Ode to my little artichoke

In spring 2005, I planted some artichoke seeds in a pot on the deck. Those seeds came back with me from Hawaii in about 2003. So I had little hope that anything was going to happen. And it didn't, for a rather long time. Finally, some plants came pushing up. Hoping against all odds that I'd get something edible, I tended those plants lovingly. However, so did a lot of bugs (they like artichokes, too!). Insecticidal soap didn't make the artichokes any happier than the bugs, so I resorted to tomato leaf tea to get rid of aphids and gave in to the fruit flies (or at least that's what they looked like). All 2005, nothing but leaves. Several plants died. But two held on over the winter, still teasing me with the potential of producing my first artichoke. Finally, in about May, one plant got a little bud. Glory be!!! If I could save it from the critters, I might have something there. Keep in mind, we have a small balcony and so this much time (and real estate, it is a big pot) is a pretty big investment when I could be doing something like banging my head against a wall trying to grow tomatoes. (More on that later.) Anyway, today the artichoke, still only about 3" across, started behaving like the flower it is and looked like it was about to bloom. Time for harvest! Simple preparation here -- make sure all the critters are gone and steam it in the microwave for about 2.5 minutes. Usually, I use artichokes as an excuse to eat rich sauces -- I love them with mayo, or hollandaise, or melted butter. But today, nothing was getting between me and my produce! It was very nice, and all I did was put a little bit of salt on the heart. Of course, ten minutes of artichoke ecstasy is a rather meager return on an investment of 18 months :) But sometimes I can be persistent.

Florida seafood and the best meal

Sure was toasty down in Florida. As they say, it's not the heat, it's the humidity. Tried amberjack for the first time. It was very good. Place called Rick's Crab Shack. They grilled it, and it was done perfectly. Just as good were the fried shrimp -- just lightly coated in flour and fried, so no bulky breading. Later in the week I went back there and tried their grouper nuggets with hush puppies. Also perfectly cooked, and a huge portion for lunch. More grouper at RumRunners. One of the best pieces of fish I've ever eaten. Coated in ground pecans and coconut and sauteed. Nice and firm, with a lobster-like texture, but not rubbery or dry. Served with a beurre blanc. I was in heaven. AJ's in Destin claims to have originated chargrilled amberjack. It was okay, a little dry. But still a nice assertive flavor without being fishy. Also had assorted fried fish sandwiches, and a grilled striped bass sandwich. The latter was served as two big chunks of fish, which I kind of had to mash up to make it a sandwich. That was a little fishy for me but not bad. My biggest complaint about the grouper sandwiches was that the grouper filets were too thin, so there was as much breading as fish. But my best meal down there wasn't seafood, it was prime rib. And really prime. A place called Callahan's in Destin, where they have a butcher shop and a bunch of plastic picnic tables (with umbrellas!) inside the shop. You choose your steak from the case, or in my case choose to have a (massive) slice of medium rare prime rib. That was one of the best pieces of meat I've eaten in a long time. Beefy, very velvety, none of that graininess that can show up. Perfectly seasoned, it had no need of the au jus or horseradish that came with it. Strange little place, but one I'd go back to if I'm ever in Destin again.

Refrigerator postscript

New fridge got delivered on Monday -- seems to work. But they gouged the new kitchen paint in the process, and the door handle is scratched. So we're not quite past this one yet. And...they sent us yet another compressor! That makes three compressors and assorted refrigerator parts sitting in my dining room. I know that Whirlpool would like them back, but we are having a hard time getting the dealer to pick them up and I'm certainly not going to go through the hassle of packaging them up and shipping them out. Come to think of it, we never did get that check from Whirlpool, either. Guess there's more to this story.

