Author Archives: bookmarcus

06.11.13
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BKFST :: Arrangements

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

That’s what everybody says. I tend to want to make it interesting, as well. By varying the food; raw, cooked, both. By mood. By design.

Such as:

  1. Open the refrigerator and/or pantry.
  2. Take out what’s interesting or appealing such as LeftOvers, pickled things, steamed things, fruits, vegetables, cheese, boiled eggs, Cheese Sticks (Original Cheddar).
  3. Arrange stuff on a plate by shape, color, taste.
  4. Put the rest of the stuff away for another time.

Enjoy.

green, orange roasted bell pepper; golden, red pickled beets; potato salad

prim manteca beans; grilled green beans; radishes; pickled red beet, boiled Hadji Paul egg

Or cooked: choose oatmeal or grits or polenta or hash or eggs or something, find a pan or skillet and go for it.

Or, there’s always stuff mixed with Carol’s fabulous homemade yogurt.

05.31.13
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Road Eats 3 :: Las Vegas

(It’s about time I got around to continuing my Spring Training recollections.)

Glad to be here.

Not exactly Las Vegas, but very close. When trip planning, we decided that since we were driving all the way from Phoenix, it would be safe to spend the first night in Boulder City and avoid checking into a huge Vegas hotel possibly late in the evening. Even though we got to Boulder City before 4pm, it was a wise choice. The Boulder Dam Hotel was quite nice. Historic. Very comfortable. The Lobby/Parlor had a fireplace going and people were actually sitting around there. In addition to the front desk, there’s a dining room on the first floor. Rooms are on the second floor.

Boulder Dam Hotel

We took a walk around town to get the lay of the land and check out places we might eat. The hotel clerk (probably the owner) was quick to recommend Evans Grille. We walked there and the place was bustling at quarter-to-seven.

The menu was down home and interesting, with a Greek bent. I ordered a cup of Barley Soup and Tilapia with a side of angel hair pasta. Carol, the Special Greek Salad with Lamb and Chicken (she LOVED it). There seems to have been a pink light in the place, but it wasn’t noticeable to the naked eye.

Tilapia

Greek Salad

Of course the servings were large enough for two meals — the families around us were all taking home boxes. We’ll be in Las Vegas tomorrow, hardly a spot for leftovers. Continue reading →

05.29.13
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Freezer up!

We moved into our swell flat on Russian Hill in San Francisco in 1992. It was built in 1935, the last on the west side of Russian Hill after the earthquake and fire. Swell in every way — including a parking space in the garage — but the refrigerator in the remodeled kitchen was 30 inches wide with a freezer on top. Not swell.

We lived with that until 2003. Enough. No space to put away tomato sauce and other stuff I make in season to enjoy later. I went out and bought an “undercounter” freezer at Sears. Carried it home in the back of the SAAB. We didn’t really install it under the counter, but beside the counter with a microwave on top. That was a huge improvement, quadrupling our freezer space.

There’s the freezer on the left.

Last year we moved to Reno and bought a six-year old house. Wow. The space provided for the refrigerator was big enough for a double door refrigerator with a freezer drawer under. We went out and bought one of those puppies, relegating our “undercounter” freezer — still useful — to the garage.

Our new Reno fridge.

Undercounter freezer in garage with car.

Trouble is, it got so we dreaded using it. It was on the rather cold garage floor and we had to get on hands and knees to look in and get stuff out. And if the car was in the garage, the open freezer door just scraped by the front bumper — unless we parked an inch or two too far in.

One day, on my knee trying to fish out some sausages, a pound of ground beef and a ham steak came sliding out and rattled onto the floor; the ham steak slid under the car. Damn!! (I might have said.) Frustrated, I rolled back my head and gazed skyward… nothing up there but the garage ceiling. But wait, there’s nothing above the “undercounter” freezer. Why not lift the sucker up??? I can put it at eye level. Sounds like a plan.

Freezer up!!!

Hey… frozen food at eye level. What a concept.

05.20.13
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QUAIL

California Quail

I can’t believe I haven’t written about Fatted Calf Fig and Sausage Stuffed Quail. I first made it in September of 2010 and have cooked it one or more times a year since. It is so good and rich and well, different. Here’s the way Fatted Calf announced it:

Finally Figs
Finally, figs!  Beautiful, fat, dusky figs oozing with droplets of ambrosial sap from nearby Capay valley! That means, finally, fig and sausage stuffed quail.   And not just any quail but beautiful, plump, naturally raised Wolfe Ranch (http://wolfequail.com/) quail from Vacaville.
Farmer Brent Wolfe has been raising quail and other poultry his entire life and has developed his own breeding stock.  That means that the quail spend their entire lives on Brent’s Vacaville Ranch.  And Brent’s quail grow big, much bigger than your average quail, making them just perfect for stuffing.
The quail come straight from the farm to the Fatted Calf kitchen where they take a brief bath in brine that keeps them moist and delicious.  They are then stuffed with perfectly ripe figs encased in a blanket of lemon and herb sausage.   Roast in a hot oven or on the grill and as the skin turns golden brown and the sausage juices baste the quail internally, the fig becomes molten caramel.  Savor the first bite, finally!

