Dinner is Ready!

Diet Series: Mushroom Soup

2007-04-11T18:49:00.000-07:00

As I have alluded to in many of these posts, my life is a battle between my desire to look like I did at 25 and my obsession with eating. Unfortunately, lately, the obsession has won out...meaning an unfortunate weight gain which I have been ignoring until my trainer forced me to step on the scale. That nasty number has driven me back into my starvation diet mode. So, as you can imagine, that will mean less tasty recipes or restaurant reviews for a while. But, I can give you the fruits of my labor in trying to make my diet less onerous. Thus, I will try to publish my more successful and tasty diet dishes. Now, note these ARE diet dishes, and thus they are less tasty then they would be if I added more butter, cream and other luscious items. I will however give you suggestions for these kinds of additions, just in case you aren't trying to starve yourself like I am. Some of the dishes, I note, would be perfectly lovely as they are, if they were say, followed by a steak or triple cheeseburger....but I digress.

Soup is an excellent thing when you are on a diet. The high proportion of liquid makes it (almost) guaranteed to be low cal and relatively filling, although sadly, the satiation effect only lasts about 10 minutes. So here is my mushroom soup. It is a cinch to make and can be gussied up for guests or just eaten as is. It really is pretty good.

12 ounces sliced button mushrooms (that is 1 1/2 of those little pre-sliced boxes...go ahead make life easier on yourself) (75 calories)
1 large handful shitake mushrooms, sliced (15 calories)
1 handful dried porcini mushrooms, crumbled (30 calories)
1 large onion, chopped (50 calories)
a couple cloves of garlic, chopped
2 cups (16 fluid oz) chicken broth (20 calories)
1 chicken bullion cube
handful of fresh rosemary, chopped
2 tablespoons butter (200 calories)
About 1 cup water, to thin the soup to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a soup pot on medium heat, add chopped onion and garlic. Cook until onions are soft. Reserve a handful of the button mushrooms, and put the rest in the pot, along with the shitake mushrooms and rosemary. Fry for a few minutes. Add the chicken broth. Assuming that you are using canned broth, add the bullion cube. If you happen to have some really great homemade chicken broth, then nix the cube. Add the water...better to add less than more; you can always thin it out later. Bring to a boil and let cook for about 15 minutes (more time won't hurt at all) until the mushrooms are tender. Take your whoozy whoo immersion blender thingy and whizz it all up until smooth (Need I say that you can also put it in your food processor or a blender, if you lack this essential kitchen tool?). Take the reserved mushrooms and chop them quite finely and put in the soup. This gives it a bit of texture. Simmer it for a few more minutes until the newly added mushrooms are tender. Now, taste the whole thing and add some pepper to taste and some salt, if it needs it. If it is too thick, add some more water (or cream, see below).

It tastes pretty good, huh? It will be quite thick and creamy from the pureed mushrooms. The dried porcini, shitake, and rosemary give it a lot of flavor. If you don't have any dried porcini, then you can increase the shitake to button mushroom ratio. Probably you can just do it will the button mushrooms but the flavor will be more bland. The calorie content of the whole pot of soup is about 400 calories. It will feed 4 people as a starter, and 2 hungry dieters...but even if you eat the whole pot yourself, at this calorie level, you can afford it.

If you aren't on a diet and you want the yummiest soup possible, then clearly, you will be wanting to add some cream at the end. Don't add too much though, the soup is already quite rich. At 52 calories per tablespoon for heavy whipping cream, you don't want to go overboard...You can also throw in some croutons, freshly made with butter, and maybe top the whole thing with some chopped chives, for some elegance. You could instead put a dollop of creme fraiche (or sour cream--26 calories per tablespoon--we don't have to be so fancy) as a garnish instead of the cream in the soup. It will look elegant and not add as many calories. You can also vary the herbs, if you prefer. Dill, thyme or tarragon would also taste good. My rosemary bush just happens to be outside my door and I like that combination with the earthy porcini. If I were just doing button mushrooms, then I would probably use dill, which will give a very different flavor but compliment the relatively blandness of the white mushrooms.

Pizzaiola--Justifiably Popular

2007-03-22T09:16:00.000-07:00

Last night, Peter and I were feeling pretty mellow, so we decided it was the right night to try Pizzaiolo, the popular Italian in the Temescal area of Oakland. The problem with this restaurant is that they don't take reservations, and every time we have passed, normally to go to Dona Tomas, a yummy Mexican, there has been a huge amount of people waiting. Peter and I do not like to wait, which is why we have waited this long to go to Pizzaiolo. When we got to the restaurant, we immediately liked it; it has a warm inviting atmosphere, there was some great jazz music in the background, and the pizzas on most of the tables looked delicious. What we didn't like was finding out that Pizzaiolo has been taking reservations since 3 months back! And we didn't like that it would take an hour for us to get a table....we pouted a bit and the maitre d' took pity on us and said we might be able to get a table outside in the back patio quicker. Meanwhile, we took advantage of the waiting time to get a drink. They have a great list of cocktails. I ordered an Elderflower Martini (gin, elderflower syrup, lime, and bitters) which was divine. I could get very drunk on those. In fact, I could get very drunk on one of those, lightweight that I am.

We managed to squeeze in at the bar, after a not too long wait. I started with Housemade Mortadella with asparagus and gnocco fritto. The Mortadella was tasty, with extra pistachio nuts on the side. The asparagus was served cold with dressing and was very good--although not as delicious as the asparagus I had picked that day in my garden and eaten raw! The gnocco fritto is basically just deep fried pieces of dough. Kind of tasty with the mortadella but a little dissapointing since I had pictured something more gooey and perhaps cheesy. Peter had Salt Cod Mantecato with toast from the wood oven. This is sort of a paste made with salt cod and mashed potato, salty and goopy. We liked it. We had a hard time picking the main course...I always love pasta, and Peter was partial to trying the braised pork. But the pizza beckoned with irristable force. We decided on Manila clams, tomato, and green garlic aioli. I tried to convince Peter we could have the pork also, but he pointed out that I had already eaten half of our boys macaroni and cheese dinner before we left our house, and that we couldn't possible eat two main courses. I hate it when the man is sensible! The pizza was delicious--the crust thin and blistered by the wood burning stove, the clams salty, the tomatoes fresh tasting, and the aioli, a welcome creamy, garlicy accent.

Finally, onto dessert. I selected apple fritters with icecream, and debated ordering the dark chocolate gelato for Peter (i.e two desserts for me since Peter normally doesn't eat dessert) but decided that there should be limits to my greediness. Peter ordered a double espresso but the bartender told him he should just have a single because they were large. When Peter got his slightly large but not as big as a double espresso cup, he scowled and started grumbling. I punched him and told him to stop it. After all, we wanted to come to this restaurant again, and we needed the staff to like us. So he asked me, " I shouldn't stand up and pull out my d***, and tell the waitress to suck this?" I said, well, it would be very funny, but no. I think it is better if you resist. On that note, we polished off our coffee and I licked the last of the icecream off the spoon, and left, promising to return soon.

Divine Salmon with Dill Cream

2007-02-27T18:32:00.000-08:00

Peter made an absolutely fantastic dinner this evening: Salmon with Dill Cream and Riced Potatoes. These flavors are classic Swedish, and for good reason, because they are delicious together. It is a perfect meal for this time of year. The cream sauce gives it a satisfying richness which warms you against the cold weather, while the dill gives it freshness, alluding to the coming spring. . The meal is simplicity itself to make. It hardly needs a recipe. But here is one:

1 or 2 large wild salmon fillets, to feed 2 to 4 people, with the skin on
1/2 pint cream
potatoes for 2 to 4 persons
one large bunch dill
salt and pepper to taste
butter

For the sauce: Chop up the dill, not too finely, and add to the cream in a saucepan. Salt and pepper to taste. Boil up the cream, and let simmer slowly and reduce while you prepare the rest of the meal. To finish the sauce, add the juices from the pan after you have fried the fish.

For the potatoes: Peel and quarter the potatoes and boil in salted water for 20 minutes or until a fork stuck in a potato slides out easily. Drain water from pot. To hold the potatoes until you are ready with everything else, just put a dishcloth or paper towel over the pot and the lid on top of that. The potatoes will stay hot for at least half an hour and the towel will absorb extra water so the potatoes do not become soggy. When ready to serve, pass the potatoes through a potato ricer. This is basically a kind of press, which you can buy inexpensively at any good cook store. This tool produces a fluffy texture which is a perfect vehicle for the sauce. If you do not have a ricer, you can just mash the potatoes, but the texture will not be as good.

For the fish: With a thin knife, slice the skin off of the meat and save. Salt and pepper the salmon fillet generously on both sides and rub the spices in. Heat a pan until very hot and put in the butter. Fry the fish briefly on each side to get a good surface, then lower the heat and cook for a couple of minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of the fish, until it is done how you like it. Take the fish out of the pan and put on a plate to rest. Meanwhile, salt and pepper the skin on both sides, rubbing in the salt well. Put the skin in the pan that you fried the salmon in and fry on both sides until crispy. Be careful to watch it and don't let it burn.

