Vegetables – Food Woolf

Louisiana and Creole Tomato Salad On My Mind

A great trip lingers with you long after you return home. A successful vacation is one where memories are unpacked long after the suitcase is emptied and the laundry is done. For me, the best journeys are the ones that get inside my heart and rearranging things.

It’s been more than a week since I came back from Louisiana and I’m starting to realize that my trip reorganized a few things in my life while I was away: I’ve got new beautiful friendships to foster and a whole new set of cravings to grapple with.

Since my return to LA, my imagination whirls over gems of stories of the Louisiana food world. My daily routine is peppered with flavored memories of diners, ice cream shops, a water-side bar where the locals cook up craw fish outside under a tent, and the all-night beignet restaurant littered with empty plates covered in powdered sugar.

Those memories have been just the reason why I’ve been spending so much time in my Los Angeles kitchen (the other LA), trying to recreate some of my Louisiana culinary experiences. Continue reading “Louisiana and Creole Tomato Salad On My Mind”

February 4January 3

Healthy Edamame Dip for Super Bowl Sunday

edamame dip one — Forever Green Edamame Dip

Okay, so I’m not a sports fanatic. But count me in as a front row enthusiast if there’s a lot of great food involved. Take for example this healthy dip for Super Bowl Sunday. Throw a handful of fresh ingredients like garlic, parsley, and bright green edamame into the food processor and in just minutes you’ll have a fresh and easy dip that’s high in protein, big in flavor, and makes eating it a guilt-less pleasure. What a great change from the high fat onion dip of my past!

I grew up in Massachusetts eating chips and salsa, submarine sandwiches, and cherry-red chicken wings on Super Bowl Sunday. My friend Jason Travi, the former chef of Fraiche and Riva, showed me that a Super Bowl party could be a culinary opportunity. This Massachusetts chef never even thought about serving popcorn and cheap beer, and instead offered us caviar on blini, handmade meatball subs, champagne, and artisan beers. It was, by far, the most elegant spread I’d ever seen for a Pats game. I was a changed woman.

Continue to Snag this Great (and Healthy) Super Bowl Sunday Edamame Dip Recipe »

December 23

Perfect Poached Eggs with Sautéed Kale and Toast

You may not know this, but I run a very successful restaurant. Thing is, this restaurant isn’t one you’ve ever heard of, or even seen, because it doesn’t exist anywhere but in an undisclosed spot in my imagination.

My fantasy restaurant has no overhead, no ten year lease, no worries associated with the health department, no long hours, no grease traps, and food costs are something I occasionally ponder. In my make-believe eatery I serve rustic fare with warm service in a room with hardwood floors, a pressed tin ceiling, and a brick fire place. Then again, some days I’m serving fresh caught seafood and beer at a shoebox eatery with clean white tile, communal tables with red chairs, and industrial steel signage.

And maybe that’s the best thing about my imaginary restaurant. I can change things up whenever I want and it never costs a cent. Yet, no matter how menu changes and renovations my imaginary restaurant undergoes, one thing that stays constant is this one menu item: Perfect Poached Eggs on toast with Sauteed Kale.

I’m pretty certain that if I ever did open a bistro, this warm and comforting egg dish–two soft poached eggs lounging over a bed of sautéed kale and toast–would be the thing to turn customers into regulars. With anti-oxidant rich kale at its core, this breakfast feeds a winter morning’s hunger and keeps you going long after you finish that last bite.

Continue for the Poached Eggs with Sautéed Kale Recipe »

December 21January 3

Delicata Squash with Browned Butter and Sage Recipe

One of the best things about being a gastronome and a restaurant professional at an award winning restaurant is that my work environment is a constant source of inspiration. Some of the dishes we serve at the Osteria are incredibly complicated and require hours to prepare. Other menu items are based on grandmother’s traditional recipes. The simple, classic dishes that haunt me the most. They compel me to tear off my waiter’s uniform, get into my home kitchen, and cook.

A new contorni (that’s Italian for side dish) went onto the menu last week. Ever since that first pre-shift bite of the buttery sweet squash with browned butter and sage, I’ve been obsessed with the need to figure out how to duplicate those warm, sweet flavors.

Lucky for me and my culinary obsessions, the Delicata squash contorni is a rather simple one to make, and requires only basic cooking techniques.

Continue Reading for a Delicious Delicata Squash with Browned Butter and Sage Recipe! »

December 14November 14

No Fail Potato Leek Soup Recipe

I’m not a chef, but I do spend a lot of time with professional cooks.

I work in a restaurant several nights a week and I like to show up early and take a few minutes of my off-the-clock time getting my bearings and observing the day’s activity in the kitchen. I pour myself a cup of coffee and watch the guys prep fish, squish hundreds of roasted potatoes, or pluck leaves of mint for what will become salsa verdes for the night’s service. It’s in these little moments of observing the pre-game prep, that I learn the big lessons about cooking.

Most servers don’t care for this sort of sideline observances. Maybe that’s why the chefs and prep cooks don’t mind as I watch them slice up chickens or brine pig’s heads. I have pretty good radar for annoyance, so I’m able to disappear the moment I see a flicker of irritation on a chef’s face.

In hanging around chefs, I’ve picked up lots of great tricks. But despite all the time I’ve spent with these men and women in chef’s whites, I haven’t been able to get over my irrational fear of unknown ingredients and certain culinary techniques. One challenge I had to recently overcome is my ridiculous fear of leeks.

While most people eagerly snatch up bundles of leeks, I would walk past and pretend I didn’t care for them. I even feigned ignorance of this vegetable’s power to inspire culinary hysteria across France. I was that scared. But thanks to my wonderful friend, Leah and her You-Can’t-Screw-This-One-Up Potato and Leek Soup Recipe, I finally had myself a leek epiphany.

Continue for a No Fail Recipe for Potato Leek Soup! »

September 19

A Whole New Beet

best beet

I was five years old when I remember eating my first beet. It was from my mother’s garden, picked earlier that day. She cooked the red root vegetable for dinner and I remember being skeptical that I would like it. “Just try it,” she said. And when I tasted its earthy sweetness and saw how the slices could stain my tiny finger tips a bright shade of pink, I knew I was a fan. Food that could double as a magic marker and was sweet, was automatically good stuff in my book.

Since then, I’ve made a lot of beets. I prefer the wrap-in-tin-foil-and-roast method of cooking . I love sautéeing the green-red tops for a midday snack. But recently, after seeing a favorite farmers market vendor offering up thin slices of beets soaked in citrus hot pepper, I thought it was time to try his technique.

After rinsing my bunch of freshly picked beets, I used a mandolin to slice the red root vegetable into thin rounds. I juiced a handful of lemons and limes (2 of each) and poured the mixture over the beets. I added a generous sprinkling of kosher salt and cayenne pepper until I could taste the salt and the spice against the sweetness of the beets. I sealed my plastic container and waited a day to taste the results of the marinade.

Unfortunately, even after a day, the beets lacked the tart, pickled quality of the farm stand’s beets. Something was missing. I waited another day and found that the beets had taken on much more of the citrus flavors. By the third day the beets were nearly perfect and were great in salads or popped directly in my mouth for a snack. On the fourth day, just before I ate the last spicy beet slice, I dreamed of bloody Mary’s garnished with beet slices.