Reflections on my last day of class (for now)

Last day of the preserving class series. Chef Gabe told us today that over the course of the class we made 38 different things. Wow! Ranging from pancetta and bacon and ham to mustard, ketchup, sauerkraut, and foie gras and confit. A very strange thing happened today. When we went around the room to talk about what our favorite part of the class was, I got all teary-eyed. Felt pretty silly about that, but not really embarassed. It was honest emotion. This has been in many ways a life-changing experience for me. I feel more comfortable with knowing what I do know, and not knowing what I don't. And it has confirmed how much passion I have for cooking. Maybe I'm also sad for the years (and maybe career) lost when I didn't know that this was where my passion and skills were. Ah, but better late than never. As I said when I started the class, I felt kind of like an outsider. But by today I didn't. At least I felt comfortable talking about what I might do with certain ingredients without being afraid that Chef would think I was an idiot -- in fact, I was able to talk that way without the little voice in the back of my head telling me to shut up. That's when I knew that my confidence has expanded. Today's agenda was fresh sausages. I got to work with caul fat today, something I've always wanted to do (It's funny how many things in this class dealt specifically with things I've always wanted to learn more about: foie gras, caul fat, terrines, cured meats...). Anyway, the caul fat went around some very lean greek lamb sausage. They were just plain great. All the sausages were great. So the meal today was a buffet of most everything we made. Scary huge table of food. I was so tired I really couldn't eat a plate of food, but I did sample most all of the sausages. Including trying the blood sausage, another of those things that I really really didn't want to eat. So that list goes like: blood sausage, gizzard confit, sweetbreads, raw foie gras. Not bad to get past all of those taboos for me. Can't say I liked everything but at least I tried! Our cured sausages were yummy, and cooking the collards with the cured pork shank was quite great. The Camembert got kind of funky, and the rind got very bitter. But it looked kind of neat. I won't be posting for a while, since I'm off to join Dave in Florida for a week. Gotta go eat grouper and amberjack, and try to forget the refrigerator trauma :)

%&(*#!! Refrigerator

Well, I thought it was fixed. But it died again last night, leaving me to schlepp frozen food to a borrowed freezer at 12:30am. AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! So I sent a heavily-edited flame mail to my dealer, and v-mail directly to Whirlpool (Whirlpool makes KitchenAid, in case you didn't know -- I didn't). I explained that they were going to replace the appliance, no further debate on the subject allowed. By 9am this morning they were all marching to my drum. Of course, I'm leaving town tomorrow night and not returning for a week, so the new one doesn't get delivered for a week. But I've re-purposed the wine coolers for the condiments, and I have an electric "cooler" that now has my undying loyalty. Have pressed that back into service to keep the duck confit, pork rillets, and cheeses fresh until we have the real thing again. This has been an amazingly stressful experience, I think because I felt completely out of control of events. But defective units leave manufacturing facilities all the time, I just lost the "lemon lottery" this time.

Dontcha just love potatoes and onions this time of year?

New potatoes -- the skin is so tender you can rub it off with your fingers. They are so darn sweet if you cook them simply. I'm talking 1/2" dice, parboil them until they are nearly done, then browning them in butter or olive oil. A little bit of minced rosemary can't hurt, or a little tarragon, or thyme... But pair them with the wonderful sweet onions you get this time of year, Walla Walla or Vidalia, then it gets really special. In fact, the contract of the sauteed potatoes with some diced raw sweet onion is great, or you can put the onion in at the beginning of the saute to get some nice caramel notes from all that sugar in them. Finally, to gild the lily, pour a few beaten eggs over them and make a Spanish torilla, or an Italian fritatta. Today, I added a little blanched and chopped mizuna -- the mixture toned down the bite of the mizuna and it stayed really bright. Yummy.

