A Blithe PALATE

Lemon Thyme Spoonbread

I haven't been stretching myself too much culinary-wise recently.  Cooking, which used to be a happy, lazy indulgence, has become rote.  I  found myself thinking not too long ago that there are a finite number of dishes which could be made.  Almost immediately I realized how idiotic that sentiment is: it's like saying there are only seven notes so there's a finite number of compositions possible. My sentiment was driven more by the fact that I'd been making the same dishes week in and week out than any real truth.  And one truth is:  I've gotten lazy.

Time hasn't been in abundance of late and I wonder if my laziness to try something new, or my reluctance to really put my heart and soul into cooking anymore, is because I'm bored?  Because it's easier to make the same dishes, the ones I know by heart, than to stretch myself with something else?

Oddly enough, where I have derived food joy is in reading cookbooks.  And I'm always itching to try some of the fantastic recipes -- yet I don't.  So this past weekend, I decided to reinvigorate myself and get back into the rhythm of my kitchen.  I inventoried the fridge, the freezer(s) and the pantry, then went and consulted several of m cookbooks. 

Martha Stewart has a new cookbook out. Martha Stewart's Dinner at Home is a collection of 52 complete menus -- appetizer, salad, entree and dessert, and divided by the seasons.  I may have mixed feelings about her, but she has an extraordinary staff -- these are easy and outright tasty recipes. 

Earlier this week we made the Chicken Marsala with Sage Polenta; a winning dish, very flavorful and very easy.  Dinner tonight was Panfried Chicken and Lemon-Thyme Spoonbread (I elected to skip the wilted salad and raspberry dessert that accompanied the menu).  I'm particularly appreciative of the fact that the recipes call for dark meat -- not just cheaper cuts but so much more flavorful!

Pug and Hoss both loved the panfried chicken although Hoss was much keener on the spoonbread than was Pug.  I'm not quite sure how to feel about spoonbread, which is essentially a baked cornbread; it was moist, rich, and as the name suggests, spooned onto our plates.  I loved the flavors but in some ways, the lemon-thyme notes lent more to dessert than to a savory side dish.  I'd be curious to see how the spoonbread works as a dessert. The whole time I was eating, I kept thinking how lovely it'd go with vanilla ice cream.

I think maybe it's time to stop playing the same tune over and over just because I know it; and given the tomes lining the cookbook shelves, maybe it's time to learn an entire new repertoire; and somewhere in there, hopefully get my cooking (and blogging) groove back.

Popovers

Popovers remind me of my cousin Wendy, and of one of the sweetest periods in my life, when I was living and working in San Francisco.

It was a strange time:  at once unsettled and upended, yet bearing inexorably towards a very pragmatic end.  I was commuting between San Francisco and New York with stopovers in the south to see Hubby, who at the time was The Fiancé.  As we were to be married in Napa, being in San Francisco made it easier to make runs into wine country to plan and tweak the wedding. 

I have very fond, very happy memories of being in San Francisco and not a day goes by that I do not miss being there.  The city offered so much and strikes a chord in me that no other city before or since has been able replicate.  If Paris is feckless and spirited and London my soul's home and haven, then San Francisco is indelibly magical, misty and foggy, all romance and sensory overload in one sophisticated package.  I have so many beautiful wonderful memories associated with this city; of exploring it with Hubby; of eating in so many spectacular restaurants; of hanging out with beloved family; of traversing its streets with friends and engaging in earnest conversation.

Most of my time when I lived in the city was spent in Wendy's company.  I was staying at her home in Sunnyside which was high on a hill and had a great view.  One of my favorite escapades involved looking at the long, unmoving line of traffic on I-280 from her balcony and deciding not to go to work until later that afternoon.  We elected instead to settle in on the couch and watch The Haiku Tunnel.  Then too there was the night we went salsa dancing because I decided I wanted to learn how to dance and Thursday night was Salsa night at a local club.  I don't know why I torture myself (or others) with this continued desire to learn how to dance.  I lack timing and I have no rhythm to speak of; a dance instructor was once rendered speechless by my inability to wiggle my hips ("But you're a woman!  It should be natural for your hips to sway!").  But it didn't stop me from having fun at my own expense.  Late night forays out having drinks and talking about everything under the sun.  Exploring the city from top to bottom.  And food.  Oy, if there was a food run to be made, there we were.  Crepes, lengua tacos, chocolates, sushi, In'N'Out burgers;  cooking in San Francisco was like a slice of heaven:  farmer's markets, high end grocery stores stacked with every conceivable odd item -- whatever you wanted, there you could find it.  Whatever there was to be consumed, there was my cousinly cohort accompanying me or cooking with me.

