Steve in the Big City

Week 11: Fava Fritters and Lamb Kofta

2010-05-09T09:42:00.001-07:00

Our week 11 meal was middle eastern themed. Two of the dishes on our todo list, from Jamie Oliver's book Jamie at Home, looked like they'd pair well together, so we decided to do both. The first dish was fava bean fritters, which were similar to falafel but made from fava beans. The second was lamb kofta kebabs, a wrap of spiced, grilled lamb.

For the fritters, I picked up the fava beans at the Thursday farmer's market near work. The recipe came together relatively easily. Peeling fava beans can be labor intensive, but with Emily's help it went quickly. Emily also put together the yogurt sauce and formed the quenelles. They fried up nicely. The outside was nice and crisp, but they were softer and creamier inside than is typical of falafel. I don't know if this was intended, but the contrast in textures was nice.

The second course was the lamb kofta. Ground lamb is mixed with thyme, cayenne, cumin, and sumac, formed onto skewers and grilled. I was looking forward to this dish because I'd never worked with sumac before, although I've had it in dishes at Loló, a local mexican-turkish restaurant. I only made a couple of minor tweaks to the recipe: I substituted almonds for the pistachios (due to allergies), and I used the lemon/mint yogurt from the fava recipe rather than straight yogurt. The resulting dish was quite good. We want to make it again soon but haven't made time yet.

Week 10: Empanada

2010-05-09T08:51:00.001-07:00

Our tenth weekly dish was a little bit of a failure. I made the Empanada from Batali's book Spain - On the Road Again. The recipe called for 25-30 minutes of cooking at 450º. After about 15 minutes, I turned on the oven light and peered through the door to check progress. (I didn't want to let the heat out.) It looked like the empanada hadn't browned at all, which concerned me a little. I checked again at the 30 min mark and saw at it still hadn't browned, so I added another 15 minutes. This time it looked slightly colored, so I opened the door and found that it was deeply browned. The tinted glass in the door had completely masked it. By this time it was way overcooked, but still edible.

Aside from being overdone, the dish was good. The filling was quite hearty—just chorizo, pancetta, onion, and red bell pepper. The crust, of course, was a bit dry. We will give it another try someday, but it may be a while until we get around to it.

Week 9: Linguine with Calamari

2010-04-24T16:20:00.001-07:00

For week 9, we had linguine with calamari, red peppers, and fennel. I used a recipe from Jamie's Italy with a couple of minor tweaks. The original recipe called for thinly sliced red chilis—Jamie Oliver likes to use them a lot, but I don't often see them in the stores. I still wanted the splash of red color, so I decided to use red bell peppers instead. They gave the dish a Spanish flavor but worked really well. We liked the dish enough to add it to our regular rotation.

The recipe is fairly simple: Cook down some thin slices of fennel with a little garlic. Add white wine, squid, and thin slices of red bell peppers or chilis. Simmer to reduce the wine a little, then start the pasta. Gently simmer the squid while the pasta is cooking. When the pasta is done, toss it with the squid and garnish with some fennel fronds and lemon zest.

Week 8: Cauliflower Risotto

2010-04-20T19:17:00.001-07:00

For week 8 of the project I made a cauliflower dish. Cauliflower is a very polarizing vegetable—some people love it and others hate it. I was a very picky eater growing up, so I ate it rarely and reluctantly. I would eat small florets raw, usually with dip, but I was never a fan of cooked cauliflower. Eventually, I learned that cauliflower can be very tasty when cooked well.

My favorite cauliflower preparation is the gratin in the Bouchon Cookbook. Keller cooks and purées the inner stems of the plant with some cream. He then seasons the purée with a pinch of curry and horseradish powder, adds the florets, and tops off the dish with some Comté and panko. We also loved the cauliflower velouté that Emily had at Café Boulud in New York.

So when I came across a cauliflower risotto in Jamie's Italy, I decided to give it a try. Like the Keller gratin, the recipe uses both the inner stems and the florets of the cauliflower. The stems are minced and cooked with the onions at the beginning, and the florets are simmered in the stock for the first half of the cooking process. Then they are gradually added to the risotto with the stock. The risotto was finished with some Parmesan and topped with a spicy pangrattato and some parsley.

The risotto turned out well, but it was missing something. We'll probably give it another go with more cheese someday, but there are a lot of other things we want to try making first.

Week 7: Easter Dinner

2010-04-08T20:39:00.001-07:00

For Easter weekend we decided to make a spring menu from the book Platter of Figs that included an asparagus salad, roast shoulder of spring lamb with beans, and rum baba with cardamom. I had been looking for a lamb dish, figuring that it would be appropriate for Easter, and Emily had been wanting to try baba al rum. So I decided to do the entire menu, just swapping out the first dish for a Mario Batali dish that I saw online—grilled asparagus wrapped with pancetta. Everything is better with pork wrapped around it.

