We’re all changelings, right? No? Well, I’d be worried if I were you. The past year has brought me love and light, a partner who’s too good to be true, a new appreciation for beer (as wine sulks in the corner), lots of food and of course, an extra ten pounds. Softness is the sign of a life well lived, right? Right.
I’ve been thinking to myself recently, “gosh, I seem to have less time for cooking and blogging these days.” But, as I am the master of my own destiny, I wonder if that’s really true. I actually cook quite a bit – it’s just that I forget to whip out the camera, plan ahead, stage the situation, make time for shooting. And of course, there’s the photo processing, settling in to write the blog, so forth. More effort has to be made.
I also wonder why this blog couldn’t be about more than cooking, seeing as how I’m certainly about more than cooking. Hell, I have all kinds of photos, thoughts, and culinary experiences that take place outside my own kitchen to share. So maybe I’ll do just that. Maybe I’ll start blogging about those things. Soon.
I think it’s safe to say that last year, it was tomatoes. I coveted them, sought them, grew them. Ate them raw with every kind of cheese you can imagine, sprinkled them with basil, dressed them with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, roasted them, made them into sauces, and simply ate them with salt. It was sensual. It was almost obscene.This summer, although I’m enjoying my fair share of the crimson summer fruit, an altogether different seasonal ingredient has caught my eye: fresh corn.
Corn may have enjoyed something of a renaissance in my mind a few months ago in New York, when I tasted a sweet corn pudding at a BBQ joint, then my boyfriend requested the same dish for a BBQ we threw for the 4th of July holiday. It was the first time I’d ever cooked with corn (beyond the obvious grilled corn on the cob), and it received rave reviews. Soon thereafter, Epicurious and The Kitchn began assaulting me with recipes, the top spot on the list fabulously occupied by Tagliatelle with Fresh Corn Pesto.
What, what? Corn pesto? Sounded nutty, but nevertheless I had one of those moments where upon simply seeing the photo, I knew I’d be making it that evening. And I did.
Getting the corn off the cob itself wasn’t as tough as I thought it would be. It didn’t emit much of an aroma when cooking, which was fine, because my kitchen was fully dominated by the scent of frying pancetta. I suppose now’s as good a time as any to point out that I substituted pancetta for bacon in this recipe. I do that a lot. I find it brings a lot more depth, and is often simply better quality, but you need to be careful how you spice your food because of what pancetta is already bringing to the table.
So onto this whole “corn pesto,” thing. I know, I know – pesto is simply the Italian word for “pounded,” or something along those lines, just like “salsa” is Spanish for “sauce.” Still, we get certain ideas in our head and the schema I’ve got for pesto simply doesn’t include corn. At least, not until now. The ingredients are similar, you’re basically just using corn in place of basil. Pine nuts, Parmigiano-Reggiano, garlic and olive oil still get thrown in. The result is … hard to describe. It’s sweet and nutty, and the secondary ingredients of pesto really shine without spicy basil there to snag the starring role. Since I’d pulled my corn off the flame not too long ago, the pesto was also beautifully warm.
The recipe called for tagliatelle, but some fresh whole wheat fettuccini caught my eye at the market. I tend towards whole wheat pastas anyway, and fresh is hard to pass up. And you see that on top? Basil. The authors couldn’t resist, and I wouldn’t have been able to either. A truly delicious meal that opened up two doors for me – willingness to try all the other pestos that I’ve known were out there, but just didn’t seem worthy – and the sweet song of sweet summer corn.
The concept of “comfort food” means something just a little bit different to everyone. Is it something that brings back memories and feelings of a time where you were calm, happy, and less stressed? Is it something you can make or acquire easily, with minimal muss and fuss because you just can’t handle any more than you’ve already got at the moment? Surely it goes even deeper for some people – putting away a pint of Ben & Jerry’s to make the pain stop, so on and so forth (here’s hoping none of us ever get to that point).