One particular excursion found us in Union Square searching for wedding dresses.  After a morning of trying on dresses and doing mental wedding gymnastics, we considered where to eat; and Wendy said decisively, "Neiman Marcus.  We need to go have their popovers."  And indeed we did:  with strawberry butter, the ginormous popovers were airy and delicate.  It was the first time I'd ever had popovers; and until this past Saturday, the last time. That was five years ago.

Another cousin has been posting pictures of her baking mania to her facebook page recently and one photo reminded me of popovers; and suddenly I was consumed with the memory of how those Neiman Marcus popovers tasted and how nice it would be to have a Saturday brunch with popovers and strawberry butter.  I hunted down the Neiman Marcus recipe, which is terribly fussy:  everything needs to be at room temperature before mixing and even then the batter needs to rest for an hour.  It can't be made the night before so requires a just-in-time approach, which doesn't make it convenient.  But oh, when those popovers came out of the oven, spilling out in soufflé-ish domes, the smell brought me back to that day in the city with my cousin and it was worth the hassle.  And smeared with strawberry butter, I could almost pretend for one moment that I was back in San Francisco with Wendy -- and maybe I was.

Game Night

Hubby's threshold for Pictionary is exactly three rounds. Beyond that and his blood pressure shoots to 149/89. The first time we played, we were vacationing with his sister and her in-laws in North Carolina. He elected to draw on the first round and drew a big, blobby, misshappen oval with four circles underneath and a circle extending from the back. How was I supposed to derive that this was an animal?

But I did and I even managed to figure out it was a bear. Hubby nodded vigorously when I yelped, "Bear!" However, he kept stabbing at the picture with his pen, urging me on.

"Bear! I said bear! I said bear! It's a bear it's a bear it's a bear it's a bear, I said it's a bear it's a bear!"

Slowly, the sands in the hourglass trickled to an end.

Hubby turned to me and said calmly, "Grizzly bear." Then, inhaling deeply, "IF IT WASN'T A BEAR THE FIRST 23 TIMES YOU SAID IT, WHY DID YOU THINK IT WOULD BE A BEAR ON THE 24TH TIME?"

Now, if you watch "Family Guy," you will find an episode featuring Stewie and a Pictionary board horrifyingly and hilariously familiar. It's not the first time cartoon and Emil have emulated each other: there's also a scene out of "Screwed the Pooch" when Brian wails along with a baby in a restaurant that...well, never mind.

So, we lost that round. On the second round, I served as the artist. The word was "seaweed." I drew a sushi platter with chopsticks, intending to point out the nori. Okay, see what happens when you have a foodie try to draw? Emil's sister drew an eye and a weed. Needless to say, we lost.

Next round, Hubby drew. We lost, yet again.

"ANGRY!" he roared. "ANGRY!"

"Yes, I know you are!"

"THE ANSWER! THE ANSWER WAS ANGRY!"

"Well then you should have drawn an arrow and pointed it at yourself!"

So, we do not play Pictionary well as a team.

We hosted a group of friends for board games last Saturday and began the night with Pictionary. Of course, several of us spent fifteen minutes looking for the "grizzly bear" card to lay it on top as a gift for Hubby. He figured out he was being had. Hubby does not like Pictionary.

Now, sit him in front of a Monopoly board, and he's all smiles. That's because he's one of those Monopoly savants who knows statistics about which properties are the most profitable, and which squares people are more likely to land on. He's also sneaky: he'll offer people "sweetheart" deals which turn out to be useless. Once he's got the orange and red properties, he'll build hotels. It's usually over for most challengers in a few rounds. One secret to a successful marriage: don't own a Monopoly board.

The women went for several rounds of Cranium and far more laughter than was heard from the dining room, where the men had convened to build houses and hotels, and pass Go.

Game nights are casual so we made a platter of sandwiches: avocado slices paired with crisp bacon on grilled sourdough panini; chicken salad sandwiches with white truffle oil, pine nuts and golden raisins; and slices of seared flank steak with horseradish and gorgonzola crumbles in toasted baguettes. Desserts were cream puffs and chocolate dipped strawberries -- finger foods that are easy to pick up and eat in one bite, freeing participants to engage in the normal lunacy of acting out clues, drawing, answering trivial factoids and crushing would-be developers.

Pumpkin Butter and Honey Pecan Butter

It's been hectic; last week was a wash as far as attempting anything on the beloved range. Happily, we're closing in on holiday cooking which means fancy, once-a-year, ridiculously fattening dishes to prepare soon. And speaking of fattening...

