by Eric

Eats goes to Boston

…on the way to Thanksgiving in Maine

Since son Brian moved to Southern France six years ago, we’ve met in Europe for our family get-togethers – except for son Eric’s 40th birthday in 2004, celebrated in New Hampshire and Maine. This year, it was great to get reacquainted with Boston friends and spend Thanksgiving with friends and family in Maine.

Millennium Bostonian Hotel

We touched down in Boston about six o’clock Friday and checked into the Millennium Bostonian Hotel, tired and hungry. If you’ve lived in Boston, you don’t return to Boston without dinner at Legal Seafood. We didn’t even take the time to unpack before walking through Faneuil Hall Marketplace to State Street and across the “Big Dig” park. It was plenty cold for us Californians – about 25 degrees – but we were comfortable in our saved Boston overcoats… until we turned the corner onto State Street and the wicked wind cut through our woolens like a serving spoon through soufflé. The lights of Legal warmed our soul and a few steps later; the blast of warmth from the vestibule took care of our bodies – quickly followed by a Macallan and Manhattan, which provide their own kind of heat.

Legal Seafood

some fine steamed clams

Sooner than expected, we were escorted from the bar, through the busy and cheerful dining room to our table. We ordered the quintessential Legal Seafood antipasto: cup o’ chowdahbucket o’ steamers and , to be dipped in broth and/or melted butter before dropping the morsel in to one’s mouth, open like a baby bird’s, to receive it. Yum. That’s livin’.

Crab Cake for Carol

As entrees I had the Scrod and Carol a big ol’ Crab Cake. What a lovely welcome to New England.
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11.12.08

by Eric

Roasting Peppers

“3 red, or colored peppers, roasted, seeded and peeled”

That’s often all the recipe says about the peppers. Everyone has their own roasting method and I’ve tried them all. Recently, the Mariquita Mystery Box was chock full of colored peppers, and not only that, Carol wanted an extra bag of Red Piquillo Roasting Peppers to make her famous pimento cheese spread.

a mother lode of peppers

Roasting peppers takes time. My go-to method is to hold a pepper over a gas flame until blackened, put it in a paper bag to ‘steam’ and then scrape off the skin with the back of a knife. Easy, effective, messy, takes time. Since I had 15 assorted peppers (Hungarian Spicy Peppers and other red and yellow) plus an equal number of the Piquillo to deal with, I thought I’d check out another method, so I went on line to Cook’s Illustrated and searched for roasted peppers. Here’s what CI had to say:

‘After flaming, broiling, and baking dozens of bell peppers of every color, both whole and sliced, we find that slicing and oven-broiling the peppers yields superior results.’

STEP BY STEP: Steps to Perfect Roasted Peppers
Pre-heat the broiler for at least 5 minutes.
1. Slice 1/4 inch from the top and bottom of the pepper.
2. Gently remove the stem from the top lobe.
3. Pull core out of the pepper.
4. Slit down one side of the pepper, then lay it flat, skin side down, in one long strip. Use a sharp knife to slide along the inside of the pepper removing all ribs and seeds.

5. Arrange the strips of peppers on a baking sheet, skin-side up. Flatten the strips with the palm of your hand.
6. Adjust oven rack to its top position. If the rack is more than 3 1/2 inches from the heating element, set a jelly-roll pan, bottom up, on the rack under the baking sheet.

7. Roast until the skin of the peppers is charred and puffed up like a balloon but the flesh is still firm. You may steam the peppers at this point or not, as you wish. Start peeling where the skin has charred and bubbled the most. The skin will come off in large strips.

Sorry CI, that’s just WRONG.

The peppers turned out leathery and really really hard to peel, and why not, cut open, spending time in the broiler dries them out. I don’t know what equipment CI used, but I used a countertop convection oven, which is relatively new, reliable and holds its temperature very well.

