1/2 grams package active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups plus 1/2 tsp. sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups well-stirred tahini (sesame seed paste)

• Stir together yeast, 1/2 tsp sugar, and 1/4 cup warm water in a small bowl; set aside to let rest until frothy, 8–10 minutes.
• Sift and stir flour, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl, then add yeast mixture, 1 TBSP oil, and 1/2 cup water; stir into a rough dough.
• Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, 8–10 minutes. Nestle dough into a large bowl greased with remaining oil. Cover with plastic wrap; let sit in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 2 hours.
• Preheat oven to 350°. Divide dough into 2 balls, cover with a towel, and let rest for 10 minutes.
• Working on a lightly floured surface with 1 ball at a time, roll dough out into a 25″ circle (keep remaining dough covered). Gently spread half the tahini evenly over the dough and sprinkle with half the remaining sugar.
• Make a 1″ hole in center of circle and begin rolling and stretching inner lip of dough hole toward outward edge of dough to create a large, rolled-up “doughnut”.
• Cut doughnut into 3 equal ropes. Tightly coil each rope so that it resembles a cinnamon roll, then flatten each with your hand into a dough round on a lightly floured surface.
• Roll out each round into a 7″ circle, then transfer the circles to parchment paper–lined baking sheets, keeping them spaced apart.
• Let rest while you repeat the process with the remaining dough.
• Mist each round of dough generously with water and bake until golden, about 20 minutes. Let cool on baking sheets.

Makes 6 rolls.

In my haste to upload my thoughts about the recent Michael Pollan/John Mackey event, I neglected to say much about Pollan himself. Anyone who’s read anything by Michael Pollan knows that the man can write. While reading the first chapter of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan’s clear, turgid prose woke me up like a double espresso at dawn. “Wow,” I thought, “this guy can write.” His recent New York Times piece on what to eat had me doing cartwheels in my head while shouting “Yes, yes, YES!” Pollan had done a fantastic job of researching the issues and constructing a cohesive, persuasive argument. His piece resonated in my mind as it leapt from one related topic to another touching on recent articles and essays in the webosphere. Pollan has “a Mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the Resemblances of Things… and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their Subtler Differencies.”

The other night, however, Michael Pollan was at times a witty, polished speaker and an empathetic journalist. That is to say, he graciously ceded the stage to Mackey. I suppose this was only fair, as Mackey appeared on Pollan’s home turf, but the conversation would have been more interesting had Pollan posed more difficult, perhaps uncomfortable questions.

I enjoyed Michael Pollan as a speaker, nonetheless. With his sharp wit, goofy grin, and hipster glasses, he’s actually quite sexy in a Woody Allen/Patrick Stewart sort of way.

Thanks to the DairyQueen, I scored a ticket to the Michael Pollan/John Mackey smackdown in Berkeley the other night. I admit, I hadn’t really followed the controversial Pollan/Mackey dialogue on the web. Nor have I yet read the Omnivore’s Dilemma, although to my credit, I have purchased the book. Nonetheless, here’s a quick recap:

• Michael Pollan writes a book called the Ominvore’s Dilemma in which he discusses four meals, one of them prepared from ingredients obtained from Whole Foods. Among these ingredients are non-locally produced asparagus from Argentina, with which Pollan is not entirely pleased.
• John Mackey—founder and CEO of Whole Foods—reads the book and invites Pollan to his office in Austin, Texas. Mackey presents Pollan with an eleven page single-spaced letter in response to the Whole Foods chapter in Pollan’s book, as well as a $25 Whole Foods gift certificate to cover the asparagus.
• Over the course of months, Mackey and Pollan responsa are published on Mackey’s blog.

The beef:

• Pollan—Whole Foods supports “Big Organic”, huge factory farms that that adhere to loose organic standards and aren’t much better than non-organic factory farms in terms of humane, sustainable, biodiverse farming. By not buying enough from local farmers, Whole Foods is supporting the large producers rather than small local producers. Some products marketed with illustrious background stories at Whole Foods stores are not what they appear. “Free-range” eggs are packaged with illustrations of an old bucolic farmstead and a touching story about hens who are free to wander and peck outdoors. Some investigative journalism confirmed that these hens are indeed free to roam around the hen house, but have probably not set foot outdoors.
• Mackey—Au contraire. Whole Foods buys most of its produce from private local farms. The company has been instrumental in helping to set and improve USDA organic standards, and is launching a number of programs to improve the quality of organic farms and food. Mackey admits that Whole Foods mistakenly promoted and sold products from farms they thought were small, private farms based on the accompanying marketing material, which turned out to be products produced by large companies with imaginative marketing departments.

Some salient points from Mackey’s presentation:

• 78% of produce sold at Whole Foods comes from private family farms, while 22% comes from corporate organic farms.
• 100% of Whole Foods’ private label milk comes from private family farms.
• Whole Foods is establishing a 30 million dollar venture capital fund to promote local, artisanal products around the world.
• Whole Foods has started a program for loaning money to small, local producers.
• Along with Fair Trade and the Rainforest Alliance, Whole Food will launch the Whole Trade Guarantee—a program guaranteeing quality, price, fair labor, while reducing poverty and enhancing environmental sustainability.

Mackey skirted some issues I felt he should have delved into more openly, such as the high cost of healthy, organic food as a barrier to people who can’t afford it. His argument that Americans are getting richer is really beside the point. Perhaps the US GDP is growing, but I am loath to believe that this wealth is evenly distributed among US citizens. I’m no economist, but I’d bet that those who have money now have even more, while those who don’t still don’t. Mackey argued that Whole Foods can be affordable to those who shop intelligently. Maybe. How about a Whole Foods campaign to prove it? I’d like to see Whole Foods brochures explaining to low-income shoppers how to buy their groceries on a variety of budgets.

Mackey is a man of ideas. He talked at length about his vision for what he calls the ecological era. He noted the negativity of the current organic label—no GMOs, no pesticides, no chemicals, etc.—and called for a more positive organic vision promoting soil health, biodiversity, worker welfare, animal welfare. To achieve this vision, he proposes creating a new farm rating system. A nice idea, but one that will falter without sufficient attention to detail. Much like the idea of promoting small, local producers backfired when Whole Foods mistakenly promoted corporate products with misleading small farm packaging.

On the whole, however, I was impressed by Mackey’s intelligence and passion for ecologically grown food, as well as his openness to receiving and responding to criticism. It was refreshing hearing a CEO who seems to care about something greater than the bottom line. And what a joy to hear an intelligent dialog between people with differing views, instead of the pompous grandstanding that currently passes for debate in this country.