The following week I returned to the market to find out what key ingredient I had missed. It turned out that my market partner and friend, Leah, was equally besotted by the crunchy treat and had the very same questions. Thanks to the translation skills of the farmer’s young son, we learned that lime juice was the only citrus needed to soak the beets. And as for the spice, we learned we had missed one key ingredient–paprika.

Now that I have the recipe for that great citrus-soaked beets, I’ll be making this recipe often. I hope you do, too!

Marinated beets at Hollywood Farmers Market

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Lime Marinated Beets

These get better the day after you make them.

1 bunch of small beets (no more than three)

1 bunch of limes (4 or more depending on how big your beets are)

2 tsp kosher salt

1 or 2 generous pinches of cayenne pepper

1 or 2 generous pinches paprika

Thinly slice beets on a mandolin. Toss beets in a mixing bowl with 2 teaspoons of salt. Add a generous pinch of cayenne pepper and paprika. Juice 4 limes and toss the mixture together. Taste for balance. Add more spice or salt if necessary. What you’re going for is a nice, spicy flavor. Put beets in a shallow dish that allows a thin layer of beets submerged in lime juice. Add more lime juice if necessary. Wait a day or two before serving. If possible, move the beets around to allow for a more equitable distribution of lime juice.

Serve citrus soaked beets in salads, or as a garnish for a fancy Bloody Mary or Martini.

*PS A special thank you to Diane at White on Rice for her help making my beet picture the best it could be!

May 28March 14

Market Vegetables with Meyer Lemon Cream Recipe

As a food lover, working at a restaurant can be a wonderful and cruel thing. You’re surrounded by food and required never to take a bite. You may be hungry but there’s no time to eat (and the last thing the kitchen wants to do is make an employee a meal). Working in restaurants is like being stranded on the ocean in a dingy: You’re surrounded by a beautiful, beguiling thing that you can not consume.

The fact that I handle plates of beautifully crafted appetizers, sculpted entrees and arousing desserts on a nightly basis may have something to do with my obsession to recreate the chef’s dishes at home. And honestly, not eating and being surrounded by food begins to get to you. Especially when you’re so hungry you could eat your own hand.

One dish that’s saved me from nibbling off a pinky for sustenance is a market vegetable dish inspired by my new boss, Chef Suzanne Goin. Goin’s appetizer of market vegetables with Meyer Lemon cream and “burrata” is truly something to behold and a dish I’ve been pushing–I mean suggesting–to guests ever since Tavern Restaurant opened several weeks ago.

The dish is a beautiful combination of colorful blanched vegetables that have been tossed in a light citrus cream and finished with one of the world’s most decadent forms of mozzarella. It’s a celebration of all that is available at our farmers’ markets in one mouthwatering dish that is incredibly easy to prepare and, if done right, is a real scene-stealer.

Market Vegetables with Burrata and Meyer Lemon creamLet the market guide you to the ingredients for this celebration of the season’s freshest vegetables. Let freshness and diverse colors inspire your choices in vegetables! Also, don’t go too heavy on one ingredient and try to pick equal portions.

¾ lb baby carrots (small, fresh and straight from the market), washed and scrubbed
½ lb English snap peas
¼ lb pea tendrils
1 head of cauliflower, stock removed and cut into uniformed florettes
1 small head of purple cauliflower, stock removed and cut into uniformed florettes
¾ lb baby zucchini or baby squash, rinsed well
1 bunch of pencil thin asparagus, cleaned and cut into equal 2-inch pieces.
2 balls of burrata (this California- or Italian-made cream-filled mozzarella is available at specialty cheese stores or Whole Foods’ cheese counter)
Salt (kosher and Maldon) and pepper to taste
2 Meyer lemons (thinly sliced)
Meyer lemon cream (recipe below)
*optional flourishes: flowering chive or fennel fronds

Fill a large pot (preferably a pasta pot with a pasta strainer) with cold water. Add enough kosher salt to give the water a slightly salty taste. Bring water to a rolling boil.

When the water is at a full boil, prepare a large metal mixing bowl with ice water. Fill bowl with ice cubes and just enough water to cover the ice.

In separate batches—one vegetable group at a time–blanch the vegetables. Make sure not to add too many vegetables at one time in order to maintain a rolling boil. Cook the vegetables briefly—1-4 minutes depending—making sure they maintain their structure and become just tender. Feel free to test the cooking time early by sampling a vegetable for taste and texture. When the vegetable is just cooked, immediately remove them from the hot water with strainer and plunge them into ice water bath to stop the cooking process. The ice bath will set the vegetables’ bright color.

Remove vegetables with strainer from the ice water as soon as they are cool to the touch. Put the blanched vegetables on a paper towel-covered sheet tray to dry. Repeat process with all remaining vegetables.

Toss the vegetables with enough Meyer lemon cream to coat everything. Add Meyer lemon slices and toss again. Taste for seasoning. Squeeze more lemon over the salad if necessary. Tear pieces of burrata into the salad and serve immediately.

For the Meyer Lemon Cream
From Suzanne Goin’s Sunday Supper at Lucques

2 tbsp finely diced shallot
¼ cup Meyer lemon juice
½ cup plust 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup plus 1 tbsp heavy cream
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Add the shallot, lemon juice and ¼ teaspoon of salt in a bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. Whisk in olive oil. Then, gently stir in cream, being sure to add a few grinds of pepper to taste.

April 1

April Fool In the Kitchen

Ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you I can’t lie. At least, I don’t have the skill to lie and get away with it. If there’s a practical joke being played on someone, I want to scurry over and give away the punch line before things get embarrassing.

Being an odd little kid on the playground (read: future writer) probably has a lot to do with my aversion to “little white lies“, bending the truth and practical jokes. The whole business twists up my insides and makes me feel down-to-the-core wrong. Which is why I am NOT posting an April Fool’s recipe. I’d rather contribute to keeping it real on April Fools day and avoid all the pranksters.

I offer you this beautiful, mouth pleasing butter lettuce salad that is perfect for staying indoors, eating healthy and avoiding the truth-bending fools.

This dish was inspired by a beautifully textured salad I had at David Lentz and Suzanne Goin’s Los Angeles restaurant, Hungry Cat. The mixture of market fresh ingredients and shirred eggs give this salad so much flavor and mouth-feel I’ve found myself thinking about skipping a main course and ordering another salad. Which I never do, because their entrees are way too good to ignore, but…

Turns out, making this salad at home is so easy and satisfying I really don’t need to eat anything else with it. I’ve modified this recipe for maximizing health benefits. If you don’t have a problem with cholesterol, feel free to leave the yolks in the hard boiled eggs.

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Market Lettuce Salad with Shirred Eggs
Inspired by a dish at The Hungry Cat, Los Angeles

1 head of butter leaf lettuce (red leaf lettuce can be substituted)
3 radish, thinly sliced (use a mandoline for precision. The little radish tops will protect your fingers!)
4 tbsp flax seed oil
1 lime, cut in half for juicing
2 eggs, hard-boiled with yolks removed
salt (regular and Maldon) and pepper

Put 2 eggs in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and then cover, turning off the heat. Let sit for 10-15 minutes and then drain and immerse in cold water. Remove shell of egg and yolks.

