cookblog

Lipstick On A Chicken

2009-07-03T11:57:00.003-04:00

You know those precooked chicken sausages that hang out in the freezer section? The organic ones with 1990s-era flavor combinations like sundried tomato and porcini mushroom? Well, because our grocery options up here are limited, occasionally my wife goes a little crazy from the limitations of a couple of small stores and grabs at anything that we don't normally buy. And so it was that these things were in the fridge.

Because they're pre-cooked, and they have the cellulose casings, grilling them is a disaster; they end up as rubbery little logs with no moisture. Chopping them up into a pasta sauce is really the only thing they're good for (beyond just heating and eating on bread with mustard and kimchi while standing over the sink; they do the job, but only just).

So I figured that with some tinkering they might make a decent wonton filling. I had seen some skins in the freezer and the idea of both frying and hiding the sausage seemed to be win/win. I chopped them fine, adding copious ginger, garlic, preserved yuzu, nam pla, cilantro, and a little kimchi juice. Wrapped 'em up. Fryed 'em.

It looks like a delicious little Magdalena Abakanowicz, doesn't it? I made the quick dipping sauce with soy, vinegar, sriracha, and a drib of agave, and served them on spicy baby greens (radish, mustard, mizuna). We also had sautéed crimini mushrooms with wine and garlic, and a heaping salad. And rosé. On the screened porch. The sun actually came out for a minute.

Lay Back And Dream On A(nother) rainy Day

2009-07-02T19:56:00.005-04:00

The near-constant rain is impeding the growth of the heat-loving plants, and if it keeps up it's a safe bet that most of our tomatoes and peppers won't ripen and our cucurbits will succumb quickly to a plague of powdery mildew. And the slugs are as big as schnausers. But the greener things are thriving- roots are getting fat, and our salad isn't bolting like it normally does. This month will tell whether we are in for the sweet late-season good stuff or not.

In the meantime, there's enough variety to at least allow for some simple pleasures like the ragout we had the other night. It's a survey of all the non-leafy options available right now: carrot, scallion, green garlic, fennel, pea, fava bean, baby celery, and nasturtium bud. A quick sautée, a splash of wine, and it was freshest al dente bliss. Some broiled coho salmon and fried rice with beet greens completed the plate, but honestly the ragout was the star. The frozen mirepoix got us through the winter very well; every time it hit a pan I grinned at the vivid potency of summer captured in each bag as it wafted up (a mince of guanciale made it positively sublime). But when these prime crops, the non-leafy prizes of summer, have just been picked about 20 minutes before you eat them, it's a whole different experience- one we get to have for maybe five months out of the year if we're lucky.

Good Weed

2009-07-01T19:38:00.001-04:00

My latest article is out in the July issue of Chronogram.

John's Birthday

2009-06-30T11:46:00.004-04:00

The garden is really hitting its stride now, offering a wider array of perfect options for organizing a dish around. The beets have been getting me excited, not least because they go with so many different flavors. They're also beautiful. John's birthday party offered me an excuse to monkey around with some of the different directions a beet can go, and try to combine them in an interesting way.

Inspired by the bite of foie and yuzu that came with the daikon-shiso soup at Alinea, I bought some foie to add occasion-appropriate decadence. The jar of fresh yuzu that I preserved Moroccan-style last winter offered the ideal component to go with it: the salt-curing essentially candies the fruit, making for an intensely concentrated flavor.

We had lamb the other night, which I might not post about because the photo is awful, but as a sauce for it I pressure-cooked beets and Kalamata olives with a bit of olive brine. Since there was some of that left, I adjusted it with maple syrup, a drop of vanilla, and some yogurt. A tour of our edible flowers yielded coriander, nasturtium, and lavender, and I picked some chives for a little allium bite. Here's the first try, including a sliver of raw chioggia beet for crunch:

For the final version, I sautéed short pieces of the beet stems in smoked duck fat (plus the fat that rendered off the foie when I seared it) adding a little vanilla sugar at the end. And I put one little lavender flower on each spoon as well. To follow the bite, I made another version of the coconut borscht; it had galangal, kaffir lime, and coconut milk, but this time used dashi as the base for a subtle smoky element that echoed the smoked fat on the stems. Unfortunately, I do not have 16 shot glasses, so we made do with some corn-based plastic cups. Not so elegant, but it was a potluck for crying out loud. I pulled out a 1991 Salomon Undhof Riesling Library Reserve to go with this, and it had a delightful, grapefruity brightness that meshed well with the yuzu and cut through the rich fat.

As always, the food was just beautiful. Grilled sides of Coho salmon and ocean perch, greens, escarole mash, pizzas, cauliflower au gratin, beans, salad- our potlucks cannot be beat. There were many other great wines, including a 2003 Peter Michael Point Rouge, a 1999 Lisini Brunello, a 1998 Barbaresco Rabajà, 2 1997 Super Tuscans that I have plum forgotten, and last of all, by the fire on the riverbank, framing a bracing late-night dip, a 1989 Chevillon Nuits-Saint-Georges "Les Roncières." Summer has arrived.

Bresaola

2009-06-29T19:29:00.005-04:00

Not bad for a first try. It came out a little salty, because I forgot about it and left it on the cure for a week. Next time I think 4 days will be about right.

Now I just have to go the the deli and get them to slice it like this- it's just too much work to keep doing it by hand. Isn't it pretty? It almost makes me want to make stained-meat windows, except that it's too tasty.

Alinea 6/20/09

2009-06-24T10:45:00.015-04:00

In Palazzo Spada, near where I lived in Rome, there's a cute little Architectural folly by Borromini called Il Perspettivo- a corridor built in forced perspective to appear much longer than it is, that opens onto a garden with a statue in it. There's a nice moment that happens as soon as you enter, when you see that the ceiling slants down, and the floor slopes up, and you realize that the whole thing is about 10 feet long and the statue is tiny. Alinea's entry hall does a similar thing, and that cognitive shift- where something turns out to be something else, and we are surprised and delighted- is an important part of the Alinea experience.

"Il Perspettivo"

Before we went, I knew about as much about this restaurant as one can without actually having eaten there. I love the cookbook- though so far I've just used it for inspiration- and I've read and heard many accounts of other people's experiences there. Everything I learned told me that it justifies the hype. And the proximity (about a week off) of our anniversary provided all the justification I needed for such a lavish indulgence.

It's funny- I was actually nervous going in, more so than I have been since I met Radiohead backstage last August. The trompe l'oeil entryway with the gleaming Star Trek doors on the left at the end does a nice job of underscoring the through-the-looking-glass-ness of your passage from the busy clamor outside to the busy serenity within; the doors pop open suddenly and from then on you are in the hands of some seriously talented people. It's dim inside, with some tactile yet minimal canvases and a few abstract arrangements of plexi, glass, and plants (and a ceramic Chinese pig) that make for something to look at between courses. There are a lot of staff, but they move pretty smoothly.