I’d have to say that the quail was every bit as good as it sounds

A little research told me that less than a week after we dined on the Fatted Calf Quail, we left for Kyiv, Ukriane to attend son Brian’s wedding service and meet Natasza’s parents. Quail seemed to slip down the list of writing subjects.

In any case, we took pictures the first time and again when we grilled it last week, so here’s making up for lost time.

Could not be simpler to prepare:
• Brown the quail.
• Roast the quail.
• Make some elegant accompaniments.

Naked Quail stuffed with sausage and a fat fig

Brown the quail; roast the quail

It took about 8 minutes to brown the quail on all sides, then another 12 minutes or so to get it to an internal  temperature of 160°F; a total of 20 minutes. Continue reading →

05.02.13
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get yer ROX on

Somewhere back then — either just before or just after we moved to Reno — there was a splashy ad in one or more of the splashy cooking magazines we get — do you know how inexpensive actual glossy full color cooking magazines are these days? — for SALT ROX.

Hmmmmm… interesting idea, and probably does what it says, but awfully expensive. Costs more than all of our cooking magazine subscriptions, combined; $112, including shipping. We let it pass.

Months later, a UPS package is left on our porch. Darned heavy.

Hours later, Carol asks me to take a look at “your anniversary gift” so I can try it before Eric and Alison visit. The deluxe 8 x 12 x 2 inches Hamalayan SALT ROX. Darned heavy. Carol got a Living Social deal — $49 including shipping, a $63 savings.

Nothing left to do but try it. We can give it a good test with something particularly bland like skinless, boneless chicken thighs. There’s even a recipe on the ad for Grilled Lemon Dijon Chicken Breasts (we don’t do breasts, we do the ever-so-slightly-less-bland thighs). To round out the dinner, I chose to do a Cabbage Panade recipe by Deborah Madison from her new cookbook, Vegetable Literacy (10 Speed Press).

[Make garlic stock, saute a sliced onion with juniper berries and sage leaves, add cabbage and cook until tender, layer in a baking dish with cheese topped rye bread slices and bake.]

Salt ROX

Cooking on the rock is very different than straight grill cooking. One must start with the rock on a cold grill, for fear of cracking the rock by putting it on a hot grill (also for fear of burning my fingers… did I say that sucker is heavy?). I was surprised that it doesn’t take much longer to heat up the grill with the rock than without the rock… about 20 minutes.

I marinated and dried and oiled my thighs and when the grill was ready, put ‘em on. Boneless thighs don’t take long to cook — I figured six or eight minutes to 165°F.

thighs cook

When I opened the grill to turn them, I noticed they were “cooking wet.” Of course, they’re on a rock. The juices from the meat can’t drip into the fire (oh, a little runs off the edge). The ROX folks say “It’s like brining without the water!”

Sure enough, after about 6 minutes the thighs registered 165 and I took them inside to rest.

ROX chicken thigh with cabbage panade and a 2012 Bonny Doon Picpoul

The chicken was excellent, moist and flavorful with a pleasant salty undercurrent. Yum. Sadly, the Cabbage Panade imagined as a perfect accompaniment, wasn’t much, lacking in flavor and the texture mooshed.

So, the SALT ROX worked.

burger with roasted potato, ROXed onion and 2012 Cline California Zinfandel

One more test with hamburgers. Once again, they were moist, but the mildly salty edge was masked by the stronger meat flavor.

SALT ROX has rules:
start cold on a cold grill or in a cold oven.
let the rock cool completely before moving.
do not wash with anything, including water.
scrape “clean.” Stains are okay.

ROX after use for chicken thighs

ROX after use for beef patties and sliced onion

So… we got our ROX on. How often will we use it? Don’t know. But it seems like a good thing for chicken thighs and fish wouldn’t be a stretch. We also have our totally wonderful grill pan, and grilling season is coming on strong.

 

04.21.13
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How beautiful izzat?

That’s what I call Sunday Breakfast.

Eggs from Hadji Paul at Garden Shop Sunday Farmers Market (Outdoors today!!)

Radishes from Garden Shop Sunday Farmers Market.

Pickled Golden Beets from Great Basin Coop, roasted and pickled by yours truly.