Meanwhile, pull apart the leaves of the lettuce. Wash the leaves well (immerse in water or rinse under faucet for several minutes) and spin to dry. Put the lettuce and radish in a big salad bowl and season dried leaves with a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Drizzle with flax seed oil and, using hands or wooden spoons, toss gently to coat the leaves with oil. Squeeze half the lime over the lettuce. Taste a saturated leaf. Squeeze more lime juice over salad if it needs more acidity. Taste again, adjust for flavor.

Using a cheese grater, shirr the eggs (grate the egg white) onto the salad. Plate, finish with a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt and serve.

March 28November 14

A Beet Recipe for My Mother

I became mortal last week. One phone call and one letter took away that lingering innocence of youth and reminded me that no one, not even myself, can live forever. Here, in the center of my being, is the undeniable understanding that every moment we have is precious; every morsel of food is important; and nothing is to be overlooked.

The phone call was from my mother. She just got the news that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Then, in what felt like seconds later, I received a letter from my doctor. My blood tests came back abnormal. I have high cholesterol.

The news effected me in unexpected ways. When I spoke with my mother, I found zen-like calm, hope and positivity for my mother’s recovery. I felt oddly at peace, without fear and satisfied with the idea that we will find a treatment that will heal her. And then, in the privacy of my own home, I openly mourned the loss of bacon in my life.

Goodbye Guanciale

My off-the chart 250 cholesterol number on the doctor’s letter read like a foodie death sentence. The letter suggested in detail I “replace butter with olive and canola oil…Replace red meat with fish, poultry and tofu…Limit foods with high cholesterol.”

I started freaking out. No more fearless consumption of fennel sausage pizza at midnight? No more bacon draped hamburgers for lunch? No chicken liver bruschettas as a quick mid-day snack? What about those yolk-dripping bacon and egg sandwiches I love so much? No more gobbling up the frosting-heavy corner piece of birthday cake?

I paced my apartment. I was a vegetarian once. I could do it again, right? But now that I know what I know, how could I turn my fork away from all those great foods I’ve come to love and build my whole life around?

The cure for cancer

It’s been days since we received her first diagnosis. There’s still so much we need to find out. But in the meantime my mother and our collective family have been doing our share of internet research. My mother doesn’t care much for “traditional” medicine. She fears the mainstream medical line of thinking and clings to the old ways of healing.

My mother says she can cure herself of cancer with the power of raw food. She says that with lots of whole grains, flax seed oil and raw fruits and vegetables she can bring healing to her body without the use of chemo. There are other people—beautiful young and thriving people like Kris Carr of crazy sexy life–who say such things are possible.

The idea of clean living through a wholesome, locally sourced diet of fresh fruit and vegetables makes sense to me. I’ve seen the awesome power of food. The farmers’ market is my church. But what I don’t understand is HOW raw food can heal cancer. Is the cancer that my mother has responsive to such dietary changes? Will she need other helping factors to make the cancer go away? Will she need estrogen therapy? Chemo?

These are questions that will take time to answer. There’s still so much to learn. In the meantime, I offer this recipe for my mother. Because it’s her favorite dish from when she visited Pizzeria Mozza. And she asked for it.

Mom: I know this isn’t a raw dish. But I did find a way to incorporate some flax seed oil and the flavors of the beets make me feel so alive. I know it will do good things–for both of us.

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Beets in Horseradish
Inspired by a dish at Pizzeria Mozza
Makes 2 servings

1 small bunch of baby beets (golf ball sized)
1 tbsp flax seed oil
1 tbsp fresh horseradish
2 tsp white wine or champagne vinegar
1 tsp Dijon or whole grain mustard
Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 425º. Rinse beets well, dry. Place on a sheet pan and tent with tin foil. Roast in oven for 30-40 minutes, or until a knife easily slices through the beets’ center. Let beets cool.

When cool enough to touch, slip the skins off with your hands. Roughly chop the beats into small chunks. Should be about 1 ½ – 2 cups. Put beets in a mixing bowl and drizzle with the flax seed oil. Toss to lightly coat the beets. Using a wooden spoon, gently mix in horseradish, vinegar and mustard. The beets should have a slightly creamy look to them. Taste. Add salt, if needed. Adjust for taste.

Serve cold or room temperature. Perfect as a side dish (literally), since beets have a way of coloring everything they touch!

March 13

Dinner with Infinite Fress

In my rule book, the sign of a great dinner party is a sink full of dirty plates and a table covered in empty wine glasses. Our dinner last night with Marisa and Steve, the lovely couple behind the erudite food blog Infinite Fress, was that kind of a party.

Self-admitted restaurant regulars (The chefs at Hatfield’s and Jitlada know them by name), Steve and Marisa know good food and aren’t afraid to criticize. Cooking for them would not only need to be good, but also needed to show them who I am as a fellow food blogger via my kitchen.

On their blog Infinite Fress, Steve and Marisa craft their true life food adventure stories and restaurant reviews with the care of a fiction writers. The food blog, built as an amusement for themselves and friends, has begun to collect something of a small cult following of hard-core Los Angeles food bloggers. Despite themselves, Infinite Fress is starting to get noticed.

I read a fair amount blogs (maybe too many, my husband would whisper) so it was rather surprising to realize that Infinite Fress may be one of the few (if only) food blogs out there that 1) doesn’t rely on food porn (or any photography for that matter) 2) has me reaching for a dictionary every few sentences. Infinite Fress may be text heavy, but I never want to miss the meaning of any of Steve and Marissa’s well-chosen words.

Dinner Menu

Using a favorite Dan Barber cauliflower recipe as a starting point for the evening’s meal, I found complementary ingredients that helped me create a meal that showcased my talents in the kitchen. To start would be a simple salad of fennel*, wild spinach and mixed grapefruit and nutty cow’s milk cheese. For dinner would be black cod, sauteed oyster mushrooms and cauliflower two ways. For dessert I would follow a Cafe Zuni recipe for chocolate pots de creme and put them in antique tea cups. My husband Hans visited the Wine Hotel for some inspired wine collections (thanks Dan! Thanks Paul!) and Steve and Marisa came bearing examples of two of their favorite wines.

The dinner, for the most part (I mistakenly shorted the dessert two egg yolks—creating a low fat and slightly milky pudding) came together without a hitch. The cauliflower steaks and the pot de crème were a big hit, but by far the most winning element of the night was the company. Steve’s hysterical food adventure stories had the four of us weeping in our wine glasses.

I enclose the following two recipes:

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Cauliflower Steaks with Cauliflower Puree Recipe

Adapted from a Dan Barber recipe
originally published in Bon Appetit February 2008

Makes 4 servings

The key to this recipe is to heating a heavy skillet on high heat and properly caramelizing the cauliflower. This is a recipe that is easily doubled when having a big dinner party.

Ingredients:
2 large heads of cauliflower
3 cups water
2 cups whole milk
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1-2 tablespoons olive oil for brushing
fresh whole nutmeg, for seasoning
sea salt and white pepper

Preheat the oven to 250˚F. Trim the base of the cauliflower to remove the green leaves and part of the base of the cauliflower. Place the cauliflower root-side down onto the cutting board. Using a sharp knife, make two vertical cuts to cut away two one-inch steaks (cut from top to stem). Put steaks aside.