I had been going back and forth about whether to get the wine pairing or not, and after looking at the dizzying pornography which is their wine list I decided to abandon myself to the pairings. It didn't seem possible to choose one or two bottles that were going to play nicely with the zillion flavors to come. First they brought us a champagne cocktail: Henriot Brut with Chartreuse, Akvavit, and Orange Curaçao. The quantities of liqueurs were so small that the glasses looked like pure champagne, and tasted like champagne but with astonishing fruit and floral overtones. It would be more fun if they brought the glass without announcing what was in it, and let people try to figure out what the hell it was.

I'm going to publish some of the pics I took, but not all; the lighting is low and I didn't use a flash. Some came out barely OK, many were useless. You can easily find beautiful pics of this beautiful food all over the internets.

Roes • traditional garnishes

Blis roes of Arctic char and steelhead trout with flavors of brioche, dill, and sour cream all transformed into foam, quenelle, and, uh... cream respectively. It was sublime- a tired canapé from the 60s resurrected as the irresistible club mix of the late aughts.

Foie Gras • daikon, shiso, yuzu
Dönnhoff "Felsentürmchen" Riesling Spätlese Nahe 2006

I didn't even take a picture of this, because the soup bowl has a rounded bottom (which I like) and required holding to prevent spillage and humiliation. I would love to make bowls like this, notched on one side to allow for a little fork to rest on top, but my guests normally don't take direction the way cowed Alinea guests do. We dutifully ate the bite on the fork- hands down one of the most elegant bites of food I've ever tasted- and savored the syncopated counterpoint of flavors which danced around the creamy core of foie. The soup was so clean, yet so powerfully flavored with daikon, shiso, and yuzu; it was the wet dream of all the little first-course soups I make and I'm going to duplicate it if it kills me.

Pork Belly • iceberg, cucumber, Thai distillation
Abbazia di Novacella Kerner, Valle Isarco, Alto Adige 2007

This one was mighty. Super-shreddy aromatic pork confit on cucumber-infused lettuce with Thai essence and basil seeds, plus a panoply of herbs, flowers, and garlic chips on top and a cayenne-bell pepper pudding on the side. I didn't take any notes at all- this is from memory; I'm going to miss some flavors and get a few things wrong, so bear with me. The spicy sauce was a welcome high note and the wine matched well. Later on we began to miss the spice, since there was not much to be found in subsequent dishes.

Green almond • juniper, gin, lime

This one was a variant on the version in the cookbook, but with a different gel and no cayenne. It was lovely, but fell short of my expectation; I really like the idea of having tiny corners of intense salty, sweet, sour, and spicy that embellish the main flavors and elegant textures. This could have used a pinch of fire.

Soft Shell Crab • carrot, five spice, duck
Melville "Verna's" Estate Viognier, Santa Barbara County 2008

It's safe to say that I've never seen a more extravagantly beautiful plate of food. And the wide-ranging yet tightly compatible flavors- from crunchy crab to unctuous duck, impeccably liased by creamy carrot- were marvelous. Little bright floral and herbal notes popped out in different bites. It was downright musical. The only weak spot for me was a sesame-chive nougat sort of thing (in back, with a little flower on top) that was a tad too arid for my taste; it had the saliva-destroying power of halvah and might have worked better as a powder in smaller quantity. The wine was remarkably non-California tasting, having undergone no Malolactic fermentation, but still paled next to the 2002 Cheze Condrieu we had recently.

Blue Crab • carrot, five spice, duck
Gustave Lorentz Grand Cru Pinot Gris "Altenberg de Bergheim" Alsace 2004

Where the last plate would not be out of place in many top-notch restaurants, this one was a seriously deep sci-fi remix of many of the same flavors. Served chilled in an entasized shot glass with a spoon, it was one of the most profound dishes of the night. Everything had been turned into cream, or gel, or foam; the fibers of crab offered the only resistance to the tongue. Dense yet ethereal, funky yet weightless, complex yet harmonious, this was a goddamn masterpiece. If our tongues were longer we surely would have swabbed these glasses clean.

The wine was insane. It tasted years older than it was, and had the honeyed, layered, deep yellow vibe of some mutant love child of a Chave Hermitage blanc, the Cheze Voignier, and maybe some Meursault thrown in as lube. My wine find of the night.

Black Truffle • explosion, romaine, parmesan

His most famous dish, and the only one he brought with him from Trio. Very nice, but then I knew what was coming. Christine did not; I have a nice sequence of pics documenting her progress through the five stages of trufflicious explosement. This is stage one: anticipation.

Pigeonneau • à la Saint-Clair
"Alter Ego" de Château Palmer, Margaux 2004

Chef Achatz has been incorporating more classics into the menu, and here was a little piece of Escoffier reimagined as a Zen garden. Elegant, perfectly executed, and deeply satisfying. Something I noticed throughout, though, is that given the size and subtlety of some dishes, even a sprig of thyme was a tad overblown at times, crushing the more delicate flavors. Making it into a powder would have allowed for the same intense brightness, but made it available to more of the bites and integrated it better. Quibbling, but nonetheless it happened several times.

The wine was a closed fist. Good young Bordeaux- even a second wine like this- is just not worth opening. It's hard for me to imagine that they couldn't find something more drinkable.

Bacon • butterscotch, apple, thyme

This is Claudia's now-infamous "bacon on a sex swing" and it does deserve the name. On balance, though, it's a tad heavy on the sweetness; this is the point at which we started to get a little fatigued from the sugar in many dishes. They've reordered the trajectory of the menu so that it undulates back and forth between savory and sweet, but because we use so little sugar at home and have many more bitter, spicy, and pickled components to our meals, it got a little cloying. Not to say that they weren't wonderful, just that we could have used some kimchi or tsukemono type flavors here. Overall there was a dearth of sour and hot in the meal, and cumulatively it made for a heavier experience than it could have been. The bacon was so polite it almost didn't register; I wanted feral intensity like in our hillbilly bacon to counterbalance the sweetness of the apple and butterscotch (and again with the thyme sprig!)

Sweet Potato • bourbon, brown sugar, smoldering cinnamon

The presentation was terrific, but it hit at the wrong point in the menu for us.

Mustard • passionfruit, allspice

Freaking genius. One of the best bites of the night. Served on the Eye, a chilled glass that helps keep these antigriddled lovelies cold for their harrowing trip upstairs from the kitchen, the combined flavors were a revelation- and, just as importantly, they faded away after the one bite, making us scramble to remember the sensation.