I went to the Ferry Building farmers market for the lamb on Saturday morning. Marin Sun Farms had some nice lamb shoulder, but I accidentally bought boneless lamb leg which was in the same bin. While I was there, I picked up flageolet beans from Rancho Gordo and pancetta from Boccalone.

The beans were simmered with some onion and garlic and finished with a little thyme, salt, and pepper. Although they were cooked very simply, they tasted really good. I will have to make them again sometime.

I mostly followed the recipe for the roast, substituting leg for shoulder, of course. The only change I made was to add a rub of rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper. The recipe called for roasting it with a little bit of white wine until the center hit 130°F. I also made the suggested olive relish to serve on top of the lamb. The roast turned out well, but I would have preferred it a little rarer. Pulling it out at 125°F would probably yield better results.

The rum baba was just so-so, and it was most likely my fault. The recipe for the cakes looked like an eggy brioche with multiple long rises, including an overnight one, but I neglected to read the recipe in detail before Sunday. (I had originally planned on making it on Saturday, but I didn't get around to it. I was too busy with the arrival of my iPad, kitchen shelf installation, and graffiti cleanup.) I had to rush the rises a little to get it done in time, and the cold, rainy weather didn’t help. The cake turned out too tough, but the rum syrup with cardamom and candied citrus was really good. I might make the dish again, but I want to give it a try at a restaurant first to see how it’s supposed to turn out. Emily didn’t bother with taking pictures of it this time, so that would be a good excuse for a second attempt.

Although I would make the lamb again, I learned the hard way that I shouldn't microwave the leftovers. The result was so bad that I considered tossing it and going out for lunch, but I couldn't bear to throw out the beans. I’ll either eat it cold or make sandwiches next time.

Week 6: Broccolini Pizza, Contigo style

2010-03-30T10:29:00.001-07:00

For our new dish this week, I made a pizza inspired by a coca that we had at Contigo. The ingredients on their flatbreads vary from day to day, but they usually have caramelized onions (or another allium) and seasonal vegetables on them. I had remembered a broccolini and manchego one that we particularly liked, but after reviewing their menus I discovered that it actually had broccoli rabe on it.

Broccolini is kind of like broccoli, but with long, thin stalks and small florets. We first had it on a tomato-sauced pizza at Beretta. It was nicely caramelized and complemented the rest of the pizza well.

For the onion compote, I sliced two onions along the grain and very slowly cooked them with a little salt, butter, and a pinch of sugar. After 1–2 hours when they were nicely caramelized, I deglazed with a little vermouth (I didn't have a white wine open) and set it aside.

For the pizza, I used my standard pizza dough, a scaled down Jamie Oliver recipe. I topped it with the compote, some slices of manchego cheese, and some broccolini that I had blanched in salted water.

The result was really good, particularly the parts with thinner crust. I made it again the next weekend, rolling out the pizza thinner, to give it a nice crispy crust, and putting slightly less color on the onions.

Week 5: Sheep's Milk Ravioli with Brown Butter and Almonds

2010-03-27T16:31:00.001-07:00

This week I made ravioli stuffed with sheep ricotta, parmesan, and orange zest, served with brown butter, almonds, orange juice, and parsley. I mostly followed the recipe from Michael Symon's new book Live to Cook. This recipe is particularly notable because it is a vegetarian recipe from a pork-etarian chef. (There are also some good-looking salads in that book.)

It's been far too long since I've made my own pasta. I think the last time was two years ago when I made butternut squash agnolotti. I've been meaning to give it another go; I even picked up some semolina flour a few months ago. Although I used some of the flour in polenta (per Michael Chiarello), I never got around to making pasta with it.

So this time I made the pasta dough with straight semolina flour and egg yolks. I whizzed it in the food processor to combine and then took it out to knead by hand. Immediately, I discovered that the dough was extremely hard to knead. I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be that way or not, so I just carried on. I managed to slowly knead it to a decent texture, but I had to throw my entire weight into it. The next day, my abs were sore. (Perhaps I should make pasta more often.)

I wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator to rest – a step that was left out of Symon's book. I figured I had enough time to start over with AP flour if it didn't work out, but the pasta turned out fine. I rolled it down to setting five (I may give six a try next time), added the filling, folded it over, and cut it with one of the nested circle cutters that I got for my birthday.