To serve: Cut a nice chunk of the salmon for each person, and plate with a mound of riced potatoes. Drizzly the sauce generously over the salmon and potatoes. Slice the fried skin into thin slices, about 1/4 inch thick, and top the salmon with a few slices per person. The skin is optional, but really delicious and provides a satisfying crunch. For our family, the skin is the best part, and we invariably fight over the last pieces.

If you don't enjoy this fish, well...it is hard to imagine and you must have a sad life!

Chicken Dinner

2007-02-19T10:08:00.000-08:00

Well folks, they were good! Peter fried fried up two chickens in butter after salting and peppering and then roasted two in lemon and garlic. The flavor was really good...very chickeny. The fried chicken tasted particularly good. The meat was tender and very flavorful. The roasted chickens tasted good but the meat came out much tougher. So, I think the quicker cooking method of frying suits these birds, or probably a long stewing to keep them tender. With the birds, we had mashed potatoes, a marsala mushroom sauce, and spinach with garlic. The meal was really delicious. For dessert, I made rasberry cream cupcakes. Easy and pretty tasty. Chicken Success!

And then there were 18....

2007-02-17T11:05:00.000-08:00

Those 25 fuzzy cute chicks we received the first week of December, as you can see, didn't stay fuzzy and cute for very long. By four weeks old, they were clearly little chickens as opposed to cute little chicks. They stayed in luxury quarters in our sun room for about 6 weeks, until they got a bit too messy...we then moved them to equally luxurious quarters in our guest cottage. The dust they generated covered the whole cottage...when we finally moved them outside at about 8 weeks, we had to scrub down the entire cottage. The mortality rate of our chicks was excellent. Only one died a few days after arrival. So then there were 24. We eagerly awaited the tell-tale signs of roosterdom, in order that we might start culling the flock and eating delicious chicken dinners. Except that it was impossible to tell which were roosters and which were hens. They looked exactly alike. We started reading up on sexing chickens...the books say that you can tell by their behavior...more aggressive; roosters, less aggressive hens....they say you can tell by size; roosters are bigger. But hens develop faster....larger combs, roosters...but hens develop the combs first.... We were totally confused. And hungry.

Finally, the two biggest chickens, the Americanas, we decided were definitely roosters. And they looked tasty. We were not the only ones with this opinion because some Brazilian construction workers (we are remodeling our house) asked us if they could buy some chickens for their Saturday night dinner. They offered us $15 each! At this price, we could start to recoup some chicken costs! So then there were 22. Further, we decided that three of our Buff Orphingtons were surely roosters. Their combs were large with wattles and they were developing curly tail feathers. Plus one of them had a defective beak, and another was very aggressive. One of our Barred Rocks was also aggressive and we thought he was probably a rooster. So, we decided that dinner awaits.

This morning, we had our first chicken slaughter. And then there were 18! It went smoothly. I was a worried that the children might be traumatized and wanted to prepare them. They had, after all, been petting them and feeding them for the last 12 weeks. But before I could give them my little "nature" speech, they were already asking Peter if they could pick the chickens to be killed and were quite happy about the whole event. I guess our frequent reminders that the chickens were not pets and that we would eat them worked, along with the natural blood thirstiness of our children... Peter did the slaughtering and then we both dipped them in boiling water and plucked them. A bit messy but quite easy. They are pretty small. A bit larger than a Cornish hen, but definitely smaller than a grocery store hen. We are roasting them for dinner tonight. I will let you know if their flavor meets our expectations.

If they are good, then we are considering buying more in the early summer, just for eating. If we do that, we have decided that we will buy a meat breed to get a fatter eating bird. And this time, we will buy them pre-sexed, so that we don't have to guess!

Two Underrated Restaurants

2007-02-16T11:36:00.000-08:00

We have recently been to two restaurants that we really like, but that do not seem to be as popular as their yumminess warrants, in our humble opinion.

We went to Zuppa for Valentine's Day dinner. Zuppa is an airy loft-like place on 4th Street, in San Francisco, in the middle of the bustling SOMA district. Perhaps the problem is that they are competing with so many other good places like Coco500 and Bacar. But still, for the food, the place we come back to is Zuppa. We like the atmosphere and the service. There is a fabulous Sicilian waitress who manages to remember us, even though we don't go very often. She always recommends our wine, normally a Sicilian one, and it is always good. It doesn't hurt that she is quite attractive. She never seems ruffled when Peter gets a bit more drunk than your average American. She seems to think, perhaps, that this is a good thing. The great part about Zuppa's food are the starters, pizza, and pasta. They lack a bit on the main courses which tend to be fine, but not as delicious as what preceded. For this reason, we tend to just get a lot of the smaller dishes and share. On Valentines Day, we started off with some paper thin slices of Coppa, a type of cured meat. We then moved on to a tripe dish. I am not a big tripe fan. For me, it is just a vehicle for sauce. Peter and my son Gustaf, however, love the stuff. This tripe was the best I have ever had. It was served in a spicy tomato sauce which was so good that once the tripe was gone, and I had finished dipping my bread in it, Peter tipped up the bowl and slurped down the rest of the sauce. We then moved onto a pizza, which they really do well. All of them sounded great, but I decided on a ricotta with potato, bacon, and an egg. This reminded me of one of my favorite pizza's that I used to get with regularity in London, the aptly named English breakfast with sausage, mushroom, and a big egg on the top. The pizza was yummy, although slightly too peppery for my taste. We ended with pasta. I had shrimp and crab on linguine, which was creamy and delicious but not too heavy. Peter had a lamb ragu on top of thick peppardelle. It was hearty and rich, as one might expect. By this time, we were pretty full. But I couldn't resist dessert: a creamy panna cotta served with raisins stewed in wine . We left replete and satisfied, as we have done the last 3 or 4 times we have been there.

Yesterday, we stopped by for a late lunch at Taste (1513 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley) which is located in the new, dare I say, food mall in the Gourmet Ghetto. Taste is a wine bar with food. They have these machines where you can try various types of wine, by serving yourself. Kind of cool. But they have been through a few chefs and a number of incarnations since they have opened. Last time we were there, they were serving very seriously good food. A little too good for the decor and location. Now, they have changed concept to more of a tapas, echoing their neighbor Cesar. But their inspiration is all over the place. We had a charcuterie plate with some good cured meats and a nice chicken rillette. We followed that with some crispy spring rolls filled with the rillette and shiitake mushrooms, with a fresh chili dipping sauce. That was so yummy, we ordered another. We had a Moroccan chicken thing, which was good, but not great. We had French fries served with aioli. More yum. Finally, a banana fritter for dessert. This could use some improvement...maybe a caramel sauce would have upped the yum quotient. Still, the service was nice, and sitting by the window on a sunny day, snacking our way through the menu, seemed an absolutely fine way to fill our afternoon.

Easy Luxury Salmon Dinner

2007-02-08T18:31:00.000-08:00

I am a fan of Giada De Laurentiis's Easy Italian. Tonight I decided to try her Salmon in Lemon Brodetto with Pea Puree. (Click on the recipe title to get her recipe on Food Network). Picture a golden brown fillet of salmon over a fresh pea puree and surrounded by a lemon infused broth. Sound good? It is, it is disgustingly easy and it looks and tastes really lovely. The whole thing can be made in about half an hour, working slowly. First I made the pea puree, in my whizzy whoo, of course. The fun thing about the puree is that you use frozen peas, defrosted but uncooked. The puree tastes wonderful. I think I might serve it sometime as a dip with bread. I added a bit more garlic than the recipe called for and a touch less olive oil and parmeson to try to cut down on the calories. Still tasted great. I think the quality of the olive oil really makes a difference in the taste here. I am currently using Apollo 2006 Sierra Organic Olive Oil, which tastes lovely.

The broth is a cinch to make, using canned chicken broth. That is one of things I like about Giada's cooking; she doesn't tell you to use homemade chicken broth, which you of course have in your freezer because you religiously cook up vats of it to have on hand. Don't get me wrong, I am sure homemade would taste better, but the reality is that 99% of the time, I don't happen to have any on hand.

Finally, you sear the salmon fillets in olive oil after seasoning with salt and pepper. Assemble the dish, and it just looks fantastic. It tastes fresh but with enough richness to make it satisfying. Make it for you or for your next dinner party. I am sure you will be pleased!

Eating Ethnic in Los Angeles Part III

2007-02-01T14:50:00.000-08:00

I woke up on day three feeling like a stuffed pig....but still managed to polish off yesterday's leftover cookies from Spago with my morning coffee. Another run did nothing to alleviate a certain tightness in my jeans. Aiai's Indonesian research had managed to turn up an Indonesian store which supposedly had really good takeout. At Sam's Healthfood in Monterey Park, My mother and Aiai oohed and aahed over all the Indonesian ingredients while I was given the task of keeping the children out of trouble.