Hot Potato • cold potato, black truffle, butter
Bruno Paillard "Première Cuvée" Brut Rosé, Rheims

Another classic; the temperature contrast adds a new dimension to the layers of richness (you pull the pin, dropping the hot potato and truffle into the cold soup, then knock it back.) Eating off of parrafin kind of squicks me out, though. The Champagne was good, but not as good as I wanted it to be. Kind of tight and restrained- a more opulent style like Egly-Ouriet might have been interesting.

Yuba • shrimp, miso, togarashi

This was a crispy spine of yuba that supported a helix of prawn, orange taffy, and miso mayonnaise, garnished with black and white sesame seeds. The salty miso and gentle heat from the togarashi balanced the sweet orange well, but the much subtler sweetness of the prawn got a little lost. I loved the serving dishes.

White Asparagus • arugula, white pepper, honey
Tentaka "Silent Stream" Junmai Daiginjo Sake, Tochigi

This soup kind of let me down. Texturally, it was super creamy, but the sweetness overall and lack of definition in the pickled asparagus made it a little flabby. My least favorite of the night. It's important to remember, though, that in another context it may well have been mind-blowing. The sake was incredibly aromatic and clean- a very special treat.

Lilac • scallop, shellfish, honeydew
Albert Mann "Vielles Vignes" Auxerrois, Alsace 2006

And then maybe my most favorite of the night. I love eating lilacs (though my experience cooking with them is limited to making ice cream) and this dish was a stunning accomplishment. There's a point when one contemplates a great work of minimalism- whether music, painting, sculpture, or anything- that the narrow constraints of the piece crack open and reveal something close to infinity inside; it's like seeing the universe in a grain of sand. This dish was like that. The impossibly subtle sweetness of the shellfish with tiny compressed honeydew balls and celery in the gentlest of cream sauces, studded with little lilac "pillows" surrounded by an ethereal lilac foam- it was a perfect little world in a bowl, and downright moving in its beauty.

Wagyu Beef • powdered A-1, potato, chips
Jean-Michel Gerin Côte-Rôtie "Champin le Seigneur" 2003

At this point our enigmatic centerpiece came into play. It's another trademark of the establishment that something mysterious is placed on your table at the outset, and becomes part of a course later on. This evening it was a solemn black vase that sat atilt on a black rubber circle developing a nice rime of frost around its base while we ate. It obviously had dry ice inside, but what would they do with it?

The answer came in the form of the most divine piece of beef I've ever had. I've had wagyu before, but this was so unspeakably sublime it wiped the others from my memory like doodles from a dry-erase board. Like a hard drive in an MRI. Like I just learned that Soylent Green was made from PEOPLE. What put it over the top were the accompaniments: a cube of hot, silken mashed potato crusted with salt and vinegar potato chips and a little plastic pouch containing the powdered essence of A-1 steak sauce: anchovy, tamarind, raisin, and clove. There were also little piles of Maldon salt and black pepper. A slice of this übersteak, swabbed in a bit of each powder and chased by a smidge of creamy, crispy potato bomb was an utterly brilliant take on numbing steakhouse fare. And just the right amount- by the fifth bite, the awe had subsided and it was time to move on. Bite six was a fond, longing farewell to what may have been a once-in-a-lifetime pleasure.

The dry ice had aromatics in it, so when they served the food they poured water (I'm guessing) into the vessel and fragrant fog gushed forth onto the table, giving this moment of profound decadence a nice B-movie touch. The wine, as with the Palmer, was WAY too young. There is just no point serving something that says Côte-Rôtie on the label when it's this tight. I can think of several $20 bottles that would have matched this so wonderfully- not to mention how a glass of something truly special and ready to drink would have elevated this into the stratosphere. I know they need to be able to source large quantities for the list, but there has to be a better wine choice for such a magnificent plate of food as this.

Something else that didn't quite sit right with us was the bread. Throughout the meal, lovely little baked bready things were placed on our small side plates, and we had two gorgeous butters to slather on them- goat, and cow with black Hawaiian salt. Now there's nothing at all wrong with that, except that it stood out as such a weird restaurant trope to hang on to, given how many others had been discarded in the name of innovation- like a vestigial tail you can't see because it's behind you. It would have been so much more fitting to have grains and bakery-type notes interwoven with the courses of the tour. As it was, there was almost no grain to be found in our meal.

Lemon Soda • one bite

Served on a linen-wrapped wand of sorts (looking a bit like a ruler) these were two small triangular envelopes of isomalt (probably) containing lemon-flavored pop rock powder. They evaporated in a pleasant citrus fizz and cleansed our palates for what followed.

Yogurt • pomegranate, cassia

A beautiful sphere of yogurt with a liquid center in a pomegranate syrup, downed as a shot. Rich yet clean, and again the instant nostalgia trying to capture all the subtleties of the interplay between the tangy yogurt and that slightly metallic earthiness of pomegranate. In some ways the single bites were the most powerful because they forced one to pay attention, stretching time out to contain more individual slices of experience.

Bubble Gum • long pepper, hibiscus, crème fraîche
The flavors of bubble yum captured in a glass tube which one pulls on hard like a stubborn stogie. A flood of fleeting associations, and a lovely chewy bite to the gels. Really nice.

Transparency • of raspberry, yogurt
A paper-thin glass of raspberry, dusted with sweet yogurt powder. It dissolved into pure flavor, then vanished.

Rhubarb • goat milk, onion, lavender air
Elio Perrone "Bigaro" Piedmont 2008

This plate came on a pillow filled with vaporised lavender essence; the weight of the plate and our pressure on it slowly forced the fragrance out into the air around us while we ate. Onion cotton candy, different textures of rhubarb and goat milk- it was beguiling. The wine, a Moscato-Brachetto blend, was an excellent match, and had hints of the the tangy Brachetto stank that helped keep it from being too one-dimensional.

Chocolate • blueberry, tobacco, maple
Smith-Woodhouse 1994 Vintage Port

Now I don't know why they chose us for what happened next. It may be that they research their guests and they discovered what a giant food nerd I am. It may be that one or more of our (all-male) wait staff told Chef that one of the great beauties of our time was sitting upstairs and he should come up and gaze upon her. It may be that all my geeky banter, especially with Craig the wine guy, distinguished us from the more taciturn and/or thoroughly disoriented diners around us. It may have been plain dumb luck. But I didn't see anybody else get the following treatment.

One of our servers came up at this point and said "Chef is going to throw you a little bit of a curve ball." They cleared everything off the table and vanished, returning with a rubber mat, which unrolled across the whole table. Then, suddenly, Chef Achatz was standing there, with a helper on the other side. We said hello, and he explained that sometimes plates offer a too-small surface for composition; this was an effort to expand outward onto a larger canvas, as it were. And they got to throwin'. Tobacco cream, blueberry syrup, spheres of blueberry jam, pickled blueberries, walnuts- praline and powder- jiggly spheres of maple extract (the wood, not the sap) and chocolate mousse that had been frozen with liquid nitrogen. And thyme. Did I mention the thyme? We chatted a bit and they went back to work. It was a delicious finale. I resisted the urge (probably because I'm over 30) to insist upon a photo with him, and I didn't even hump his leg or anything.