Heidi's Tasting Project

At the last minute last Saturday we got invited to an "event" at Culinary Communion (did I mention that's where I'm taking these classes?). Heidi, Gabe's wife, has an interesting project going on about how we think foods should taste and how they actually taste, over time. Like do in-season tomatoes really taste better, and if so, how? I took Dave along with me because I wanted him to meet Gabe and Heidi as he decides if he's willing to do the Provence trip with me (I really want him to). I thought it was fun though challenging. Dave discovered I think that he doesn't think about how food is supposed to taste, and what his vision of the "perfect" tomato or orange or asparagus is. So I think in the end, while it was kind of hard for him, that he was intrigued and wants to do it again (Heidi's intention is to do this monthly). I think it's a creative idea and it will be interesting to see where it leads for Heidi. Hardest thing for me about the evening was that I was there in class all day, got home after 5 and had to make something to take to the party at 7. Oh, yes, that was intimidating! Had some very new potatoes, fresh summer squash, and freshly shelled peas that I needed to use anyway (remember, I didn't have a much of a fridge!). So I steamed them all and tossed them with a vinaigrette and some fresh onions. Only problem? I didn't have any ice to chill the veggies with (no freezer at all!), and the vinaigrette sort of separated as the whole thing cooled. Rather, the veggies sucked up all the vinaigrette except for some of the oil -- curious thing, I'm working to understand why that happened. But the freshness of everything was great, so in the end it was fine since the oil I used was a very nice peppery EVOO. Another step of faith off of a cliff for me.

More cooking class thoughts

In all of my stress over the impending demise of my fridge (now repaired, finally, incidentally) I haven't talked about the latest coolness of my cooking class series. Last week, I learned how to bone a duck thigh as part of making confit. That was cool, because although I've made plenty of confit, I have not learned boning. So I am very happy about that, and because I then boned five hindquarters, I got to get some reinforcement of the learning. I also made tasso -- or at least did the curing and spicing of it before Gabe put it on the smoker. But because I went to an event there the same evening (more on that in my next post) Gabe had smoked it and we (Dave and I) got to try it the same day. Boy was it yummy -- thanks in much part of course to Gabe's recipe, which included allspice and marjoram in addition to cayenne and white pepper. But I was thrilled to have done the prep on this one. In fact, I just get very excited seeing the results of the things I've worked on in this class, since for the most part they are things I would never do/get to do in the normal course of life at home. I mean, making Camembert? Only in class. And it really looks like Camembert! And the prosciutto -- where would I have room to hang an entire ham? But there, oh, it's a thing of beauty. This weekend we will make some fresh sausages, and then eat all the stuff we've made in what seems to me to be an embarassment of riches :) and a surfeit of pork fat...YUM!!! What this cooking class series has done for me, though, is much deeper than just getting to make things I've never made. It has made me more confident in my knowledge, or at least made me aware that a lot of knowledge is living up in my head that I draw on instinctively. It's also made me (sometimes painfully) aware of what I don't know, and of how I am still lacking in confidence. But I'm going to continue on this journey, I've already signed up for another class and I think we're going to go to Provence with these guys next spring. I think Gabe has a lot to teach me, and I appreciate that he has the formal education that I don't and that he has a passion for sharing it. The first step was the hardest, now I have to keep myself from over-indulging in this.

AARGH!! Fridge meltdown

For the past two weeks I have been dealing with a steadily declining fridge. That's right, the oh-so-wonderful built in isn't so wonderful anymore. Finally tomorrow they are supposed to come and replace pretty much everything. Don't know why they don't just replace the whole unit. In the meantime, I've been struggling to keep things cold enough for health, and keep meat frozen. Today I'm going to have to reboil all of my stocks from the freezer and make more duck stock, even though it's not time to. Luckily there is a freezer in our rec room here at the condos so today I moved all the frozen food there, and then put the refer side of the food into my freezer since the refer side has completely stopped working. Not very fun. Funny how the dealer just doesn't want to know you anymore when things aren't going well...

