Beef Wellington Menu

For Secret Agent Man.

I am still looking for a recommended Beef Wellington recipe, but here is a menu, so if you have a recipe you like, this should work. Meanwhile I will keep searching:

With cocktails:
Let's start with beef! Beef is the focus, so let's let it make its introduction right here. Beef tartare, with the egg yolks mixed in, and served on toast rounds.

At table:
1. Watercress soup. Make a standard potato leek soup and puree with watercress. Finish with cream, fresh cracked pepper. Float a thyme crouton on each bowl.

2. Celery root and toasted hazelnut salad.

3. Beef Wellington, served with:
3a. Truffled mashed potatoes (standard mashed potatoes, finished with cream and a drizzling of white truffle oil)
3b. Brussels sprouts. If you can buy them still attached to the stalk, do it. Remove. Pick off any leaves that are not tightly bound to the little heads. Steam until soft. Crisp some finely chopped pancetta in olive oil. Lightly brown the sprouts. Finish with lemon juice and freshly shaved reggiano parmiggiana.

4. Since you will probably be serving a cabernet or a Bordeaux, serve a room temperature ripe brie with sweet baguette rounds to go with the leftover wine.

5. Small slices of flourless chocolate cake with a raspberry sauce (get frozen berries, cook with butter and sugar) and freshly whipped cream (a hint of sugar and vanilla).

6. Cognac and cigars. For the men get Sancho Panza Maduros, for the women CAO Moontrance or for both, CAO Earth Nectar. The two CAO cigars are flavored, and, while I normally frown on that sort of thing, they are quite good.

Christmas Dinner...

There have been questions about the exact nature of our Christmas dinner. We had 18 guests this year, down from 23 or so last year. We do service a la rousse, as opposed to service a la francaise, as wine pairings work much better when the courses come in order.

I omitted the mushroom quesadillas and the queso manchego, changed the agnelotti to lasagna, and changed a couple of the desserts (someone brought yummy homemade marshamllows coated in shaved coconut, so those where on there, and my breakfast panettone was so good I bumped the panforte for it (it had better have been good, since I did not get back from midnight mass until 2:30, and had to get the dough into the molds for second rise, keeping me up til 3). As for the specific cheeses I served: reggiano parmiggiana, pecorino con tartufi (da Pienza), Purple Haze, Explorateur, fontina val d'aosta.

As for the requested information about a Beef Wellington-centered menu, I will need to do some research and will hopefully come up with something tonight. I can guarantee that it will feature Brussels sprouts. Love them brussels sprouts!

Merry Christmas to All!

This will probably be my last post until the 26th. The cooking has begun. Geese will be roasted, cookies baked, soup simmered, traditional Latin midnight mass attended, friends and relatives fed, gifts exchanged. You know the drill. I will probably check emails at EKeilholtz [at or about] aol [period] com a few times, so if you have any dire cooking questions feel free to email me. If you include your phone number, I will TRY my best to call you with advice. On the 25th itself, it might be dicey, but if you really have an emergency, you can call me in Sacramento (my parents are listed, and you can imagine that there are not too many Keilholtzes in the book). Just try to call before 5pm, as I will be in the throes of kitchen chaos by then.

Anyway, for your amusement and inspiration, here is my menu:

Before sitting at the table:
1. Barbecued Beef Brisket in the Texafornian Style
2. Home cured olives
3. Spuma di tonno
4. Queso manchego con membrillo
5. Mushroom quesodillas with tomatillo chipotle salsa
6. Latkes with apple sauce

At table:
1. Roasted Salsify and Jerusalem Artichoke soup
2. Agnelotti with goat cheese and wild mushrooms
3. Palate cleanser of blood orange granita with Sambucca
4. Roasted goose with fennel
5. Fennel braised in milk and gratineed
6. Warm brussels sprout salad with goose pancetta and hazelnuts
7. Roasted beets
8. Grilled cardoni

Then, the thirteen desserts:

1. Biscotti
2. Holly Cookies
3. Chocolate peanut clusters
4. Candied chestnuts
5. Fudge
6. reggiano parmeggiana
7. a semi-soft cheese
8. a soft cheese
9. a Tuscan pecorino
10. a goat cheese
11. Panforte
12. Salame al cioccolato
13. Homemade torrone

When we feast we feast, and I can think of no better occasion than the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior.

Merry Christmas!

