Posted by Anita on 09.14.06 4:52 PM
We had the Prather chili last night. What can I say? Even a few days’ rest in the fridge didn’t make it taste much better. But, while puzzling over what to serve alongside it, I realized that we still had cornbread left over from a batch Cameron made with Bob’s Red Mill coarse-grain cornmeal. It was all dried out, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt terrible throwing out a batch of cornbread just in time to turn around and make a fresh pan. Too bad there wasn’t a way to revive it. Or was there??
Thankfully, I didn’t have to go far for inspiration: One of our favorite chef-type-guys, Tom Douglas, offers recipe for Etta’s Cornbread Pudding in his first cookbook, Seattle Kitchen. I made a few tweaks and voilá… recycled food at its most-utterly luxurious! Custardy, corny goodness with a kiss of cheesy love. Even Cameron — certified bread-pudding loather — licked the bowl clean and asked me to put the recipe in the permanent file.
Tom-Meets-Bob Cornbread Pudding
2-2/3 cups 1-inch cubes of leftover cornbread
– preferably made with coarse-grind, whole-grain cornmeal
1T butter (plus a little more for buttering the pan)
1 cup thinly sliced onions
3/4 cup grated Dry Jack or other semi-hard cheese
2 tsp. chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 tsp. chopped rosemary
1/2 tsp. chopped thyme
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup chicken stock or broth
4 large eggs
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
Preheat oven temperature to 350 degrees. Butter an 8×8* baking dish and set aside.
Melt butter in a sauté pan over medium-low heat and carmelize the onions very slowly until golden brown, at least 20 minutes. While the onions are cooking, cube the cornbread and place cubes in the buttered pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the cream, stock or broth, eggs, salt and pepper and set aside.
When onions are done, sprinkle them evenly over the cornbread, followed by the cheese and herbs. Pour custard mixture over the cornbread cubes, and let sit for 10 minutes to absorb. Bake until custard is mostly set and the top is golden, about 40-45 minutes, and serve hot.
* Note: A 9×9 square pan is too large; the custard won’t adequately cover the bread cubes. Use a pan with a maximum bottom area of 64 square inches. A deep 9-inch round cake pan would do, as would a 9-inch deep-dish pie pan. I happen to have a rectangular 6×8 inch Pyrex baking dish that worked fabulously.
cookbooks, cooking, recipes, restaurants, Seattle
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Posted by Anita on 09.12.06 1:52 PM
Seems like today’s a big food-news day, and I couldn’t resist sharing some of the headlines.
Another hilarious coffee-related news article from Seattle: Baristas having a cow over dairy “thefts”.
The AP latches onto a blogosphere favorite: Waiters get miffed about the unfairness of tipping.
Do we need smart linen? The Chron reports on a new high-tech, E. coli-detecting napkin.
And apparently they’re eating raw crabs in The OC… and getting really sick.
coffee & tea, geekery, news, restaurants, Seattle, SoCal
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Posted by Cameron on 09.10.06 8:57 AM
I’ve been on an old movie binge for the past couple of months, but after trying and failing to make it all the way through “The Third Man” and “Some Like It Hot” over Labor Day weekend, I decided to give Cinema Appreciation a break for while. Instead, I queued up season two of The Wire, a police drama set in Baltimore.
I think that when there’s a scene in a screenplay that involves food, the writer might as well wave a big red flag and yell, “Character development!” Why else would anyone ever film one? Food scenes are messy and hard to coordinate, and it’s almost impossible for anyone to look good while they’re eating. But because of the intimacy and specificity of food, it’s a great way to establish a character or add context.
The second episode of the The Wire is titled “Collateral Damage,” but it might as well be called, “What’s to Eat?” Early on, two of the main police characters share a meal in an interrogation room. Once partners and still friends, McNulty and Bunk gnaw their way through a mess of crabs that McNulty caught while on duty in a patrol boat. Seafood is expensive, but if you have access and knowledge you can harvest your own, and the meal is sloppy, unpretentious, and obviously delicious. The shells are strewn in piles across a table covered with newspaper, washing up against a rack of cheap beer in cans. McNulty is the founder of the feast, and it’s at least partially an apology for having recently added to Bunk’s responsibilities. Bump is both fastidious and a connoisseur of carnal pleasures. At one point he corrals a crab body and, after razzing McNulty for letting it go to waste, dips his paw into the shell and dispatches a handful of guts, unselfconsciously licking his fingers clean. The entire process is quick, neat, and something that only Bunk could make look graceful.
The next food scene is set in the prison cell of a drug kingpin caught and sentenced at the end of the first season. When one of his foot soldiers visits from another part of the prison, Avon Barksdale offers him food from a spread of Kentucky Fried Chicken. The message is clear: Avon is in control and plans to stay that way. He has the contacts and money to make his stay at least slightly more comfortable. And, even though he has been sentenced to seven years in prison, he intends to find ways to shorten that time, and he is determined to live his life as normally as possible.