Personally, I have a bit of a love affair with food, perhaps trending just a tad towards the unhealthy side. Certain meals do bring me comfort, although I’m not sure I can attribute that happiness to much other than “this tastes beautiful and I enjoy it immensely.” If that’s all there is to it, I’m pretty okay with that. On more than one occasion I’ve wondered if some of us are afflicted with a strange sort of synesthesia. You know, when the sense of taste translates into stunning feelings and imagery in your mind’s eye, physiological excitement, perhaps deeper attachments to the person you’re eating with, or the establishment you’re in … they say scent is the sense that’s most closely tied to our memory and emotions, and 75% of what we taste is actually coming from smell. Coincidence? I think not.
There’s a wonderful restaurant in Palo Alto called Lavanda. It’s full of good people, energy, wine and food, and makes me happy. I was there with my family almost exactly one year ago, for my 26th birthday, and the Executive Chef at the time, Tiny, personally brought a special dish out to the bar for us (it’s rare to find my family and I sitting at a proper table, we’re bar-lingering folks and damn proud of it). It was so simple: fresh bread , creamy goat cheese, succulent asparagus, and truffle oil. I later discovered the bread was from La Brea, and now it’s the only bread I’ll buy if I can help it.
Suffice it to say, I completely stole this recipe. I make it all the time, and no matter how many times I have it, I still close my eyes and sigh as I take that first bite. The tastes meld together perfectly. Before putting the truffle oil on, I cover the bread and cheese quite liberally with fresh cracked black pepper. You should try it! Enjoy, and may it bring you comfort.
Few things have I consumed in my life that have made me this happy. The recipe is genius, not to mention easy to execute, and the resulting cookies have made me famous at work. There are a lot of food products in this world which I suspect contain some sort of addictive substance (i.e., the crack in the food at Chez Panisse). But since I’m the one actually making these cookies, and have no recollection of adding crack, I’ve no choice but to conclude that this is simply the world’s best chocolate chip cookie.
An expert baker I am not, but there’s two things which are relatively unique to this recipe: a mixture of all-purpose flour and cake flour, and having the dough sit for 24-36 hours. The former gives you silkiness, the latter is meant to allow the flour in the dough to soak up the flavor from the butter, vanilla, and so forth.
When you’re at the halfway point and your dough is finished, “silky” doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s lacking that heavy grit a lot of doughs have, and um … yeah. I don’t eat lots of cookie dough. Not at all. Anyway, another great thing about this recipe is that it encourages the use of organic, sustainable chocolate. It names Valrhona as a preferred choice, the 70% dark I believe. Every time I make these though, I use half dark and half milk. The first time they were out of feves, so I got home with baking blocks and chopped them up myself. My poor wrists.
(It was worth it.)
The clincher here comes in the form of sea salt sprinkled on top. I desperately wanted to find that really crunchy, flaky variety that you sometimes get in very nice restaurants, but I couldn’t. Woe. I’m a bit of a fiend when it comes to salt + sugar. I might murder you if you get between me and salted caramel ice cream, and when I read this recipe’s call for salt on the cookie I think I actually made them the very next day.
These came out perfect. Prior batches had been dicey, for which I blamed my old gas oven which is simply too hard to tame when baking something so delicate. So I moved future operations to my mom’s, and now warm these in her nice, new, state of the art cookie baking device. You’d think it would be an imposition, but for some reason she doesn’t seem to mind. Go figure.
There you have it, the story of the NYT cookie. The recipe is on their website, free for the taking. I have a feeling this thing kicks that silly Bloomingdale’s chocolate chip cookie recipe’s ass. Or is it Sacs 5th Ave.? Who cares, you should go make these.
So evidently when you experience a massive increase in physical activity, your body starts craving different things. It’s also possible I just am working out a lot more, dropping pounds, and somewhere in my little brain it’s more justifiable than it was before. Either way, enter: beef.
Previously only really eaten on special occasions, such as BBQs (see last blog entry), I’m now eating red meat slightly more frequently. I still have the requisite health concerns, as well as my moral ones. My other consumption habits have begun leaning strongly towards free range, cage free, local and organic. Why should beef be any different? On the contrary, it’s probably even more important. Plus, you can follow the “Snickers and a Diet Coke,” logic here. Add vegetables, and suddenly your steak dinner really isn’t so bad, is it?
