Yesterday, Peter almost died of heat exhaustion during our training session at the Icechamber. Seriously. He had 3 wisdom teeth extracted the other week, and has been on a semi-liquid diet since he can't chew very well. Basically, he has been scarfing down icecream every night and apparently this was not providing him with enough nutrients or liquids...So, about half way into our session, he feels dizzy and naseaous--a fairly common feeling at what we fondly like to call the "torture chamber"...so he sits down and rests, which normally does the trick. 20 minutes later, he still feels awful and his pulse is going crazy and his hands go icy cold...we call the ambulance. Scary.
Two IV bags later, in the hospital, he starts to feel better...and he is thinking about dinner. LL, he says, I have to have a steak...let's have a BBQ and invite some friends. I say, don't you think you should rest? No, I want steak. OK, he is certifiably crazy but...you gotta love him for that! So we had steak. I marinated and grilled 4 juicy well-marbled T-Bones with pepper, garlic, and soysauce. My son Oscar and I pulled fresh potatoes from the garden, which I boiled and then dressed with a sauce made with fresh herbs, again from our garden, olive oil, vinegar, and a touch of mayo. I also pulled up some little onions and grilled those with the steak. A feast fit for...an invalid?
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Friday, June 09, 2006
A Word on Olive Oil
A great olive oil can transform a salad. If the oil is good, a salad really doesn't need anything else other than a sprinkling of salt (Malden, if you please). I like a grassy, buttery oil which has very little tanin. My love affair with great olive oil began when Peter went on a business trip to Milan and brought me back a bag of goodies from a very exclusive foodshop (olive oil, dried porcini, and proscuitto... Aren't I a lucky girl?) This bottle of oil (Biondi Santi--Peter remembers the name because it is the name of a wine) was amazing...drizzle a little over steamed green beans...and mmmm I was in heaven. Sigh, since my days of jaunting to other European cities for food items --Darling, we are out of tea; Let's go to Paris this weekend-- are sadly over (Why? Kids...and um...moved to the USA), I have had to scour the shops here for a good one. And lucky for me, California does not just grow grapes, but olives too. I found a fabulous local oil: Stonehouse Silver Medal Blend, which you can conveniently purchase online at www.stonehouseoliveoil.com,if you can't go to one of their shops. They also have a lovely garlic infused oil which I use when I am too lazy to fry up some fresh garlic. The other scented oils taste good, but I have yet to figure out what I might use them for, since if I want lemon in a dish, I would just squeeze some lemon on it...
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Fried Cod
Ingredients
1 Cod
Loads of Butter
Retired fisherman
Fast car
Go down to the nearest harbour. Hirtshalts in
Buy Cod, pay about USD 1.5 / pound.
Go to your fast car and drive it to the nearest convenient frying pan.
Filet and fry fish in loads of butter.
Eat.
This will most likely be the best fish you have ever eaten. Cod tastes extraordinary when it is super fresh, and can not really be compared to the store-bought variety.
Another fish that mysteriously changes taste from something approaching culinary nirvana, to become, in a few hours after catch, rather good, but nothing really special, is Grayling. We realize that this fish can be hard to come by, but we just thought you should know.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Split Pea Soup with Lovage
The best split pea soup I ever had was in Sweden in the region of Värmland at a village moose hunt, mainly consisting of a bunch of geriatric men with guns, as well as our group of city folk. At a hunt like this, the men with the guns, shooters, sit at designated stands in the forest. Those who don’t shoot, beaters, walk in a long line through the forest which moves all the animals ahead of them toward the shooters. Theoretically, the shooters are supposed to shoot in the opposite direction of the beaters and the shooting stops as soon as the beaters pass the hunters. I was basically dependent on a bunch of old grouchy men to curb their shooting instincts in favor of safety…and when it is farmers against city folk, one cannot be sure that safety will win out.