In the last food scene in the episode, we catch up with members of the stevedore union at their favorite bar at 9am after a spectacular booze-up the previous night. The dock workers huddle around the bar, nursing hangovers until one man shows up with a carton of eggs. The men crack raw eggs into glasses of beer and then gulp the mess down: breakfast and the hair of the dog in one go. This, we gather, is how they live — hanging on from paycheck to paycheck while the port dies around them.
movies & tv
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Posted by Anita on 09.06.06 10:01 AM
Everyone knows about the natural affinity of pears and blue cheese, but unless you’re a fan (as I am) of the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market Cookbook, you might not have though of trying peaches avec bleu.
This recipe is good even when you make it with supermarket stuff, as we did… finding local produce in Vegas is virtually impossible. But I promise that you’ll make little grunty noises if you try it with good gorgonzola, perfect peaches, and Acme bread.
Peach Bruschetta with Bleu Cheese
Adapted from Becky Smith’s recipe, as told to Peggy Knickerbocker
4 slices country bread, or 12 slices good baguette cut on the diagonal
2 of the best peaches you can find
extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 pound soft gorgonzola
Halve peaches lengthwise, and remove the pit. Cut each half in half again, and peel each peach quarter. Cut the quarters into 1/4-inch slices, keeping them as flat as possible.
Place the bread slices on a medium grill, and cook until golden brown. Remove from heat and brush with olive oil. Spread with the cheese, and top with the peaches. Eat standing over the sink, slurping the peach juice from your hands.
cookbooks, cooking, farmers markets, recipes, shopping, Vegas
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Posted by Cameron on 08.18.06 6:13 PM
Somehow, this became the week of braised meat. In addition to the oxtails mentioned previously, I made carnitas.
I didn’t really grok carnitas until very recently, and I certainly wasn’t capable of cooking good ones until I found this recipe. It’s my all-time favorite Internet find for three reasons: It’s practically idiot-proof, it really works, and right in the middle it reminds you to call your mom.
That said, I often feel odd when I cook carnitas. I live near the Mission district in San Francisco, and there are roughly 2.3 million taquerias within a mile of my house. In fact, some of the best carnitas that I’ve ever had are at the taqueria that Anita and I consider our “local.” For an investment of five minutes and two dollars paid to a local business, I can get a carnitas taco that doesn’t have to step aside for anyone. Compare that with $15 or more, plus five hours of cooking. Given, it’s easy time that you can do other things with and it makes the house smell great, but five hours is five hours.
This is the same kind of thinking that eventually made me pull the plug on brewing my own beer. The scale was a little different: three days of work scattered across six or eight weeks of waiting, plus time spent cleaning and storing the gear. But the theory was the same, and the argument was completely insupportable when I could go down to the store and buy a six-pack from local boys who done good.
But what I suspect it comes down to is that I like to do things that I’m good at, even if they’re completely superfluous. Much to my chagrin — as it seems like something that a competent man should be able to do — I was never very good at brewing beer. But I can say with a total lack of modesty that my carnitas kick ass.
beer, cooking, literary, meat, Mexican, The Mission
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Posted by Cameron on 08.14.06 4:32 PM
I get a little goofy when it comes to braising, and a lot goofy around variety meats. So when I saw oxtails on sale at our local pan-Asian supermarket for $2.50 a pound on Saturday, I grabbed an armload of whole, skinned tails out of the butcher’s case and ran up and down the aisles cackling like Vincent Price while blood dripped on the floor and everyone stared at the crazy gweilo.
At least, that’s what I wish I did. The staring part was true, but that happens whenever I go to 99 Ranch because I’m the only bald white guy in there.
I like Mario Batali’s oxtail ragu recipe out of The Babbo Cookbook. The picture is of my five pounds salted, peppered oxtails ready to be dredged lightly in flour and thoroughly browned in olive oil in a dutch oven on the stovetop. When the meat was seared, I set it aside on a platter and dumped some thickly sliced onions into the hot oil. When they were brown, the meat went back in with some red wine, Basic Tomato Sauce (Mario again), chicken stock, and thyme. Cover tightly and into the oven at 300 degrees for four hours or so. The cookbook says 375 degrees for 90 minutes, but that’s too hot and not near long enough.
When all was loosey-goosey and falling apart, I pulled out the oxtails and picked off the meat. At every moment I was attended by my faithful dogs, overcome as they were by love and devotion for me. The loose meat went back into the cooking liquid and thence into the fridge. Tuesday I’ll boil it down and freeze it for low-impact dinners.
cookbooks, cooking, Italian, meat, recipes, shopping
3 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 06.29.06 9:39 AM
We’ve talked about going to Chanterelle for years, ever since we bought David Waltuck’s Staff Meals cookbook and fell in love. Anyone who cooks this well for their own employees, we reasoned, must do truly amazing things for their diners.
We’ve been to NYC a few times over the years, but something always conspired to keep us from visiting Chanterelle. We were determined that this time, we’d go. And so, exactly a month before our arrival, I called and made a reservation.
And now we’re here. Since it’s about a gillion degrees outside — and probably a gillion and twenty in the subway — we sprung for taxi from the flat we’re renting with family, determined to arrive relaxed and cool. The driver dropped us at the corner, and we spent a few puzzled minutes trying to find the place. Surely it couldn’t be the unmarked place over there that looks like a gay banker’s boudoir?
