flowering bok choy

Posted on March 20, 2007 by shelly

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

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flavors of india

Posted on March 12, 2007 by shelly

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

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armenian tehina bread

Posted on March 8, 2007 by shelly

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.

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michael pollan

Posted on March 5, 2007 by shelly

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.

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mackey v. pollan

Posted on March 1, 2007 by shelly

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.

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a little ear candy

Posted on February 24, 2007 by shelly

One of the lovely folks I met in Sweden recently pointed me to some great Swedish music. There’s a lively electronic music scene over there, which he’s into, and naturally the music that he recommends tends to lean in that direction.

I got a big kick out of this song in particular. Does it sound familiar? Here’s a Youtube video to refresh your memory.

Here’s another Swedish electronic song I’ve been listening to non-stop.
Links:

Enjoy!

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couscous with vegetables

Posted on February 21, 2007 by shelly

Couscous is a marvelous dish when prepared properly. I don’t mean the kind of couscous you make by soaking it in hot water for ten minutes. I mean the kind of couscous you steam forever, smother in butter, steam forever again, etc. OK, I admit, this type of couscous comes in a box too. (Most of us don’t have the time to painstakingly prepare the tiny pasta from scratch.) But when served with traditionally cooked vegetables and meat, couscous is a pleasure to eat—deeply satisfying and soulful.

Traditionally, couscocus is served on Tuesdays, laundry day in certain North African communities. While waiting for their laundry to dry, North African women would prepare the pasta and dry it in the sun. Thus laundry day became a social event, an opportunity to get together with friends and neighbors to gossip and exchange recipes.

The Tuesday couscous tradition persists in Israel at North African mom and pop eateries. Traditionally, couscous is served with a soup of vegetables and meat, eather chicken or beef. The types of vegetables and the spices used vary depending on the regional extraction of the cook.

The couscous joint I frequented in Israel was run by a family of Tripolitan extraction. Their couscous included carrots, potatoes, turnips, and zucchini, as well as chicken. Effie, the owner, always had a full house on Tuesdays, when all the high tech employees in the neighborhood would converge on his place for a plate of some down home couscous and little complimentary plates of mezze and pita. Effie’s has no menu.

Instead, Effie would greet everyone with a smile and some friendly banter, and proceed to rattle off the specials of the day. He’d then take everyone’s order faster than any waiter I’ve seen before or since, and pass them on to his wife in the kitchen. One of his sons would cover the table with simple sheet of butcher paper, and another son would arrive with plates and cutlery. The first son would return with a basket of fresh, warm pita bread and small mezze plates, including hummus with olive oil, olives, a Tunisian pumpkin spread, and two types of eggplant salad. It was always a challenge to eat all the mezzeh and still have room for couscous.

Couscous veMafroum
(That’s the official name, but everyone calls it Effie’s)
12 Yehezkel Kazaz St.
Or Yehuda, Israel
03-5339252

couscous with vegetables

Here’s my vegetarian version of couscous with vegetables, loosely based on my memories of Effie’s couscous.

for the vegetables:

1 onion, chopped, or 3 shallots, chopped
2 cloves garlic
3 small carrots, peeled
1 large turnip, peeled
1 large potato, peeled
1 cup garbanzo beans, soaked and cooked
1 bunch chard, spinach, or other greens, washed and coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp whole fenugreek
spice mixture: 1/2 tsp each whole fennel and coriander seeds, 2 tsp whole cumin seeds
(If you don’t have whole spices, use pre-ground. Just spice the vegetables a little more cautiously, reserving any leftover spice mixture for a later use. It is best, however, to use whole spices.)
salt to taste

for the couscous:

250 gr coucous
butter
salt to taste

equipment:

couscousiere, or a medium sized pot with a steamer or sieve
(I used a small pot and a vegetable steamer for the couscous, and a separate pot for the vegetables. Ideally, the couscous should steam above the vegetables to as to absorb their flavors.)

  • Pour the couscous into a large, shallow bowl and soak in 1/2 cup very cold water for 20 minutes.
  • Chop the vegetables into coarse chunks.
  • If using whole spices, place in a clean coffee grinder and grind to a powder.
  • Heat some butter and olive oil in a pot and add in the onions. Season with salt and stir. You don’t want the onions to turn transluscent without browning.
  • Press the garlic cloves into the onions, then add the fenugreek and half the ground spice mixture. Stir to distribute evenly.
  • Add chopped vegetables to pot, along with garbanzo beans, and cover with water.
  • Drain the couscous and rake it with your fingers.
  • Place steamer, sieve, or couscousiere steaming insert above vegetables and place drained couscous in steamer.
  • Bring vegetables to the boil, uncovered.
  • Keep the vegetables on a low simmer and turn the couscous into a bowl.
  • Rake the couscous with your fingers, sprinkle it with 1/4 cup cold water, and season with salt and butter to taste.
  • Let stand, and then steam again over the simmering vegetables.
  • You can repeat the raking-sprinkling-seasoning-sitting process, as recommended on the Ya Rayi site. I was lazy and hungry, so I steamed the couscous twice, rather than three times. It was still delicious.