C’mon CI: You’re usually reliable, but sometimes you over analyze. Continue reading →

10.31.08

by Eric

Lard

A few weeks ago, the Chronicle Food Section ran a story by James Temple called Loving Lard. While noting the bad rep of lard, it focused on top restaurants that are using lard for its nutrition and flavor. It included a detailed history of cooking fat, as well, from lard to Crisco, to “the other white meat” and back to the present yearning for flavor, moist, flavorful pork and yes, lard.This came at an appropriate time, as there have been enough murmurings in the foodie community to raise my curiosity and desire to cook with lard myself; but I didn’t know where to start. Viola! The article, as well as educating me, told me where to go.At the Golden Gate Meat counter at the Ferry Building on Saturday morning, I asked a butcher if they had lard. “Do you want the leaf lard?” he asked. Remembering something about leaf lard being the best, I said yes, and he handed me a shrink-wrapped packet of white matter, about two pounds.When I got home, I whacked off a bit and melted it to fry some potatoes for breakfast. Yum.I re-read the article and learned that my leaf lard needed to be rendered, a simple, but two-day process. This is what it looks like.

leaf lard comes from the area around the abdomen and kidneys

my meat grinder handed down from my mother… or perhaps her mother

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09.16.08

by Eric

KETCHUP

Why on earth would a person want to make his own ketchup?My wife saw Jamie Oliver make ketchup on his TV show and told me about it. I had no intention of actually making ketchup, but I downloaded the recipe from the Food Network website, just in case.

[Yes, I know, I’ve just done two other posts involving Jamie Oliver. It’s just that he’s doing tomatoes right now and they’re in high season. Besides, his cooking is simple and good.]

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09.10.08

by Eric

Meat the Manchurian Mothership

Grilled Porterhouse Steak sliced over Mashed Manchurian Shell Beans with Jamie’s Mothership Tomato Sauce.Sounds like something that might be on a “menu changes daily” restaurant menu. Actually, it’s what I made for dinner Friday night.It all started at the Marin Sun Farms stand at the Farmers Market. I was in the mood for steak and looking for a New York strip steak when I came across this big gorgeous Porterhouse. It cost $24, but was easily big enough for two meals. Oh boy.photo: Cooks ThesaurusSlow Food Nation was over and the week was warm and lovely in San Francisco. I was in a grilling frenzy — grilled chicken thighs over summer vegetables and grilled brats with cabbage in a sweet sour sauce led off the week. I got the Porterhouse out of the meat drawer and showered it with salt and pepper. Now what?Manchurian shell beans are similar to Cranberry beans. I had some in the fridge that were crying to be used. In the same vegetable drawer was a head of broccoli. Leftover tomato salad could be used to complete the meal; all I needed was a method.
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09.05.08

by Eric

SLOW FOOD NATION

“Slow Food Nation will bring together thousands of people: most will eat, drink and talk, a few will sing and dance, some will argue, and many will reflect, laugh out loud and learn. The legacy of these few days in San Francisco is that the conversations begun here will bloom into projects, changes, new passions and careers. Let’s work together to expand this moment of celebration, to build on the foundation of the broader food movement, and to create a food system for all Americans that is healthy, socially just, affordable and delicious.” From the Welcome, Slow Food Nation Program

FLASHBACK

In the summer of 2001, not yet aware of Slow Food, my wife and I made a road trip from son Brian’s house in Tifton, Georgia, just north of the Florida border, to son Eric’s house in Monroe, on the mid-coast of Maine. Our goal was to avoid interstates and to avoid fast food. We failed. Here’s what I said in my journal:

“When you get to the outskirts of Greenville, SC however, it’s Strip City; six lanes of it out US29 stretching for miles toward Spartanburg. We passed legions of McDonalds/Burger King/IHOP/Waffle House looking for a diner or some such place with real food, but finally relented and had “breakfast” at Burger King… sausage biscuits, hash nuggets (whatever they’re called) & coffee. The strip narrowed to four lanes and became almost unstriplike, but then, over the next hill, it got strippy again, getting ready for Spartanburg.”