A couple of boxes of supplies safely stored in our car trunk, we were all sufficiently hungry to want lunch at Simpang Asia (10433 National Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90034. 310-815 9075). The table next to ours was crowded with Indonesian teenagers eating Nasi Bungkus which is a banana leaf containing rice, chicken curry, beef and vegetables. It looked great but as it was one of the provisions purchased at the store earlier, we decided to order all of the small plates and share. We started first with a kroket, a deep fried roll filled with bechamel and mixed vegetables and slightly sweet, an Indonesian style egg roll, and a sticky rice dough ball filled with grated coconut and palm sugar. All yummy. The rendang, a beef dish, slow cooked in coconut milk and spices, was tasty but somewhat bland. Aiai's version tastes much better. I made a mental note to get her to invite me to dinner next time she made it. The Ayam Goreng Kuning which is chicken marinated in tumeric and spices was flavorful and good. Ayam Kalasan, fried chicken in sort of a sweet sticky marinade was also very tasty. The Chicken satay, marinated chicken pieces grilled on a skewer were disappointing, with the chicken flabby and insipid. But the satay peanut sauce was good. Udang Balado, shrimp cooked in spicy chili paste was a bit too hot for me, but Aiai ate the whole dish, so it must have been OK. Ikan Goreng, fried whole tilapia was satisfyingly crispy with a very tasty spicy sambal to eat it with. I broke my no beverage rule again in order to have Es Teler, a sort of beverage dessert made with jackfruit, young coconut meat, avocado, topped with icy coconutty condensed milk slush. Most places serve this in a tall glass, so you can at least pretend it is a drink, but here it came in a big bowl, destroying the drink illusion. Delicious and fresh tasting. Aiai and my mother rated the restaurant only a 7 out of 10. Still, we all managed to stuff ourselves.

After lunch, we all fell into a food induced coma. My stomach hurt so much i thought it might split open. Blissfuly, Oscar happily watched TV while I stretched out on my back and let my food digest. A few hours later, I was desperately drinking some coffee, trying to wake up, and munching on some Indonesian snacks, including crispy fried chippy stuff with dried fish, which sounds and looks quite awful but tastes delicious....although none of us were hungry, we managed to polish off the lunch leftovers, while making deep inroads into the Indonesian provisions. We debated dinner. Our intended destination was a great Japanese place, not too far away by L.A. standards, which we all loved (Kappo,www.kapposeafood.com). I didn't want to be the one to say no to a food opportunity but my stomach was so distended that I wasn't sure if another meal might send me to the hospital. My mother stopped munching on snacks long enough to admonish Aiai and me: You know, what we are doing is really not so healthy. iIam pretty happy you are leaving tomorrow! I sighed and gave my mother an evil look. I blame her for all my food troubles. Hell, she is my mother, she is responsible for all my troubles...but I digress. Finally Aiai said, OK I am deciding. We will skip dinner. Great, my mother said, we can heat up the Nasi Bungkus we bought today! An hour later, we were all sitting at the table eating hot rice with more Beef rendang and chicken curry, but this time garnished with lots of crispy fried stuff that we hadn't polished off in the afternoon. Shoving spoonfuls of spicy rice into my mouth, I mumbled, I sure am glad we skipped dinner. Aiai said, what's for dessert?

Eating Ethnic in Los Angeles Part II

2007-02-01T14:42:00.000-08:00

As the dawn broke over the second day of our eating odyssey, I was desperately trying to work off the brownie I ate for breakfast, running along the beach....sweating profusely, I figured that I would need to run about five times longer than the hour I had already completed to work off yesterday's dinner..but no time for that, we had to get to dim sum and fast...arrive later than 11Am and you are destined to wait in a very long line....a very bad idea when you have a 3 year old with you. The Triumphal Palace (500 W. Main St., Alhambra; (626) 308-3222) is an upscale airy place....with no dim sum carts. Instead, you order Hong Kong style from a menu. This is a bit of a disappointment, because the English descriptions of dumplings generally leave a lot to be desired. On the positive side, the dim sum usually arrives fresh and hot. We started with rice porridge or congee with sliced fish. This was excellent, the congee flavored with broth, the fish flaky and plentiful with sliced spring onions and crunchy fried dough bits on top.

We order the obvious dim sum favorites, Shiu Mai, a steamed pork dumpling with shrimp, Har Gow, steamed shrimp wrapped in a thin rice skin, spareribs with black bean sauce, steamed BBQ pork buns, fluffy white steamed bread stuffed with sweet BBQ pork, and Sticky rice in lotus leaves, and chicken feet. All of these arrived hot and were of very good quality, except for the spareribs which were too fatty. The chicken feet were exceptionally good, with a flavorful marinade and a soft melting texture. We ordered Dumpling Shanghai style which is a steamed dumpling with pork, which in its best incarnation should burst with juice when you bite into it, after having dipped it into a vinegar sauce. This is a dish that is often disappointing, the wrapping too thick and pasty and the meat dry. Here there was a nice balance of juice and the wrapping was good and fresh...not the best I have had, but in the top five. The pan fried turnip cakes were tasty and fresh, without the leftover fish oil taste that can be typical in lesser restaurants. The baked BBQ pork buns we think were good, but since Oscar ate the entire plateful, no one else got to taste them. When we got to desserts, our menu reading faltered. We tried to order the typical egg custard tarts, interpreting Crispy Egg Biscuit as this dessert. But instead we got a plateful of crispy fried dough soaked in a honey sugar syrup and drizzled with sesame seed. Not bad, but not what we wanted. Sweet Sesame Ball turned out to not be the deep fried rice dough covered with sesame seeds and a bean filling, but a sticky steamed rice dough filled with a serious sesame paste, quite good actually. Finally, we ordered Deep Fried Carrot Cake which turned out to be a deep fried orange colored ball filled with a sort of very sweet egg custard. All in all, an excellent brunch, we all agreed. The food at the Triumphal Palace is supposed to be equally excellent for dinner....maybe next time.

For dinner, we were breaking our Asian adventures and treating ourselves to some Beverly Hills luxury at the newly revamped Spago. Gourmet magazine had awarded Spago the number four spot in their top 50 restaurants of 2006, so we decided to give the place another try. We had a bit of trepidation and excitement when we arrived to see limos in a long line, reporters, and flashing lightbulbs....did we arrive the wrong night or could all this be for us? No, HBO was hosting a private party. Still the presence of movie stars, even if we couldn't recognize any of them, added a frisson of excitement to the evening. In its new incarnation, Spago, the birthplace of gourmet pizza's seemed to have ditched this favorite dish, instead the menu was heavily Italian, with a few Austrian Wolfgang Puck childhood favorites thrown in for good measure. I started with Agnolotti filled with celery root and farmer's cheese. This was really excellent, the filling light and fluffy, the flavors smooth and fresh. The butter and parmeson sauce gave it richness. Aiai had smoked sturgeon and salmon on lemon blinis...very nice but not thrilling. My mother had oysters with a sherry ginger sauce instead of the usual shallots, which gave the oysters some zest without overwhelming their flavor. Excellent. After this really good beginning, the main courses were good but disappointing in their relative ordinariness. I ordered veal weiner schnitzel and I got veal winer schnitzel. I had excepted some kind of gourmet riff on this dish, but I got the real deal. It was an excellent version of the dish but I couldn't help feeling disappointed, just because it was so unexpected. AiAi and my Dad shared the cote de beouf...and boy was it a lot of beef. That dish alone could have fed all four of us. Again, it was solid and tasty but nothing particularly special except for the mashed potatoes which were very rich and sticky with cheese. my mother had the Cantonese style Roasted Duck and this was really good. The duck skin was flavorful and although not strictly authentic, an original enough combination of flavors. The fried noodles were tasty with lots of bits of shitake mushrooms. Desserts were solid but not exceptional. The sticky toffee pudding was good, if not quite sticky enough, and served with an irrelevant orange sauce on the side. The apple strudel was good but again nothing special. The cookie plate was tasty, but nothing to write home about. After the meal, we all agreed that it was enjoyable but that perhaps one should order two or three appetizers and skip the main courses. In the end, yesterday's dinner at the Yellow Cow was more satisfying.

Eating Ethnic in Los Angeles Part I

2007-02-01T14:36:00.000-08:00

But Mom, I said, I really don't want to come to L.A. I just finished losing all the weight I gained over Christmas and I don't want to gain it all back. Oh, LL, my Mother said, we can eat lightly...I promise....so there I was in LA with my mother and our good friend AiAi....who were now blithly planning our edible weekend. Guys, I gently reminded them...we only have three days here...so that is six potential eating opportunities for lunch and dinner...by my count, you are already up to seven restaurants....Seven said Aiai. Perfect for three days!