Cut the remaining fall-away florets into golf-ball sized pieces; this should measure about 6 cups worth. Combine florets, water and milk in a sauce pan large enough to fit the mixture. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and cook the mixture until the florets are very tender, about 10-15 minutes. Strain, reserving 2 cups of the cooking liquid. Spread the drained florets onto a large rimmed baking sheet. Bake ten minutes until slightly dry. Transfer florets to a blender in batches. Add about a half of cup of warm milk mixture to the blender and blend until smooth. Continue until all of the soft florets are blended to a smooth texture. Return puree to same saucepan. Taste for seasoning. If desired, add a fine grating of nutmeg to the puree for an additional flavor boost.

Increase oven temperature to 350˚. Heat 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a heavy, ovenproof skillet over medium high heat. Brush the cauliflower steaks with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place the cauliflower steaks in the heated skillet and cook until each side is golden brown, about 2 minutes on each side. Transfer skillet to oven and bake until cauliflower steaks are tender, about 10 minutes.

Divide puree equally and top each serving with a cauliflower steak.

*This recipe can be made in advance of meal. Re-warm puree over medium heat.

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Chocolate Pots (Tea Cups) de Crème Recipe
Recipe adapted from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook

Makes four servings

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (save the extra for a garnish!)
1 half pint of heavy cream, ¾ cup for pot au crème the rest for whipping
¾ cup whole milk
2 tablespoons sugar
4 egg yolks
A good bourbon (or Calvados, Frangelico or Cointreau) (Optional)

Preheat the oven to 300˚

Melt the chocolate with ½ cup of the cream in a double boiler (a small metal bowl over a pot of simmering water). Stir occasionally, until the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and set aside.

Warm the remaining ¼ cup cream, the milk and sugar in a small saucepan. Stir over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat.

In a medium bowl, whisk the yolk, then slowly stir in the warm milk mixture. Pour the mixture (through a sieve) into the melted chocolate. Stir to combine. Stir in a splash of your flavoring liquor of your choice.

Pour the mixture into four china tea cups and place them at least an inch apart in a baking pan or rectangular casserole dish large enough to hold the cups. If you don’t have tea cups use 4- to 5-ounce ramekins or custard cups. Add hot water into the baking dish (be careful not to splash water into the cups!) trying to get the water as high up as possible, without the water overflowing the baking dish. The hot water should come to almost an inch below the top of the tea cups.

Bake until custard is just set at the edges, but still quite soft in the center, about 45 minutes. To check, lift a tea cup and tilt it: the center should bulge. The eggs will continue to cook after you pull the custards out of the oven. The chocolate will harden as it cools. If the custard is already firm when you first check it, then remove the tea cups from the oven and set the cups in shallow bath of salted ice water to stop the cooking.

Cool, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. (They will keep for several days but are best eaten within a few hours of cooking!)

When ready to serve, whip the cream (do by hand with a whisk for a great arm work out or a blender for speed) until soft peaks form. Add a splash of bourbon to taste.

Before serving, sprinkle a pinch of Maldon sea salt onto the top of the pudding (believe me, you’re going to love it!), a hearty dollop of whipped cream and a fine grating of chocolate over the top. Enjoy!

*Marisa claims that this dish converted her from being a fennel hater.

January 7November 14

Butternut Squash Gratin, 2009 Revisited

If a face can launch a thousand ships, what power could a butternut squash have? Turns out one baked butternut squash from Tuscany topped with melted sheep’s milk cheese had the power to change my life.

Flash back to more than a year ago. While on my honeymoon in Italy, my newly minted husband and I stopped for a late lunch in the town of Montepulciano at a tiny restaurant named Osteria Aquachetta.

Among the many Tuscan dishes we sampled, it was a simple side of fresh-from-the-hearth butternut squash with melted sheep’s milk cheese that made us return for dinner several hours later, only so that we could taste the contorni again. The flavors of sweet, caramelized squash united with the oozing, nutty and tart layers of sheep’s milk cheese in a combination of flavor so powerful, I found myself reconsidering everything I knew about food.

Quite simply, when I took that first bite of butternut squash gratin, I saw God. As I relished in the simplicity of the dish—the tender orange meat layered with gooey rounds of sheep’s milk cheese–I could see in perfect detail just how lucky I was to be alive, to be in love, and to be eating as well as I was. In this culinary aha moment, I knew that my time had come to use my craft as a writer to document each and every great meal.

A FOOD WRITER IS BORN

After that fateful meal, I returned home with a new perspective. For the first time I could remember, I began thinking about food as an art form I could master. I put away my novels and began reading cookbooks. I studied the knife skills and cooking techniques of the restaurant’s chefs. I took note of every prep cook’s secrets (like how they de-boned salted anchovies under a steady stream of cold water). I mustered my courage and asked my culinary hero (and boss), Nancy Silverton, for detailed culinary advice about how to perfect this recipe.

After multiple attempts, I settled on a simple recipe with good ingredients that proved to be as close as I could get to the original dish I sampled at the Osteria Aquacheta. I posted the recipe on my newborn blog and moved on.

photo by White on Rice

Since posting that first recipe in November of 2007, a lot has changed. I cook differently. I make meals with confidence. I cook with growing understanding. Cookbooks are my friends but not my sole confidants.

The following recipe is a tiny reminder of all the things I learned in 2008. Where I once was stymied by a lack knowledge, I now have the vocabulary and a growing skill set to know where to look for answers. Though I may still be a padawan learner, I am on the right path.

My updated Butternut Squash recipe has texture and another layer of sweet, nuttiness from fresh pistachios. The crunch of breadcrumbs, the sweetness of the squash, the salted nuttiness of the sheep’s milk cheese and the unifying flavors of the pistachio nuts makes this dish my favorite dish of 2009.

photo by White on Rice

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My 2009 Butternut Squash Gratin

Find the longest necked butternut squash you can find for this recipe. Reserve the seed-holding cavity of the squash for another use.

2 Butternut Squash necks, cut into 3/4 inch rounds
½- lb Pecorino Fresca, cut into ¼ inch thick slices. (Idiazábal, a Spanish hard cheese made from the milk of the long-haired Lacha sheep is a good substitute. Grate, if the cheese is too hard for slicing)
½ cup olive oil, with extra for drizzling
½ cup home made bread crumbs*
1/4 cup chopped pistachio nuts
Maldon sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 375. Peel the squash, cut into uniform rounds. Toss the butternut squash with oil in a medium sized bowl, making sure to coat the rounds with oil. Arrange the squash rounds in a medium-sized casserole dish, allowing for some layering. Pour the remaining oil over the squash. Bake in the oven for approximately 30 minutes, or until the squash is tender enough for a fork to pierce the meat, but not buttery soft. Remove from oven and set aside to cool. This step can be done in advance.

Once the squash is cool enough to touch, begin layering slices of cheese between the rounds of the butternut in the casserole dish. For individual portions, stack two or three butternut squash rounds on top of each other with layers of cheese in between.

When finished layering, sprinkle the entire dish with bread crumbs, then top with the chopped pistachio nuts. Drizzle lightly with olive oil to moisten the breadcrumbs. Finish with a sprinkling of Maldon sea salt and black pepper. Bake at 375 for another 10-20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the squash is soft.

If you desire, turn the oven to broil to caramelize the top of the gratin. Put under the flames for just 2-3 minutes. Serve. Add additional seasoning or red chili flakes if spice is desired.

*Grind left over bread (or toasted fresh bread) with a food processor until a mildly course texture. Add 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley and a hearty pinch of Malden sea salt. Toss. If bread is soft, spread onto a cookie sheet, drizzle with a touch of olive oil and toast in oven (250-300°) until a light, golden brown. Store extra breadcrumbs in an air tight container.

November 9

Eat cheap with sweet potatoes

A delicious, nutritious, and satisfying meal for just 40-cents

I thought I knew what sweet potatoes tasted like. In my taste memory, sweet potatoes were dense, mealy, and slightly sweet. Yet, despite the millions of meals I’ve eaten and the multitudes of hours spent reading about food, I was mistaken. My outdated perspective on the sweet potato got a serious overhaul recently, when I tasted a baked yam, fresh from the oven. I was dumbfounded by its complex flavors, natural sweetness, and its unadulterated texture; it was creamy like a savory pudding.

I’ve had my share of sweet potato fries, but have never tasted anything like this.

How could something so simple–a yam baked in an oven for an hour and sprinkled with salt and pepper–taste so complex? I did a taste-double take. Wait-a-minute, I said to myself, didn’t this unadulterated and undeniably delectable sweet potato cost only forty-cents?

Sweet potato (or yam as it is commonly called in some parts of the states) is a distant relative of the potato. Native to South America, the sweet potato is thought to have originated from the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico and the mouth of the Orinoco River in Venezuela. The tuber’s color ranges in shades between yellow, reddish-orange, white and purple.

Besides complex carbohydrates, sweet potatoes are rich in nutrients like vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and vitamin B6. A baked yam is simply decadent with a smidgen of butter and just a pinch of salt and pepper. At approximately 90 calories per serving, the sweet flavor and rich texture will make you feel like you’re eating something far more sinful.

According to one statistic, sweet potato consumption in the US is down dramatically. In the 1920’s the average American ate 13 pounds of sweet potatoes a year. Now, the average American eats less than two pounds in 12 months.

Here’s to changing that statistic

With economic times such as they are, the low-priced sweet potato is a great tasting way to fill your belly and save some serious money. At my local farmers’ market I bought four large yams for just $1.20. Not many meals taste as good as my thirty-cent yam.

For a great snack or a no-prep meal

Wrap sweet potato in tin foil and bake, for about an hour in a 350-degree oven. Unwrap and serve with a touch of butter. Season with salt and pepper.

Bake off a number of sweet potatoes at once. Save uneaten potatoes for a great side dish for another meal. Mash with a fork and reheat the yams with a touch of milk (cream or soy milk will also work), a pinch of nutmeg, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper for under 15-minute mashed potatoes.

October 30

Penne tre colori: Something wonderful from almost nothing

Penne tre colori, originally uploaded by Foodwoolf.

Desperation inspires an act of innovation

Whenever my refrigerator is empty, I see an opportunity to make something from nothing. Like the generations of women before me that created culinary masterpieces from scraps, I see possibilities in my limited larder.

With nothing but a container of leftover penne, a head of purple cauliflower, and a handful of steadily wilting radishes to inspire me, I let the ingredients dictate my recipe.

Never having sautéed a radish before, I heavily salted the vegetable (as I do when serving it raw on buttered bread), sliced it in thin rounds, and sautéed it in butter. I was delighted to discover that cooking mellowed the radishes’ sharp bite and offered a lovely earthiness and delightful color to the simple dish. The cauliflower’s sweetness was coaxed from a simple sauté and a generous dose of salt and pepper.

This dish is not only simple but incredibly beautiful and satisfying; it will be a standard in my cooking repertoire, regardless of the status of my larder.

Penne Tre colori
Serves 2

1 head of purple cauliflower (regular cauliflower will do, but it won’t look as pretty!)
1 small bunch of breakfast radishes (red, pink and white radish), thinly sliced rounds
3 tbsp olive oil
1 clove of garlic
½ bag of penne pasta (cooked)
1 tbsp butter
Sea salt
Pepper
Finishing olive oil (about 1 tbsp)
pinch of chopped tarragon

Clean the cauliflower, removing outer leaves (if there are any) and the bottom of the stem, leaving at least 2 inches of the cauliflower’s trunk. Slice the cauliflower vertically from stem to florets, about ¼ inch slices. Don’t worry if the florets break apart.

Slice the radishes in uniformly thin (1/8-inch) slices.

Heat a small sauté pan over medium high heat with 2-½ tbsp of olive oil. Using the back of your knife, bruise the clove of garlic. Add to pan, let cook for 1 minute. Add cauliflower and let sauté untouched, for 3 minutes, or until it is nicely browned on one side. Toss to allow cauliflower to cook on the other side. As both sides brown, turn down flame and cook. Keep on flame until the cauliflower is cooked almost all the way through, about 10-12 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove garlic clove and set cauliflower aside in a warm and covered bowl.

Meanwhile, another sauté pan, heat over medium high heat. When hot, add the butter. When the butter melts, add the radishes and a generous pinch of sea salt and grated pepper. Taste for seasoning. Sauté until soft, about 3-5 minutes. Add the pinch of chopped tarragon and toss.

Add the remaining ½ teaspoon of olive oil to the warm (and empty) cauliflower sauté pan. Once the oil is heated, add left over pasta (if using left-over, dry pasta) and reheat over low flame until warm (about 4 minutes). If using fresh from the pot pasta, simply drain. Add hot pasta to a warm bowl with sautéed vegetables. Toss.

Add ¼ cup to ½ cup grated Parmesan to pasta, toss. Taste pasta for seasoning, adjust if necessary. Plate in warm bowls. Finish with a drizzle of finishing olive oil and a pinch of sea salt. Serve immediately.

“Blessed are those who expect little. They are seldom disappointed.”

—Tony Hillerman

August 7

Squash Blossoms at Home

One of the great things about working at a really good restaurant is watching great food get made. One of the frustrating parts of working at a great restaurant is being around food for eight or nine long hours and never getting to eat.

The following dish is one of the signature appetizers of the restaurant I work at. Whenever an extra dish is “fired” (cooked) or doesn’t meet the chef’s standards, there’s a chance that the dish will be apprehended by a scavaging staff member ready to snag a quick bite, before the dish’s contents gets tossed.

This weekend’s farmer’s market was crowded with beautiful examples of squash blossoms, just begging to be made fresh.

There are two forms of squash blossoms available at local farmer’s markets from . When at the market look for squash blossoms that are either “unattached” (the male flowers) or the small blossom attached to a baby squash (the female flower). Either kind of blossom will require the removal of their internal “organs” (the pistil or the stamen) before they can be stuffed. The flowers are delicate and quick to go bad, so be sure to use the flowers right away.

I made this dish with fresh Buffala ricotta, which can be found at Bubalus Bubalis’s , the Hollywood Farmers market and a number of other cheese stores across the country. The taste and texture of this cheese is amazing but a fresh cow’s ricotta cheese will do.

Ricotta stuffed squash blossoms
A simple appetizer for two

For the blossoms
1 ½ cups of fresh buffalo ricotta or cow’s milk ricotta
pinch of salt
Freshly grated nutmeg (to taste)
Six (or more) squash blossoms

For the batter
1 cup panko (Asian breadcrumbs)
1 egg, beaten

olive oil (enough to cover the bottom of a small frying pan with a thin layer)
pinch of maldon sea salt
squeeze of lemon

Inspect the inside of the blossoms for insects and remove the inside flower “organs”.