Sugar Snap Peas from Safeway inna bag. (Oh, well.)

Yum.

04.09.13
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Good Mother Sierra Chili

Sierra Canyon Chili Cookoff

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 5:00 – 7:00 PM – “GREAT BOWLS OF FIRE” ANNUAL CHILI COOKOFF – $5.00 PER PERSON
A Sierra Canyon tradition……homemade chili tasting!! Taste your way through 9 different chili’s…and prepare to be dazzled! Our contestants plan to tantalize your taste buds with their favorite Chili recipes. Your $5 Tasting Fee includes a salad station, tasting of all entries, soda, beer, water and a small bowl of “non-contestant” Chili prepared by Sierra Canyon’s own Don Chess. Sign up at the front desk today!

Number 2 in your program, Number 1 in your mouth.

Goodness gracious…!!! I happened to read that just after I made Southwestern Black Beans with Chicken Soup; a recipe I got from the Reno Gazette Journal (RGJ) By Nancy Horn, chef, co-owner of Dish Cafe. That was good; used a tablespoon of Chili Powder and other interesting spices. I thought that with subtractions and additions this could make a fine chili.

Out with the potatoes, out with the chicken, in with some cubed beef, in with some spicy Italian sausage. Out with the onion/celery/carrot mirepoix, in with a chili friendly onion/celery/green bell pepper mirepoix. Interesting that her soup used no tomatoes, but tomatillos. I went with that.

I’m not new to the chili game. It’s one of my favorite soups — and I’m a soup guy. Back in Ought-Seven, about this time of year, I posted an essay called CHILI: My Top Five.

Since then, I’ve found a couple others that I like a lot, but — feeling in an adventurous mood — I wanted to go with this whole new concoction.

I did a test recipe, ate it, then tried it on son Brian and his wife. It was a few days old by then, but with chili, that’s a good thing. I liked it a lot for the second time. Brian observed that it had good chili flavor and was spiced just right — both of our sons are “supertasters” — but the meat chunks were too big… they shouldn’t be much bigger than the beans.

some ingredients: mirepoix, cubed chuck steak, Spicy Italian Sausages

my test batch with cilantro

carol’s serving gussied up with cilantro, grated cheese, and sour cream

That was good stuff as noted, and passed the Brian test a few days later.

I had some Whole Food Spicy Italian Sausage left over, so I experimented with lil-tiny meatballs.

making lil-tiny meatballs out of spicy italian sausage

Take a sausage, remove the casing, cut in half lengthwise, cut each half into rough cubes and roll between your thumb and forefinger to get a lil-tiny meatball.

browning the balls

Not so hard, and they browned nicely. (I ate my test samples with some leftover roasted celery soup. Yum.) Continue reading →

03.22.13
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ROAD EATS 2 :: MARCH 2013

Out of Arizona and into Las Vegas

Las Vegas coming up…

We went on a Road Trip, Carol and I. Our main objective was Giants Spring Training in Scottsdale AZ. We got down to Scottsdale expeditiously — bypassing Las Vegas as we headed south and spent a swell six days in Arizona.

So we leave Arizona and embark on the Las Vegas eats part of the recollection.

TUESDAY March 5th
Out of Arizona.
An IHOP was located conveniently in the parking lot of our hotel. I looked carefully over the menu to try to find something appealing and the right size. IHOP specializes in “way too much.”

2 eggs with bacon and two pancakes with fruit compote. “What kind of compote?” I asked. She told. “Can I substitute just plain fruit?”

“What’s your favorite?”

“Pineapple.”

“We have pineapple chunks.”

“Great.”

A spare and odd, but fine IHOP breakfast.

I borrowed some browned shredded potatoes from Carol’s breakfast to help with the eggs. We need to drive north on Scottsdale Road and find a gas station.

We soon find ourselves on Rt 74 going west through Joshua Tree National Forest. By now, we’re in a nice highway driving mode. We take a pit stop at a McDonald’s in Wickenberg. 140 miles to Kingman, we can catch lunch there. NOT.

What happens is Rt 93 joins I-40 and you fly by Kingman. Try and think of a fast food chain that’s not at one of the three exits. We got gas on Rt. 93 in Kingman going south, there must be a greasy spoon or mom and pop once we get off the interstate and on to 93. Nope. What we find is no town and no food.

There’s an exit for Bullhead City that promises a Sonic (2 miles). We take it. The next civilization is Boulder Dam, 80 miles away.

Well, it’s more than a couple miles and we pass a couple of mom-and-pops and reach SONIC. You know those Sonic commercials; 2 guys sitting in a car eating a burger and suckin’ on a shake? (I hate those.) So we drive up to Sonic and they have these 1950’s stations where you drive up and order and presumedly a car hop comes out and clamps one of those trays on your window.

