Category Archives: San Francisco

Material developed in San Francisco

08.14.07
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Hominy Posole Pozole Dried Corn

I don’t like Mexican food. There’s melted cheese all over everything. Burritos are so big, it takes me three days to eat, and besides, they’re not very good. Tacos break and stuff spills down the front of my shirt. I just avoided Mexican food. Yuk.

Then I bought Rick Bayless‘ book, Mexico: One Plate at a Time. I made a few dishes and they were good, but complicated, and often using ingredients that are hard to find.

Then Andy Griffin of Mariquita Farm wrote about cooking and eating with his Mexican farmhands, and his wife, Julia Wiley published simple recipes in their newsletter. Those were good and simple.

Then I discovered Rancho Gordo, a seller of dried beans at the Farmers Market. I love beans. Their website has many recipes, some of which are Mexican, or at least Southwestern. Those that I’ve made I really liked.

So I modified my dislike. I don’t like American Chain Restaurant Mexican food.

So what about those titular words? Hominy Posole Pozole Dried Corn

I was confronted with these words on the Rancho Gordo website and became confused.

I know from hominy. I ate canned hominy as a kid. I liked it fine; white, solid puffs that were kind of rubbery and chewy and had a mild corn taste. I think my mother used it as a side dish, like canned corn or peas. It’s not something you love or hate and you rarely see it on a restaurant menu. When I moved out and married, hominy dropped out of my life, but not entirely. We’ve had a can of hominy in the pantry for a few years. I never felt inclined to open it.

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Rancho Gordo, my go-to place for dried beans, had this intriguing package labeled CORN HOMINY POSOLE, White CORN. The kernels are white and flat and look like what my Grandpa called Field Corn. He grew Field Corn to feed the hogs, hard and flat and yellow, the kernels were relatively large, not for human consumption. For us, he grew Sweet Corn. But I digress. Continue reading →

08.09.07
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Grilling Again

Meat ‘n’ Potatoes
Yellow Bean Salad

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Back when the kids were growing up, we grilled all the time. Sometimes in winter, I would brush the snow off the grill to light a fire and grill dinner on the back porch. Then I built a cover for the porch — big enough to protect the grill, and me, but open enough to allow the smoke to dissipate quickly.
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The grill of choice was the Weber Kettle Grill, sturdy and tough, it would go through hot Boston area summers and frigid winters and last for years. And we used it relentlessly, beyond dogs, ‘burgers and flank steaks (an inexpensive cut at the time) to lobster, whole fish and even a suckling pig.

Soon enough, gas grills were invented, but they were big and clunky and ugly, and worst of all, not pure. Anyone who would use a gas grill was surely a wuss. Continue reading →

08.06.07
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Stretch

Frankfurter, Beans and Tomatoes

Even I don’t cook fresh and from scratch all the time, especially for lunch. The other day I got to lunch late from the “office” and I was hungry. There were no appealing leftovers and no emergency cans of soup, gosh; I haven’t bought a can of soup in a long time.

So, I hit the can cupboard and found a can of black beans and a can of stewed tomatoes. That’ll be good with one of my newly discovered frankfurters from Marin Sun Farms. Those are good, rich, beefy flavor and natural casings that snap when you bite into them.

I browned the frank in a skillet, put it on a plate and stuck it in the toaster-oven to keep warm while warming the plate.

The beans went in the same skillet, along with drained and chopped tomatoes. I mixed that up and let it bubble gently for a few minutes to thicken.

Once plated, I sprinkled the mess with raw, chopped sweet spring onion for a nice crunch and sparkling flavor addition.

That made a yummy lunch, and there were about two cups (one POM jar) of bean tomato mixture left over.

Stretch,
The next day I got out:

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Continue reading →

08.02.07
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Flank Steak = Six Meals

Grits and Flank Steak

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The remains of a grilled flank steak chill out in the meat drawer of the fridge. A flank steak runs a little under two pounds — way too much for a meal for two. It was a dear purchase from Marin Sun Farms, but it has already provided four meals.

My leftover flank steak generally goes into a steak salad, but I wanted something different for this last remaining hunk of steak.

Carol mentioned that at her conference at Westerbeke Ranch, they were served creamed chipped beef on toast, a humble dish in such a resort setting. But she said it was very special, more like toast points with a creamy, beefy dipping sauce. That’s one idea, but maybe I could come up with something other than toast as a partner for the beef. Continue reading →

07.31.07
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A Chicken's Liver

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a one-liver pate;

When you poach a chicken, there are these giblets in the cavity of the beast. What does one do with those? And why am I ”Eats – for – One – guy” poaching a whole chicken?

Second question first:
In this case, I’m using the chicken meat and the broth that the poaching creates in Brunswick Stew. If I weren’t doing that, poached chicken meat can be used in chicken noodle soup, for chicken salad, for chicken hash, for chicken sandwiches, to fill tacos or quesadillas, to throw into canned soups or to add to leftover, already-made soups to make them more interesting and hearty. And you’ve got the chicken broth, for free, as a bonus. I freeze mine in stackable quart containers. Continue reading →

07.27.07
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Earth’s Ten Commandments

My Engagement Calendar

Just before the New Year, I went shopping for a new engagement calendar. This was never a problem when I had the bookstore, because I could just pick one out from those I ordered for sale. I use my engagement calendar primarily to record what I’m doing day-to-day. This is good for my journal writing and also handy at tax time.