Here's the result, after a few initial passes of the spoon (just, you know, to make sure it was OK.)

Pound Cake • strawberry, lemon, vanilla bean

A tiny circle of dense, chewy swirl formed on the end of a vanilla bean from somewhere in the happy, happy place between cake and candy. Not much more to say about it, except that I had wisely saved a sip of port to wash it down.

And that was that. A mere four hours (at around $200 per hour) and we were done. Was it worth it? Sure. For what it was, there's no question, especially compared to how easy it would be to drop that kind of coin at even a mediocre place. This was astonishing, and in places it was simply as good as food can get. The staff are excellent, and quickly get a read on what kind of guest you are; if you show some familiarity or interest, they become more personable and less formal. I abhor the sniveling sycophant style of service, and they do an admirable job of finding the sweet spot where you feel most comfortable (though little things like replacing your napkin every time you go to the can seems a bit over the top, and uses too much bleach.)

Portion sizes could be a little smaller in some cases, since plate fatigue can set in with the larger courses, no matter how sublime. And the pretty hard tilt toward sweetness bogged us down in a few spots. But we are not normal Americans that way. And this is all small beer. The man is a genius, plain and simple.

We had a little visit to the kitchen on our way out, and it's fascinating to watch. There are many, many people employed there, and they do their work with remarkable efficiency. The staff run all the plates upstairs (many were sweating by the end of the night) and the atmosphere is one of frenetic calm- like a Ferrari engine humming at 7500 rpm. Inept as I am, I would love to stage in that kitchen for a month- not just to learn the wizardry and the process, but to see the interface between the real world outside and the kitchen within- to learn about the sources, and producers, and exotic materials, and to see how Chef Achatz, like Borromini, takes the language of classicism and warps it in his magic mirrors until it becomes positively psychedelic in its revelatory power.

Quality Is Job One

2009-06-21T22:56:00.005-04:00

Blogging is a funny thing, really. I like doing it, and it landed me a magazine writing job (which is also mostly fun) but I never quite get around to doing most of the requisite things that others do to boost traffic: getting all up in the MyFace and TwitSpace and BoobTube with quick ubiquity, and commenting far and wide like a tweaker cheerleader suffering from simultaneous Prader-Willi and exclamation point-specific Tourette's syndromes. And God knows I detest banner ads, so this is not in danger of earning me beer money any time soon. (Have you seen the new purple Bar Of Death™ that lurches up the screen to occlude the text you might wish to read, requiring you to click it away? Whoever invented that should be waterboarded.)

And so I'm still trying to figure out why I spend so much time trying to take a decent picture of the food I cook and then write interestingly about it for a bunch of strangers.

But then a show intervenes, and I go away for a week, busting my ass to get it all just so, and schmooze, and deal with all the ancillary details, and only have a few minutes in which to even think about all this, and maybe snap a picture of a particularly good meal or bottle that happened on the trip. And maybe a phrase or two will unfurl and get filed away for use when I'm back in front of my very own computer. And I'm OK with it; this is a hobby, and that's enough. I'm happy.

But then, say, I'll find myself at Alinea, and Grant Achatz has come up to say hello, and he's composing our dessert right on our table while we chat, and then I realize that it's a little more than that.

You can read all about it in a couple of days when I get to writing.

Fait Accompli

2009-06-12T20:25:00.003-04:00

This will be quick, because I've been writing all day and desperately need a shower. Wednesdays we have the Farmers' Market in town, so we wandered over to get a few things. Wild Hive has a table there, so we said hi to Don and grabbed some beans and a bag of his 10-grain mix. I like making it into risotto-y things, and since the wife had stopped at the fish market earlier for scallops, we were in business.

A simmering pot of roasted chicken broth and some little beets cut into small cubes (plus some minced dried porcini) were all I needed to make a creamy, deep fuchsia porridge of sorts which I topped with seared scallops and a little pan sauce made with sherry and pimentón. A salad on the side. Organic rosé. Aaaaw yeah.

Fight For Your Right To Pâté

2009-06-11T11:13:00.003-04:00

With the warmer weather, I've been craving pâtés and terrines; a slice or two with a salad and crusty bread is as good as lunch can get (at least until the cucumbers and tomatoes arrive) and the archetypal combination of potted meat, mustard, and pickles can find expression in many forms along a spectrum from humble to elegant.

In this case, humble: a 5 lb. pork shoulder from Fleisher's became two pâtés de campagne (though with some tweaking of the flavors toward Spain.) First, a cut into cubes, along with most of that glorious fat- I froze some for future use- and a run through the large die of the grinder.

Next up, seasoning with garlic, fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, rosemary, sage and chive flowers) pimentón, 5-spice, wine, sherry, pepper, coriander, cumin, and preserved lemon, followed by a second pass through the large die. Into this heady mélange I beat a panade of two eggs, milk, and panko as well as a handful of whole green peppercorns. I packed the mixture into two loaf pans and let them sit overnight. The next morning, I fired up the water bath and vacuum-sealed both terrines; one went in the freezer for another time, and the other slid into the bath for a six-hour soak at 68˚ C.

Once out, I unsealed it, wrapped it tightly, and let it sit overnight in the fridge. The next day, with bread, salad, cornichons- not yet our own, but soon- and good mustard, I finally had the lunch I'd been craving for weeks. Delayed gratification is often the best kind.

Meat Mandalas

2009-06-07T17:22:00.004-04:00

We had this venison roast in the freezer, and the seal had broken so it was getting a little ice on it, so I pulled it out. Once defrosted, it was clearly more than we needed, so I cut three small steaks off of it and put the rest in the fridge. I rubbed the steaks with salt, pepper, and some herbs and let them sit while I cubed red potatoes and a turnip and set them in a little smoked duck fat to brown. The turnip greens, plus the greens from two chioggia beets and some radishes got a coarse chop and a wilt with garlic, and I simmered some dried cranberries with a minced beet, agave syrup, balsamic vinegar, and 5-spice. It worked well; venison likes a slightly sweet sauce, and the addition of sage flowers added an amazing kick to a combined bite of meat and chutney.

The next night, trying to avoid redundancy, I marinated thinly-sliced strips of deer in soy sauce, wine, agave, nam pla, mirin, and yuzu juice. I made some local polenta using more of the BBQ pork broth and the last dollop of the coconut borscht to give it a lovely deep flavor and rosy hue. Meanwhile, I glazed some baby carrots in rosé with raisins, cumin, cider vinegar, and honey. Once the meat was cooked (about 30 seconds- thin as it was, I wanted it still pink in the middle) I reduced the marinade for a sauce and put it all together. This one was better; the subtle richness of the polenta married ever so happily with the steakiness of the meat and the slightly sweet carrots and raisins. Another shining example of the endless riches to be had when one saves bones and uses potent bits of leftovers to change the everyday into the one-of-a-kind.