As a beater, one tries to walk at a medium pace and check in regularly by yelling to make sure you are still in a line, since you normally are just out of viewing distance of your fellow-beaters. Further, you have a designated place just after the shooters in their stands where you stop walking and meet up with the others. Well, during this particular hunt, the terrain varied quite widely, so there came a point where I had to walk up some hills. I yelled out to check that I was in line, but received no answering calls. I thought that due to the hills, I must have fallen behind the others, so I increased my pace and in a few minutes called again. No answer. After walking about fifteen minutes without hearing anybody else, I reached what I thought was the check-point, a small stream with a meadow beyond. So I stopped and waited. And waited. And waited. No one materialized. After about an hour of pacing at the edge of the meadow, I realized that no one would come and that I was lost.
I had been warned about getting lost because these forests extend unbroken all the way to Norway. If I walked in the wrong direction, I could walk for weeks without seeing anyone! The best plan would just be to sit tight and wait for them to find me. So I sat down on the damp ground and waited. Finally after what seemed an eternity, I couldn’t wait anymore and thought I would just explore my immediate surroundings. I headed toward where I thought there might be a road and was lucky enough to almost immediately see a large tractor heading down the road--one of the local farmers who had been dispatched to search for me. I hitched a ride with him back to the group where they were having pea soup and sandwiches for lunch. I was cold, my socks soaked wet from wading through small streams, and that pea soup was hot and fragrant and damn good. I ate two bowls.
As it turned out, as I started climbing those hills, I had passed the check-point, which was not a stream at all, a mistake due to poor translation from Swedish to English. And I had even passed one of the shooters who watched me climb up the hill as he said “like a bat out of hell”. Irritated, I asked angrily why the shooter hadn’t called out to tell me I had passed the checkpoint. It was explained to me that the man could not speak above a whisper-like croak, so I would not have been able to hear him in any case. Of course, the shooters have walkie-talkes, so he COULD have told the next shooter over...but I guess he just figured let the city girl walk...The final score however, was one to the city folk, and zero to the country geezers....Peter shot the only moose at that hunt!
In Sweden, pea soup is made from whole dried yellow peas and generally cooked with some kind of pork which is then sliced and served with the soup. Traditionally, pea soup is served with pancakes for dessert on Thursdays. These pancakes are thin and crepe-like, served with jam and whipped cream. Delicious. My pea soup is flavored with lovage, an old-fashioned herb which is related to celery. If you want to use this herb, you will probably have to grow it yourself. Lovage has a very special and strong flavor which is celery-like but more aromatic and flowery, almost lavender scented. If you don’t grow lovage, you can just leave it out. It won’t have the special flavor that I like in this soup, but it will still be a fine pea soup.
2 cups split peas
1 smoked ham hock
2 quarts water
1 onion, chopped
4 medium carrots, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium stalks lovage, chopped including leafy ends
2 stalks celery, chopped
4 sprigs each fresh thyme and oregano or ¼ tsp of each dried
1 bay leafSalt and pepper to taste
Rinse peas and take out any obviously bad ones. Put peas in pot with water, bring to boil and simmer for a few minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let stand one hour. Saute onions, carrots, celery, and lovage in the oil in large soup pot, until the vegetables soften and the onions are translucent. Add the ham hock and other herbs and a few grinds of pepper. Pour in the cooled peas with the cooking water. Bring to boiling and then turn the heat down to a simmer. Cover the pot and cook until peas are soft, and the ham is falling off the bone, about 2.5 to 3 hours. It is important that you do not add salt until soup is done and you have tasted it! You can also add some more water at this point, if you find that the soup is too thick.
About the ham hock: The one tricky aspect to this recipe is the salt content of the smocked ham hock. If the hock is very salty, you should rinse it before using to take off any salt on the outside. You may also want to double the amount of ingredients to ensure that the final soup is not too salty, particularly if your ham hock or bone is large. To serve, you can either leave the whole ham hock in the soup, forking a chunk off for each serving, or you can remove the hock and dice up the ham and put it back into the soup.
As a beater, one tries to walk at a medium pace and check in regularly by yelling to make sure you are still in a line, since you normally are just out of viewing distance of your fellow-beaters. Further, you have a designated place just after the shooters in their stands where you stop walking and meet up with the others. Well, during this particular hunt, the terrain varied quite widely, so there came a point where I had to walk up some hills. I yelled out to check that I was in line, but received no answering calls. I thought that due to the hills, I must have fallen behind the others, so I increased my pace and in a few minutes called again. No answer. After walking about fifteen minutes without hearing anybody else, I reached what I thought was the check-point, a small stream with a meadow beyond. So I stopped and waited. And waited. And waited. No one materialized. After about an hour of pacing at the edge of the meadow, I realized that no one would come and that I was lost.