What I learned in cooking class this week

This week was cheesemaking. Lots of pots of milk on the stove! I worked on making Camembert, simple enough as long as you are paying attention to the details. But the devil is in those details -- as we saw with some of the other cheeses, you get careless with proportions and things get messed up in a hurry. One person put in only half the milk needed for the mozzarella curd, and the full amount of citric acid. What we got was a grainy tangy mess that would not melt into the soft mass we needed to pull it into shape. So had to start over on that one. But we didn't toss the first batch -- I chopped up some fresh herbs and we mixed them with that, some cream, and some olive oil. Tasted good -- then we tossed it into a pasta salad with tomatoes, kalamata olives, and other good things. What I learned was more about the progression of proteins through denaturing and recombining, and what happens at each of those stages. That learning had an interesting effect on my breadmaking the next day -- I didn't have bread flour so we were using AP, and I could understand how to compensate for the lower protein content of the AP flour and not freak out when my dough needed more flour and more attention to get the result I wanted (which I did, see earlier post about the challah buns for lamb burgers). Also took the next step on our prosciutto. Washed off all of the salt, dried it nicely with towels. Coated it in lard, keeps it from drying out when we hang it. Then a coating of ground black pepper on all the flesh areas, keeps the flies away and gives more flavor. Wrap it all up in a couple of layers of cheesecloth, and then hung it in the garage. That will now take about five months, I guess, for it to finish drying. The other sausages are looking good -- can't wait to try them in another three weeks.

Lamb and sweet potatoes (again)

One of the interesting things for me about blogging is that I can begin to see patterns in what I am cooking and paying attention to. For example, back in mid-May I made lamb meatballs and was eating sweet potato fries. And... ...yesterday I grilled lamb burgers and sweet potato slices. Different mix than for my meatballs: the usual 3/4 lb ground lamb to 1/4 pound regular ground beef, but left the onion finely chopped and mixed everything by hand. Two cloves of garlic minced into a paste with 1/2 t of salt, 1T olive oil, 1T chopped fresh oregano, 1T chopped fresh mint, pepper. I make four relatively thin patties out of this mixture. On the grill for about 8-10 minutes. Served them on homemade buns, used the challah recipe in "Joy of Cooking" since it makes dough with a nice texture and flavor for the lamb. Toss on a little tzatziki, a slice of tomato, and a couple of torn mint leaves and it makes a great sandwich! For the sweet potatoes, I peeled and sliced one into about 1/3" slices, tossed with olive oil and salt. They went on the grill for five min on one side, then turned and brushed with honey/lime/mint glaze (2T honey, juice of one lime, about 1/8t lime zest, 1t chopped fresh mint leaves. Boy, were those good. Once again, we served a rose. Nice with all those flavors going on, and it was a scorcher of a day around here so quite refreshing.

Duck redux

Well, as I was saying, I made duck confit last month. After four weeks, it was time to try it out. So I heated an iron skillet in the oven at 450 degrees and put four legs in there to crisp up. Then I put them aside, drained off some of the fat that had melted off the legs, and put in two bunches of chopped arugula with half a chopped sweet onion. Let the heat of the pan cook it, and finished it with a little sherry vinegar. (Not an original idea -- a riff on one from Alton Brown.) The bitter/sour of the greens were a great offset to the richness of the duck. And the duck -- ohmygawd. I could eat that every day! Beside the word "savory" in the dictionary is a picture of that duck. I am SO pleased with how that turned out. Juicy, seasonings just right, my mouth waters again to think on it. Drank a 1999 Milestone Merlot from Columbia Winery. Not something we'd been fond of last year when we tasted it before, but an extra year really softened it up and it was a great match. Still dancing around the chaos in the kitchen and the rest of the condo, but another day of touch-up painting and I can pretty much move everything back into the kitchen and go back to normal life in there. However --- now I don't have a bedroom for a couple of days because the paint we're using in there requires three coats+ to cover (it's a dark wine red). So the chaos continues for a while longer. Our painter just called me in to see the master bath, it's now rose pink and it's beautiful. Before it was sort of the color of a flesh-colored crayon. Now -- it pops.