Our first conquest was a Vietnamese restaurant, Nem Nuong Restaurant (9892 Westminster Ave., Suite R, Garden Grove, CA 92844, Tel: 714 530 1744). You'll never guess where this restaurant is, said my father as I navigated through a bleak looking busy street full of strip malls....see that store? Go into the parking lot BEHIND the store.....where all i could see was garbage dumpsters.. Here? Are you sure? Yup, my father said with glee. And there was another small mall behind the dumpsters, but indeed there was a restaurant and upon walking into the airy modern interior full of chattering Vietnamese, I knew I was in for a treat. This restaurant specializes in Vietnamese spring rolls, which are different from the more familiar crispy fried Chinese version in that they are wrapped in an uncooked rice noodle wrapping and generally served cold. Despite my father's warning that the spring rolls were really not that good, we ordered Bi Cuon, Saigon style Spring rolls filled with shredded pork skin...how could i resist? Alas, my father was right. Not worth the calories. Much much better were the Bahn Khot, crispy rice cakes filled with shrimp, and served with the ubiquitous lime chili fish sauce. Next up was a pan fired rice flour cake heavily flavored with coconut and colored bright yellow from tumeric powder and dotted with fried shrimp. Yum. Oscar, my 3 year old son, particularly appreciated Bun Tom, Thit nuong which is BBQ pork and grilled shrimp over rice vermicelli top with roasted peanuts. This is one of my favorite noodle dishes, but with Oscar gobbling up the pork, I barely got in a mouthful. Bahn Cuon Ga Tom, a warm version of the spring rolls filled with shrimp, plus a sprinkling of crispy egg rolls was pretty tasty. Finally, the deep fried fish served with dill and red onions was really tasty. As I have sworn off calorific drinks and normally only have water, a Vietnamese restaurant is one of the only places that I break this rule: Oscar and I easily polished off a large glass of young coconut juice, while I had a Vietnamese iced coffee, which is very strong coffee spiked with sweetened condensed milk for good measure, and I even had room to taste my mother's dessert drink with tapioca pearl, fruit, and gelatin all topped with ice. All in all, a very good start to what I had resigned myself would be a tasty but fattening weekend.

As eating in L.A. necessarily involves excessive amounts of driving, we barely had time to relax at home when we were up and off to the Yellow Cow ( 1835 W Redondo Beach Blvd, Gardena, CA 90247 Tel 310 329 7343), our favorite Korean BBQ restaurant. Korean BBQ for those of you who are unfamiliar is a real treat, particularly if you are a meat lover. Tender pieces of marinated beef grilled at your own table, then eaten with a dipping sauce and either rice or rice noodle pancakes and a flavorful cabbage salad. One of the best things about Korean BBQ is the assortment of little dishes they bring to the table as soon as you have ordered always including kimchee, the famous pickled spicy cabbage, along with beansprout salad, some salty spicy dried little fish, and a very typical macaroni salad drenched with mayonnaise, which I rather like, despite its bland plebian Western origins. While the Yellow Cow does not have the widest assortment that I have had, everything is fresh and tasty. We always go for the beef, although there are plenty of other things to BBQ: fish, shrimps, scallops as well as stranger things like intestines. On our way out, we spied several people eating what looked like big slaps of bacon, grilled and mixed with onions and kimchee...it looked delicious. We should have ordered that, I said. See, said Aiai, we haven't been eating fattening food...if we had ordered the bacon, THAT would have been fattening.

Upon our return home, we sat up to discuss the next day's adventures. Let's eat just some fruit for breakfast my mother said. So that we have more room for for lunch, I noted? Yes! my mother said happily, I found the most fantastic dien sing restaurant, using the Mandarin words instead of the Cantonese dim sum. Meanwhile, Aiai was on a quest to find the best Indonesian restaurant in the greater Los Angeles area....calls were being made all over the East Bay where we lived, while transatlantic telegrams were being frantically sent to the friend of Aiai's sister who lived in LA but was currently in Indonesia. Well, someone recommended this one, but it is really far away, pondered Aiai. That sounds good, ignoring the small matter of a very long drive, said my Mother. She added helpfully, All the food will be too hot and spicy for LL, so that way she doesn't have to eat so much! Yes, Aiai grinned at me, I asked the restaurant if everything was hot and the man had to think about it before he said there was a few things that were not spicy. But she debated, what if it isn't good and we had to drive all that way? I tried to ignore all this chatter and think about how good a nice long run would feel in the morning. Aiai's mobile phone rang, for the twentieth time that evening....no one could get a hold of the friend in indonesia...maybe tomorrow said AiAi. On that note, I went to bed.

Christmas Sausage

2006-12-24T15:34:00.000-08:00

We have started a tradition here in the Fredell household, following our love of pig: the Christmas sausage. Actually, we are not original. In Sweden, the traditional Julbord (Christmas Table) contains many different kinds of sausages and in the good old days, these would have been made by hand. So last year, we started making our own, figuring that we love sausage, it will be fun to do our own, and what the hell, why not at Christmas?! I spoke to my sister-in-law today, to wish each other Merry Christmas, and informed her that Peter and I were elbow deep in pork and she commented that we were not alone. Apparently, it is another Christmas tradition that the King and Queen of Sweden make sausage. Their sausage is proudly displayed on TV on Christmas day. So, we are in good company. This year, our sausage is flavored with orange, fennel, and garlic. Although it is for dinner tonight, we have already tested our creation, and I can tell you it is really good.

I know that everyone might not be up for sausage making, but, really, making the meat stuffing part is simple. If you don't want to stuff all those intestines, for which you need some special equipment, I think using the stuffing to make meatloaf would be equally delicious, or even meatballs! This recipe makes about 30 or so regular size sausages, so if you want to just do a meatloaf, cut the recipe down to 1/4 th or so.

5 pounds cheapest cut of pork (we used shoulder)
1 small packet of bacon
1 pound pork fat (you can ask your butcher for this)
zest of 3 oranges
1 to 2 heads of garlic, peeled
2 large onions
1 fennel bulb
3 to 4 tablespoons fennel seed
salt
pepper
some olive oil
pig intestine for casings (you will probably have to order this from your butcher)

Dice the onion, and fennel bulb. Finely dice the garlic. Saute on medium heat the onion, fennel, and garlic in some olive oil until soft, but not browned. Take the pork and bacon and cut into chunks. Use either a meatgrinder or food processor to grind into mince. If you are using the food processor, be careful not to grind it too finely. You want it chuncky like hamburger meat, not a smooth puree.

50,000 Evil Stinging Little Suckers in Your Garden

2006-11-14T16:24:00.000-08:00

Times two.

Think of 50,000 stingers, times two. That’s one hundred thousand evil little stingers.

This is how our nearest neighbor perceives our new project:Two beehives.

Just to make sure that we get maximum emotional effect, we have “aimed” the beehives straight at the neighbor's house.

Actually, we don’t eat much honey, but when we decided to plant even more lavender in our garden, we also decided to use the flowers for honey as well as for their looks. I mean we already have a lot of bees in our garden, but now they are going to be OUR bees, and they are going to make OUR honey.

I guess all our neighbors (maybe not one of them), and all our friends, will get honey for free for the next few years. Apparently, one hive produces between 30 and 150 lbs. of honey per year. That’s a lot of honey.

Evidently, honey bees are really friendly. They just get grumpy when it is cold, raining, dark, and when you try to get really close to the hive. The last item being somewhat of a requirement when you want to steal their honey. Oh yeah, they get sort of grumpy when you try to steal their honey as well.

This is going to get fun: apparently you get stung so much as a bee keeper so you get immune to the stings, unless you die first.

More reports will follow.

Thanksgiving Sides

2006-11-12T08:52:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is getting closer and I am starting to think about the menu. As we have not been living in the U.S. for the last ten years, Thanksgiving has been an excuse for us to give a big party, rather than the family event it is here. We have had a couple of really memorable ones. One year, when we lived in Stockholm, we borrowed a greenhouse which was part of a cafe in the summer, only a few minutes walk from our house. Peter spent hours filling the greenhouse with candles, and lit the snowy path from our house to the greenhouse with torches. It was really beautiful. The guests had drinks at our house and then walked in the dark, following the torches up the road to see a glowing greenhouse in the white snow. Meanwhile, my friend Marybeth and I furiously cooked in the cafe's kitchen...we got to use their industrial ovens and potato peeler; which was a good thing because we had about 50 guests. The next morning, we staggered back to the cafe, after having had about 4 hours of sleep to clean up the whole thing. We had a plane to catch to Brussels in the afternoon, so there was no sleeping in. After that experience, I always try to remember to hire someone to clean up after a big party...a luxury, yes, but it makes it so much nicer! Another excellent Thanksgiving was in London a few years back. My friend Nancy came and we cooked up a really fantastic spread, with about a million side dishes, two kinds of cranberry sauce, a gorgeous cheese plate, and 3 desserts, including a lemon rose cake. That feast was probably the pinnacle of food excellence for any of our Thanksgivings.