But, indeed it is. The atmosphere is odd — the gauzy balloon shades covering the windows look like they haven’t gotten an update since the place opened in the 80s, and the wide-open room seems sparse, not elegant. No banquettes or booths… just a few tables, overly fragrant floral arrangements, acres of plush carpet, and deathly silence. Very much the old-school stuffy French restaurant vibe: I kept expecting John Belushi to pop up and ask “how much for your weemin? how much for the leetle girl?”
We opted for the tasting menu and wine pairings. I’ll try to find the copy of the menu that they gave us — unrequested, I might add — and report back. At the moment, though, nothing really stands out about the food, other than that the foie gras course was appropriately sized (unlike the usual trying-too-hard gigantic slabs that ruin your appetite for the rest of the meal), the cheese trolley selections were impressive, and the basil souffle for dessert was very strange. Service was good overall, with a few glitches: More than once, our wines didn’t make it to the table before the course they were supposed to accompany; we got served the same wine twice — once with the foie and once with dessert — by mistake; and we kept getting handed from server to server when our main waiter would disappear.
In short, it just wasn’t quite the impressive experience you’d expect at these high prices. And high prices they are: We spent almost $600 for two, after tax and tip. Nothing was bad, almost everything was quite good, but nothing was amazing, stunning, or otherwise impressive. And frankly, I’d rather have three $200 meals — or two trips to the French Laundry — than eat here again.
Chanterelle
2 Harrison Street
New York, NY 10013
212.966.6960
cookbooks, NYC, restaurants
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Posted by Anita on 04.22.06 1:44 PM
I started out canning just to see how it was done, mostly dill pickles and pickled beets, and the occasional fruit preserve. Then I started pickling and preserving a few batches of produce from my friends’ gardens, as a way of helping them cope with overabundance — 2 years ago, in Seattle, it was a huge batch of brandied plums, and a batch of pickled serranos and carrots.
Last year was a tough year, as we were moving long distance from Seattle to SF, and living in a furnished apartment without access to our own kitchen gear. I did manage a very small batch of tomato-bourbon jam, and my first batch of nocino (green walnut liqueur).
Now I’m hooked: I preserve at home now mostly to get flavors I can’t get from retail products. And a lot of what I preserve ends up being holiday presents and hostess gifts.
I just took a marmalade class this past weekend with June Taylor, a local preserving maven — unfortunately, the citrus season is almost spent, but I may put up a batch of something simple, just so I don’t forget what I learned.
And we’re about to plant a bunch of fruit-bearing trees and plants with the express intention of preserving and infusing. It was fun coming up with all kinds of different plants, from trees to shrubs to vines to groundcover, that will give us something to eat. Most of our yard will be edible in one form or another.
As far as books go, I like Georgeanne Brennan’s The Glass Pantry, which you can get used online for about $2, and Linda Amendt’s Blue Ribbon Preserves. I just recently purchased Putting Food By, which many consider the bible of preserving, but I found the authors’ writing style horrifically pedantic… it set my teeth on edge and I slogged my way through it wondering what people see in this book. It is remarkably complete, so if you need a recipe for somethings really specific and unusual, it may be the only way to go (as ad-libbing in preserving is a definite no-no — you really want an expert to have sussed out all the biohazard stuff, and changing from one fruit or vegetable to another can throw that all out of whack).
cookbooks, drinks, preserving & infusing, recipes, Seattle
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Posted by Anita on 04.06.06 4:36 PM
In honor of Passover, I decided to make the Russ & Daughters Mushroom-Barley soup from the NYT Jewish Cookbook.
(Yes, it’s shown with a decidely un-Jewish grilled bacon-and-cheese sandwich.)
If I made this soup again, I think I would use a LOT less barley than the recipe calls for. I kept adding more and more liquid, and still it was a bit too much like porridge. I finally gave up — realizing I was going to throw the balance off even more. And it needed a LOT more salt than called for.
cookbooks, cooking, Soup o' the Fortnight
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Posted by Anita on 03.20.06 3:22 PM
(links updated 1/2010)
I made a huge batch of posole verde yesterday, with Rancho Gordo hominy, and pig parts from Prather Ranch. I am drooling as I think of eating the leftovers for lunch.
The recipe was from the Williams-Sonoma Mexican book, which I still have checked out from the library, with some reality-checking of quantities from Rick Bayless. Tausend calls for 3 pounds of posole for a single batch, which would have been an amazingly awful mistake. I also used Bayless’s larger ratios of meat (2 pounds) and bones (3+ pounds, and substituting water for the chicken stock accordingly) and his suggestion of adding a pig foot for broth texture. I did use the W-S recipe’s sauce components, although I don’t think I’d bother with the pumpkin seeds again — a lot of effort and expense for very little payoff.
Dessert was a nearly flourless chocolate-almond cake frosted with with ancho whipped cream — from the same cookbook — which I liked very much.
cookbooks, cooking, Mexican
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