In a small bowl mix together ricotta, salt and freshly grated nutmeg to taste. With either a small spoon or you fingers, stuff the cleaned blossoms with the ricotta mixture. Don’t over stuff, be sure to put in just enough to fill the flower’s belly with ricotta. Twist the ends of the squash flowers to close.

Pour the panko onto a plate. Dip the stuffed squash blossom into the beaten egg (let drip for a second) and then roll onto the breadcrumbs.

After you have breaded your squash blossoms, heat a small frying pan over medium to high heat. Add the oil and let it get hot.

Gently add one squash blossom onto the bed of the pan. Make sure the oil is hot enough to make the flower and breading sizzle. Add just enough squash blossoms to cook them but not overcrowd the pan. Turn the blossoms with tongs when golden on one side—about 4 minutes. Turn until the blossoms are completely golden. Put on a paper napkin to drain of oil.

Put on plate, finish with a squeeze of lemon and a quick pinch of Maldon sea salt. Serve immediately.

June 3November 14

Inspirational Dishes

Eating at a great restaurant is inspiring.

If you can get beyond the the daily challenges of the service industry, working at a great restaurant is galvanizing.

While working in a great restaurant: I met and fell in love with my husband. I found some of my best friends. I discovered (and tasted) wines from all over the world. I became a foodie. I learned how to make a miserable guest happy. I unraveled the mystery of cheese making. I gained an acute sense of taste and smell. I sampled a panoply of dishes and made them my own.

This spring time antipasti, is one of them.

This is one of those great restaurant dishes that once I tasted it, I needed to know how to make it. The following is my interpretation of the dish we currently serve at the restaurant.

Peas Mint and (home made) Greek Yogurt Cheese

3 tablespoons (a full palm’s worth) of Greek Yogurt Cheese
(Note: see previous post for the full recipe). To save time, goat or sheep’s milk cheese will do.
1 cup of sweet peas (in the pod), juilienned
1⁄4 cup red onion, diced
Juice of one lemon
3 tablespoons of a good red wine vinegar
1⁄4 cup Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Maldon sea salt (or a good finishing salt)

*Begin preparation of Greek Yogurt cheese one day before serving with salad!

Toss the julienned peas and onion with the olive oil, lemon juice and vinegar.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. Put on plate and serve with a small round of your home made Greek Yogurt Cheese. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and pinch of Maldon sea salt.

May 16

Beyond "regular"

Picture the scene. Busy restaurant. Tables packed with hungry guests. A guest in jeans and a tee shirt gives the menu a cursory glance. They scan the appetizers for words they know. Their eyes fall on the heading: bruschetta. They see chicken liver bruschetta then salt cod bruschetta and, suddenly, they’re confused.

“Don’t you have a regular bruschetta?” they say in a pained voice.

“I’m sorry,” I try to say with a blank look on my face (I hear this question twenty times a night). “What exactly do you mean by regular?”

Now, I know it’s not fair asking a question I already know the answer to. But I always want to be sure that my guest really is thinking that they want garlic bread with tomato, olive oil and basil—despite the fact that they have three or four other really amazing (and far better) options to choose from on the menu.

Unfortunately, “regular”, in the mind of my restaurant customer, actually means “what I’m used to.”

You see, when it comes to food, there really is no “regular”. There are regional dishes and traditional fare, but every chef in every culture has their own way of doing things. In the case of bruschetta, bruschetta is to the Italians what toasted bread is to us—it’s just a starting point for something else.

According to Italian food expert, chef and cookbook author Marcella Hazan, the word bruschetta comes directly from the Latin verb bruscare, which means to toast (as in a slice of bread). “In bruschetta,” she says, “the most important component, aside from the grilled bread itself, is olive oil.”

So, thinking beyond the “regular bruschetta”, I’ve been experimenting. I’ve been trying to stay within the world of Italian cooking, while thinking of bruschetta as a sort of open faced sandwich or a tiny vehicle to showcase a handful of exciting flavors.

I found some gorgeous Italian dandelions and fresh goat cheese at the farmer’s market this weekend and came up with this simple, and delicious nibble that’s just perfect for a before dinner snack. The dandelion greens are bitter so I recommend using something sweet to balance out the flavor. I used a slightly spicy (as in mustard, spicy) clementine jelly for mine. If you don’t have access to an Italian market then be sure to use a nice honey in its place.

Italian Dandelion, goat cheese and bacon bruschetta with salsa di Clementine
Serves 6–but feel free to adjust recipe to make as many or as few as you want!

1 bunch of washed and dried dandelion greens (cut into 1” pieces)
1 garlic clove (whole)
olive oil (for drizzling)
1 small container of fresh goat cheese (a fresh sheep cheese would also work)
3-5 pieces of bacon (cooked and cut into 1 inch pieces)
1/2 batard of rustic bread or ½ of a well made baguette
Salsa di Clementine (an Italian, spicy clementine jelly) Feel free to use any other moustarda jelly or specialty honey.

Cut the bread into ¼ inch thick slices. Heat up a saute pan over medium high heat, then add bacon. Cook until crisp. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and place on paper towels to remove excess oil. If bacon hasn’t given off too much grease, throw cleaned and chopped dandelion greens into the same pan and quickly cook until wilted (about 2 minutes). Otherwise, remove the excess grease, leaving about a tablespoon worth of bacon fat behind in the pan for cooking the greens.

Meanwhile, toast the bread. When bread is done, rub the bread with the garlic clove. *this is my favorite part, watching the garlic melt like butter onto the bread. Then, drizzle bread with a tiny amount of olive oil and then spread a small amount of spicy Clementine jelly on top. Note: if using honey, drizzle honey over the greens at the end. Add a teaspoon of goat cheese to each piece of bread, then top with a heaping teaspoon dandelion greens. Top with bacon. Eat immediately.

April 29

Taste of Spring: Favas

When I shell peas, any kind of fresh bean in a pod, I am instantly transported back to the early days of my childhood. Pop open a pea pod and that sweet, almost green smell brings me a vivid sensory memory of the old farmhouse we once lived in and the lush vegetable garden my mother lovingly tended by hand. When I sat down in front of my television the other night to peel six pounds of fresh Fava beans (also known as an English “broad bean”), I was immediately transported to my days as a make-believing six year old, sitting cross-legged on the screened-in porch, shelling a bowl of peas.

While a caught up on my Tivo’d recordings, I snapped the tiny green caps off the end of my Fava bean pods and, recalling the same wonder I felt as a child, I zippered open its belly with the pod’s center “string”. Once inside the pod, I was like a child observing nature’s ingenious design. I marveled at the white spongy material that held the tender beans in place and protects them from harm. Curious, I popped a fresh Fava from the shell and put one in my mouth. The flavor made me cringe a little as I discovered that fresh Fava beans are too bitter to be eaten raw. Considering how long it takes to shell a fava bean, it’s a good thing that the beans’ fresh, green, earthy flavors are just perfect for short cooking time.