Carol went in… no service inside… the idea is you eat in your car. HELL NO.

We went back the road to Caroline’s Cafe. HooBaby, we’re in luck. The special is open face meatloaf sandwich with mashed potatoes and brown gravy. I’ll have some of that! Carol had the Paddy Melt with sweet potato fries. What we have here is down home cookin’! Eat your heart out, Sonic.

Ready to dig in.

Caroline’s Cafe

Back to the joys of 93 North.
Out of Arizona.
Frankly, I’m glad. I didn’t find Arizona user-friendly. Even in little ol’ Reno, driving downtown I’ll pass a number of restaurants; the ones I’ve sampled are pretty good, almost none are chains. Good luck with that in Phoenix. And the signs along the roadside aren’t particularly informative. They might have cautioned us, “last chance to eat for 80 miles.” And the roads we traveled were string straight and not very pretty.

As far as I got today. Stay tuned… more stuff to come.

03.11.13
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ROAD EATS :: MARCH 2013

Giants Spring Training
plus Las Vegas on the way home

Ahhh… Spring (it is in Arizona)

We went on a Road Trip, Carol and I. Our main objective was Giants Spring Training in Scottsdale AZ. Every year, I’ve talked about going to spring training and every year Carol would say, “I can’t take time off at that time of year.” Carol retired — WooHoo — so this year, we bought the Giants Spring Training package. Tickets to 3 games and hotel for three nights, tee shirts, caps and other goodies. We’re going to spring training! We will meet our friend and Carol’s former colleague, Sarah and her friend Scott in Scottsdale.

We decided to make it a Road Trip, and decided to rent a car for the trip for two reasons: a) we have enough *Miles* to cover a 10 day car rental, b) our Altures road trip mishap; and c) why put nearly 2000 hard miles on our fabulous 2008 VW GTI? That’s 3 reasons. All the better.

We planned to get down to Scottsdale expeditiously — bypassing Las Vegas and spending the night in a town to the west — and stop for two days in Vegas on the way home. If you reduce your map enough Reno to Scottsdale is pretty much a straight line.

Reno NV to Scottsdale AZ

This is the eats part of the recollection. Not all our meals were great… the first one is kind of ugly, but I decided “warts and all” was the way to go. Not every meal was perfect… although some neared perfection. You can skip the ugly one or two if you want but we couldn’t.

WEDNESDAY February 27
We ate breakfast at home before leaving at 8:30am. Don’t remember what we ate.

Lunch at El Marquise, Tonopah NV $31

My Carne Asada with a side salad

Our Guidebook described “a dark, comforting room and good food.”

It was that. The guidebook did not say the food was picturesque.
I had the Carne Asada and a salad.  Carol had a Taco Salad with chicken.
Carne Asada — pork with green chili sauce, refried beans and rice — is my go-to dish in a Mexican Restaurant. Despite its looks, the pork was extremely tender and the beans just right. I’m not a sandwich lover and a taco is a sandwich, a particularly messy sandwich. Carol loved her Taco Salad, she always does.

As with many roadside restaurants, the servings were way too big.

 

We arrived at Pahrump, a town uglier than its name just before 5pm. Not bad, this was the longest leg of our trip.

The Best Western is nice enough and their companion restaurant, Wulfy’s, is a sports bar kind of place.
Dinner Wulfy’s Fried Chicken + Pizza $31.

Our swell car at the Best Western

Carol had a 9-inch pizza. Mine was the deep fried chicken — choice of wing and thigh or breast — I chose the former. The food was okay, moist and everything, just not seasoned. When I complained, Carol said, “You want good, well seasoned fried chicken, go to KFC, they built a business on their seasoning. MacDonald’s fish is pretty good too… or Jack-in-the-Box burgers.”

 

my fried chicken with a side of cole slaw

 

“Yeah,” I responded, “but they have bright lights, hard surfaces, moms with kids and no beer. At least this place with just okay food has good lighting, the Warriors on the TV and Fat Tire on draft. Also salt, pepper and ketchup to apply to taste.”

THURSDAY February 28
Best Western offered a complementary breakfast at Wulfy’s, and it was good. Almost anything you would want for breakfast except eggs-to-order. I had scrambled eggs, sausage links and fried potatoes. The potatoes were particularly good. They had been cubed, roasted and then deep fried. Crispy outside, creamy inside. Carol had the same, except a warm biscuit instead of potatoes.

About 290 miles southeast of Pahrump on US-93, we stopped at Wickenburg for lunch. Believe me, there is almost nothing in Arizona between Boulder Dam City and here except straight roads and horizons; mountains in the distance. (More on that when we travel north.) Continue reading →