Serves 3-4

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meyer lemons

Posted on February 19, 2007 by shelly

What’s a meyer lemon and how does it differ from an ordinary lemon? That’s what Sophie asked in the comments of my meyer lemon fettuccine post (Hi Sophie!).

The meyer lemon is a cross between an ordinary lemon and a mandarin orange, originating in China and imported to the United States by a guy named Frank Meyer. The meyer is a smallish, thin-skinned lemon that’s sweeter than than other lemons. The zest is more aromatic and easier to work with than an ordinary lemon, as the pith is quite thin. Meyer lemons are thus good for pickling, canning, and candying. Their thin, supple skins also make them easier to squeeze for juice. Given a choice between the thick-skinned lemons off the tree in the back yard and store bought meyers, I’ll take the meyers.

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foodbloggers at the food bank

Posted on February 14, 2007 by shelly

Ever go bobbing for apples in a huge plastic crate? How about filtering out bad oranges, revving up your pitching arm to toss them into a giant composting container? Last Saturday, thirty-odd foodbloggers got together at the San Francisco Food Bank to do just that. The San Francisco Food Bank is an enormous clearing house for food that is distributed to charitable organizations throughout San Francisco and the Bay Area. Huge amounts of food come through the food bank every day, all of which needs to be sorted and packaged into cardboard boxes. These boxes are then stacked on a flat, wrapped in plastic to keep them in place, and finally loaded onto trucks for distribution. The whole operation is run by a combination of employees, part-time volunteers, and sporadic volunteers. It’s remarkable to see such a dedicated, hard-working staff process and sort all those massive crates of food.

Our task last Saturday was to sort and package green apples, oranges, and frozen corn cobs. This involved putting together and taping the boxes, sorting the good fruit from the bad, packaging the fruit, taping the boxes shut, and stacking the boxes neatly on a wodden flat.

We foodbloggers spread around the crates of fruit and went straight to work. Some people taped boxes, others lifted and arranged the boxes. Some were especially adept at picking out the bad fruit and throwing them dodgeball-style into the composting crate—I nearly got nailed three times. Our efficient work paid off: the kind folks at the Food Bank said we managed our task much faster than they had expected.

Afterwards, we headed off to Yield Wine Bar for some great nibbles and wine served by Sam—barmaid for a day—looking cool in her officer’s cap. Organizers Amy and Sam provided delicious cheeses and baguette slices, the Fatted Calf gave fed us thin-sliced ham, and Poco Dolce brought us their little sweet/salty wafers of chocolate. (As both Fatted Calf and Poco Dolce are right down the road from Yield, this was micro-local cuisine, as someone pointed out.)

But the stars of the show were the sunny chutneys and spicy Spanish chorizo courtesy of Alison McQuade and Ore Dagan of Fra’Mani Salumi, respectively. I’m not usually a great fan of chutneys as I tend to find them too sweet. But McQuade’s Celtic chutneys are something else entirely. These are complex chutneys brimming with taste and texture. You can’t pick out any one individual flavor–there’s the zing of vinegar, a ginger kick, and a warm, brown sugar sweetness. But there’s so much more, and damned if you can figure out exactly what else is in that chutney. All you know is it tastes fresh and alive, and goes very well with cheese and bread.

The Spanish chorizo was brought to us from Fra’Mani salumi, by way of Ore Dagan, chef and Responsabile Produzione. I could not get enough of it, but sadly, this particular salumi is not yet available in stores. I’ll wager that a small popular movement will soon begin protesting the absence of this chorizo from local shops. Slogans like “Chorizo now!” and “Fra’Mani, not war!” will become ubiquitous. So please, Ore, bring on the chorizo before you have an angry mob of hungry foodbloggers bearing poultry forks and carving knives.

You can find McQuade’s chutneys at the Cowgirl Creamery retail shop in San Francisco, and other fine shops (how about some East Bay locations, Alison? Market Hall, perhaps?). Fra’Mani salumi is sold at the Berkeley Bowl and the Pasta Shop in the East Bay.

Many, many thanks to Amy Sherman and Sam Breach for having organized this wonderful event. It was great fun getting together with other foodbloggers, particularly for a worthy cause.

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yuppie soda

Posted on February 13, 2007 by shelly

Soda for yuppies? Yup. Read all about it on my latest post at the Cook’s Kitchen.

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