Judging by all the articles in magazines about turkey, people seem to focus on the bird. But for me, Thanksgiving is all about sides. Who cares if the bird is dry? Smother that baby in Madeira mushroom gravy and eat it with potato squash gratin and brussel sprouts with chestnuts, and who is going to notice a little dryness? I like to cook up new sides every year, while still keeping the same categories of potato, squash, and something green. Here are some side dishes that I really like, mostly from that gourmet Thanksgiving in London.

Spicy Sweet Potato (serves 4 to 6)
I do this quite often. I like to serve it with roasted pork belly. The sweet spiciness tastes great with pork. This is really easy to do, but the spices make it a bit dramatic. You could also do the same thing with squash, like pumpkin or acorn squash. It won't be as rich or sweet, but still it will be nice.

2 large sweet potatoes
1 floury potato (you can just use another sweet potato here, as I have often done, and nothing bad happens, but the spiciness is a bit less pronounced)
1/2 stick butter
some fresh rosemary
1 fresh red chili (heat of chili according to taste)
3 to 4 cloves of garlic

Peel and boil the potatoes until tender. Mash. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a saucepan. Lightly chop the rosemary. Peel the garlic and slice. Finely slice the red chili. Add spices to melted butter. Cook until butter is golden brown. Add hot butter and spices to mash. Stir it in and serve hot. The mash can be made in advance and kept in the refrigerator. To serve, heat up the mash in the microwave, remember to stir to make sure it is evenly hot, make the butter spice mixture, and mix.

Antonio Carluccio's Savoy Cabbage with Pancetta (serves 4 to 6)
Bacon and cabbage always taste great together. Actually, bacon tastes good with most things, I find. Anyway, this is really easy and really nice.

1 large Savoy cabbage (this is the medium colored green one with really crinkly leaves)
4 tablespoons olive oil
100 grams unsmoked bacon or pancetta, cut into matchsticks
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 dried red chili, crumbled
300 milliliters water
salt and pepper to taste
Quarter the cabbage, core and slice thinly. Heat oil, add bacon, garlic and chili. Fry for two minutes. Do not brown the garlic. Add the cabbage and water, season to taste. Stir and cook covered for 10 to 15 minutes until the liquid is largely evaporated and cabbage is cooked tender. I like to leave a little bit of bite in the cabbage, but others like cabbage very soft. Do it as you like.

Lemon Green Beans
This is from Nigella Lawson's cookbook called Feast. Simple and tasty. I love the freshness of the lemon in contrast to all the other heavier, creamier, side dishes.

1 kg fine green beans, topped and tailed
75 grams butter
few drops olive oil
1 lemon
Sat and pepper to taste

Bring a pot of water to the boil, throw in some salt, and blanch the beans for about 6 minutes after the water comes back to the boil. The beans should have lost their raw taste but retain crunch. Strain them and put them back in the pot on stove on low heat with. Throw in the butter and olive oil. While the butter melts, prepare the lemon. Peel the lemon, making sure to take off all the white pith (the easiest way is put the lemon on the cutting board, and slice off both ends. Then set the lemon on one end, and slice off the skin downwards, turning it as you go). Slice the peeled lemon, letting it fall apart into bits. Push the sliced lemon bits and any juice into the pot of beans. Stir the pan and add salt and pepper to taste.

Truffle Potato Gratin
I made up this recipe because I had a bottle of gorgeous truffle oil, and I needed something to do with it. What could be yummier than cream, potatoes and truffles? The recipe below isn't actually how I did it. I just sliced the potatoes, layered them with salt, pepper, cream and truffle oil, then I baked the whole thing until the potatoes are tender. However, I have always felt that my potato gratins don't have the right lucious texture and it is often a hit or miss thing. I have recently read a couple of recipes that do this pre-cooking and I bet that is the trick to a really good dish. So, I am giving you the recipe that I am going to make NEXT time I do this dish, based again on one of Nigella Lawson's recipes.

500 ml mil
500 ml heavy cream
1 onion
2 to 3 bay leaves
4 peeled cloves garlic
1 1/2 tablespoon salt
2 kilo floury potatoes
truffle oil to taste
butter for greasing the dish

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C (about 450 F). Put milk and cream into a large pot that will be able to fit in all the potatoes. Cut onion in half, put in pot along with bay leaves, garlic cloves and salt. Bring the cream mixture nearly to the boiling point. Turn off the heat, cover, and let the onion and bay leaves infuse.

Meanwhile, peel potatoes and cut into slices (about 1 cm thick, or a bit more than 1/4 inch). Put the potatoes in with the cream in the pot and brink back to boil with lid on. Lower the heat to simmer, taking off the lid if necessary to avoid milk overflowing the pan. Cook the potatoes until they are tender, but not dissolving into mush. Fish out onions and bay leaves. Season with truffle oil, pepper and salt, to taste. Grease a large roasting pan with butter and pour in the potato mixture. Cook in the oven for 15 minutes or until the potato is bubbling and brown on top. Sprinkle some more truffle oil on the top. Let stand for a bit before serving.

Marathon Madness

2006-11-11T10:26:00.000-08:00

Hey! I just ran a half Marathon last Sunday. Yup. That is 13.1 miles of pain, for those of you who aren't into running statistics. If you don't believe that I really did this, you can check out the results of the race.

Now, you might wonder what that has to do with FOOD, but of course it has everything to do with food. Do you think I would be torturing myself like that, if it were not to burn off 1300 calories that I can then use to eat pie, steak, foie gras? No, you are right, I would not. Life is food. Food is life.

Ok, Ok, I admit it. The link to food is tenuous but I just had to brag.

Project Chicken

2006-11-10T08:38:00.000-08:00

Here is our new chicken house! Is it not just the sweetest thing you ever saw? We are going to have very happy chickens...how could they not be happy, living in a house like that? We have spent the last few days painting...the kids and us have paint in our hair to mark our hard work. While we bought the house online, we had to put it together and Peter has had to make several adjustments and improvements because the nestboxes were too big, it needed a new perch, and we added latches to keep the racoons out, and a chicken wire foundation.

So next is to order some chicks....we are going to have some old-fashioned dual purpose hens (which means that they lay eggs but they also taste good when you have to get out the old axe). We are going to have to order a few more than we need--25 to be exact (it is the minimum order for chicks through the mail). So about 8 will get to live and lay, and the rest will have a shorter life ending up in our oven. Young roasted chicken anyone? We are probably going to have some sort of party, because we are going to have a lot of chickens to eat. Sign up if you want to be invited.....I can't wait to be able to go out in the morning (and evening) and collect some eggs for breakfast! Not so eager to clean out their coop, though.

Apple Frangipane Tart

2006-11-09T08:19:00.000-08:00

Since I am on a woozy woo kick, I thought I would share this recipe that I would never have created if I didn't have my favorite gadget. Thus far, I have resisted putting up recipes that don't have a story attached because I think that a simple recipe should have a picture with it, which means I have to make it and take a picture....but that isn't really happening much, given I am constantly on a diet and I am horrible at taking pictures. So, what the hell. A recipe without picture. Just use your imagination.

We were living in London and having some guests over for lunch. I happened to a lot of whole blanched almonds lying around which I wanted to use up. So, I invented this dessert, which I am particularly proud of. It is easy to make, looks fantastic and tastes even better. Don't leave out the lemon zest in the filling...it adds a bit of umph and also uses my other favorite gadget, which is my lemon zester. For you Americans, I am sorry about the metric measurements, but I was living in England at the time...it is easy enough to convert. Most cookbooks have conversion tables at the back or you can simple type it into Google (i.e 500 grams to ounces).

500 grams puff pastry
3 to 4 Granny Smith apples
85 grams whole blanched almonds
42 grams (3 tblsp) butter at room temperature
18 grams (2 tblsp) flour
1 large egg
about 85 grams powdered sugar to taste
zest of one lemon
cinnamon to taste

For the Frangipane Filling: Grind almonds in woozy woo or food processor until fine. Add powdered sugar to taste until sweet, but not overly so. Add flour, egg, and lemon zest. Whiz it up. Should be a spreadable consistency, slightly runny.

For the Tart: Roll out the pastry to a rectangle. Cut strips off each side (or fold over sides), about 1/2 inches wide, and stick back onto rectangle to form an edging. You can use a beaten egg as glue. Spread tart base with frangipane filling. Peel and core apples, and slice thinly (each apple should yield about 16 slices, i.e cut apple into quarters and then cut again into 4 slices). Arrange apple slices over filling. Try to make the slices look pretty. I usually arrange them in long columns. Sprinkle the apples with a bit of cinnamon and sugar. Bake at between 180 to 200 Celcius (350 to 400 F) for about 40 minutes until pastry is golden brown and apples are tender. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature with icecream or whipped cream.

I can imagine that this tart would also be wonderful with many other kinds of fruit: pears, blueberries, and peaches come to mind. You could also do a tart with just the frangipane, in which case I would double up on the amount of filling and then sprinkle the top with sliced almonds and cinnamon.