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08.28.08

by Eric

Spicy Beef

divide and dish

Jack Sprat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean
And so betwixt the two of them
They licked the platter clean

Cooking for two can present problems at times.I love beans. My wife tolerates beans. I can get away with a bean dinner about once a fortnight, so I satisfy my beans Jones at lunch with the leftovers when she’s away.I love spicy food. My wife is averse to spicy foods to the point where she says it’s painful. How can something so good for one, affect another in such a completely diverse way?Our experiences of the past two days illustrate a story of steak and chiles and leftover steak and other chiles; a wholly unsatisfactory dinner (for one), a delight (for the other), and ultimate harmony.It all starts with a flank steak. We both love flank steak. A flank steak is about 1 1/2 pounds — way too much for dinner for two — so leftovers make a second meal (or more).I do most of the menu planning and cooking — Carol has a real job — and I like to try new stuff. I saw a recipe in the Chronicle by Joyce Goldstein for Grilled Skirt Steak on a Bed of Grilled Poblanos & Onions. It looked really good to me, flank steak can stand in for the skirt steak, and I trust Joyce Goldstein’s recipes.
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08.19.08

by Eric

Cooking from the TV

Tomato and Sausage Bake

Tomato and Sausage Bake Adapted from Sweet Cherry Tomato and Sausage Bake, from the Food Network show JAMIE AT HOME by Jamie Oliver. The show is based on the book of the same name.When I got home from the Farmers Market on Saturday, Carol had Jamie Oliver’s show, Jamie at Home, on the kitchen TV. He was doing a show on tomatoes. What luck, I had tomatoes in my bag. Jamie’s recipes are always easy and usually good, especially the ones from this show.I stopped and took notes, even as C was saying, “You can get the recipe on the internet.” When the show was over, I went to the Food Network website, found the “Tomatoes” show and copied the recipes to a Word document. Then I checked my notes against the recipes. As usual, there were differences.Warning: When you see something interesting on a food TV show — take notes. You can always look up the recipe on the internet, but sometimes it’s a similar recipe, not what you saw. Also, on TV you can see techniques that aren’t noted in the recipe.In this case, for example:

Recipe — cherry tomatoes, TV — he did it with whole tomatoes of varying sizes and colors. Recipe — 375 ° oven, TV — he cooked in an outdoor, wood fired brick oven. Now he wouldn’t write a recipe for an outdoor, wood fired brick oven, but the temperature in that oven is way higher than 375. Recipe — No bacon or salt pork. TV — he started with bacon or salt pork in the pan and rendered the fat, then took out the bacon and flavored the fat with herbs. Recipe — Chopped garlic. TV — Unpeeled garlic cloves. Recipe — He put everything in the pan at once and popped it in the oven. TV — He put the tomatoes in first to blister the skin, took the pan out and pulled the skins off. Then added the sausages and back in the oven.On TV, he did some “extra dishes” with the leftover sauce. The recipe on the internet said, “Our agreement with the producers of “Jamie at Home” only permit us to make 2 recipes per episode available online. Food Network regrets the inconvenience to our viewers and foodnetwork.com users”

Anyway, you get the drift. Take notes.

Continue reading →

08.11.08

by Eric

Eats on the Cheese Road

Québec, Ontario, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois on the way to the grand Festival of Cheese in Chicago. Much of the trip was in quest of eating miles and the food was what was there when the driving stopped, although we hoped for the best. The best (aside from the festival itself); we were able to choose — St. Elmo’s in Indianapolis, Aja Steak House in Chicago, and my sister’s home cookin’. The worst; we just had to eat something: Wendy’s in Logan, Ohio. We just stumbled onto the Palace Grill in Chicago’s North Loop — by far the best value. The yawning middle of quality included novel destinations — Hooters, Harry Caray’s — and restaurants on an agenda in Lancaster (see also Ohio Eats).