Boar-B-Q

2009-06-05T19:23:00.002-04:00

The bones from the boar ribs- simmered for a couple of hours with an onion, carrot, and parsley- turned into a nimble yet hefty (think Chris Farley) stock which we have been putting to good use in the ensuing days. In this case the smoky, umamilicious elixir was the happy medium in which some udon found themselves, accompanied by burdock simmered with dried shiitake, blanched kale (I usually do it in the noodle water pre-noodle) and a sprinkle of 7-spice (shichimi togarashi for those who enjoy typing.)

Freaking awesome. Guilt-free essence of barbeque, with slippery noodles, bright greens, and sweet, super-earthy burdock with a mushroom subwoofer. Never have normally genteel folk been reduced to slurping, grunting animals so quickly.

Mulch Ado About Nothing

2009-06-04T15:37:00.002-04:00

No time for a real post right now, but here's a shot of the herb and fruit garden that's just about done. It looks a little corporate right now, but as things fill in the mulch to green ratio should reverse. The post title courtesy of Milo, who just started saying it for some reason.

Process Serving

2009-06-02T11:37:00.008-04:00

Last week I had a vague hankering to make a chicken cacciatore-type thing, but after taking stock of what we had lying around I decided on a kind of chicken saag instead. Our turnips are getting really big, so I took chopped leaves and root and cooked them with onion until soft, then added some leftover bitter green pesto, yogurt, and a little wine and puréed it until smooth. The root really helps thicken the greens, making for a wonderfully rich texture without using much at all in the way of fat. I simmered the thighs in the green sauce until all was lovely and tender. The leftovers made for a great lunch. We saved the bones, and the next day I made a curried chicken pho with the bones, onion, ginger, clove, cinnamon, coriander, and star anise, then strained it and put it in the fridge for another time.

This next meal from the following night was good, but unremarkable: broiled salmon, sautéed pak choi from the garden, whole-wheat couscous, and a sauce. The sauce was the beginning of something pretty interesting, though, which is why I'm posting this. It was basically a hybrid of a chimichurri and a gribiche, with mustard, olive oil, garlic, parsley, cornichons, capers, and lemon. It was delicious with the oily fish, but it wasn't quite all the way to where I wanted it.

Then, on Sunday, entertaining some friends, I had a chance to try again for the result I had envisioned, and also make another idea that had taken shape over the course of a couple of days: coconut borscht. Initially, I was just going to purée beets with coconut milk, but then I remembered the pho made from the curried chicken bones and it all came together. I pressure-cooked cubed beets with coconut milk, curried chicken pho, kaffir lime leaves, and galangal, then removed the rhizome and blasted the rest smooth. Strained through a tamis, and adjusted for seasoning, it was a silky fuchsia indulgence of a first course. The sweetness of the beets really meshed with the tropical overtones of the lime leaf and galangal, and the creamy coconut elided those bright treble notes with the earthy bass of beets and the woody spices from the broth. Our friends brought a bottle of Susana Balbo's Torrontes, which is a lovely, tropically perfumed white that turned out to be perfect with the soup.

Next up was softshell crab tempura, made using Hank's batter recipe. To go with them, the gribichichurri 2.0- similar, but with lecitihin added to emulsify it (see? no oil seeping out like on the salmon plate) and with a healthy pour of homemade lime pickle salsa: last year's vinegar-pickled serranos, carrots, and lime wedges with coriander, fenugreek, mustard and cumin seeds all blended together into a green glop that looks like salsa and tastes like lime pickle. (Thanks to Cookie for the idea.)

And last, from a recent trip to a farmers' market, boar ribs rubbed, smoked, and mopped with the latest iteration of the ongoing barbeque saga, served on more pommes écrasées (because all people love them) with our guests' beet greens and radicchio salad. Somewhere during the crab we switched over to one of the 2002 Cheze Condrieus I got for half price, and MAN is that a chewy, sexy, profound glass of honey-yellow bliss. It even handled the ribs, though a fat red would have been the obvious choice (had it not been a school night.)

So the Viet-Thai borscht and pickle sauce go in the repertoire, and the ribs will become a luscious BBQ pork broth for using in miso or rainy-day split pea soup, or with udon, or as the base for an even more insane barbeque sauce to use in pulled pork. As the garden unfolds- strawberries are arriving, peas and favas impend, baby carrots are about 2 weeks off- it will be fun to see what else gets added into the mix.

Pete and John's Not Very Excellent Adventure

2009-06-01T09:47:00.002-04:00

The June issue of Chronogram is out; this time around Medeski and I tasted our way through many local wines. Go here to read all about it.

Don't Braise Me, Bro!

2009-05-28T09:05:00.000-04:00

It poured rain, and got quite chilly in that raw, put-extra-layers-on way that is so inappropriate for the very end of May. So my vague idea for garden-stuffed summer rolls went right out the window (or would have, if there had been an open window.) Instead, I thought that some hearty beans would be about right, so I soaked some of the local black beans and went back to work. When I came in, wheels had turned, and what was going to be very humble got a tetch less so.

The freezer really put out this time; a bag of frozen mirepoix, a pint of lamb pho, and a lamb shank from the Easter leg all tumbled forth. A quick foray into the garden gave me a pile of herbs and our first turnip. My impatience with winter has really paid off- putting all this stuff in so early was a little risky, but the turnips (among other things) laughed at the cold and grew like crazy. Radishes are great, because they offer the first non-green color, but they're small. The beets are a way off yet, so we'll be contenting ourselves with these in the mean time.

So I took some of yesterday's smoked duck fat and browned the shank in it, then added the mirepoix, garlic, turnip, herbs (fresh oregano, rosemary, chives, parsley, cilantro) red wine, beans, spices and broth and clamped the lid on the pressure cooker. Man, do I love this appliance. In 40 minutes flat the beans were tender, and the lamb fell off the bone when I looked at it. The flavors were rich and deep like it had sat in a 200˚ oven for six hours. While it was hissing quietly to itself, I steamed and mashed some sweet potatoes, then put the stew on top. There are so many other ways I could have spun this by using different pantry staples- Moroccan, Indian, Southeast Asian- but right down the middle worked pretty perfectly this time around.

Battle Of The Fats™

2009-05-27T08:00:00.005-04:00

It cooled off after a pretty perfect Holiday weekend, and rain is coming. Good news for the basil seedlings I put in the ground today, and a welcome excuse to get all comforty with the cooking. Yesterday's smoked sable got our smokerphilia fully engaged, so when asked about any dinner-related desires, the wife quickly pulled some duck breasts from the freezer and nodded expectantly at the porch. Luckily, on our trip to Vermont I had remembered to stock up on wood, so I was able to oblige.

