Author Archives: Eric

04.23.08
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Greenhouse Farms Tour Part Two

Here we embark on the afternoon portion of our   tour, as described by the announcement in CUESA Newsletter.

Enjoy the bus ride through the scenic and fertile Capay Valley, home to numerous small family farms. A representative from Capay Valley Grown will narrate along the way and will tell us about how the farms in this valley work together to market their crops.Our final destination will be Orangewood Farm in Rumsey. Mother-and-daughter team Jackie and Bonny Scott run this nursery that utilizes a greenhouse to grow organic plant starts for home gardeners, including 67 varieties of tomatoes. The Scotts also have citrus and pecan trees, and are working to restore the hills on their property by planting native grasses. Each participant will receive a nursery plant to take home.

Upon leaving the Bruins’ farm, we turned north onto Route 16 and picked up Paul Muller of Full Belly Farm to narrate our trip through the Capay Valley. (Pronounced Kay-Pay) This small, very fertile valley, fed by Cache Creek, does not lend itself to huge industrial agriculture that you’ll find in the Central Valley, and so has attracted small farms, ranging from 20 to 150 acres. In addition to his work at Full Belly, Paul Muller is one of the leaders of a movement to create a Capay Valley Grown brand.

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Our destination is Orangewood Farm, where Jackie Scott cultivates oranges and grapefruits and her daughter Bonny has a plant nursery growing over 100 kinds of plant starts. They harvest pecans that grow wild on their property, as well. Continue reading →

04.22.08
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Greenhouse Farms Tour Part One

Announcement in CUESA Newsletter:
Sun April 20, Greenhouse Grown Farm Tour, 9 am – 6 pm
Spend a day visiting two farms that rely on greenhouses to help grow their crops.We will first visit Bruins Farms in Winters, CA where greenhouses allow Paul, Eva and Bart Bruins to bring their heirloom and hybrid tomatoes to market well before the local field-grown fruits are available. See the tomatoes at several different stages, and learn how the Bruins family produces such perfect-looking tomatoes without using pesticides. CUESA will provide a delicious lunch made from farmers’ market foods.Then enjoy the bus ride through the scenic and fertile Capay Valley, home to numerous small family farms. A representative from Capay Valley Grown will narrate along the way and will tell us about how the farms in this valley work together to market their crops.Our final destination will be Orangewood Farm in Rumsey. Mother-and-daughter team Jackie and Bonny Scott run this nursery that utilizes a greenhouse to grow organic plant starts for home gardeners, including 67 varieties of tomatoes. The Scotts also have citrus and pecan trees, and are working to restore the hills on their property by planting native grasses. Each participant will receive a nursery plant to take home.

The tour is $25 and includes lunch made with farmers’ market ingredients.

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It was chilly and windy in front of the Ferry Building as we waited to board the big Coach 21 bus. The weather report said that that the weather in Winters was about the same as SF. Lucky for us, the weather turned fine in Winters and beyond, so we could wear shirtsleeves in the warm breeze. Continue reading →

04.17.08
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CUESA at Macy's Cellar

Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture

Local chefs and farmers pair up at Macy’s ~ April 16
CUESA is partnering with Macy’s Cellar again for a series of three cooking demonstrations and farmer/chef interviews. At the first event, on Wednesday, April 16, farmer Brandon Ross of Ella Bella Farm and chef Charles Phan of The Slanted Door will talk about how they are both staying true to their values of sustainable agriculture, seasonal produce, and worker’s rights as they grow their companies. Seating is first-come, first-served starting at 6 pm in the Union Square Cellar Kitchen at Macy’s. A $10 donation to CUESA (tickets at the door) will get you a seat at the demonstration, a sample of the featured dish, a glass of wine from Benziger Family Winery, a canvas Ferry Plaza Farmers Market tote, and a sample of Origins’ new organic skin care line.

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I went to the CUESA cooking demonstration and farmer/chef interview at Macy’s Cellar last evening. I had gone to two of their series of three last year and found them interesting and enlightening, enough so to forgo a film on Schindler’s Houses sponsored by the SF chapter of the American Institute of Architects the same evening.

This one featured farmer Brandon Ross of Ella Bella Farm and chef Charles Phan of The Slanted Door. Of course I knew Charles Phan as the master of the Slanted Door empire of Vietnamese restaurants, he is, after all, a celebrity chef in terms of his appearances on TV and in newspapers and magazines, but it turns out I knew little about the man and his values. Brandon Ross, I hadn’t heard of, although I pass by his Ella Bella stand at the Farmers Market every Saturday.

Lordy, I had a lot to learn and learned a LOT. These programs are more about education and sustainable agriculture — the ES and A of CUESA — than about cooking, although who would want to attend a program featuring Charles Phan and not have him whip up a little something — in this case, a broccoli decicco stir-fry. Continue reading →

04.09.08
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Turn the Other (Beef) Cheek

Braised Beef Cheek with Pappardelle

Beef Cheek Ravioli with Agretti

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“Yeah, filet mignon is expensive,” David Evans said during our tour of Marin Sun Farms. “There’s only 15 pounds of it on a 750 pound dressed steer. You don’t want to spend so much, buy some of the lesser cuts.” I bought the Beef Cheek.

I was aware of beef cheek; Carol had Braised Beef Cheek at Absinthe just last week, and son Eric had Beef Cheek Ravioli at Babbo in New York about the same time. Here’s what he had to say about it,

“My beef cheek ravioli were arranged in a single layer on the plate, about eight handmade squares with a very light stock sauce coating. The menu promised a mix of goose liver with the cheek, but the liver provided more of a flavor than a richness, which the beef cheek had plenty of on its own. It was very very good and the others seemed to enjoy their taste of it, but I wouldn’t say it was mind altering. Perhaps too much hype had preceded it.”