When we were kids, we were left to our own devices one Saturday morning when Mom took off to make a grocery run. We weren't toddlers and so, reasonably able to take care of ourselves; not that much care needed to be taken when we were happily glued to the tube. At some point, one of my sisters went to make buttered toast with sugar sprinkled on top. Somehow, that led to the group of us (I don't remember how), cutting off chunks of butter and rolling them in sugar and eating Sugar Butter Balls. Can you think of anything more revolting? I mean, I can, but that's also because I'm routinely exposed to Things That Make You Wish Your Brain Were An Etch-A-Sketch So You Can Shake Your Head and Erase the Image. But I should also note that a rather tender age, we were already discovering the joys of a compound butter. That we did it accidentally because we were a bunch of little savages is beside the point.

A compound butter is very simply, a flavored butter. This is seriously easy to make -- simply, unsalted butter and the flavoring agents. You can make sweet, or savory butters, to accompany just about every dish. I'm much more partial to sweet butters, but there are few cooler things than producing a fennel butter or a cayenne butter for a meat dish. I'm disinclined towards herb butters because they require extra work and I'm lazy -- to prevent the herbs (using fresh is best) from going rancid in the butter, you have to steep them in boiling water first. Too much effort for what should essentially be creamed butter.

On a recent trip to Charleston, we ate at the Palmetto Café at Charleston Place (I have the world's most patient boss; he let me photograph the food before he ate anything) where we were served a parfait of three compound butters: herb, walnut and pumpkin. I was so entranced by the color of the pumpkin butter, I decided to make a few batches for holiday gifts. As always, it's not possible for me to make anything uncomplicated (or follow a recipe through to fruition because I think it's too blah and needs more flavoring so I add enough spices to choke a llama [where I got llama is beyond me]). I found a recipe for pumpkin butter, but on the first attempt, it was unbelievably boring to the taste buds, so I did a sweeter version with maple syrup (I swear to God I will get off this maple syrup kick soon), and brown sugar. The final result was a gingery pumpkin butter.

Making a pass through the spice rack to find other flavors, I came across an entire container full of lavender flowers. Lavender is so distinct, so unique a scent, always evoking the memory of being in Aix-Les-Bains with Tata Michelle some fifteen years ago (has time really gone by that fast?). Uncertain if lavender butter even made sense, I scoped the Internet and found mainly savory recipes that quite frankly were uninspiring. Deciding to make another sweet compound butter, I remembered a jar full of lavender sugar -- essentially, sugar that had been infused with the scent after I dumped a handful of lavender into the jar of sugar several months ago. However, I didn't want to use regular granulated sugar because I didn't want a grainy butter, so I used confectioner's sugar. I suppose I could have used lavender honey, but I just didn't want the syrupy flavor of honey in this particular butter. I wanted the lavender to star in the show, so I added lavender flowers to a plastic bag of confectioner's sugar and let it sit overnight. At first, I wasn't sure if I wanted the flowers in the butter; but on further reflection, thought the addition of the purple flowers would impart a far more interesting aesthetic to accompany the olfactory component. I should just keep my thoughts to myself. The lavender flowers are bitter and I don't particularly like picking flower bits from my tongue -- do you? Definitely a failure. Not even gonna post that particular recipe.

The final compound butter was inspired by Becky Morgan, a sweet friend and colleague, who rhapsodized about honey pecan rolls the other night while we were talking about food. Since I'm not a fan of honey pecan rolls and highly unlikely to make them, I thought a jar of honey pecan butter would make a nice cheat. Again, I should keep my thoughts to myself. It wasn't bad...but since I'm still on my maple kick, the honey just didn't hit the spot.

But at least I have the pumpkin butter. It'll go great on scones, warm breads and pancakes (or waffles). Now to actually go make said scones, breads and pancakes...

Caramelized Onion Crème Fraîche Mashed Potatoes

It's an entirely clunky name for a dish, but on a cold October night, this is perfect comfort food. I'm a fan of Yukon golds for mashed potatoes; I find most other types a bit mealy. The caramelized onion crème fraîche adds a rounded sweetness to the potatoes.

We're currently in Vermont and there's snow on the ground. The original plan was to show me a New England fall. Instead, I am entering New England winter. I am thinking there's going to be lots of stews, risottos and braised foods this week.

But first, there must be hot chocolate.