I had been warned about getting lost because these forests extend unbroken all the way to Norway. If I walked in the wrong direction, I could walk for weeks without seeing anyone! The best plan would just be to sit tight and wait for them to find me. So I sat down on the damp ground and waited. Finally after what seemed an eternity, I couldn’t wait anymore and thought I would just explore my immediate surroundings. I headed toward where I thought there might be a road and was lucky enough to almost immediately see a large tractor heading down the road--one of the local farmers who had been dispatched to search for me. I hitched a ride with him back to the group where they were having pea soup and sandwiches for lunch. I was cold, my socks soaked wet from wading through small streams, and that pea soup was hot and fragrant and damn good. I ate two bowls.
As it turned out, as I started climbing those hills, I had passed the check-point, which was not a stream at all, a mistake due to poor translation from Swedish to English. And I had even passed one of the shooters who watched me climb up the hill as he said “like a bat out of hell”. Irritated, I asked angrily why the shooter hadn’t called out to tell me I had passed the checkpoint. It was explained to me that the man could not speak above a whisper-like croak, so I would not have been able to hear him in any case. Of course, the shooters have walkie-talkes, so he COULD have told the next shooter over...but I guess he just figured let the city girl walk...The final score however, was one to the city folk, and zero to the country geezers....Peter shot the only moose at that hunt!
In Sweden, pea soup is made from whole dried yellow peas and generally cooked with some kind of pork which is then sliced and served with the soup. Traditionally, pea soup is served with pancakes for dessert on Thursdays. These pancakes are thin and crepe-like, served with jam and whipped cream. Delicious. My pea soup is flavored with lovage, an old-fashioned herb which is related to celery. If you want to use this herb, you will probably have to grow it yourself. Lovage has a very special and strong flavor which is celery-like but more aromatic and flowery, almost lavender scented. If you don’t grow lovage, you can just leave it out. It won’t have the special flavor that I like in this soup, but it will still be a fine pea soup.
2 cups split peas
1 smoked ham hock
2 quarts water
1 onion, chopped
4 medium carrots, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium stalks lovage, chopped including leafy ends
2 stalks celery, chopped
4 sprigs each fresh thyme and oregano or ¼ tsp of each dried
1 bay leafSalt and pepper to taste
Rinse peas and take out any obviously bad ones. Put peas in pot with water, bring to boil and simmer for a few minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let stand one hour. Saute onions, carrots, celery, and lovage in the oil in large soup pot, until the vegetables soften and the onions are translucent. Add the ham hock and other herbs and a few grinds of pepper. Pour in the cooled peas with the cooking water. Bring to boiling and then turn the heat down to a simmer. Cover the pot and cook until peas are soft, and the ham is falling off the bone, about 2.5 to 3 hours. It is important that you do not add salt until soup is done and you have tasted it! You can also add some more water at this point, if you find that the soup is too thick.
About the ham hock: The one tricky aspect to this recipe is the salt content of the smocked ham hock. If the hock is very salty, you should rinse it before using to take off any salt on the outside. You may also want to double the amount of ingredients to ensure that the final soup is not too salty, particularly if your ham hock or bone is large. To serve, you can either leave the whole ham hock in the soup, forking a chunk off for each serving, or you can remove the hock and dice up the ham and put it back into the soup.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Olive Oil Mussels and Clams
In our financial consulting business, there was an industry conference held every year in Barcelona. Ostensibly, you went there to learn about the latest in financial technology and structuring. We went for the parties. Not that a bunch of bankers are the most stimulating of party companions, but among the bunch of serious analysts and boring lawyers, there could be found some party animals, generally the veterans in our industry who had seen a bit too much to care about what a banking vice president (title sounds impressive but actually indicates a banking slave) had to say about credit risk on mezzanine securitization tranches. We tended to stay out late drinking, have dinner, more drinking, and stumble to our hotel rooms at about 3am. By 1pm, we were vaguely conscious and in search of lunch…and a drink. A brief afternoon siesta, and we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by six, just in time for cocktails. Please don't think we are hedonists. As you may know, it is customary in Spain to take a siesta after lunch--indeed most shops are closed for some hours in the afternoon, making shopping for, say, a new handbag, a very frustrating experience...but that is another story. Anyway, because of this siesta, dinner is customarily taken very late. So really, by adhering to this schedule, we were trying to adapt to native life. It's trying sometimes, but one does one's duty.