I had never seen beef cheek for sale, until I saw it at Marin Sun Farms. I asked the guy, “What do I do with this, braise it?”

“Low and slow,” he said.beef_cheek.jpg

How could I resist, it was $7.99 a pound for a 1.2 pound cheek. Continue reading →

03.25.08
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Creamed Greens

For some reason, Creamed Spinach is a staple side dish at steak houses throughout the land. The creamed Spinach entrenched in my taste memory is one that I ordered in a steak house in Chicago, near the Drake Hotel. It was rich and creamy with a fine pure taste of spinach coming through.

I can’t remember ever making it at home and I probably haven’t, although that’s one of the few ways I like spinach. The cream takes the edge off, for me, literally. For me, spinach raw or cooked has a characteristic that sets my teeth on edge. Other greens, dandelion, chard, turnip, beet, mustard, collard, don’t affect me that way.

In our California winter there are few green vegetables at the Farmers Market other than greens. As I was thinking about what would be good as a side dish for leftover Tuna Balls and Spaghetti, that creamed spinach from Chicago came to mind, but I had no spinach. Why not creamed Swiss Chard?

Step one, Google “creamed spinach.” Whole Foods Market was on the first page, so I took a look. Spinach and cream sauce were prepared separately and combined. Their recipe used grated Parmesan cheese as a thickener for the cream. That would work. Other recipes that I checked used flour as a thickener, basically a béchamel sauce, or with the addition of cheese, a Mornay sauce. One, from Boston Market (“That’s my home.”) surprisingly started with chopped frozen spinach and used no cream at all. Continue reading →

03.12.08
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Jambalaya

Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and file’ gumbo
‘Cause tonight I’m gonna see my ma cher amio
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-o
Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou

Hank Williams

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Jambalaya; music to my ears. The mere mention takes me back to New Orleans in the spring of 1984, alone near the end of a long line waiting for a table at K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen. A woman came back the line asking, “Any singles?” When I shouted and raised my hand, she took me right inside and sat me with a dentist and his wife and son. They were in town from San Diego for a dentist convention. At K Paul’s in those days, no seat was left unfilled. Christmas brought me Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen, from good friends and neighbors, Robert and Katy. It’s a cookbook I use to this day. Continue reading →

03.07.08
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Cincinnati Chili: A New Experience

Feel like you don’t get enough email? You want more? Subscribe to cooksillustrated.com. I get four or five emails a week from them, mainly shilling their books or magazine subscriptions, but maybe one a week will have kitchen tips and recipes.

Recently, an email touting Cook’s Country, CI’s “down home” magazine, featured Cincinnati Chili. That got my attention! Cincinnati Chili is one of my Top Five chili recipes. I got my version from a neighbor in Newton back in the 70’s, we’ll call it “Sally’s” Cincinnati Chili. Years — hell, decades — later, I experienced the “real deal” at a Skyline Chili franchise outside of Cincinnati on a trip to find the Ohio Heartland. I’ve got to check out this Cook’s Country version.

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I downloaded the recipe and made it the next day for dinner. Of course CC had to put their “best way” spin on it, but it’s pretty good. It has the distinctive sweet-sour taste and the five ways and the ground beef. I polished off my dish and was pleased and satisfied, but sorry CC, I like the Sally version better. Continue reading →

02.27.08
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PLANKED

Planked Seafood

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I’ve fried, broiled, and grilled,
I’ve poached, baked, and braised,
But I’ve never planked.
Sounds kinda risqué,
like something that might be
mentioned in a folk song.*

I heard the term “planked” about a year ago. Maybe on Food TV, or the Saturday Morning PBS cooking shows. Planked Salmon. Put your Salmon fillet on a cedar plank and put the plank on a gas grill. Cover and cook.

Not long after that I got a gas grill, not for that reason.

Cedar planks appeared on or near the fish counter at Whole Food. They seemed to be about 15 inches long, half that wide and maybe 3/4-inch thick, topped by full color glossy paper with a picture of a gorgeous salmon fillet, promising cooking instructions on the back; all shrink wrapped in plastic. Hmmmm, planking is going mainstream. I was curious, but not compelled to buy a plank.

This led to two recent events in rapid succession:
1. Alton Brown cooked trout on a plank on his Good Eats show. “We haven’t had trout in ages,” Carol said. My fishmonger at the Farmers Market almost always has whole boned trout, so I got a pair and poached them. Continue reading →

02.25.08
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Winter Market

This Week at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market

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My vegetable selections for February 23 included Swiss chard, big ol’ artichokes, little bitty cauliflower, wild arugula, baby carrots, radishes, and two kinds of dry farmed potatoes.

The chard accompanied Shrimp Scampi over noodles. (recipes below)

The artichokes were steamed, halved, de-choked and dressed with vinaigrette while warm.

Potatoes were grilled along with Trout onna Plank (story to come).

Cauliflower, carrots, and radishes were served on the side as crudités enhancing Spaghetti with Crab sauce. We snacked on the rest.

Arugula made a nice salad as well as a bed for Artic Chard.

That’s all well and good, but I yearn for asparagus, green beans and English peas. They’re in the Supermarket now — from Mexico — but we can wait. They’ll be in the Farmers Market in the next few weeks. Oh boy. Continue reading →