Caffe Warnings

I like a good coffeehouse, especially one that is open on the late side, since I am a night owl and there are many nights when I am in Sacramento without Melanie and like a good spot to drink a proper espresso and to read. Very few bars in America fit the bill. They are too noisy, have too many televisions, and tend to frown on someone who drinks an espresso and (maybe) a glass of grappa. They prefer someone who is drinking higher markup stuff, and plenty of it. Reading in most bars is impossible, and that is what I like to do when I have a night alone.

So I find a good coffeehouse, and a backup and stick to them. Right now, in Sacramento, there are four good coffeehouses, an embarrassment of riches unheard of when I grew up here. We would have one that would be perfect, but then the weather would turn sour, the economy would soften, and they would notice that their last hour was the least profitable. So they would close an hour earlier...and would notice that their last hour was the least profitable and would close another hour earlier. Eventually they would go out of business.

The lesson that these caffes failed to learn was that the last hour is not the hour to pay attention to. It will be slow, because people think "shall we go to Caffe Such and Such? No, they close in fourty minutes. Let's go to Caffe Ventiquattro instead." So a caffe sacrifices the last hour to make sure that people come during the penultimate hour of operations. Chances are they will buy something during the last hour as well.

So when a caffe closes that hour earlier, people who go out for coffee at ten will go somewhere else. Maybe they will not even stay for more than an hour, but they know that they will not feel rushed.

Fortunately a critical mass has been achieved in downtown Sacramento that seems to be able to sustain itself, and there doesn't seem to be any danger of the good caffes making this fatal move. However, the caffe that some of the North Beach Lectura Dantis go to after our meetings is closing early because business has been slow. Now, I can understand the temptation, because the owner thinks, "I am paying these guys and the utilities, and that last hour stinks." But I also know that we have gone to another caffe more times in the last month than ever before.

So, if any of my readers are in the coffeehouse business, heed this warning!

Oh yeah...

The first person to claim (and arrange to pick up) a gallon of turkey stock gets it just for the asking. Not enough room in the ice box for all the stock I am making, and I don't feel like doing any insane reductions. If no one claims it, then I will reduce it, but if anyone wants it, call me. It will be ready Wednesday morning, and will be available until either someone claims it or I reduce it this weekend (probably late Friday, as I will really want the room in the icebox back by then). Once it is reduced, it is mine! Mine! My precious glace!

Photos of Food!

For the first time ever on the internet you can see pictures of some dishes that I have cooked by going here. I had no idea that they were going to find their way on the web, or I would have done something more with the presentation.

Perhaps I will take some pictures of Christmas (working feverishly on the menu as I write. Tuna melts are the only thing that are absolutely going to be on there. Yes, tuna melts. No, probably not what you are thinking). Part of me wants to move the goose to a salad course (as a confit with greens and dried cherries) and put beef on for the main course. But then I think of how nice roast goose is, and it goes right back on the menu.

I love preparing for the Christmas dinner. I usually start planning it on the 26th of December, with the analysis of the finished dinner. Then, every time I make a trip to a winery or good wine store, I get ideas and change it. Then I rediscover some neglected ingredient, and changes happen again.

Anyway, tomorrow is the third Thursday of November, which is the real Thanksgiving, best celebrated with cassoulet and six day old Burgundy made from the Gamay grape in the Beaujolais district. Serve chilled and quaff copiously.

By the way...and this will make some of you people get all irate and snort and stammer...goose confit in your cassoulet is a waste of goose confit. The long cooking of the cassoulet does nothing for the confit. In Toulouse they do this because they have so much goose meat, but there is no need to go out and make or buy goose confit to make a cassoulet. You already have three types of pork, some lamb (or mutton, if you are lucky), beans, rich brown stock, herbs, etc. You think that the confit will do much more than contribute a general meatiness already there? You're off your rocker.

Instead eat the confit with pommes anna or over good salad greens. Much better use of the stuff.

And, finally, today is the annual cookie judging. If you run into me later today and I can barely move, you will know why. Apparently we have a lot of entries this year. Anyway, this is always a fun event, because it is the only time in the year that I see my colleagues in the food section (including my editor, who I talk to weekly, yet have only met in person once or twice). The rest of the time they keep me locked in a tower, so that I don't scare anyone.

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, and more Pumpkins, not to mention the odd Tomato

Just some food notes. Deadlines loom, and musing about food is a good respite from writing about the Democrats for Life, the Republicans, the origin of Berkeley street names, and food already consumed (no, not all for the same story). These are more rough sketches than actual recipes. Ideas and images more than specific road maps to dishes. Feel free to make suggestions, to ask for clarifications, and to pester me for details next week (after I have actually made the dishes).