One year, on our departure from Barcelona, they were having some sort of strike at the airport. Some sensible people left very early for the airport in order to minimize the risk of missing their flight. We went to lunch. The restaurant was called Els Pescadors and located in a tiny square in the outskirts of Barcelona (This restaurant is still there but from their website, the menu is completely different now). We had a feast involving the freshest seafood and fish…amazing rice and beans…to be honest, I don’t remember it all. But it was wonderful. Equally wonderful was phoning our friends at the airport. They were sitting in the dreary airport waiting for their plane which was delayed for hours, eating stale sandwiches and sipping warm coca cola. We were sitting outside in the sun, drinking wine, and eating spectacular food. Five hours later, we strolled into the airport and got directly onto our delayed by 3 hours flight home. Ahhh...sometimes life is good.
One dish that we had at Els Pescadore was a dish of sautéed mussels and clams. It was simple and breathtakingly delicious. Our attempt to recreate it is pretty good also. One caveat: As with all very simple dishes, the quality of this dish is reliant on the quality of the seafood. If you get sweet, fat, plump, juicy mussels, the dish will be fabulous. Sadly, unless you live in Belgium or the Netherlands, this is unlikely to happen by buying any old random mussels. Our hit ratio for mussel nirvana when living outside Belgium has been maybe 30%. I wish you more luck.
Take lot of mussels or clams, or both.
A lot of good olive oil.
A lot of garlic. And I mean a lot. Like two heads. Just peel until you get too bored to peel, and then peel a few more for good measure. Chop.
Turn on your broiler. Then, on the stove, take a very large frying pan or other dish that can go both on top of the stove and in your broiler, pour in the olive oil, and turn up flame to high. Put in the garlic, sauté a moment, and then put in the mussels and clams. Cook and continuously stir until the shells begin to open, which takes just a few minutes. Take the pan off the stove and shove in the broiler. Leave in the broiler until the mussel shells start to crisp at the edges, somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Check them every few moments, and stir, as they can go from cooked to burnt very quickly. Take out of the broiler and put on the table. Sprinkle some chopped Italian flat-leafed parsley on top, if you want to be fancy. Eat immediately with crusty bread to soak up the juices.
There will be a lot of juices in the pan. If you don’t slurp them up with the mussels, you can save this juice and make a great pasta dish for the next day. Shell remaining clams and mussels, if any. Take some spaghetti and boil in water, as normal, but only cook half-way. Drain the pasta and put back in pot with mussel juice. Cook until one minute before al dente. Add in shelled clams and mussels to heat. Throw in a bunch of chopped green stuff: parsley, arugula, or watercress all taste good. Serve in bowls with plenty of the juice.
PS. Never ask the goddamn Barcelonians for sea urchin late at night..they will serve you something else and then just lie to you about the ingredients. It is my experience that they will maintain this lie even after you extremely eloquently and courteously (after about three bottles of wine) point out to them that they are lying bastards that will be first against the wall when the revolution comes. DS /Peter
One year, on our departure from Barcelona, they were having some sort of strike at the airport. Some sensible people left very early for the airport in order to minimize the risk of missing their flight. We went to lunch. The restaurant was called Els Pescadors and located in a tiny square in the outskirts of Barcelona (This restaurant is still there but from their website, the menu is completely different now). We had a feast involving the freshest seafood and fish…amazing rice and beans…to be honest, I don’t remember it all. But it was wonderful. Equally wonderful was phoning our friends at the airport. They were sitting in the dreary airport waiting for their plane which was delayed for hours, eating stale sandwiches and sipping warm coca cola. We were sitting outside in the sun, drinking wine, and eating spectacular food. Five hours later, we strolled into the airport and got directly onto our delayed by 3 hours flight home. Ahhh...sometimes life is good.