Kitchen remodeling continues, and it's count the cookbooks time

New countertops installed last Friday. They are made of something called Swanstone, sort of like Corian but harder. And you can set a pot right off the stove or out of the oven on them. That's going to take getting used to, after being so careful with the Formica we had. They are purple. Actually the color name is Purple Sage, and they go very nicely with the lilac and olive paint in the kitchen. I like the integrated sink. By Sunday I had a working sink (and disposal) again so other than touch up paint, the first stage of the kitchen stuff is done. Next thing is getting the cupboards built-in around the fridge. But that doesn't keep me from using the kitchen, and we can now move most things back in. We discovered that due to all the dust we have to wash pretty much everything, and wipe out all the cupboards. So the dishwasher has been doing extra duty the past few days. Of course, getting the kitchen finished isn't the end of it, now we starting having the master bedroom and bath painted. So everything gets moved out of there into other rooms. Feels like we're playing musical chairs with everything. Gotta move all the cookbooks out of the bedroom so we can move the bookcases away from the walls. No small effort, since there are 375 of them in there! There are more than 100 in other places, so the cookbook count these days is about 500.

Making up for 20 years? Thai cooking and other classes

Four cooking classes in the span of eight days. Having always denied myself the pleasure of taking those kinds of classes, it seems I'm trying to make up for lost time all at once. But it really wasn't intentional. One of the classes was more demonstration and book-signing reception, for Tom Douglas' new book on crab cakes. He made five different ones, and they were all interesting. But the crab foo yung was my favorite. I'd signed up to go to this a couple of months ago, and it got postponed. So it landed on the 14th. While I was at the cookware shop where it was hosted, I looked at their schedule of classes and noticed there was a five-hour class on Thai cooking the next day. (One of those advantages of being a consultant, you get to do some interesting things in the middle of the day.) The cool thing about the Thai class was that first we went shopping. So I got introduced to a great hole-in-the-wall market in the International District that even has free parking. And incredible prices on great produce as well as an amazing selection of Asian ingredients. Lots less expensive than Uwajimaya, which is everyone's go-to place for such things. I can't wait to take Dave there to shop with me. The class was fun -- practical stuff I'll use again, and learned more about how to deal with fresh rice noodles, which I love. My second week of the Culinary Communion preservation series was mostly about preserves (duh!). As a class we made a lot of recipes; I took responsibility for making a poblano ketchup, which was great. Though the batch of poblanos was pretty spicy -- you know how they can vary so much -- so the end result had quite a kick. Would be great with a chunk of halibut or deep-fried zucchini. We also did some followup work on the cured things we did the week before. So I removed the skin from the cured pork belly and rolled it very tight to continue the process of making pancetta. That was hard work! We cooked (smoked) some of the bacon we made last week and had it with our lunch, it was quite yummy. Oh, and lunch was pork vindaloo, rice, and fava bean puree. I'm feeling a little more comfortable with the group but still a little disoriented. It's fine though. Next Saturday we're making cheese -- mozzarella, Camembert, cheddar, goat's milk cottage cheese, chevre, and maybe some paneer. Mmmmmm.

My first cooking class!

Geez, you'd think someone like me would have been taking cooking classes all along. For some reason, I just haven't made the time. But I am now! I signed up for a six week course on "preserving." That means sausages, smoking, pickles, cheeses, jams, etc. The first class was on Saturday, and we were making sausages for smoking/drying. Eight students, and an entire pig! It had already been broken down, but we were using incredibly fresh, organic pork to make saucisson sec, spanish chorizo, salted air-dried ham, molasses-cured ham, lamb bresaola, and duck prosciutto (among other things). I was elbow-deep in pork fat for quite some time. It was a blast, though because everyone else had taken classes with Culinary Communion before, I felt a little outside the circle. I'm sure that will change over the course of the course. What surprised me the most was that as part of the five-hour session, we also cooked ourselves lunch -- roasted leg of lamb with a honey/garlic/cream sauce, braised artichokes, blanched asparagus and garlic curls, with pre-prepped ratatouille and mushroom/fennel/artichoke salad. So after about five hours of sausage talking and making, we all sat down to a substantial meal. Wow! It was energizing and exhausting.

Rose and sweet potatoes?