In addition to painting a lot, I have been on a bit of a pumpkin bender. Roasted pumpkin seeds with butter and Worcester Sauce. Roasted pumpkin chunks with chestnuts. Pumpkin risotto.

On Thursday I am going to make a pumpkin soup, and I am trying to figure out which garniture to use. I am tending towards an avocado cream with a dollop of red pepper coulis and a drizzling of sage oil, but then I think that thyme croutons with crumbled goat cheese might be good. Then the idea comes around to make the soup with fresh Thai coconut and cardomom and to garnish with sprigs of cilantro and basil (If not the coconut goes into cocktails before hand).

The soup itself is going to be the basic French pureed soup: chicken stock, roasted pumpkin chunks, maybe a potato for texture, herbs, salt, pepper, and cream.

Of course one good squash deserves another, so we also picked up a spaghetti squash and a butternut squash. Spaghetti squash gets roasted, then tossed in crisped pancetta and sugo finto (I am pretty sure that I have given recipes for sugo finto before. Heat olive oil, gently fry a couple of peeled cloves of garlic, add diced onion, fry for a minute, add diced celery and carrot, fry for a few minutes, add peeled and seeded tomatoes, simmer briefly, salt and pepper to taste).

The butternut squash will go in a risotto, probably a basic risotto with thyme.

Also, we are still getting some excellent tomatoes, although the season is coming closer and closer to ending. Next week it will be fried green tomatoes, but now we have dry farmed tomatoes as well as the best tomatoes I have ever tasted (from the Monterrey Market in Berkeley - a mix of organic heirloom tomatoes). If I can get more of them today, we will have our final ensalata caprese.

In under two weeks, raw tomatoes will go on hiatus until July. Makes me want to hibernate.

Ten Reasons I Wish I Were Mexican (especially in the fall)

1. Slices of pork loin, battered and deep fried.

2. Banda Sinaloense music

3. Guacamole

4. Pork rinds simmered in Salsa Verde

5. Paletas michoacanas

6. Mexican chocolate

7. Bullfights with picadores

8. Chorizqueso

9. German-style beer with lime

10. Norteno music

In other words, I am completely and utterly overdue for a trip South. At this point even a weekend in Tecate would be good. Probably won't happen until next year, though. Grrr.

Meanwhile I have some chicharrones simmering...

Barbecue Experiment Report

I did it. The modified barbecue sauce was good. I have too much to do tonight, but I will try to get a recipe up this weekend.

If you are hot to try it, buy a couple of baskets of figs and drop me a line at EKeilholtz@aol.com to let me know that you did this, and I will make sure to post a recipe before your figs go bad (which can be as fast as two days).

Coming Attractions!

Right now (I mean that literally, at 2am) I am reformulating my California barbecue sauce: simplifying, keeping it more in line with autumn, etc. Once it is done, I will be reformulating the whole California barbecue: a new mayo-free slaw, adding a balsamic onion garnish, a new semi-focaccia to serve it on, etc. When it is all done, adjusted and accepted, I will post the recipes.

So far the sauce is based on three types of peppers, three types of organic, heirloom tomatoes, prunes, figs, onion, garlic, red wine, balsamic vinegar, white wine vinegar (to correct acidity), Worcester sauce, espresso, spices, lavender, sea salt and oregano. It tasted pretty good half an hour ago. I might smoke the sauce, or smoke part of it to see if that is worthwhile.

Other than that I have been busy reviewing restaurants and cooking old warhorses (braise them in red wine...just kidding).

No need for an intervention

You may have heard the rumor that I have been averaging three BLTs each week, and might be thinking that it is time we had a sit-down and discussed whether or not this is really wise menu planning.

I will point out that in about a month there will be no more T's and the BLT well will run dry.

Fortunately the weather is turning towards the wood-fired, slow cooked pork loin with rosemary roasted potatoes. Otherwise I would not know what to do.

By the way, the best way to celebrate late summer/early autumn is to take a ripe black fig, make a slit the long way in one side, stuff the gash with good goat cheese, wrap the whole thing in pancetta and grill over a wood fire. Try to stick to under ten in one sitting. I dare you.