One dish that we had at Els Pescadore was a dish of sautéed mussels and clams. It was simple and breathtakingly delicious. Our attempt to recreate it is pretty good also. One caveat: As with all very simple dishes, the quality of this dish is reliant on the quality of the seafood. If you get sweet, fat, plump, juicy mussels, the dish will be fabulous. Sadly, unless you live in Belgium or the Netherlands, this is unlikely to happen by buying any old random mussels. Our hit ratio for mussel nirvana when living outside Belgium has been maybe 30%. I wish you more luck.
Take lot of mussels or clams, or both.
A lot of good olive oil.
A lot of garlic. And I mean a lot. Like two heads. Just peel until you get too bored to peel, and then peel a few more for good measure. Chop.
Turn on your broiler. Then, on the stove, take a very large frying pan or other dish that can go both on top of the stove and in your broiler, pour in the olive oil, and turn up flame to high. Put in the garlic, sauté a moment, and then put in the mussels and clams. Cook and continuously stir until the shells begin to open, which takes just a few minutes. Take the pan off the stove and shove in the broiler. Leave in the broiler until the mussel shells start to crisp at the edges, somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Check them every few moments, and stir, as they can go from cooked to burnt very quickly. Take out of the broiler and put on the table. Sprinkle some chopped Italian flat-leafed parsley on top, if you want to be fancy. Eat immediately with crusty bread to soak up the juices.
There will be a lot of juices in the pan. If you don’t slurp them up with the mussels, you can save this juice and make a great pasta dish for the next day. Shell remaining clams and mussels, if any. Take some spaghetti and boil in water, as normal, but only cook half-way. Drain the pasta and put back in pot with mussel juice. Cook until one minute before al dente. Add in shelled clams and mussels to heat. Throw in a bunch of chopped green stuff: parsley, arugula, or watercress all taste good. Serve in bowls with plenty of the juice.
PS. Never ask the goddamn Barcelonians for sea urchin late at night..they will serve you something else and then just lie to you about the ingredients. It is my experience that they will maintain this lie even after you extremely eloquently and courteously (after about three bottles of wine) point out to them that they are lying bastards that will be first against the wall when the revolution comes. DS /Peter
The Start of Dinner
Yet another food blog. Why? Why the hell not? But, actually, I have my reasons. It goes without saying that I am obsessed with food. Peter likes to say that if he wants to get me to do anything, all he has to do is link it to food and then I am willing. A normal conversation might go like this:
Peter, "Honey, let's go check out this windy, rainy, grey, cold beach where I think there could be good kitesurfing."
Me, "No."
Peter, " I hear they have some really great oysters there..."
Me: OK...Sounds good.
You get the idea. I think about food, dream about food, read about food, cook food, travel for food...though sadly, due to the fact that we are currently trying to get our weight back to pre-children, pre-money, pre-car levels, I don't eat food as much as I like. But that's another topic. So anyway, we had this idea that we should write a cookbook...sort of a travel, eating, living memoir. We figured that even if we didn't get it published, we could give it to friends for Christmas. But, as these things go...nothing much has happened with that idea. So, really, this blog is my attempt to get the cookbook going. I figure if we write for the blog, we can eventually reshape the material into the cookbook....or not. Anyway it could be fun. Here goes....
Peter, "Honey, let's go check out this windy, rainy, grey, cold beach where I think there could be good kitesurfing."
Me, "No."
Peter, " I hear they have some really great oysters there..."
Me: OK...Sounds good.
You get the idea. I think about food, dream about food, read about food, cook food, travel for food...though sadly, due to the fact that we are currently trying to get our weight back to pre-children, pre-money, pre-car levels, I don't eat food as much as I like. But that's another topic. So anyway, we had this idea that we should write a cookbook...sort of a travel, eating, living memoir. We figured that even if we didn't get it published, we could give it to friends for Christmas. But, as these things go...nothing much has happened with that idea. So, really, this blog is my attempt to get the cookbook going. I figure if we write for the blog, we can eventually reshape the material into the cookbook....or not. Anyway it could be fun. Here goes....
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