Sorry I've been remiss in keeping this up. Time for a little catch-up (catsup??). Grilled pork chops -- salted with a nice dry rub for two days since they were over an inch thick. Sweet potato puree, and a Chinook Rose of Cab Franc. What a combination! Everything tasted better together. And I've gotten into roasting/grilling heads of romaine lately. Very nice just rubbed with olive oil and salt, then drizzled with a good balsamic vinegar. They go great with almost anything, rack of lamb last Friday. Wrapped some asparagus in foil with some sliced baby Walla Walla sweet onions to go with both, and it was a pretty quick dinner based on stuff that was already sitting in the fridge. (Yes, I do consider a rack of lamb a pantry staple sometimes :) Two things we are really liking this time of year are those baby Walla Wallas and fresh garlic. With the garlic, you don't have to peel it, just chop up the whole thing. That's what I used in the eggs I talked about last week. Also great with some shrimp and capers for a quick picatta sauce over angel hair pasta.

Scrambling eggs

I'm currently reading Julia Child's memoirs, and something in there about scrambling eggs made me do it twice (Sunday and today). I've got lots of fresh herbs begging to be used out on the balcony, so I made "Scarborough Fair" eggs. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, of course, and a teaspoon of chopped fresh young garlic (you use the whole head, no skins to remove), and a couple of tablespoons of sweet spring onions for six eggs. This time of year is just the best when the brand new Walla Walla sweet onions come in, with the tops still attached. Anyway, sweat the garlic and onion over low heat in some clarified butter in a nonstick pan. Whisk the eggs gently with a fork. Add a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream and a couple of tablespoons of the chopped mixed herbs to the eggs along with salt and pepper (I prefer to use white pepper in this). Add the eggs to the pan and patiently cook them very gently, using a spatula to move them around until they are in soft curds and as firm as you like them. With some steamed asparagus and a couple of slices of tomato, it's a very nice brunch for two.

Adjustments required

All this new kitchen gear is requiring some adjustment... As I said, cooking a chicken in the advantium is a major mess. Not quite what I expected. Have to get used to the concept of cleaning out the entire oven interior like it's a pan. Sigh. And loading the dishwasher is going to take a while to "get." The racks are somewhat smaller and they are configured quite a bit differently from what we have known. Heard some frustration from Dave last night over that one. It just takes time (I hope!). The range will take some adjusting too, cleaning the cooktop is a little more extensive since with the continuous top, everything gets messy every time I cook. I'm just going to try to be patient. Not my strong suit but a good exercise for me.

Ducking again...

So I had one duck liver in the freezer, and two more from the ducks this week. So I tried Jacque's recipe for a quick duck liver pate: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/105586 Dang, that was easy and yummy. Had the other duck breasts last night. No cherry sauce this time, unadorned was very very good. Got the confit cooked and packed away to age for a couple of weeks. Initial reviews are positive :) Today, we're having lamb burgers for dinner. But before that I am trying to roast a whole chicken in the advantium. It is kind of messy, you have to accept that it's going to splatter all over the oven then you have to wash it out. I need to figure out a solution for that.

Duck!

Tomorrow the remodeling guys will be painting in the kitchen, so I have to get my cooking in today. Went and bought two fresh ducks this morning. Broke them down into leg-thighs, wings, and breasts. With the legs and wings from another duck in the freezer, I have enough to merit making confit. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/102313 seems to be a good recipe, I've tried a few. But I'm of course as usual not leaving well enough alone. I'm subbing herbs de Provence for just thyme, and instead of curing it in a single layer in a dish I'm putting it all in a ziplock bag. So that's in the fridge until Sunday morning. Good thing I have about five pounds of duck fat already in the freezer for this one. Now for the duck breasts. Tonite two of them will be duck with cherry sauce. I'm using the recipe from Epicurious as a starting point http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/232306, but using my home-brandied cherries instead of fresh cherries and red wine. I've made the sauce already, and it's interesting. We'll have polenta with gorgonzola and asparagus with it. The other two breasts we'll have on the grill on Sunday, if the weather cooperates. All four of them are in a light salt/herb cure for a couple of hours right now. Guess I'd better go find a nice Pinot to go with tonite's dinner!