The (local) moulard duck breasts come two to a pack, so I cut the smaller one off and packed it in a cure so it can become prosciutto in the near future. The bigger one, fat scored, and seasoned with lots of salt and pepper, went into a medium-vigorous smoker for about an hour. As always when smoking duck, I put a receptacle beneath the meat to catch every molecule of the sacred smoked fat. While the duck got its bacon on, I washed and sautéed a big bowl of spinach (and a few radish leaves) from the garden with a little onion, then puréed it with a dribble of heavy cream left over from yesterday's mojito ice cream, plus a bit of Ultratex 8 to thicken it and keep it from weeping. I also made pommes écrasées with some good red potatoes, copious olive oil, salt, pepper, and chives. I so love potatoes this way, and properly made they have a profundity that rivals (or exceeds) any dairy-based preparation. And they're healthier, too, though that angle was not so much in play this time around.

It's important at this juncture to point out that a well-salted duck breast applewood-smoked to medium rare in under an hour is as close to InstaBacon as mortals can ever hope to come. It is just egregiously, wantonly, eye-rollingly wondrous in its smoky, salty splendor. And when buttressed by lavishly olive-oiled spuds and creamy, super-fresh greens, it's a lipidinous tag-team beatdown on the pleasure centers of your brain.

When we had the tasting dinner, Lio and Sharon brought a 2001 Ormes De Pez which we did not get to. So tonight, on the heels of their dinner on Sunday where I had a few sips of some decent Bordeaux, I opened it up to try to figure out how I feel about that region; my opinion has continued to decline lately in favor of more transparent wines from the Northern Rhône and Burgundy (among other places.) Now this is good wine; they use older barrels from Lynch-Bages, which has long been one of my favorite Bordelais properties (a 1985 was the first "real" wine I ever had, in 1992, when I lived in Provence- it's always a fifth growth that drinks like a second) and Ormes de Pez is made by the team at Lynch-Bages. It's silky and integrated, with a lovely balance between the fruit and a rocky, leathery austerity. For all of its significant pleasure, I couldn't help thinking that there's a reason that Bordeaux (and by extension, Cabernet Sauvignon) is so often the gateway wine that gets people hooked, and the baseline that people use to compare other wines: it smells and tastes like Wine. Not like ass, or feet, or strange angelic ass-foot incense, or anything else- just wine. And for all of the complexity and subtle, elegant layers of flavor, Bordeaux is always just wine. It never gets up into the hallucinatory, multidimensional sensuality where great Burgundy lives.

Good Bordeaux is wonderful, and the grapey, winey places that it hits are deep and satisfying. And with age, they go somewhere special indeed. But they're too easy, in a way; what gets me excited is the shifting, holographic, fleeting and unknowable near-divinity that unfolds with a great Burgundy or Barolo. There is an aching ephemerality and other-worldliness to those (and some other) wines which Bordeaux just doesn't show me; it is very much of this world. I still love it, but it's not my passion. I'm glad I have some socked away, but I won't be buying any more.

Away Games

2009-05-26T16:12:00.007-04:00

We had a pretty delightful weekend, and managed to stumble into three consecutive dinners at other peoples' houses- a refreshing inversion of our normal M.O. We went to Vermont for a couple of nights, and the first night we had grilled venison with polenta and salad (we brought everything from home.)

The next evening we headed over to the beautiful new house of some family friends for a terrific meal: grilled halibut and shrimp with an intense chimichurri sauce and a nice array of supporting dishes. I forgot the camera, which is a pity because it looked great too. We had some Cali chards, then a Muscadet that another guest brought- it cost less than the one we had last week and was even better. Wish I had written it down. We finished off with a 2001 Sirius that we brought, which is pure decadent pleasure.

We came home on Sunday, and that evening we walked over to our new friends' house for a lovely dinner on their deck (and a tour of their unbelievable indoor pool which is almost finished.) Lio grilled some local sausages, and served a wild turkey (his friend had just shot it with an arrow) in a truffly sauce. Being a sommelier, he naturally had a few bottles lying around, and we worked our way through a 2005 Jadot Nuits-Saint-Georges, a brilliant 2003 Les Cailloux CDP, a 2001 Priuré-Les-Tours Graves, and a 2001 Baron d'Arques. The 1999 La Poderina Brunello I brought was sadly a little corked, which gave the many French people in attendance no end of pleasure- it just confirmed what they all take as a given.

Next up, yesterday John and Debi threw a potluck party at their new place by the river (Milo and I had been there the day before for a bit to help get the firepit ready) so I smoked two sides of sable and made mojito ice cream with fresh mint, lime, and rum. I also grabbed a 2000 Beaucastel on the way out the door, since the CDP the night before had reminded me once again how much I adore Châteauneuf.

Other highlights included the supernaturally luscious White Barn rosé- made per the maker's instruction by pouring a bottle each of his Grenache and Viognier into a carafe- and the typically sublime combination of flavors on a plate that always happens when this crowd gets together. Milo, typically on the ball, took a strategic seat right next to Danny, the Grammy-winning bringer of watermelon (and guacamole.)

There's nothing quite as nice as a break from cooking and entertaining for a little bit; it was a particular treat to have these three meals line up so perfectly.

To Market, To Market

2009-05-22T10:02:00.006-04:00

Another breakfast post- of sorts, anyway- since I went to a nearby Farmer's Market on Sunday and loaded up on some interesting things. There was a joint selling various bird-related products, so I got some of their pheasant sausage and a variety of eggs: pheasant, wild turkey, and chicken.

The floor is the nicest part of our kitchen.

The sausage, honestly, wasn't that great. Somewhat oddly spiced- sort of Indian, sort of Italian- and too lean, it had trouble figuring out what it was. But the leftovers were not the worst companion a feta omelet made with turkey and pheasant eggs ever had. There was also some bitter greens pesto from the very last of the overwintered plants: curly endive and treviso. Their replacements are coming in strong, and I needed the bed space for cucurbits, nightshades, and basil.

The same stand also had ground pheasant, and nearby someone was selling ground pasture-raised veal. Since the sausage had been a letdown, a night or two later I figured I'd make my own. So I combined the two meats and spiced them up with garlic, fresh herbs, wine, vinegar, pimentón, and cumin to make a sorta chorizo mixture, then formed it around wooden skewers. A bag of beautiful fat shiitake also got skewered, and marinated in some soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, red wine, and agave nectar, and grilled alongside.

I shaped the brochettes into squared-off logs so they would sit nice and flat on the grill for easier cooking. We made rice. I picked and spun a salad- the buttery lettuces are rushing in to replace the early arugula- and we got out a pot of good brown mustard. Out on the porch, breathing the breeze, savoring the flavor, sipping rosé, we reveled in the bounty of our region. Our Farmer's Market opens next week.