Many chefs cook young, fresh Favas in the pod while others recommend shelling the beans and cooking them in salted water for salads, side dishes and purees. After an hour of shelling, I decided upon a recipe that was not only extremely easy to prepare but also something uniquely original. In a city filled with fava bean purees and fava bean salads, it was rather refreshing to find a decadent dish such as this.

The following recipe from the Silver Spoon is sure to please the adults at the table, along with curious six year olds with a hankering for shelling fresh peas.

FAVA BEANS IN CREAM
Adapted from the Silver Spoon cookbook

3 pounds Fava beans, shelled
1 cup heavy cream
2 oz Fontina

Cook beans in salted water for 10 minutes. Drain the beans and then tip into a skillet. Add cream and simmer gently for 10 minutes, or until thickened. Stir in fontina and cook until it is just starting to melt.

Serve immediately.

February 28

Fried Green Tomatoes and Parmesan Omelet

I wanted to write about fried green tomatoes. I wanted to write about the glory of using the heat of a fry pan and some oil to turn a hard, green, unripe market tomato into something completely unlike itself. Worked up the words to describe the process of finding ripeness and a hint of sweetness from the hard, unready-for-a-sandwich tomato. I thought about the simple recipe of tomatoes dusted with cornmeal and how they came to life with both crunch from the fried cornmeal and juicy goodness from the heat-induced ripeness. I wanted to talk about the juice of the tomato that ran down my chin when I bit into the fried wheel of goodness.

I planned on writing about the revelation of paring this classic southern dish with a simple omelet made with nothing more than eggs, grated Parmesan, salt and pepper.

But then, I spoke with my landlord. After years of planning and making ready for the big step of becoming a dog owner, my husband and I began the paperwork for adopting a pet. Even though the owner of the building (our landlord’s mother) said yes over a year ago, our current landlord wasn’t so sure.

But…

She says she’ll think about it.

So I say I’ll just sit here with my heart broken until she decides.

Fried Green Tomatoes and Parmesan Omelet
makes 2 servings

For FRIED GREEN TOMATOES:
One firm green tomato. Slice into 1/2 inch rounds
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup olive oil
kosher salt

Sprinkle green tomato with salt on each side. Let sweat for a few minutes. Meanwhile, pour cornmeal onto a plate. When the tomatoes have sweated a bit, place the tomato slices (one at a time) onto the corn meal. Coat the slices with corn meal. Repeat until all tomatoes are ‘breaded’.

Heat pan over medium temperature. Add enough olive oil to give a good layer of oil to cook in. Saute tomatoes until each side becomes a golden color.

Plate and keep warm under a tent of tinfoil in a warm oven.

Meanwhile…

for PARMESAN OMELET
6 eggs (2 eggs and 4 egg whites) *or use the whole eggs if you’re not concerned about too much cholesterol
splash of milk or half/half
half a cup freshly grated Italian Parmesan
salt and pepper

Whisk the eggs and a splash of milk (about 3 minutes) or until light and bubbly. Heat pan over a medium flame. Coat pan with a thin layer of oil. Add egg mixture when pan is good and hot. Use a wooden spoon to move egg mixture around in pan. After 3-4 minutes, when the egg mixture begins to firm up with cooking, add parmesan cheese. Turn on broiler to let heat up. When omelet is mostly cooked and just a little runny on top, put under broiler. The top should cook quickly and puff up under the heat.

Serve immediately.

January 8November 14

Soffritto: (Trying to) Learn from a Master–Part II

BACK HOME
I unload my farmer’s market finds and start prepping. I quickly glance at my copy of Soffrito. The recipe for Ragu is about seven pages—including a lovely picture of a finished Ragu and a three page essay on meat sauces. I force myself to skim the dense paragraphs describing the history of meat sauces and stop at the list of ingredients for the Ragu.

1 1/4 lbs of beefsteak (sirloin, rib eye or round steak)
1 pork sausage
2 chicken livers
1 chicken neck
1 large or 2 small red onion, minced
1 carrot, peeled and minced
1 large stalk celery, minced
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ cup dry red wine
salt
2 fresh or canned tomatoes, peeled
4 cups water
1 piece of lemon zest, cut into thin strips
2-3 tablespoons of butter for dressing the pasta
1 cup Parmesan cheese for serving

Though the list of ingredients calls for beefsteak, it isn’t until I start reading the actual recipe that I realize I was supposed to ask the butcher to mince the meat for me. Upon further reading, Vitali suggests strongly that the butcher must only put the meat through the mincer once in order to “prevent excessive flaccidity.” I try to imagine myself returning to the meat counter with my sirloin and asking the old man for a shot at the mincer. I made a fool of myself in front of him once today. There is no way I’m going back there.

Luckily, a few sentences later, Vitali says a good home mincing is also an ideal for a ragu, but warns the reader that it is not only time consuming, but requires “a certain skill.” Hoping I have the innate skills needed, I commence mincing.

Based on the size of my dice, I decide I have quite possibly succeeded in making a somewhat proper mince. I begin my soffritto and heed Vitali’s advice to do nothing but observe the cooking process of these key three ingredients.

I marvel at the smells of this holy trinity
and admire the way the heat and oil changes the texture of the vegetables over time.

What was once clearly separate becomes one in velvety texture. It is at this point, when the soffritto gets to the “moment before it burns” I toss in the meat and let it brown.

As I do I read Vitali’s advice with the hunger of a starved pupil.

“Don’t be seduced into forgetting what you are doing and letting browning turn to burning. In this recipe you work at full attention, monitoring all operations…as the browning of both the soffritto and the meat should stretch your attention to the maximum. You will need all your senses, including the olfactory one, to prevent disaster.”

I tell myself Vitali is my greatest teacher yet, and continue on. If anyone can teach an Anglo Saxon how to cook like an old school Italian, it’s Vitali. She describes the browning process as one of making the meat “suffer”. Without browning, she explains, the meat will taste like it was boiled.

Sure. Brown the meat. Got that. Check.

I brown the meat for 15 minutes, waiting for the tell tale “crust” to appear on the meat and on the bottom of the pan. When this begins to happen, I add ½ a cup of wine and let it cook off.

With the wine cooked off, I begin to add my two cans of peeled tomatoes.

After adding the first can I realize I have been using the wrong pan for the job.

I re-read the recipe and discover that Vitali calls for a 10 inch diameter POT, not a 10 inch in diameter PAN. Suddenly, I am forced to move all cooking operations into the right sized container.

***It is this moment here, when things began to go astray, that I should have realized there was something wrong. I should have turned off the heat, stepped away from the stove and re-read Vitali’s 7 page recipe. Had I done that, dear reader, I might have discovered that the recipe called for TWO TOMATOES. Not TWO CANS of peeled tomatoes. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I definitely have problems with paying full attention to the little (and some times big) details. Just ask my husband. He’d be the first one to say with a smile that I am one quick moving person of the Aries persuasion. ***

With my meat and two cans (blush) of peeled tomatoes transferred to a pot, I am ready to add the 4 cups of water to the sauce. I lower the flame to minimum, add salt, pepper and lemon zest and leave it for 2 hours.

At the end of the cooking time (no wonder it took my sauce about an hour more to cook down), I remove the chicken neck and pull the meat off the bone. I toss the bones and return the chicken neck meat to the sauce. Delish! While I cook the pasta, I heat up my oven to 100 degrees so I can warm my pasta dishes.