My lovely friend Greta semi-recently introduced me to Marin Sun Farms beef, only available locally (read: Palo Alto) at Country Sun Foods. Go buy some. The steaks are great and the ground beef is phenomenal. When Greta made mini-burgers with this beef, I was dumbstruck. I’ve never been a huge fan of burgers for the burger itself, it was always about the toppings for me. Marin Sun beef changes everything. But only if you have money in the bank, otherwise you should probably eat something else. This stuff isn’t cheap.
Slightly overcooked Grass Fed Beef with Herbs and Yellow and Green Bean Salad (revised – yes, I must add feta to everything). Until someone pins me down and convinces me otherwise, I’ll continue to assume this is healthful and eat it semi-regularly. The bean salad is a fine light supper on its own, if you aren’t very hungry/are crash dieting for some ungodly reason. But why would anyone do such a thing?
Lamb, not lamp. I had lamb fairly often growing up, I remember my mom made “lamb patties” which came prepackaged from the store. They were great (thanks mom!), but back then, I didn’t notice much of a difference from beef. My early exposure to eating lamb made me unaffected by some of the guilt or discomfort others experience when faced with a lamb product. Yes, I am a dirty, immoral carnivore. But I care not, it is delicious and even good for you.In a previous post, I had talked about lamb chops. Big on taste, sometimes big on price, low on actual meat. Enter: ground lamb. I came across a recipe on Epicurious for lamb sausage patties stuffed with mint and feta and instantly wanted to try it. The mixture of mint and feta is what really pulled me in, as I am generally unimpressed with most ground meat.
Mint from the garden? Check. Feta? Not so much. I was concerned about the blandness of the cheese not adding much to the recipe, but was going to try it anyway. At the store, I came across “Bulgarian Feta.” I took a chance on it, and am really quite glad I did. It’s not like other fetas. It’s stronger, saltier, and dare I say, it’s almost a stinky cheese. It contributes some serious punch to this recipe and I wouldn’t use any other sort of feta with it.
See? Salty melty goodness. These work great on their own, as shown, or as burgers. With the former I just strain some yogurt and mix in chopped cucumber with a little mint to eat as a side. For burgers, a tzatziki is more appropriate. Serve on ciabatta rolls with some thinly sliced red onion, and you are seriously good to go.One final note about lamb: if you think you don’t like it, try it again. Unless your reasons are political/moral, in which case, ignore me. But I’ve had lots of people declare they don’t like lamb, then have a bite of one of these, and practically inhale the thing. It’s my suspicion that somehow, lots of people have only ever tried Australian lamb which can be really gamy. Domestic is where it’s at.
Always in high demand:Say hello to open-faced steak sandwiches on garlic buttered bread with provolone and parsley oil. This is one of those recipes that you should never serve to your friends unless you’re okay with making it many, many more times. I am, so I did. I did however, make the mistake of actually calling them “steak sandwiches,” and was met with the inevitable “sandwiches have two pieces of bread!” comments. So now they are lovingly referred to by many as my “steak toasts.”
This is one of that damnable Bobby Flay’s recipes. I can’t eat one of these without experiencing internal conflict. Despise the man, love his food. I shake my fist at you, Bobby Flay!
Well, no. I don’t. Mostly Irish and German, but something in my soul relates to the Italians. I love the culture, the food, the wine; I’d like to say I love the countryside but I haven’t been there. Yet. For whatever reason, when I first began cooking it was mostly Italian style. Not Italian proper of course, because thinking back, my first forays into Italian cooking consisted of nothing more than Buitoni and Classico. Fast forward about fourteen cookbooks, the happy discovery of La Cucina Italiana, and now I’m fiddling with Pancetta vs. Guancale.
To be honest, it’s a darn good thing I’m not Italian. If I were, my grandmother would be slapping the hell out of me for what I’m about to say. But I’m just going to say it, while the angels weep. In my Spaghetti Carbonara, I did not like Guancale nearly as much as I like Pancetta. So there. The photos below are of my Guancale version.