A Number Of The Beasts

2009-05-21T03:00:00.000-04:00

So that smoked/grilled/raw chicken broth (plus a couple of lamb chop bones from a restaurant meal) became the basis for a minestrone that may be in the top three of all time. The other ingredients were all fine, but the broth was just so damn intense and deep. And before you gasp in horror at my hoarding of bones from restaurants, remember that I paid for these damn lamb chops and therefore have the right to extract every molecule of flavor and nourishment from them that I can. Any other horror-related spasms you may be feeling are owed no doubt to the fact that the last post was number 666 in the history of this blog.

This version of the soup consisted of pressure-cooked navy beans combined with the broth, cubed Japanese yam, carrot, herbs, kale, sorrel, and the last two (yes, TWO) slices of bacon. And it was a beautiful day so we ate out on the porch.

So the moral of the story is, if you don't already, grab all the bones from your guests every time you grill/smoke/etc. They get simmered again, so it's not gross. And the flavor cannot be beat.

That is all.

Happy Accident

2009-05-18T20:27:00.006-04:00

Before we move on to the spoils of that miraculous broth, here's what followed the chicken- it sprang Athena-like from my forehead the minute our neighbor brought us a big slab of river trout just before dinner time. It reminded me that I had no plan at all, and that it was in fact time to make dinner. So I did. True story.

First, there was broccoli in the fridge- we're not quite at the buy-no-vegetables part of the year- and an enticing combination of fresh mozzarella scrap and a couple slices of bacon. I took the leftover nettle polenta and spread it on the bottom of a gratin dish, covered it with broccoli, and in turn covered that with bits of cheese and minced bacon (I only used one slice, saving the other for something else.) Into the oven it went.

And then, once the broccoli was mostly done, the fish, dusted with salt, pepper, pimentón, and panko, went in as well. While rummaging in the fridge, I saw the rest of some mayonnaise that had broken- I had been using it for salad dressings- and grabbed at it alll excited-like. With some capers, some herbs from the garden, and a few pepperoncini from the bottom of a jar all whisked in, it made for a pretty decent tartar-esque sauce type thing. Sometimes falling backwards into dinner is the best way of all.

They Eat Chickens, Don't They?

2009-05-18T10:05:00.002-04:00

Having the grill out on the screened porch means that even when it's bucketing down rain in a torrential fashion we can still enjoy those flavors which evoke sunny, carefree afternoons with the frolicking and the skipping and the frisbees and such. Though I have recently been informed that the grill is no longer welcome on said porch and needs to be trundled out to sit next to my studio until winter. Clearly my wife hates America.

Spatchcocking chickens makes them oh-so easy to grill, and they cook in half the time a whole one needs. It also allows one to save the raw back and combine it with the grilled bones to make an extra-flavorful broth later on. If, say, one has also (hypothetically) recently smoked a couple of chickens for an orgiastic wine dinner, then all of the above can be brothed together into a smoky, grillicious profundity of a stock that promises to elevate (again, hypothetically) a humble risotto into the stratosphere. But I'm getting ahead of myself- that will be a later post.

Rainy days seem appropriate for gathering nettles; they have such a dark green smell and taste that evokes wet Earth. I snipped a pile of tops- they're already pretty tall, and getting woody- and washed them, then beat them into some of the superlative local polenta from WHF. Our woodland nettles are softer than the field ones, so they disintegrate beautifully under the whisk. Add a grate of some hard local cheese rind (no idea what it was) and a pat of cultured butter, and you've got yourself some haute-rustic grits to undergird the bird in fine style. I mixed up a sauce from our last plum jam (that didn't fully gel, making it an excellent ingredient) some tomato paste, a little leftover BBQ sauce from last time, vinegars, maple syrup, and old red wine from the fridge and slathered the chicken with it once on the grill, and once just before serving.

To top it off, we caught a bit of fortune from the hard times that have descended upon all of us; a local wine store is closing, so I was able to score some things at a steep discount, among which some of the Mas de Gourgonnier rosé from Les Baux, right over the Lubéron from my old neighborhood in Provence. It's organic to boot, and at $12 a bottle instead of $18 it tasted even better than usual.

Blessed Excess

2009-05-16T11:51:00.005-04:00

John and I arranged a wine tasting for my next article, and we used the occasion to have a dinner party. I'm not going to write about the wines we tasted, partly because it was for the article and partly because after we did the tasting- during which we dutifully spat- we drank our way through a positively stunning lineup of juice (of which we did not spit out even a little bit.)

John made white bean crostini with pumpkin seed oil and I made a spanakopita, but using a combination of nettles, garlic mustard, lamb's quarters, spinach, and oregano, all of which are going off like crazy right now. I steamed and chopped the greens, drained off the liquid, and beat in an egg, panko, and crumbled feta. We had both of these during the tasting. John also brought incredible sablefish (aka black cod) marinated in sake and miso à la Nobu (but without the sugar.) We broiled it up and ate it with a roasted beet salad I had made.

Sadly, the first great wine of the night was oxidized: a 2000 Michel Coutoux Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru "La Maltroie." Undaunted, we moved on to a 1990 Fiorano. We had a 1992 with him last summer, and it's an amazing wine with an equally amazing story. It evolves in puzzling and fascinating ways over the course of the evening, aging backwards from an almost sherry-like profile early on to a softer, rounder, more youthful profile later on. The last white was a 2002 Domaine Chèze Condrieu, which was elegant and powerful, and even better for the fact that I just scored 6 of them for half price from a place that's closing.

For the reds, I pulled two chickens out of the smoker and we had them with slow-braised cabbage. First up, a 1999 Bruno Clavelier Chambolle-Musigny 1er cru "La Combe d'Orveaux" that was still a baby, though it woke up some over time. Next was a 1999 Chapoutier Saint-Joseph "Les Granits" that was just beautiful- an excellent example of the sublime contrasts between elegance and power, fruit and dirt, Heaven and Earth which a great Syrah can hold in perfect equilibrium.

Because one of our guests is a sommelier, we blind-tasted him on a real stumper: a 1987 Orion. Nobody unfamiliar with Thackrey's wines ever guesses California, especially if they have any age on them. And this had gone to an impossible place so rich, sublime, and still young that our guest was convinced it was a 2000 Margaux. Just incredible; it makes me determined to hold all my Orions for at least another decade before I open them (though they are so damn sexy in their youth that it's easier said than done.)

We followed with a 1979 Drouhin-Laroze Chambertin Clos de Bèze that was sadly over the hill- just sort of dried up and tired out. A shame. But the 1989 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle was perfect, and somehow tasted both old and young at the same time. Wines like this have so many layers and change so subtly in the glass; they're positively operatic in the way they unfold over the course of a few hours. They cost about as much as going to the opera, too, so there's that. I'd been saving this one for quite a while to drink with John, and I am glad that I did.

By now we were on a roll, so we grabbed a Pleiades XII (my last one) to mess with our French friend some more. As before, he was at a loss and just stunned when we told him that this is the humble field blend by the same genius behind the Orion. Oh Pleiades, is there anything you can't do? At this point we were deep into the cheese: Stilton, Roquefort, and a local blue that I can't remember the name of. We tried the oxidized white with them, as well as another oxidized local strawberry-rhubarb wine, and neither one did much of anything, so we were forced to pop a 2000 Domaine des Perdrix Nuits Saint-Georges 1er cru "Aux Perdrix" that I'm pretty sure was quite delicious.

There is no more enjoyable bottomless pit than the pursuit of an understanding of wine. And to have such companionship on the journey makes for a good trip indeed. (No prizes for guessing that the sommelier is the one with the French flag wristband flashing gang signs with a glass in his hand.)

The funny part is that this picture doesn't even have all the bottles in it:

A Rhetorical Question

2009-05-12T20:27:00.002-04:00

Is there anything in this world that makes a better breakfast on a chilly spring morning than fingerling potatoes sautéed with home-cured guanciale, wilted fresh-picked garlic mustard, ramp pesto-crepinette gravy reheated with lamb pho to thin it back to liquid, and a couple of fresh local eggs on top, baked until set, and garnished with parsley from the garden?

Die Zauberflanken

2009-05-10T20:08:00.004-04:00

I have never been much of a fan of the greeting-card industry's manufactured holidays, though I have always understood that other people feel differently and thus tried to act accordingly. But Mothers' day sucks. All of you who have living Mothers should feel free to celebrate, or not, as you choose. But for those of us who do not, it's a great big thumb in the eye and I hate it. Even though my wife, who is also a Mother, is wonderful and expertly exemplifies the most exalted attributes that the vocation requires in abundance, I'm still pissed off.

Having said that, the profound changes that spring works upon us are in full effect, and I've regained some of my desire and imagination in the kitchen. The perfection of the ingredients- despite, or even because of their limited selection at this point- has gotten me all a-flutter because the flavors are so pure and intense that cooking becomes more a question of curating or editing than just technique. It's all just variations on a theme of green right now, and it's wonderful. And gardening helps to connect me to some powerful memories.

I had much bigger ambitions for this meal, honestly, but they bumped into the reality of the day and didn't fare so well- much, say, like a rickshaw might against a garbage truck. So it became one meat-and-potatoes course with a gorgeous salad on the side instead of the three-course extravaganza I had originally imagined. I even went on the internets and found a RECIPE for DESSERT. But to no avail.

What we did have was a pounded elk flank stuffed with treviso-curly endive pesto (garlic, parmigiano, olive oil) and asparagus then wrapped in bacon, tied, and stuck with rosemary branches to hold it all together. I took some fingerling potatoes and slowly cooked them in the iron skillet with a mixture of duck and bacon fat until they were tender, then added asparagus slices for 30 seconds or so, then removed the mix to a bowl, seasoned it, and kept it warm. I heated the skillet up a little and browned the roulade pretty hard all around, then covered it and turned it a few times to finish cooking. It was a little tricky to get the meat just right and the asparagus tender, but it worked. Next time, after I pound and season the flank steak I will cook it sous-vide and then roll it up so I have a little more control over the finished textures. But for a flank, an elk flank even, it was quite tender and very tasty. While the various things were doing their various things, I took some red wine, added a little 5-spice, pimentón, BBQ sauce, and agave syrup and let it reduce a bit. When everything else was ready, I whisked in some butter, and got distracted so it broke (I should have brushed it on the plate for better visual use of the brokenness.)

We began the day with lemon-vanilla French toast and bacon with maple and mulberry syrup, for which I opened a nice sparkling Vieux Pressoir Saumur rosé. We had another glass of this while I was getting everything ready, and then moved on to a Pleiades XV, which like some of its siblings had a faint trace of fizz. It's still C's favorite wine, and the XVIIs are on their way. So there's a sliver lining, etc.

It still sucks.

Fewer Than Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Salmon

2009-05-08T19:10:00.006-04:00

What a difference a couple of weeks make. Having fully pivoted into high spring, we have shifted away from storage crops and braises towards just-picked salads and herb-heavy sauces or garnishes. Everything is so perfect and new that a little goes a long way, allowing for the much subtler warm-weather eating that those of us with seasons have been pining for so ferociously for so long.

For example, here's something from a while back, and at the time it was pretty decent. Broiled salmon, parsnip purée (this was not too long after Easter, hence the parsnips; we used the last of them around then) wilted local spinach, and our own ramp pesto. Transitional and spot-hitting, though had time permitted a nice red wine reduction would have helped add a little decadence and finesse.

But today, it's all different.

It's usually the case that when I can see a dish or a meal in my mind ahead of time, it comes out pretty well. For some inexplicable reason, I had a hankering for salmon tartare. On the other hand, maybe not so inexplicable; this weather and the attendant bounty of edible greenery have gotten me all fired up and excited to cook again. So some good, fresh fish was procured, the grounds and garden perused, and a few choice items were brought forth from the fridge.

To begin, there was some of the lamb pho left; I had recently pulled some out of the freezer for something (beans, I think) and the rest I simply brought to a boil, removed from the heat, and whisked in some miso. Now the grilled chicken broth made a wicked miso soup last week, but the lamb pho took it to a whole other place. Just a seriously insanely hearty, nourishing, and profound bowl of wow. Next up were maki of asparagus and salmon, both with homemade sriracha mayo for that extra special "spicy fill-in-the-blank roll from the local joint" flavor.

Then, a salad of various garden greenery with another takeout note: grated carrot dressing with a little ginger, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. It came pretty close to that exalted, orange junk-healthy condiment which may be the only substance known to science that can make iceberg lettuce interesting to eat.

Then, the tartare. Rabid pangs of hunger had by this time abated, affording me a little time to slow down and do it right; the sushi was half-assed at a high rate of speed so we could cram it down our gullets stat. I minced the fish and added chives, dandelion petals, the first radishes of the season, a little shallot, homemade ponzu, sesame oil, and a little lemon juice and mixed it thoroughly.

Normally I skin salmon by putting it skin-side down in a hot pan for 30 seconds or so, then flipping it onto a board and lifting the skin off. If the skin sticks, it's OK, because I lower the heat, add salt and black sesame seeds, and let it cook until it's a browned, crispy cracker- it's better if it sticks, in fact, because that helps keep it flat until it's crisp. The rigid skin is then perfect for use as an edible tartare-eating utensil. I sprinkled some panko on top and we had at it, but this time pausing to breathe between bites. We have arrived.