When the pasta is al dente, drain and save some pasta water for thickening the sauce. Pour a ladleful of sauce into the bottom of the pasta bowl with a dab of butter.

Add a serving of drained pasta in the pasta bowl and add more sauce. Turn the pasta with a fork and spoon so as to blend it and serve immediately with grated Parmesan cheese.

Though the meal was a success (the house smelled like Casalinga a favorite Italian trattoria), I know I sti
ll have much to learn. The ragu would have been a true meat sauce had I followed the directions to a T. What I ended up with was a saucy meat sauce.

I have to admit, this dish as prepared, was amazing. Next time, I shall try it with the requested TWO TOMATOES and see what the difference is!

January 8

Soffritto–(trying to) learn from a master Part 1

There’s something to be said about learning from a master. Curiosity and reading can assist a student in the basic understanding of their subject. Practice and countless attempts may move a student’s understanding forward, but it is the presence of a master and a student’s drive to understand, that can initiate the most profound kind of learning. The eager student that studies with a master will inevitably learn the important nuances that makes proficiency possible.

To behold a master, no matter what it is they do, is to witness artistry. A master distills millions of hours of learning in a dab of paint, the slice of the knife, the turn of a phrase, the swish of the bat, a musical tone or the stillness of their mind in chaos. Despite the power of academia, the whisper of a master may be more important than a shelf-full of books.

And so it is with cooking. Reading can only get you so far. It’s what’s actually done in the kitchen that will get the novice to a place of mastery. It’s in doing that one does. Cookbooks can only get you so far.

Preparing food from “Soffritto: Tradition and Innovation in Tuscan Cooking”, however, is to learn Italian cooking from a master.

If the student is willing, Benedetta Vitali’s cookbook will teach the traditional Tuscan way of cooking in a handful of well-written chapters. Information usually transmitted via hours in the kitchen by an ancient family member, is shared in meandering stories and pointed observations on the aesthetics of cooking. Vitali’s stories are captivating and her voice is like a patient mother doling out the family rules. “One must never leave a Soffritto on the stove unattended,” is the sort of advice that if taken to heart will haunt you every time you start the traditional onion/carrot/celery mixture sautéing on the stove.

No other cookbook I’ve read gives so much personality and passion for the correct way of doing things. When reading Soffritto, you get the feeling there’s a whole army of Vitali’s family ready to start a war over why she would ever give away all the family’s secret recipes.

After eating the multi-course dinner at her restaurant Cibreo in Florence (one of my most memorable meals of 2007), I knew I had witnessed the culmination of years of experience and real mastery of a subject. The food was not only impeccable and representative of Tuscan food, but each and every one of the dishes elevated the common fare to a whole new level. Each course was a revelation. Even, ribolita—a rustic left over stew mixed with bread—was recreated and deconstructed—making it an ultimately sublime experience.

So when I woke up on Sunday morning with the urge for a meat ragu, I knew I had some learning to do from Benedetta.

What follows is my experience cooking Ragu from Soffritto.

MAKING RAGU–SUNDAY MORNING
Always a slow day, I pull myself from bed at 10. After an hour of catching up on the presidential primaries, I head out the door. It’s cold and rainy (an oddity in LA), so traffic is slow going. I make it to the Hollywood Farmer’s market just minutes before the vendors pack up their stalls for the day.

With my stomach growling, I quickly buy a cinnamon bun from the Bread Man and eat it out of its plastic bag while I speed shop for my vegetable essentials. I buy a bag of sweet carrots, three perfectly white onions and a hearty bunch of celery for soffritto, the traditional base elements for most Italian dishes. I buy a flowering bok choy, leafy red lettuce, Meyer lemons, and cherry red tomatoes. I taste test blackberries and drip sugary raisins on a bag of dried favas as I reach into my jean pocket for my stash of wrinkled dollar bills. I leave the market before someone shoes me away for ruining their product.

After failing to my friend’s recommended butcher, I fight the weekend traffic and go to the permanent farmer’s market at 3rd and Fairfax. Finding a parking spot is nearly impossible, but I find a space in the 30 minute parking area and run for it.

On my way across the parking lot I call my husband and ask him to read to me the ingredients for the meat ragu from the Soffritto cookbook. As he reads me the ingredients I scribble them onto a scrap of paper I scrounge from my cluttered purse.

“You’re going to need 1 ¼ beef sirloin. 2 chicken livers and one pork sausage” My husband pauses. “Uh, the recipe calls for 1 chicken neck and 2 oz suet. Are you sure about this?”

I shrug. “Why not?”

The forward moving force of limited time (my thirty minute parking spot) and powerful muses (Vitali’s gorgeous Soffritto cookbook has me convinced this is a meal worth eating) has me excited and dodging dawdling mall customers and hurtling at a break-neck pace for the meat counter of my local butchers. Hah! I laugh. Chicken necks and the unknown ingredient “suet” can not deter me.

At the Puritan Poultry, I buy the chicken livers, no problem. They’re fresh and a gorgeous purple brown. The butcher rings up the chicken neck. It weighs next to nothing and it looks like freshly skinned pinky finger. The whole thing costs me less than 50 cents. Who knew a person could get fresh chicken necks at the butcher?

I head over to the Pork and Beef butcher by the Korean food stand. These guys are always busy and their playful meat displays (pig faces made out of pork sausage) always put a smile on my face. Behind the glass case are two young men in white butcher’s coats. A wiry old guy that looks like he’s spent more time chain smoking than actually eating food stands behind them, checking their work at the counter. I carefully check my list of ingredients and prepare to direct my questions to the senior gentleman.

A young man with a thin moustache approaches and offers to help. I rattle off the easy stuff. Instead of purchasing in spicy Italian sausage, the young butcher recommends a small portion of pork sausage meet. When I order 1 and ¼ lbs. of beef sirloin, he finds me the best chuck sirloin. With my basic meat needs met, I wait for the right moment to ask for the suet.

“So, I’m also going to need some suet,” is say as the senior butcher crosses behind the young man with the skinny moustache. “About 2 ounces.”

“What the hell kind of recipe calls for 2 ounces of suet?” The old man laughs at me with spite. “I hate cookbooks like that. Those people don’t even know how we have to sell this stuff. I should sell you a whole pound and let you deal with the rest of it.”

I smile and nod. “I know. Crazy cookbook authors.” I chuckle.

I do my best to try to make the guy understand I’m on his side–not the cookbook’s.

The man disappears into the meat locker and comes out with a plastic bag filled with what looks like a white powder. He shovels a few scoops of the stuff into a white bag and seals it.

“Here’s about a ¼ pound.” The man frowns as he slams the bag down onto the counter.

“What you don’t use, you can freeze.”

I thank the man as I screw up my courage for the question I’ve been saving. Time this wrong, and the innocent act of questioning could turn this transaction seriously sour.

“You wouldn’t mind educating me on what exactly suet is? “ I swallow hard. “Would you?”

The senior butcher pulls the paper hat he’s wearing over what’s left of the hair on his head. “Fat. Suet is the fat that lines the kidney.” With that, the man disappears back into the meat locker. As soon as the door locks behind him I know the old man is swearing underneath his breath at me. I comfort myself with the thought that someone has to ask these questions. Someone has to act stupid so others won’t.

(to be continued…)