It just doesn’t have the charm Pancetta has. And if you know me at all, you know that I will gladly defy Italian tradition in the interest of charming pork products.
To date, the above is definitely my most ambitious Italian attempt. It gets easier with time; a good set of tongs is crucial and I’ve learned to temper the eggs with the pasta water. The first time I ever made this, it was basically noodles, bacon and scrambled eggs with a ton of pepper. Ideal? No. Delicious? Yes. This is a pretty great recipe, and it’s generally what I go on. But really, once you do this once it’s hard to forget how it goes.
But I’ve found that authenticity and degree of difficulty aren’t what impresses friends. What does impress them, you ask? Lemons and grain alcohol. More specifically, high proof liquor that over a period of time, extracts the oils from lemon peels then is married with sugar and water and kept at freezing temperatures to create a divinely thick, syrupy, creamy and sweet lemon flavored Italian digestivo.
Also known as, Limoncello.
If you’re familiar with the Gumbo debacle, you might know by now that when I embark on what can only be described as a culinary project, I do research. And lots of it. In fact, my tendency to procrastinate on the actual execution of my hairbrained schemes gives me lots and lots of time for research. But finally the day came where I was ready to inflict myself with carpal tunnel syndrome by painstakingly peeling (not pithing) dozens of lemons and dumping them into two liters of 165 proof everclear. Below is the result of my first half-batch being combined. This was on July 10th. I have been diligently agitating daily. I even passed the Jar of Holiness to my mother to shake for me when I was on vacation in Portland. It is now August first, and I’m just about ready to combine the whole mess with simple syrup and toss it into the freezer.
Assuming I can keep from drinking it all, this will probably be everyone’s christmas presents this year. A couple ounces of homemade Limoncello in itty bitty apothecary bottles. Of course, even if I do drink it all I can always make more.
More pictures to come. I got most of my guidance here and here.
When I went to New Orleans last March, I was in heaven. And by that, I mean culinary heaven. It shouldn’t shock you too much to know that I could easily live on beingets and hot chocolate for the rest of my life. Any regional cuisine that revolves heavily around shellfish, vibrant spices, and carbs galore is absolutely fantastic in my book.
So when I finally got my hands on the le creuset pot I’ve been dying for (in lemongrass green, natch), the absolute first place my mind went was: gumbo. I won’t lie and say the research process was simple. I agonized over recipes for the better part of a week. I’m an incurable shellfish addict, but did I want to spend a bunch of money on shrimp and crab for a first-try gumbo that may turn out awful? I decided not, and went with andouille and chicken.
Throughout all my gumbo research, the recipes I saw kept ping-ponging back and forth between okra and file. File and okra. It’s enough to make a Californian’s head spin. The recipe that appealed to me the most actually called for neither. I didn’t trust this, so I plugged in the okra instructions from another recipe. To make matters worse, I’d read somewhere that you never, ever use both file and okra. But my coworker, a seasoned gumbo maker at the wise age of 56, insisted I use both. Well, it ended up a moot point, because by the time I tossed my broth and chicken thighs in the pot, I’d completely forgotten to add the okra.
In typical Juli form, my first instinct was: panic. Alas! I did not. I trudged onward and let that bad boy cook for two and a half hours, skimming from time to time, and when it was ready we sprinkled some file and went to town. I was a nervous wreck over my roux, and babied it incessantly. Thankfully, the milk chocolate roux I ended up turned out to work perfectly as my thickening agent.
And while I’ve had better for sure, my gumbo was DAMN good for a west coast girl’s first stab at the dish. So good in fact, that I forgot to take photos of the finished product. So here’s one in the next morning’s tupperware.
Please also note that I made bread pudding. Spongy, creamy, rich, cinnamonny, and crisp where it counts. Hot damn, that stuff was good (again, so good the Canon was utterly neglected). My date doesn’t enjoy food with alcohol in it, but I whipped up a whiskey cream sauce to drizzle on top and it was divine.
As for the recipes, you can find them both here:
