Category Archives: recipes etc

handy cross reference catagories

03.24.06
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Cookie Monster

Cookie MonsterSAN ANDREAS COOKIES

I’m not a baker, but I have baked.

My mother baked a lot. I probably participated in baking at home, but my first memorable baking experience was with a lemon meringue pie. The occasion was a dinner, prepared with Wally (Carol’s roommate’s boyfriend at the time) in Carol and Sue’s apartment kitchen as a preface to my asking Carol to please marry me. I think I asked her before in Doug’s beat up ’53 Chevy, parked in front of my fraternity house (in the front seat!). But this occasion was with ring. The pie, crust made from scratch, was a success, as was the proposal.
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03.21.06
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Charcuterie, a review

CharcuterieCharcuterie
The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing
by Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn
Illustrated. 320 pages. Norton $35

I would not have bought this book; now I have to buy this book.

In February, son Eric emailed a request for Charcuterie, in case I had a review copy and didn’t want to keep it. When I think charcuterie, I think sausages. Living in an apartment in the city, I’m lacking the space for sausage equipment and, okay, the desire to use up my pork scraps for sausages (like I have scraps, I buy my meat trimmed). Eric, on the other hand, buys a half-hog each year, loves to make sausages and is a staunch advocate of Fergus Henderson’s book, The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating. He needs Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing.
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03.17.06
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Halibut with Warm Cabbage Slaw

HalibutI had a recipe already picked out when I bought the Halibut at the Farmers Market on Saturday, but then when I went back and re-read it, Halibut with a Vegetable Nage, it sounded a lot like the New England Boiled Dinner I did last week. A nage is a broth, generally vegetable, which is made by cooking vegetables and herbs in water. Then you strain and discard the vegetables and use the nage to poach additional vegetables. A purist would poach the vegetables and the Halibut in the nage, but in that recipe the halibut is marinated and then grilled and served with the vegetables au jus.

Meanwhile, I made my “lunch soup” with Savoy cabbage. As is often the case, I had half a head of cabbage left over. Maybe I can do my Halibut with braised cabbage.
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03.13.06
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Slice 'n' Dice

Slice ‘n’ Dice Dinner—The perfect eats-for-one caper.

snow_on_SAAB.JPGIt was nearly seven o’clock and I was watching the tail end of the news when Carol called to report that there was a hailstorm going on at San Francisco State and she’s not driving home until it’s over. A hailstorm! In San Francisco! With thunder and lightning! Oh, and she had dinner at her meeting.
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03.10.06
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Cincinnati Chili

Sally Redmond’s Cincinnati Chili
Cincinnati_Chili.JPG
Sally lived across the street from us in Newton, and though she isn’t from Cincinnati, her husband Jeff is. In any case, they would have a Kentucky Derby Party every spring, with Mint Juleps, their own Tote Board, and this chili, served in small bowls. It was generally accompanied by creamy Cole slaw, since this chili has some spice.

The party would start well before the five o’clock Derby, so we could get our bets down and our tote board correct, and last into the night. Money changed hands. As the evening became night, dancing ensued in the living room. I often wound up dancing with Sally to tunes from Jackson Browne’s Late for the Sky LP.
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03.07.06
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New England Boiled Dinner

NE_boiled_dinner_.JPG

Ah yes, the celebration of winter vegetables combined with the early spring treat of Corned Beef, traditionally at its peak of popularity around St. Patrick’s Day.

The Academy Awards are close enough to March 17, so that corned beef is readily available. We like to have folks over for the Oscars in order to share catty remarks and ooohhh and aaahhh, make fun of folks and generally enjoy one another’s company. This year there will be four of us. I’m making a New England Boiled Dinner and planning for leftovers for Corned Beef Hash.
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03.02.06
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Tuesday Toss

Food_Book.JPGMenu: Sausages, Tossed Potatoes, Baby Leek Salad

I have a blank booklet I call the Food Book. In it I write down the stuff I bring home from the Saturday Farmers Market, so I can see what we have that’s fresh. We have two vegetable crispers in our undersized refrigerator (renter’s remorse), but they are themselves undersized, and even so, stuff can get lost in there.

I don’t need the Food Book to know that I bought some fine young leeks at the Mariquita Farm stand. They were my buy of the day, something new in season that makes me want to create something. Today is the day. What to do? I took a look at French Women Don’t Get Fat, a wonderful book by Mareille Guiliano. She’s a big fan of leeks, but she didn’t have a recipe to tickle my fancy. On to the ol’ standby, Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Vegetables. There’s a nice Baby Leek Salad there, I’ll go with that.
Food Book
But that’s not dinner!
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01.16.06
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Soup With Cabbage

Chou

Just after Christmas 2005 I began reading one of my Christmas presents, The Perfectionist; Life and Death in Haute Cuisine by Rudolph Chelminski. It’s the story of Bernard Loiseau, a three-star French chef of a legendary restaurant called “La Côte d’Or” in Burgundy who killed himself when his restaurant was threatened with the loss of a star. But Chelminski was still “setting the stage” early in the book, describing Loiseau’s family and father, when I read this passage:

“…soupe au chou: cabbage quarters simply boiled in water with potatoes, carrots, and onions and a large slab of smoked lard (a cut similar to unsliced bacon), chockablock with rich, cholesterol-laden fat. Cut thick slices of sourdough peasant bread to serve with it (not forgetting to first whip the knife back and forth over the loaf in a quick sign of the cross) and you have a dish that is the closest thing to the magic potion of Asterix and Obelix. Soupe au chou is a true French icon, a peasant curative and forifiant that can go head to head with the world’s champion of Jewish penicillins.”

It was cold and gray and snowy most of the week before the New Year, I had all the ingredients on hand (in fact had GROWN all the veg ingredients myself, and had KILLED and salted the meat myself) and could think of no better time to find out if Chelminski was right about this Gallic version of chicken soup. I’m also very partial to cabbage and all of it’s brothers and sisters in the Brassica oleracea clan, and we have an abundance of red cabbage in our root cellar from our 2005 garden. The idea that this is a “French icon” that I’d never heard of or tasted was also very appealing.
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12.21.05
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BBQ Hot Dog Dish

Barbecue Dog

From the Mother Hale, served regularly on Harrison St., best with squishy buns to soak it all up.

1 onion, chopped
2 T. butter
2 T. vinegar
2 T. brown sugar
1/2 t. mustard
1/2 cup water
1 cup catsup
1/2 cup chopped celery

Mix all together and pour over one pound of hot dogs in a shallow dish.

Bake at 350 °F for 30 minutes.

Man, is this tangy and finger lickin’ good. Put the hot dog in a bun and ladle over the sauce to make the bun good and mushy. Eat with a knife and fork.