Or, if you really want to have a good meal, go to The Restaurant at Wente Vineyards in Livermore. Not to scoop myself (the review comes out next week, as the photographer was not available for this week), but Wente put themselves into a group that only one other restaurant has ever attained (the other restaurant, by the way is Porky's Pizza Palace in San Leandro - go on a Thursday night when the Oakland Banjo Band performs) - four stars. Not three and a half (the first half star is the easiest to lose. A single blip of tough stuff in a sausage, or a little bit of hard kernal in my sweatbreads will do the trick. It's why I never seem to be able to write in the /ipoint "four stars."), but four, whole, undivided stars.

Obviously the dining experience at Wente is different than the dining experience at Porky's, but what they have in common is that they have mastered the class they put themselves in. Perfection at the level they aspire to.

If you are doing a trip to the Bay Area, put them on your list along with French Laundry, Oliveto, CHAPEAU!, La Folie, Dona Tomas, and L'Osteria del Forno. There you have it: if I had six nights in the Bay Area I would go to Wente and the first five for dinnner, and have lunch at L'Osteria the day I went to to Dona Tomas. Of course you will have to schedule in some major hikes to work off the food (not to mention a good budget for such things). For more details email me at EKeilholtz [At] aol [dot] com for an updated Keilholtz Guide to Oakland and the Bay Area, which will be revised this weekend.

PS. I did mention that Wente has an excellent cigar menu, no? Including a properly stored pre-embargo Cuban.

La Cuisine de Maroc

In the comments box to the post below, someone asked about Moroccan food in the Bay Area. While I love Moroccan food, I have yet to eat at a restaurant in the area that does this cuisine justice. Come to think of it, I have rarely eaten in a restaurant in Morocco that does this cuisine justice, either.

When I have a hankering for Moroccan food, I cook it myself (the main reason that I keep a big jar of salt-preserved lemons in the back of the icebox). If, however, any of my readers have a place to recommend, please let me know. I would love to find a reputable Moroccan restaurant (especially one that is more Berber in its orientation than Arabic) in the Bay Area.

Open Letter to Bay Area Restaurateurs

Dear Restaurateur,

Notice is hearby given that if you serve me an inferior tomato between now and November 1 I will tear you to shreds in print, in front of my 500,000 readers. There is just no excuse for an underripe, tasteless tomato. About twice a week someone offers me baskets of good, vine ripe, often heirloom tomatoes FOR FREE! If I am particularly tomato crazy I will go to the farmers' markets and buy organic, vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes CHEAP (and this at retail prices!). You serve me something that resembles wet poly-packaging material I will upbraid you, I will skewer you, I will leave you gasping for breath in a muddy ditch, all to the general amusement of my readers. I don't care if you are a greasy spoon or a foodie shrine (although if you are a foodie shrine, like the venerable Oakland deli that served me slices of insipid tomato on an otherwise outstanding sandwich, I will make you regret the day that you ever put on a white coat), you will pay the price for your dishonorable doings.

For, from this day on, I am no longer just Erik Keilholtz, restaurant critic in several Bay Area daily newspapers, but Don Keilholtzi, Knight of the Fragrant Nightshade. I don my helmet of solid newsprint and, together with my trusty squire, the Fair Amalia, will ride into your castle to defend the honor and virtue of this glorious fruit. Now, if you will let me scrape the fresh mozzarella that is dripping from my helmet, due to the nefarious workings of some enchanter, I will ride my noble steed in the cause of Nightshade Errantry.

Yours,
Don Keilholtzi,
Knight of the Fragrant Nightshade and aforementioned restaurant critic of several daily newspapers in the Bay Area

Starbucks and the Vending Machine

Oh, dear. Some folks, well one person, is worried that his change from vending machine coffee to Starbucks is part of a slippery slope to snobbishness. So, I don't know if this should reassure TSO or if it should make him want to put on some faster skis, since the ones he has aren't doing it. So I will be blunt:

If you are drinking Starbucks, you are still drinking coffee out of the vending machine, you are just paying too much for it.

Now, in spite of the fact that I recommend to everyone I meet in California that they consider the beauty and charm of Ohio, I have never been there, so it is entirely possible that there is nothing better than Starbucks in the state, but I doubt it. In the good old pre-Starbucks days I even found good espresso in Tennessee (and, yes, I did have an espresso machine, a coffee grinder, and a couple of pounds of beans in the car for those places where they were not up to standards). You had to look hard for it, and you sometimes had to suspend your disbelief (like the "antiques" store/ice cream shop with the super friendly servers in Nashville that made an incredible espresso).