I went to three or four bookstores before I found the perfect engagement calendar, cloth bound no less!

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Chez Panisse
35th Anniversary
2007 Engagement Calendar
Poster art by David Lance Goines
Introduction by Alice Waters
Ten Speed Press

It is a treasure. I’ve used weekly engagement calendars for years, always insisting on an engagement calendar with an illustration for each week. It all started back when my former sister-in-law used to work at a Williams Sonoma store in Orange County. Every year she would send me a Frank Lloyd Wright engagement calendar for Christmas. For a couple years I loved it, before getting really tired of Frank Lloyd Wright. She switched to M. C. Escher, one can tire easily of M. C. Escher. I was spared years of Escher’s when my brother remarried. That was in 1992, the year we moved to San Francisco, and I had to start buying my own engagement calendars. I’ve had everything from the SI Swimsuit engagement calendars to Mapplethorpe to the Taschen series, All American Ads of the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s. My favorite for the last five years or so has been the Redstone Diary, published by Chronicle Books. They have a theme every year, so one doesn’t get tired of it, and rather bizarre drawings and photographs. A Redstone Diary was not to be found in this year’s quest. Continue reading →

07.13.07
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Mariquita Box

My Ladybug Letter arrived July 3, including this announcement:
Thursday Padron and Pesto Night at Zuppa July 5th

Hello: I’m going to be a Zuppa on Thursday, July 5th from 5:00pm to 7pm (at least). You can make orders by Tuesday afternoon and I’ll bring them on Thursday. Minimum order = $25. I did this once last month at Nopa and it was a success!

I’ll be ‘hanging out’ and dining at Zuppa and Joseph and Mary (the owners) will make sure I have a large table so anyone who wants to stay and have some food and or a drink of any persuasion is welcome.

Zuppa is at 564 Fourth Street (between Brannan & Bryant)

When you make your order I’ll confirm it by email, (you can make your order by phone or email), and I’ll give you my cell phone number in case you don’t want to hassle with parking and looking for me in the restaurant. You can call me and I’ll meet you outside and load your car for you!

The website is here. Some of the vegetables you can buy include: padron peppers, friarelli peppers, flats of strawberries (from High Ground, they’re really good!), BASIL for pesto of course, carrots, nepitella, Erbette Chard, beets three colors, onions, and more. See the website.

And another fun option: Let Andy pack a mystery box for you! for $25 you’re guaranteed to get even more value, and a mix of the above items, depending on what Andy feels like harvesting and putting in the box. This was popular when I did Thursday Basil Night (should I call it Thursday Padron Night??)
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How could I resist? I have missed the Mariquita stand — not to mention Andy and Julia — at the Farmers Market on Saturdays. They have stuff others don’t have. So I quick sent off an order by email: Continue reading →

07.06.07
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Sunday Supper

Peel ‘n’ Eat Shrimp
Leftover Potato Salad

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While waiting for dinner at Brophy Bros Fish Restaurant in Santa Barbara on Thursday, we had a mess of Peel ‘n’ Eat Shrimp. Yum. Carol said, “We should have Peel ‘n’ Eat shrimp for dinner every Sunday night.”

Our Sunday night dinners are usually planned, and then when the time rolls around to cook, one of us says, “who’s cooking?” and the other says “How about (Chinese) (Pizza) (Leftovers).” Our Sundays are rarely structured; we’ve been out or whatever, and we neither are inclined to get it up for a nice meal.

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On this particular Sunday, we were just back from a trip to Santa Barbara to attend the beach wedding of Amber — one of Carol’s head teachers — and Will, a fine young Italian. We wrapped extra days around the Friday afternoon wedding to create a nice “foodie getaway.” Continue reading →

06.18.07
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Big Pasta

Emeril cooks with Lidia Bastianich

Carol was channel flipping as I walked through the room. “There’s Lidia,” she exclaimed. Lidia is Lidia Bastianich, an Italian cook of a certain age, who has a show on PBS. Here she was cooking with Emeril on the Food Channel. Her mantra is “keep it simple,” and indeed, the dishes she presented were simple but enticing. We learned that she had recently opened Lidia’s Pittsburgh, and we would be going there soon.

I sprung into action. First, to download the recipes from this show, and second, to make reservations at Lidia’s for the time when we’re in Pittsburgh. That’s another story, to appear in this space after our trip.

The cooking was to follow.

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mise en place: bucatini, oil packed tuna, calamata olives, tomato paste and red pepper flakes, onions and garlic, parsley. Continue reading →

06.18.07
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A Little Dab'll Do Ya

Sand Dabs, carrots, turnips and turnip greens

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I’ve been diligently cooking from recipes, albeit with adaptations and fitting to suit, for years. Well over a year’s worth are recorded on this site. On this occasion, I cooked with what came out of the refrigerator, and from suggestions.

This week, the Shogun stall at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market had Sand Dabs. I love Sand Dabs, little bitty things, two to three for a serving. But these were big fellas, seven or eight inches long. Wonderful. Continue reading →