Israeli Couscous Salad

This is one of my favorite side dishes; it's pretty on the plate, yummy to eat, unique enough to invite interest, and way easy to make. Israeli couscous is nothing like its Moroccan cousin; while both are made from durum semolina, their preparation methods are quite different. Moroccan couscous is made by steaming in a special pot (a couscousiere); or by absorbing boiling water and fluffed.

Israeli couscous was invented by one of Tel Aviv's largest food companies, Osem (which is owned by Nestlé). The pasta is extruded, then toasted over an open flame to dry, giving the pasta a nice, nutty flavor. The result is a large, pearl shaped pasta.

It's a wonderfully versatile grain -- a great pasta with sauces, a creamy risotto -- anything you can do with pasta or rice, you can probably do with Israeli couscous. You can serve this salad warm or cold. I've found that it's a great accompaniment to a roasted fish like salmon, or a steak, providing a light taste counterpoint. This is my particular mix of ingredients, but heaven knows there are infinite combinations. I do find, though, that the dried cranberries provide a nice tart sweetness and lovely color. Enjoy.

Cultured.

I got a wild hair earlier this week to make yogurt from scratch. I took the recipe from French Women Don't Get Fat, which author Mireille Giuliano claims is a centuries old recipe. I need to talk about that book in a future blog. Such common sense.

I was seriously hankering for the yogurt and granola from Bouchon and, as usual, with complete lack of regard for sanity or possibility, thought, "I can make that!" The !@##$%^&* Brown Cow yogurt Jenn and I ordered is coming in on Friday but can I wait? No. How many times has that particular blind, obstinate idiocy gotten me into trouble? Like making my first quilt (Anya's baby quilt) in 12 hours?

The book’s recipe:

1 quart whole or 2 percent milk

1-2 tablespoons plain yogurt as a starter or 1-2 tablespoons of a commercial starter culture (available at natural food stores)

1. Warm up the milk in a saucepan over medium-low heat until bubbles appear around the edge and steam rises from the surface.

2. Pour the warm milk into a large bowl to cool until the temperature reaches 110 to 115 degrees on a cooking thermometer. If you don't have a thermometer, do what the locals do: the temperature is correct when you can keep your index finger in the warm milk for 20 seconds.

3. Put the starter in a small bowl, add some of the heated milk, and stir until well blended. Return the mixture to the large bowl, a third at a time, making sure to stir and blend well after each addition. End with a final stir, making sure all is well blended. Cover with a heavy towel and keep in a warm place 6 yo8 hours or overnight (a gas oven with a pilot light is fine, or placing a saucepan of hot water in the oven to raise the temperature will help if your home is not warm enough).

4. When set, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 8 hours before serving. If thicker yogurt is desired, empty chilled yogurt in a muslin bag or cheese-cloth, suspend over a bowl, and drain.

Okay. So, first of all I have exactly a quart of 2% milk left. I grab the remainder of my plain Brown Cow yogurt from the fridge intending to use it as a starter. The thing I dread most about opening plastic containers is mold. Even before I moved in with a guy, this was a problem I frequently faced (somewhere there is an email about eating cereal with sour tasting milk and not noticing). And there, on the Brown Cow yogurt, was fuzzy white stuff. Dammit. On further inspection however, it appeared that the fuzzy white stuff was ICE. Ice? In the FRIDGE? And sure enough, those are ice crystals and half the yogurt was frozen. Apparently it had been pushed to the back of the fridge where cooler air prevailed. I briefly considered using it but discarded the thought as soon as it entered my mind – because I’m dealing with frickin’ BACTERIA here. Acidopholous – good. Botulism – BAD. That left as a possible starter, the Yoplait Strawberry custard yogurt. Vile. I’d bought it for Hubby to tuck into his lunch box but given the frequency with which those jars were returned, UNOPENED, I need to stop. This jar was about 3 days old and I figured, what the hell? I opened it and just stared, dumbfounded. Instead of strawberry fruit on the bottom with pristine white yogurt on top, the whole thing was PINK. No wonder Hubby refused to eat it. PINK! But what was left to use? Nothing. I’d dumped the Brown Cow already so I had no real choices – and the milk and vanilla were already boiling. So I scooped out two T of pink yogurt and mixed it per directions above.

By the next morning, I had a smooth bowl of slightly pink yogurt. It was lovely.

I’m not quite ready to share it. I’d hate to poison people I care about. So I tested it on myself this morning and so far, no ill effects. It's a little tangier than I like but I think that can be modified. I’ll see how this goes. If I’m dead tomorrow, it won’t matter though I should probably leave a warning note for Hubby on the fridge. If I’m sick, I’m never telling anyone because auto-food-poisoning sounds ridiculous.