The Woozy Woo Transformation

2006-11-08T11:15:00.000-08:00

I don't know what other people call it, but I call it my woozy woo and it has changed how I cook. Basically, what you have is a mini food processor, a mobile blender, and a quick whipper. Now, you probably have all these capabilities in other machines if you have a food processor and/or a blender/ and/or mixer. BUT do you ever pull any of these things out, just to make a tiny quantity of sauce? No, you don't. So that is what is so great about this thing. It is small and portable and it just works great. Suddenly, blending herbs, onions, and olive oil is not a big job but a quick little easy job. Chop some nuts to sprinkle on a salad? No problem and no fuss. Last night we had some friends over for dinner; the woozy woo was working overtime. I used it to to make breadcrumbs from fresh bread; I pureed pumpkin; I whipped up two sauces for steak (recipes below); and finally I chopped up nuts and mixed up a crumble to top my apple pie. OK, I realize I sound like an infomercial here but I really do love this gadget. Really.

I have had two. This particular product shown in the picture is more like the first one I got. Works great. The one I have now is a bit more involved because it has two separate little mini food processors...a bigger one and smaller one. Also, the blender thing is metal. Amazon doesn't appear to be selling the one I have now. But, I think probably the first one I had was a tad bit better, because the small food processor is sometimes, well, a bit too small, while the big one is too big.

Tom's Anchovy and Garlic Paste
This is very garlicy, salty, and strong. It tastes fantastic with steak, which is how it was first served to me at a wonderful dinner with Tom and Elisha. I haven't yet got their recipe but I liked it so much that I tried to recreate it. I think Tom handgrates the garlic, which gives a prettier texture but they don't (yet) have a woozy woo or I am sure they would use it! I think this would taste nice on toast or on buttered pasta.
1 small can anchovies in olive oil
about 1 head garlic
some olive oil
Peel the garlic and open the can of anchovies. Take about 5 cloves of garlic, the can of anchovies and dump into the woozy woo. Pour in a bit of oil to lubricate. Whiz it up and taste. It should be salty and garlicy. If you like more garlic, then go ahead and put in a few more cloves. I used about 3/4 of a head. Whiz until it is a smooth puree, adding a bit of olive oil if necessary. You may need to get out a spoon and push the bits down. Put into a little bowl and serve alongside steak. Since the puree is not such an appealing color, I drizzled a bit of olive oil on top.

Amendment: Tom has since come back to me on this sauce and he advises not adding the olive oil that the anchovies are packed in but just using fresh olive oil. He also suggests chopping half of the anchovies and adding it into the sauce at the end for texture. Finally, some chopped fresh parsley would work well as a garnish so that "it doesn't look so much like regurgitated cat food." He also notes that the original recipe was from Chez Panisse Cafe cookbook, so there is some pedigree here. Still, it will always be Tom's sauce to me!

Argentinean Chimichurri Salsa
We love this sauce which we first had on a pigeon hunt in Argentina. For lunch they would stoke up a fire outside where ever we were shooting and grill huge slabs of meat and sausages, which they would serve with this sauce. No vegetables or starch. Just meat and sauce. I think it would taste great with fish or chicken also. After these huge lunches, they would string up hammocks so we could have a nap. Bliss.
4 fl oz olive oil
2 fl oz red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon dried oregano (can use fresh)
one big bunch flat leaf parsley
1/2 teaspoon crushed red chili flakes
1 large clove garlic
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon salt
Combine all ingredients in woozy woo. The heat of the chili does not come out immediately, so don't put more in until you let it sit for a while. This can be made in advance and kept in the frig for a couple of days.

Pie by Ken Haedrich

2006-11-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

Now is the season for....pie, of course! With the holidays and colder weather approaching, what we all need is a delicious piece of pie. And if you want to make great pie, then you need this cookbook. It will have you salivating over every page and recipe. There is a pie for every person here. The book also contains what I love in a cookbook, which is a lot of chitchat regarding each recipe and helpful tips.

Now, of course, the crust is what makes pies challenging. This book goes in-depth into how to make a good crust and has many different recipes. But the author is not a pie snob; he even includes recipes for store bought crusts. So, you have no excuse.

For Thanksgiving, I love his selection of different pumpkin and nut pies. I have recently fallen in love with Maple Pumpkin Pie, which I then top with Golden Marshmallow Topping from a different recipe. Another favorite is Pumpkin-Praline Pie, which is a pumpkin pie topped with a pecan topping; sort of two pies in one. Another fantastic pie is Angel Pie, which is a meringue crust topped with whipped cream and fruit, served with a custard sauce. I made this for a dinner party and it was spectacular. I also made individual portions of Angel Pie with strawberries for a mid-summer party. There are so many pies in this book, in fact over 300, that you will want to make pie every day. Tonight, we are having friends over and I will be making The Mother of All Apple Pies. Wish me luck and get this book!

Good Tip for Lobster

2006-10-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

We saw last night on a TV cooking program, whose name escapes me, a good tip for eating and preparing lobster that was so nifty, we had to share it. All those pesky little lobster legs...good eating, if you have the patience to pry the meat out, right? Well, a better way is to take each leg, cut off the knobbly joint which attatches to the lobster body, then take a rolling pin and just roll it over the leg. You start at the "toe" of the lobster, roll it up, and the leg meat just comes right out. Brilliant. The show also showed a recipe for preparing the lobster that looked pretty nice. They parboiled (or steamed) the lobster for a few minutes until it turns red. Split the lobster in half. Remove the claws and the legs. Make a filling by sauting some shallots and spring onion with butter. Add the meat from the legs (which you have first removed by above rolling pin method). Then add some crushed crackers to make a dry crumbly mixture. Take this filling and put it in the body cavity. Brush lobster tail meat with olive oil. Broil in the oven with claws. Remove meat from claws and place on top of lobster tail. Serve with melted butter. We'll try it and get back to you.

Hooked, Pirates, Poaching, And the Perfect Fish by G. Bruce Knecht

2006-10-13T14:12:00.000-07:00

Here is the good news: If you didn't know about Chilean Sea Bass, you are in for a treat. Here is the bad news: You can't eat it anymore. This book is a fascinating tale about the discovery and subsequent marketing bonanza of the Patagonian toothfish, re-named Chilean Sea Bass. If you have eaten this fish, then you know how good it is...juicy, great texture, nice flavor, but not too strong. Strangely, the book starts out with the premise that the fish really doesn't taste that good and is really bland--great for those unsophisticated Americans.....well, I have eaten fish in many countries, and I think it is great, as does my Swedish husband. If you haven't eaten it, then go to the store and try it...although it is expensive. It tastes great just simply fried in butter. Of course, after that, you need to read this book, and then, as I said, you can't eat it again. You see, these fish live up to 50 years, which means that they also take a long time to grow. So, you can imagine that over-fishing is the next step. Yup. And the author does a great job of making you see how that happens by telling the story of an exciting boat chase between a determined and ruthless pirate fish poacher, and an honest, righteous policeman chasing through storms and open seas. Throw in some courtroom drama, and the biggest culinary success in years, and you have the makings of a good story. Read it for the story, and then stop eating the fish. Sorry.

Plumbing, gardening, what next...pear preserves?

2006-10-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

Throughout our life together, my husband's motto has been "never learn anything useful, or you will be destined for a low income job forever". Thus, as we have moved across continents from Sweden to Brussels to London, when the toilet clogged, we called a plumber. When we needed the floors repaired, we called a floorman... You get the picture. When I first moved to Sweden to be with Peter, we lived in a cottage with a lovely garden in the middle of Djurgården, a beautiful park on an island in the middle of Stockholm. I had visions of herbs and roses, maybe a little lemon tree....Peter said, "Gardening?...I will provide emotional support sitting on the deck with a glass of wine." So, you can imagine my suprise, ten years later, when we moved here to Berkeley to our first house that we own together, as opposed to the rented places we had occupied over the years, and Peter started browsing through hardware stores buying power tools. At first, I was very doubtful...why are you buying that chainsaw? Won't the gardener we hire have one? Suddenly, my armchair husband was leaping onto the roof to fix leaks, under the sink to fix the disposal, out in the garden cutting down trees....He has become a great gardener...our wonderful kitchen garden is 90% due to his efforts, his weeding, trimming, cultivating, and compost turning. So, I have slowly been coming to terms with the fact that Peter actually has practical, dare I say, "manly" fix-it skills beyond finance.

The first new suprise, this fall, came as Peter was trimming our kitchen garden and had a huge pile of peppermint. He said, we are going to make jelly. I said, uh huh, and went back to my computer. A few hours later, after hearing banging from the kitchen, I wander over and there is Peter, knee deep in jars and sugar...mumbling things about pectin. Another hour or so, and lined up on the counter are 5 pretty little jars of golden brown jelly! The next morning, we try the jelly on toast...it is good...tasty even...really nice.