So, my recommendation is to really take the plunge and find some little caffe, somewhere that makes a proper espresso (drip coffee is bad for the stomach and bad for the nerves) and stick to it.

Speaking of coffee, the other night in North Beach there was a party of four in front of me with foreign accents (one man sounded Jersey, the women may have been Southernesses). The fellow with the Jersey accent ordered four decaf "cappuccinoes". This was at night, mind you.

Later, of course, they climbed into a grotesquely large rental limo. Of course it all fit: cappuccino after 10am, decaf, tacky limo.

So, there you have it. Three rules that are fine rules:

1. No cappuccino after 10am.
2. Decaf coffee is a perversion and an abomination.
3. Don't ride in large, tacky limos. You will be confused for nineteen year old high school students from Hayward out on prom night.

Oh those Nightshades...

I know, I know, I really should be doing real work, but I just want to say how wonderful the nightshade family of plants is. Tomatoes and eggplant are just two of the wonders of this family. I have been eating tomatoes like they are going out of style (and, in a way they are, as the memories of the dark months between November and June, during which I will eat no raw tomato, are still fresh in my mind. There is a part of my brain that wants to eat my weight in tomatoes each and every day while I can get them as good as I have been getting them).

Today I made an ensalata caprese with three varieties of organic heirloom tomatoes, mozzarella di bufala (from campagna), homegrown basil, sea salt, and extra virgin olive oil (I used the kalamata olive oil from Trader Joe's). Then, as if that weren't enough, I made the season's first batch of gazpacho.

Later this week I will make the third ratatouille of the summer.

Tomatoes are good. Very good. Indeed.

I do believe that it is the season for that secret ingredient that I like to forage for...

There was a time that I made stuff with blackberries. Ice Cream. Cobblers. Gallettes. Berry sauce.

Then came Amalia. We dutifully go into the woods with our bowls and baskets, and, for some reason, we never seem to have enough berries by the time we get home. We have a very happy little girl in purple clothes (even when they start the day white), so it makes it all worth it.

Tomorrow we will officially open our blackberry season with an evening trip to our secret spot, armed with a picnic lunch and lots of bowls. Perhaps if we can appease the girl with ham sandwiches, she will let some berries make it home to become ice cream or even a pastry of some sort.

So, call this entry a Monday One:

What are your favorite things to do with blackberries?

Fifties Recipes?!?

Someone found this site googling "Fifties Recipes." I cannot think of a site less inclined towards mounds of Jell-O and devilled eggs than this one. Try Lileks.

Speaking of recipes, I will be posting some seasonal ones soon, after a visit to the farmers' market on Saturday.

On coffee beans

The only posts that seem to generate less interest than art posts are coffee geek posts. So, if your eyes glaze over, don't say I didn't warn you.

I am starting to think that robusta beans are essential to the making of the very best espresso.

OK. I will let that sink in. I also believe that Budweiser is the best drink to serve with fine caviar. You already know that, though.

Robusta. Yes, the "junk" beans that the French burn to charcoal to make the universally horrid coffee served throughout France (and, no, I am not picking on the French, although they really do tend to make wretched coffee). The cheap "junk" beans that Nestle and their ilk fill their blends with to save money.

I normally buy 100% Aribica beans, little aromatic flavor bombs that perfume the air when I grind them. I normally make a very good espresso, too.

However, this last week they had a special on Italian espresso beans: $9.99 for a Kilo. The bag said it was a blend of aribica and robusta, so I figured that at that price it was going to be a pretty hefty percentage of robusta, and it was. No problem, since I know that most Italian blends (not Illy, though), use some robusta, and I know that it is about as difficult to find a bad espresso in Italy as it is to find a good one in the United States, so no big deal.

So, with a Kilo of beans to experiment with, I went to it. If they are really bad, I am only out ten bucks, and there is very little espresso so bad that it cannot be used in tiramisu, granita di caffe, chocolate souffle, etc.

The first thing to note is the aroma of the freshly ground beans. It is here that you immediately understand the prejudice against the robusta. There is a slight smell of burnt grapefruit that comes from the beans. OK. Strike one. But they grind fine, and pack fine in the gruppa, so I went on to brew an espresso.

The first one was a bit overtamped, so it dripped slowly. I decided to taste it before tossing it in the granita. Pretty good. In fact, much better than if I had subjected my normal blend to such shoddy coffee making. Downright drinkable, in fact. Not perfect, but not bad.