And the Brown Cow starts coming into Peachtree Natural Foods on Airport Thruway beginning Friday. They said if they get a good response, they’ll start carrying it. I’m going to implore everyone to buy from them.

Gluttony. One of the 7 Deadly Sins. Vegas, Day 2

All is forgiven. I had dinner at Bouchon tonight (I took Anna's advice to bat my lashes and show cleavage). I'm in great charity with Vegas right now (I was kidding about previous comment. I just walked in at opening and pointed out that there was no one in the restaurant so surely they could seat me).

Having eaten at The French Laundry and Bouchon in Yountville (the former with the beloved hubby, the latter with cousins Wendy and Jesse), I was all set for good French bistro fare. Of course, Bouchon did not disappoint. (Okay, they did, initially: they do not make steak tartare.) I ordered Steak Frites and asked the waiter to have the meat prepared to the equivalent of what a dear British friend once described as, "Wipe its arse and throw it on my plate." It seemed to please him immensely that I did not ask for charred flesh so the hunk of meat came to the table perfectly pink bordering on red. And the frites! The frites! Few things in the world make me happier than fries that are properly prepared except it's so simple a dish everyone invariably screws it up.

Here's the proper way to make fries, taught to me by my aunt, the third first-rate chef of my acquaintance (one and two being Granny Le and Mom): first, use Russet potatoes. If you must use anything else, use Yukon Golds. Otherwise, don't bother making fries. Peel and cut into strips. Soak in cold water 30 minutes to wash off the starch. Drain in a colander and rinse with cold water again. Dry using paper towels or cloth towels. Heat up peanut oil (PEANUT! Not safflower, olive, corn or vegetable oil. PEANUT!) until flicking water droplets into the oil causes it to pop and crackle. Water droplets, mind you. Otherwise you are risking life and burnt arms. Put in a batch of fries being careful NOT TO CROWD the pot. This part -- blanching -- is the first part of a two step process. Leave the fries in until they start to turn slightly gold. Remove from the pot and drain on paper towels. Put in the second batch of fries. Repeat until you've blanched all fries. Part two of a perfect fry is to let the oil reheat. Now put the first batch of blanched fries (remember not to crowd the pot) back in. The fries will turn golden quickly -- remove from the hot oil once they're golden. Don't brown too much or you risk crunchy vs crispy fries. Repeat with other batches.

A frites purist would eat the fries without sauces. I'm American enough to want them with Heinz 57. Forget John Kerry. Any other ketchup is worthless.

The highlight of dinner: the chef de cuisine, Mark Hopper, invited me into the kitchen for a tour after I asked the waiter if I could get an autographed menu. Apparently the fact that I'd dined at his former alma maters (French Laundry and Bouchon) was enough to induce him to invite me backstage.

Take your movie stars; they're useless to me. But introduce me to a chef and it's the equivalent of giving me food geek nirvana. Hubby says that when I got to go back to the French Laundry's kitchen, I behaved as if I were going to prom. I was giddy, sure, but it had to do with still being drunk from the 4 bottle pre-dinner tasting expedition and the pain of sore legs from dry shaving. But I digress: that's another story.

Chef Hopper asked me about my experiences at the French Laundry, and mentioned that he might have cooked for me and Hubby the night we went with Wendy and Jesse since Chef Keller was in New York at Per Se. I asked him if he was planning to branch out on his own like Grant Achatz, one of the former FL sous chefs and Hopper lit up. He said Grant was his best friend and we chatted about Achatz's career and his new restaurant, Alinea, due to open May 4 (is it sad that I know restaurant opening dates and Star Wars movies opening dates?). He told me that when Hubby and I are in Chicago and we want to eat there to give him a call and he'd set us up with Achatz. Then he asked the chef of operations to give me a tour of the entire place.

It lacked only the Hubby to make the experience superlative because it's never fun to eat dinner without someone whose food sympathies are perfectly aligned with your own. You feel like The Jerk with the spotlight on you. On the other hand, everyone in the restaurant feels sorry for you and they keep bringing you bread from the Bakery and take you to the kitchen for a private tour.

I've figured it out: Vegas is like DisneyWorld on steroids. It appeals to my sense of the ridiculous so I like it. And let's face it: the food selections are pretty impressive. Le Cirque and a Keller restaurant within spitting distance?

My friend Greg text messaged me: "the thought of you soaking up all that psuedo-culture is painfully funny."

It is/was painfully funny to me too: I think I peed myself laughing under the fake blue sky when the singing gondoliers pushed by at The Venetian.