A few days later, Peter comes to me with a basket of pears that he and my son have picked and said, we are going to preserve these pears. I say, OK, and go back to my computer. He stops me...no, we are going to preserve these pears NOW and you are going to help. So, I find myself at the kitchen table peeling pears to his explicit instructions. He is measuring sugar and vinegar and mumbling to himself about ginger....and voila...a few hours later, we have a few beautiful jars of pears preserved in a ginger syrup. He forgets to let me taste them before he cans them....but they look gorgeous. So, I say, let's do another batch using our own red wine vinegar flavored with cinnamon. (Because with all the wine Peter drinks, we have lots of leftover dregs which we had to do something with...so voila! red wine vingear). This time, I remember to taste before we put them in jars, and they are fantastic. Sweet, sour, spicy...the pears melting on the tongue. This stuff will be great over vanilla icecream.

Next apples...we discover we have 5 or so apple trees and the apples are actually pretty tasty. But what are we going to do with all of these apples? Apple pie, apple crisp, apple cake all come to mind...but as we are continuously on a diet, it seems a bad idea to go down that route....of course! Apple cider. So one beautiful Saturday morning, we invite our friends over, rent an apple press, and make apple cider. After drinking lots of it straight, we still have about 10 gallons over, which we are now fermenting into hard cider in a huge glass jug. Peter checks it about every 15 minutes. It is now almost a week later, and it is bubbling away merrily, yeast consuming sugars making alcohol...Peter checks it with various gadgets he has purchased and informs me that sugar level is good. He spends an hour on the telephone discussing the intricacies of carbonization versus alcohol content with his best friend....I just look forward to drinking it.

I am not sure what to make of this new do-it-yourself Peter. While, I love the garden, the preserves, and I think I am going to enjoy the cider, I am not enjoying helping him de-clog the toilet. Why can't we just call a plumber? I am thankful, however, that he feels roof duty is too dangerous for me, so I just watch out the window as he heroically climbs up in the middle of windy rainy storms to adjust the gutters, so that we won't have flood of water leaking into our house. I try to do my part by having a cup of hot coffee and a towel ready for him as he comes dripping back into the house.

Here is a recipe for the lovely pear preserves. The base recipe is from the 1940 edition of Hemmets Kokbok, the Swedish counterpart to the Fannie Farmer cookbook.

2 kilo pears
600 grams sugar
3 deciliters of white distilled vinegar
6 deciliters water
2 pieces of peeled fresh ginger

Peel the pears, but leave whole. Trim the stems and scrape off the skin of the stems. Lay them in water after each is peeled to prevent them from going brown.

Take the sugar, vinegar, water, and ginger and boil it up in a big pot until the sugar dissolves. Lay in the pears and simmer for 3 to 4 hours without a lid until they are soft but still retain their shape.

You can put them in a bowl with the syrup and refrigerate overnight to eat the next day. Or you can put them in sterilized jars to conserve (there is lots on the web on how to do this...we just put clean canning jars into boiling water for a couple of minutes).

A Variation: You can vary this how you like with different kinds of vinegar and different flavorings. One that we liked very much is to use half red wine vinegar and half distilled vinegar and replace the ginger with a couple cinnamon sticks. Another flavoring we used is to boil some fresh rosemary in the syrup before adding in the pears. All were delicious.

Goose Liver Fog

2006-07-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

- I love this wonderful taste of chocolate, my wife said.

Immediately, our friend; a fellow hunter, and a professor in criminology, gave Lan-Ling a bottle to bring home. The wine that we were drinking was the famous (and expensive) Chateau d’Yquem in its 1975 vintage.

He did this at a fabulous dinner at his mansion in Sweden, after a particularly good Duck shoot that he had organized. The professor was in a very good mood since he himself had been shooting very well. I have a vague suspicion that he at that moment also had somewhat amorous feelings towards Lan-Ling.

The gargantuan amounts of wine that he, and indeed all of us, had consumed at dinner were probably also a contributing factor leading to both the love and good mood.

The bottle of Sauterne traveled with us from Sweden to Belgium, and subsequently to London when we moved there. Two years later, it was time to move to California. The bottle however, couldn’t travel anymore due to the cork slowly creeping out.

It was time for a mercy killing.

As you all know, Chateau d’Yquem has to be drunk with foie gras.

For you who do not understand French, this is a goose liver that has contracted liver cirrhosis. This is what we humans get when we, for example, drink the amount of booze that we really want to drink. All the time.

Geese do not drink booze, instead they get their stomachs pumped up with grain via a “reversed” vacuum cleaner. All the time. They like this. They are happy geese. As a matter of fact, they are as happy as you would be if you drunk all that booze. I think.

We went to Harrods and bought the liver. Too much liver. We always buy too much. We always cook too much, too.

We solve this continuous problem by inviting friends and neighbors on extremely short notice;

- You guys want to have dinner?

- Sure, what date?

- In twenty minutes.

This time it was our next-door neighbors who got the call. Of course they came over. They were fairly used to this by now so the fact that they themselves had some people over for dinner didn’t stop them; they simply brought them too.

We opened the bottle that was about to die, and a few extra other bottles to make it more into a mass murder exercise.

Since I feel that you have to eat goose liver immediately, we all congregated in the kitchen to eat the slices as they came off the pan.

Now, the best way to prepare goose liver, in my view, is to take a whole liver, clean out the blood vessels, cut it in slices, rub in salt and pepper, and then fry it on high heat for a few seconds on each side. You are basically giving it a surface. Beware, if you fry it for too long, it melts.

This method unfortunately produces a lot of smoke. Much more than your stove fan can handle. So much so that in a normal London kitchen, you can’t breathe. Or see your hands. As a matter of fact, it produces so much smoke so that all fire alarms in your house will go off, and your neighbors (the ones not currently in your kitchen) think your house is on fire.

The neighbors that currently are in your kitchen (you guess they are still there, because you sure as hell can’t see them) are happily eating fried goose liver and drinking the professor’s Chateau d’Yquem……….

Are you Pigheaded?

2006-07-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

The Christmas before last we spent in

Sweden

. Earlier that December, my sister, who was going to join us, asked what I wanted for Christmas present. My answer came lightning fast; -a Pigs head, or actually, two.

There was a long silence on the phone……….

-A what? She said.

-A pigs head, or two, I repeated.

This was apparently not something she had thought of, I thought smugly.

You have to realize that there is somewhat of a history here, where my sister is notorious for giving bad Christmas presents. The worst being a book that she apparently had stolen in a library. This was proven by the stamps in it saying “Property of the City of Stockholm Library”.

Anyway, the stunned silence turned into some indeterminable whining about pigs’ heads. –I don’t know where to buy them, -they are heavy, -bloody, -smelly, -and what the hell are you going to do with a pigs head anyway, etc. etc. In the end she refused to buy me my pigs head with the motivation that her daughter might see it, and get traumatized for life.

So that Christmas I didn’t get to make head cheese or anything else good that you can do with a pigs head. I did, however, boil pigs feet and fried, breaded, crispy pigs’ tail. But even then I was relegated to the second kitchen where nobody would see me, or smell my cooking.

Now, this little story illustrates what has gone wrong with people and their relation with meat. People in general don’t know anymore what good meat is, and they don’t know that meat comes from animals that were once alive.

This Christmas we spent in Berkeley, and in order to make my Head Cheese, I went down to Chinatown and bought my own pig’s head. When I came home, I let my two boys look at it and play with it a little bit.

-Dad, Can I keep the eyeball?

- Look Dad ! I can stick my finger all the way into the mouth and it doesn’t bite!

After this I butchered it with the kids watching and giving helpful comments.

Try this at home! It is sort of tricky knife work if you are not used to it, but the good thing is that it doesn’t matter if you botch it up. You are anyway going to cut the whole thing to small pieces later. Essentially you are trying to “undress” the head i.e. separate everything from the skull. A hint, the snout has small pieces of cartilage in it. Locate those and take them out. Another hint, pig’s snout tastes very good, so if you can buy a few extra, do that and add them into the dish. Cut off the ears and put them into the refrigerator. You are going to use them later to make crispy pig’s ear, I’ll tell you how in a later posting.

After you “undressed” the head, cut the meat and skin in medium size pieces and put it all into brine together with the extra 3-4 pigs’ tongues and lean pork meat that you bought. If you found extra snouts, put them in as well. Leave it in the brine for about 5 days in the refrigerator.

Now, this is what you do after those 5 days:

Fill a big pot with water, put in the tongues and cook on low heat for 30 minutes. Add skin, snouts, and meat from the head and cook for another thirty minutes. Then add the lean pork meat and boil on low heat for an additional half an hour (or so). It is good to remove (skim) the scum now and then whilst boiling.
Take out the meats and strain the cooking liquid. Reduce it to about a quarter of it original volume.
Trim the tongues (peel them) so that no coarse surface is left. You can also take out the cartilage of the snouts here, it’s easier than if you do it when the snouts are raw (but hotter). Dice all the meats into pieces. The size of the pieces is really up to you, but remember you have to stuff them into a casing, but you are not really making sausage. ½ inch maybe.
Take the now diced meats and mix it with all the other ingredients and a suitable amount of the reduced stock. How much? Well, you are not making soup. You are not making hamburgers, somewhere in between, where the meats can take up the juice inside the casings without bathing in them.
Stuff into waterproof cooking casings (synthetic), or use cow intestine. I prefer the intestine, where I use the sausage maker attachment on our Kitchen Aid to stuff the meat into the casings (take away the grinding part, or else you are going to get minced meat).
Put the stuffed casings (sealed of course) in nearly boiling water. Let this simmer away until you believe that the internal temperature matches, or is just under the water temperature. The reason I don’t give you a time here is that it depends on so many factors, like the size of your casing for example. I really don’t believe you should be too worried about over-cooking though. Last time I did this, I let them simmer for about an hour.
When you are done, take them out of the water and refrigerate for at least 24 hours before eating.
Take your traumatized kids to the shrink.

Ingredients
Now here is a little bit of a dilemma, this dish is highly individual. Everybody who makes it is going to do it differently when it comes to how much lean meat you add, and what spices you use. I tend to think of the lean pork meat as filling and everything from the head as “goodies”. I then sort of look at the two different piles and try to determine whether it is too much goodies or too much filling. As you can see this is a highly scientific method which I suggest you adopt. Trust me, it will taste good whatever you do. As to spices I suggest that you put in what you like. In the list to follow I feel that the pine nuts, cinnamon, and nutmeg are essential because these are the tastes I associate strongly with this dish. As for the amount of spices, test your way. Since the meat is cooked when you mix the spices, you can feel free to taste the mixture until you like how it is spiced.

1 pigshead
Lean pork meat
Extra tongues (2-3)
Extra Snouts (if available)
pine nuts (I love pine nuts in this dish so I tend to use a lot)
Black pepper, ground (or White pepper, whatever you prefer)
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Mace
Clove
Herbs like Rosemary, Sage, or Thyme

Brine
The liquid has to cover the meat.

Per litre of water:

100 g sugar
150 g Salt
3-4 Juniper berries (optional)
3 Cloves (optional)
1 Bay leave (optional)

Bring it to the boil and boil until sugar and salt has totally dissolved. Let it cool before putting in the meats.

PS. If you make this, you will be in my list of cool people. DS.

9 ½ Fingers

2006-07-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

- urgh heapr po fiiilt

- miiina polit ääää

This what was we heard when we met the Swedish west coast fisherman that our friend Gunnar had brought us to. We were there to buy dungeness crabs straight from the fishing boat. This fisherman had such an incredible thick local accent that it was impossible for me to understand what he said.

-grroo tri fsakk, he said and invited us onto the boat. We went onto the boat where he started hauling big net cases, that were hanging on the side of the boat, out of the water. Those net cases were full of crabs.

-hmpphh aaaaa put, he said and opened the cases.

I was trying to avoid letting on that I couldn’t understand a word of what this man said by looking out to the sea, presumably intensively admiring the view.

- hmmm aaaaa eau AARRRGH!, Gunnar said. Great! I thought, he speaks the dialect, and I turned around to partake now that it was safe that we actually could communicate.

There was Gunnar with a gigantic Dungeness crab attached to his finger.

- AAAHHHHHAARGHHH! he said, and the fisherman probably believed he said that this year’s national elections had gone particularly well from his perspective.

After a while, though, he caught on and helped Gunnar from his predicament. After doing this he said,
- heartefs bolla PILON! And showed us that one of his fingers was only half of what it used to be. Gunnar, who still had his whole finger, translated that a crab had taken the fishermans finger (you see, Gunnar could understand what this guy said).

We bought about 20 Crabs from the guy and paid about 30 USD.

We went home to the house that we borrow from Gunnar every now and then for summer vacations, and cooked them.

Now there is really only one thing to remember when you cook crabs: Salt. Almost every person I know undersalts the water. The water must be like sea water, i.e. very salty. Check the salinity of your local sea and match your boiling water to it. Oh, one more thing, I boil big crabs for 20 minutes, and small ones for 10.

For you readers on the US West Coast: What you call Dungeness crab is something completely different, and not at all as good as the Atlantic Dungeness. If you travel to Europe, order one, and then feel sorry for yourself forever that you can’t get the real thing at home.

There is a smaller crab on the Swedish west coast which we call the “seaweed crab”. You catch it by tying a semi-crushed mussel to a string, then throwing the mussel in the water. After a minute you lift the mussel out of the water, and voila, there is a crab attached to it. Rather stupidly, it won’t let go, so you just grab it and throw it in a bucket. Now, these guys are small, but if you get a lot of them you can boil them in saltwater and Dill. It is very good.

You can also do as my then 3 year old son. Iwas going outside to get the bucket of crabs in order to cook them. What I saw when i came outside was my son chasing crabs all over the lawn and smashing them with a spade. When I asked what the hell he was doing he said, -they pinched me! ALL OF THEM! Yep, they are aggressive little suckers. Especially when you insist on sticking your fingers down into a whole bucket of them. Since they are also fast runners, we didn’t get to eat any crabs that night. I just didn’t feel for running around the garden for the survivors. But hey, the seagulls got a good dinner.

A couple of days later we had Gunnar, his wife Gunilla, and her mother Gunnel over for dinner (in their house). You see, they have two houses on the same island—we borrow one of them. We had bought a whole Seawolf (about 5 feet long). Now, the house has a good kitchen but it doesn’t have a five foot long oven, or frying surface (few houses have, I’ve sadly noticed). I really wanted to do the thing whole because it is sort of cool to serve a five foot long fish. Just lay it on the middle of the table and tell people to dig in.

So, I was walking around trying to figure out how to achieve this when I saw a rather largish pile of gravel on the end of the driveway near to the garage. Aha! I thought and got some help to dig a six feet hole in the pile. Subsequently, we gathered some firewood and made a fire in the hole. I must say the whole thing took on a sort of pagan burial rite feeling.

Whilst the fire was burning, we salted and peppered the fish, scored it with diagonal cuts on both sides and stuffed and surrounded it with a lot of herbs (basically all the dill we had plus everything in the garden). We then wrapped it with aluminum foil. So think foil, a big layer of herbs, and then the fish surrounded by the herbs.

When the fire had burnt out, we put the fish down in the hole and covered it with the gravel. The cover was about a foot and a half in thickness.

We let the thing sit there for an hour and then we dug it out, found a plank which we sawed off to suitable length, put the fish on it and carried the whole thing in to the waiting guests and friends.

12 bottles of wine later, it was all agreed that the dinner was a big success.

We are going back this summer, so we will see what culinary delights await us this time

Lasagna Anyone?

2006-07-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

I have just shoved two huge pans of lasagna in the oven after three hours of preparation. My shoulders, neck, and arms ache from all the chopping and stirring. Why so much lasagna, you ask? Well, it is because all my friends are having babies! I have two friends who have just popped the little ones out of the oven and I, helpful person that I am, said, " You must be so tired; let me please make you some lasagna to feed you and your hungry family." Then, a few days later, another friend had a baby, so I said, " I am already making lasagna, why don't I make a pan for you? It will be no trouble at all." So, I got up this morning, went to the store, bought ingredients and started cooking. How long could it take, right? I figure, the lasagna will be in the oven in an hour, and I will go running while it cooks. And the plus is that my family gets an excuse to have yummy lasagna for dinner, too. Three hours later, I am just finishing up. A huge vat of tomato sauce made with beef and pork sausage and flavored with rosemary and porcini mushrooms...and a huge vat of bechamel sauce with Parmesan...a hunking pile of grated mozzarella....Hey! This is starting to be work. Finally, I can begin assembling. I take out the pasta and realize with horror that I have bought the old-fashioned kind that must be boiled before layering up....oh god...well, here goes... OK, so finally I am done. But here's the catch....there was only enough sauce for two pans of lasagna...no lasagna for us for dinner! Peter comes in the kitchen as I am finishing up and hears the bad news. He sulks. It is sad to see a grown man sulk. I promise, I will make you lasagna with bechamel any time you want....just not today.

Near Death Experience Requires Steak

2006-06-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

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?

A Word on Olive Oil

2006-06-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

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...

Fried Cod

2006-06-08T18:41:00.000-07:00

Ingredients

1 Cod

Loads of Butter

Retired fisherman

Fast car

Go down to the nearest harbour. Hirtshalts in Denmark is a good choice. Find a retired fisherman who just came in with the cod that he had caught just for fun.

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.

Split Pea Soup with Lovage

2006-06-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

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 leaf
Salt 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.

Olive Oil Mussels and Clams

2006-06-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

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

The Start of Dinner

2006-06-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

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....