The second one was much better, as I had tamped it properly. Now, it was also less than perfect, but it had the best body of any espresso I had ever made. The burnt grapefruit notes were still there, but in the brewing had been transformed into more of an earthiness. What was missing were the winey and floral notes that come from a good 100% aribica blend.

Naturally I put two and two together, and added a scoop of Illy beans (not my normal brand, as they cost too much, but they were on sale, so I bought some). The result was the best espresso I have ever made. Perfect body, rich aroma, fruit and floral notes held against mineral and earthy tones, rich crema, and a perfect balance of acidity without a hint of excess bitterness.

The drawback to using robusta is the higher caffeine content, because the espresso is so good I want to drink more of it, but the higher caffeine makes it more important to pace myself. 6 to 10 shots of espresso a day is probably enough anyway (which sounds like a lot, but you must remember that I drink mine molto ristretto, so a shot is short of an ounce of delicious espresso syrup).

New Foodie Destination: Fremont

If someone had told me a few years ago that I would be raving about the culinary scene in Fremont, I would have taken him for a nutcase.

Fremont, if you have never seen it, is a prosaic mess of suburban sprawl, the most Southern Californian feeling place in the Bay Area (note that I only marginally call Fremont the Bay Area. Once you are in Millipede or San Jose, et al, you have left the Bay Area). Wide streets lined with tall date palms, ugly post-war architecture. Each house has a lawn in the front, and almost all business is conducted in strip malls.

Granted there are several neat downtown areas (I can think of three, each the result of smaller towns being eaten up by the expanding Fremont: one of which, Niles, was the movie capital of California before Hollywood. Charlie Chaplin made several films there. Now it is a withering downtown with lots of antique stores, the weakest of Fremont's downtown areas), and lovely hills surrounding the town (I did say that it was a lot like Southern California).

However, the upside of Fremont's lack of charm has been that it was an affordable place for immigrant workers in the Sillycon Valley to settle, and that has resulted in a plethora of good, inexpensive ethnic restaurants (and a really unlikely little place called Pearl's that is a true gem of Bay Area fine dining). I have had outstanding rustic Afghani food, great Indian food, outstanding Korean soft tofu bowls, and so on.

Alright, some of these places might have been in Newark, but I have difficulty telling where one begins and the other ends.

Tonight I reviewed an outstanding little hole in the wall Lebanese restaurant. Not only was the food great, but they offer a decent Lebanese red wine (Cabernet, Cinsault, and Syrah, I think) from the Bekkaa Valley, a fertile area that was once settled by Romans who built magnificent temples and the sort of stuff that Romans generally liked to leave behind.

It is getting to the point where I really look forward to reviewing restaurants in the market area of our Fremont paper. I never got that feeling when I had to go out to San Mateo, which is not really much farther. I just felt that I was driving for miles to eat mediocre food.

But not in Fremont. In fact, if any of you are thinking of doing a food and wine tour of California, you should plan at least one lunch or dinner in Fremont. It is fantastic what is going on there in terms of food.

Farmers' Market Report

Due to the late rains we have been having, our local farmers' markets are in a bit of a limbo between winter and spring. Certain spring crops are doing nicely, for instance asparagus and strawberries, but others are late.

Lettuce, for instance, is still looking like late winter crops. Mesclun tends towards flavorful, yet fairly tough, larger greens with herbs to spice things up. Mache looks weather beaten.

Root vegetables are going strong, with some beautiful beetroots, yellow carrots, and turnips.

My inside sources tell me that favas are two weeks away, that the plants have matured nicely, and the beans are starting to grow into something.

Green garlic and leeks have been fantastic (which reminds me - I need to post a recipe, will do it after I finish the report) and should remain so for another few weeks.

Tomatoes are still coming out of the hothouse and can be safely ignored. They will be bland until the real deal hits in July (some farmers in the right valleys will have tolerable tomatoes as early as May, but they are the exceptions).

Lots and lots of lovely artichokes are popping up, including the little purple ones, which can be trimmed and eaten raw, dipped in bagna cauda or even a dish of extra virgin olive oil.

Peas are there, but not where I like them to be. They looked weatherbeaten today. Sugar snaps are atrocious. Wait a couple of weeks for good ones.

Fennel is fantastic. Tender with a powerful bang.