In mid-June, Eric, cheesemaker at Monroe Cheese Studio, and number one son, emailed to say he was driving the Maine Cheese Guild‘s entries to the American Cheese Festival in Chicago at the end of July. He wondered if I wanted to come and help drive. I’m a sucker for a road trip and had nothing pressing on my plate, so I said, “Why not?” The fact that my wife Carol hates road trips and I hadn’t been on one since ought-four made the decision easy.

It turned out that the best way to make a connection was for me to fly from San Francisco to Montreal where Eric would pick me up and we’d be off across southern Canada to points west. Come with me for a plethora of food experiences, warts and all.
Wednesday Breakfast
Air Canada Flyover, USA
Air Canada is nice. I was able to pre-purchase my meal with my ticket. Of three choices offered, I chose an ‘Egg macmuffin’ sort of thing that came with a generous bag — not packet — of cashews. Am I giving ratings in this treatise? I think not.

Wednesday Dinner
Bud’s Place Brockville, Ontario
We checked into a Day’s Inn (free wi-fi was the clincher) and went to dinner down the road toward the St. Lawrence River at Bud’s Place. We walked into a big, dark barn of a place with a big center bar, occupied by only a few people. It did not look promising, but the bartender suggested the roof terrace where we enjoyed the service of Katy, our smiling, enthusiastic waitress, and a decent view of rooftops falling away toward the river. The menu was straight from Fred’s Frozen Foods (I know, my brother used to work for Fred’s), but nicely prepared and cheerfully served by the wonderful Katy. I had the Cajun Catfish and Eric, the Steak Sandwich.
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08.11.08

by Eric

Eats on the Cheese Road (continued)

Québec, Ontario, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois on the way to the grand Festival of Cheese in Chicago. Much of the trip was in quest of eating miles and the food was what was there when the driving stopped, although we hoped for the best. The best (aside from the festival itself); we were able to choose — St. Elmo’s in Indianapolis, Aja Steak House in Chicago, and my sister’s home cookin’. The worst — when we just had to eat something: Wendy’s in Logan, Ohio. We just stumbled onto the Palace Grill in Chicago’s North Loop — by far the best value. The yawning middle of quality included novel destinations — Hooters, Harry Caray’s — and restaurants on an agenda in Lancaster (see also Ohio Eats).

Here we continue the trip as we cross the Ohio River bound for Lancaster.

Monday Lunch
Wendy’s
Logan, Ohio
Bob Evans
Lancaster, Ohio

The plan was to drive for a while and then stop for some sort of breakfast. We got through Fairmont and then got on Route 50 bound for Clarksburg and Parkersburg. The road was big and empty and beautiful as it rolled through the short and tall hills of West Virginia. I had always felt West Virginia more rugged than beautiful, but I hadn’t been on this road. What we saw of Clarksburg had no attractive food options, nor did Parkersburg.

Once we crossed into Ohio, more of nothing continued. We drove straight through to Wendy’s in Logan for a pre-lunch; Junior Bacon Cheese Burger, “made fresh for you.” NO, it was not, cold in the middle.

With no other attractive options, we settled for the familiar, Bob Evans in Lancaster for lunch. We were served by the cute and perky Michaela, and learned that she had just turned 18. “I’m an adult now,” she said. “Is she coming on to me?” I dreamed. I had my usual Fried Mush and Sausage Gravy. Eric ordered the Big Breakfast of eggs, home fries, and sausage with an order of Biscuits with Sausage Gravy on the side. Big food. Continue reading →

eats for one

Eats For One…or More

Category Archives: recipes etc

Eats goes to Boston

Roasting Peppers

Lard

KETCHUP

Meat the Manchurian Mothership

SLOW FOOD NATION

Spicy Beef

Cooking from the TV

Eats on the Cheese Road

Eats on the Cheese Road (continued)