We got a fantastic deal on lacinato (dinosaur) kale. Lots of small, tender leaves with a haunting sweet flavor and a slight touch of bitterness. I did a short braise with them with olive oil, garlic, pancetta, fennel seed, and extra dry vermouth. Yipee! Mouth fireworks!

My sources tell me that this will be a good year for squash, which should show up in a few weeks.

Stone fruits seem to be taking a beating. My primary growers are predicting small, blemished fruit, due to late season rains hitting the blossoms and hail striking the young fruit.

As mentioned before, strawberries are at their peak, particularly ones from San Diego County. Watsonville is good, but will be getting better in the next few weeks.

No purple garlic yet, bulbs won't be ready until May. Ditto purple onions (great on the grill with balsamico).

Saw some beautiful rainbow chard. Passed this week, due to the bags of lacinato, but will probably get some next week.

Speaking of lovely greens: pea shoots are here! Wash them, but do not dry them. Toss them in a hot wok with olive oil and a little garlic. If you want to gild the lily, finish them with a splash of amontillado. Serve with meat or in a pasta with speck.

Talked to a fairly new business: Juliet Mae Fine Spices and Herbs, found here. Tasted and bought their Dukkah spice and nut blend, and plan on using it on seared tuna. I will probably serve it with a good viognier or a good pinot grigio from Alto Adige.

I got the good news that one of my favorite famers is experimenting with salsify! Currently all of our supply is imported from Belgium (and it is almost all scorzanero, the black salsify that is not considered as good as the white), so I really welcome a local source. It should be fresher and cheaper. So far his experiments have not been so great, but he promises to keep trying.

This same farmer is promising outstanding radishes as early as next week, but more probably in two weeks. He has a green radish that he thinks is even better than the watermelon radish. I will sample and report as soon as I get them.

Pink Popcorn

I rediscovered a childhood treat today. At the zoo, I used to get pink popcorn, a block of popcorn with some pink sticky stuff that seemed like deflated cotton candy. They sell it at the Oakland Zoo, so I bought a block for Amalia and I to share. It was as good as I remember.

OK, so it has a slightly stale and fake taste, but it is one of those slightly stale and fake tastes that brings back all sorts of fun memories. Do all zoos sell this stuff? Can you get it anywhere but a zoo?

Pretzels and Lent

A friend of mine and I talk about food, the culture of food, and the history of food quite a bit. He is suspicious of food history, because much of it seems to be nothing more than urban legends, repeated until they are accepted.

I tend to agree with him, but I want to read real food history, as I see the culture of the table as vitally significant to understanding the general culture.

So, what I want to know is: on several blogs I have read about the Lenten origin of pretzels, how they are simple Lenten breads (no fat, meat, etc.), bent into the shape of arms in prayer. Sure, it sounds good, and some folks even suggest a century, but I want to know: what is the source of this tidbit? Even a good secondary source would be good, as I can follow the footnotes to see where this comes from.

So, if you have any information on this, please let me know, as I am curious as to whether or not this is just another urban legend passing as food history, or if it was at least noted somewhere in some document near to the alleged source.

Sorry to be a spoilsport!

It's Variety Meats Week!

Normally I would have had my annual Variety Meats Festival this past weekend, in which I cook up all the interesting stuff off of pigs, lambs, and cattle. Past dishes have included homemade French headcheese, trippa alla fiorentina, kidneys, sweetbreads with chestnuts, cream and port wine sauce, lamb tongue salad, beef tongue in sweet and sour sauce, etc.

Last year I was too booked up on any of the weekends that fall before the weekend immediately before Mardi Gras, and this year Mardi Gras came too soon, so instead, I will be offering recipes here until my birthday, which happens to be on Mardi Gras this year.

So, please read, enjoy, post your own recipes for the tastier cuts of meat, and, if you experiment, please report!

The Alchemist is In!

Today we were hiking up in the Berkeley Hills and I noticed, to my great delight, that the California Bay Laurels are starting to bloom. It seems that some monks in Italy have been making a laurel liqueur for years, using the Mediterranean bay laurel. The California bay laurel is a much stronger flavor, and is not often recommended for kitchen use, but I think that it might make a fine libation. So, if you happen to see me wandering around the woods this week picking tiny flowers off of trees, you will know what I am up to.

I am also working on a vermouth formula. I don't want to simply imitate one of the commercially available varieties, as the stuff is so cheap that there is no point to it. The goal is a good pre-prandial sip, with ample herbal notes in a simple wine base. I am shooting for a fairly low alcohol content, at least in comparison with other vermouths, but I want a little more bitterness as well. Or maybe not, as Melanie is not a big fan of bitter liqueurs like Campari and Cynar. So far I am looking at French rue, chamomile, angelica root, wormwood, anise, lovage, rosemary, orange zest, lavender, nettles, blackberry leaves, lemon balm, winter savory, calamint, and perhaps thyme. I am thinking of making extracts of each and then combining them with the wine base, so that if a formula does not work, I can adjust. Then, if I find something that is right, I will try a batch made with everything together.

The trick is to find a dry, thin white wine without too much fruit. Any suggestions?

The perils of writing restaurant reviews

People often ask me, "how do you review a restaurant?"

It is really a good question, as a restaurant review is a different animal than a book review. A book review must engage the book in a way that goes deeper than a consumer report. Sure, I want to know if the book sounds like a waste of time and money, but often a book review contributes to my own understanding of a book. There is a little of that in restaurant reviewing, but mostly my readers want to know, "is X place worth the Y amount of money that I will spend there."

The dangerous part is that people look for wildly different things in a restaurant. Some insist on being dazzled by new combinations, new uses of techniques, etc. Others want food just like Mom made it. Still others are just happy to have passable food that someone else cooks and cleans up after.

So I try to offer accurate descriptions, so that the reader has an idea of exactly what to expect.

The hardest type of restaurant review is one of a restaurant that is mixed, food wise, but with excellent service and super friendly waiters. I had one of those to write yesterday. If the food is all bad, then it is easy, but when some dishes are really good and some are mediocre, it gets hard. Writing the descriptions of the dishes is easy, but when it comes to the stars, you think of the super friendly people and you have to balance that with the mixed food and you try to come up with some system.

I have a system, although it is not perfect all the time. Certain kitchen gaffes get automatic knock-downs. Zero stars is reserved for a restaurant with bad food and food poisoning. If a place is on the borderline, then service really comes into play. Even then, there is technically correct service and warmth and friendliness. If a waiter does not know something, makes up an answer, and then gets defensive when mildly corrected, that costs points. Certain things are givens, like clean bathrooms. If a bathroom is dirty, what must the kitchen look like?

One thing that I can ignore if everything else is perfect is when all of the dishes are garnished the same. However, this is one of those items that can cost a restaurant in a borderline case.

The reason I try to have a system is that I review every type of restaurant, from a burger stand to restaurants with international reputations. I have to review them according to their type, but there are those things that must be done right if a place insists on being in the business of selling food.

However, even in those things, there are cultural differences that must be taken into account. Explorateur is objectively better cheese than velveeta, which is barely a cheese at all. But velveeta does have a place in the world, and a critic who complains about Billy Bob's Burgers using velveeta is probably out of his league.

There is a Bay Area food critic who misses this distinction all the time. He does not understand that Italian American food is a related but ultimately different animal than Italian food. Instead of discerning whether or not a red gravy is a good red gravy, he laments that it is not a true bolognese. When this critic is reviewing a four star French restaurant, he is pretty good, but when he jumps into Guido's House of Spaghetti, he misses the point entirely.

On the other hand, when I eat classic standard modern American fare, I often wonder, "what would this be like if it were given the Alice Waters treatment?"

For instance, we all know and love gringo tacos: filling of hamburger meat with taco mix seasoning and tomato paste, iceberg lettuce, cheddar cheese, etc.

Now, what if we were to make top shelf gringo tacos? Would they work? If we were to use organic mixed greens, Englisch farmhouse cheddar, organic dry farmed tomatoes, to mix our beef with a specially prepared seasoning mix and demiglace?

So, at the end of this little musing on the job of restaurant criticism, I give you a new iron chef assignment: create gourmet gringo tacos. Then report back.

Ah the smells

Right now I am reducing a double extracted brown stock (veal and chicken) to glace de viande. At the end I will have turned two gallons of stock into a cup of thick jelly. It can be turned back into stock with the addition of water, or it can be added to sauces to give them an incredible flavor boost. It also saves a lot of space in the freezer.

I highly recommend doing this lengthy procedure for a number of reasons:

1. Your kitchen will smell fantastic for a couple of days as you extract, reduce, extract and reduce.

2. When you are rushed for time you can make sauces that taste like you spent hours on them.

3. Often you will make a sauce and find that it lacks something. You will not be sure what, but more times than not a spoonful of glace will turn it into something amazing.

4. It is fun and does not take that much work.