The brown butter sauce turned out well, and the almonds added a nice crunch to the dish. I'm glad we found out that Emily can eat them. We'll definitely give this another try, maybe with meyer lemon instead of orange. I don't know if it will be the next pasta I make, as I also want to try my hand at Keller's sweet potato agnolotti.

Week 4: Grilled Calamari with Beans and Chorizo

2010-03-20T11:45:00.001-07:00

Up this week is yet another Contigo-inspired dish. One of many great dishes we had during my birthday dinner was calamari cooked a la planxa (on a flat top) with red tolosa beans, chorizo, and allioli. It was one of our favorite dishes that night (along with the scallop and black rice dish).

For our version, I used San Franciscano beans from Rancho Gordo. I hadn't tried them before, but I was told they were similar to Rio Zape beans, which would pair well with chorizo.

After a quick soak, I simmered the beans for a few hours with some onions that had been cooked in a little lard (recovered from Boccalone pancetta). Then I seared some diced Spanish chorizo and used the oil to cook some minced onion, celery, and red bell pepper. After returning the chorizo to the pan with a splash of beer, I added the mixture to the bean pot and let the beans finish cooking for about an hour, reducing the broth to a nice sauce.

When I need squid, I usually go to Sun Fat for fresh, local squid. It tastes better than the frozen squid, and I can do a more careful job of cleaning it than the commercial stuff. (BTW, squid is dirt cheap. I often feel bad walking out of there having only spent a few bucks.) Unfortunately, they'd run out of it on Saturday, so I had to use frozen squid instead. The squid got a quick marinade in some olive oil, lemon zest, and paprika before hitting the grill pan. Despite being previously frozen, I managed to get a little bit of caramelization and a nice hint of the paprika.

The final component of the dish was the allioli, which didn't quite work out for me. According to Wikipedia, it is the Catalan version of aioli that uses only garlic, olive oil, and salt. Via some mortar and pestle magic, you're supposed to be able to emulsify garlic in oil without using any egg yolk. I found a video of it being done, but I didn't quite pull it off. I started out with the mortar and pestle but was having trouble getting it to work right. So I gave up on the mortar and pestle and switched to my Cuisinart mini-prep. That didn't work because the portion was too small to get the garlic into the blades. At this point, I knew I was pretty much screwed, so I tried the blender. The blender looked like it was working, but the resulting sauce didn't have the right texture and quickly separated. I did end up with a nicely garlic-flavored olive oil, which I spooned on top. After a subsequent visit, I think Contigo is using a little egg yolk to help the emulsification (and possibly a little lemon juice to balance flavors), so I'll probably do that next time to get the texture I want.

Overall the dish was quite good. We'll definitely make it again, probably with some chorizo-laced black rice instead of beans, so I can make it on a weeknight. The beans did turn out really well, though. I will be making them again too.

Week 3.5: Duck Redux - Spice-crusted duck breasts with bacon bonbons and arugula

2010-03-11T16:11:00.001-08:00

On Wednesday I cooked the rest of of the duck from last weekend. In the process I managed to kill two birds with one stone. (Pun intended.) Since we had this mid-week, I wasn't sure if we'd count this as the week four dish or not. It turns out that we made another new dish on Sunday, so I think I'll call it week 3.5, keeping with the duck theme of last week.

I combined two dishes that Emily has been asking me to make. The first is pan-roasted duck breasts with prunes, inspired by the Contigo dish, "Seared Duck Breast with tea-steeped prunes, toasted almonds, cardoons, and arugula." And the second dish is the a take on the bacon bonbons that we order every time we go to Gitane. We've been talking about making them ever since we first had them a year ago. They stood in for the prunes in the original Contigo dish, and I used the port sauce on both the duck and the bonbons.

The Gitane menu describes the bacon bonbons as "sautéed prunes stuffed with goat cheese, wrapped in smoked bacon, anise and cinnamon port sauce." A little research turned up a similar a British bar food called Devils on Horseback and hints of a similar a french appetizer. In the Gitane version, the bacon, prunes, and cheese are a perfect combination and the rich sauce, melding savory and sweet, ties everything together well.

I found the duck breast recipe in One Spice, Two Spice, a book by an Indian chef who does Indian / western fusion dishes. He uses a star-anise and allspice rub, which I thought would match well with the prunes and sauce. He also adds some ginger, rosemary, and garlic at the end for basting. I served the duck with a simple salad of arugula, goat cheese, and a balsamic vinaigrette (with good balsamic). The goat cheese is not pictured, because I decided to add after we tasted the dish. In the future, I'd also add some almonds to the salad.

For the bacon bonbons, I consulted a few recipes for Devils on Horseback on the web, but I had to guess on the sauce. I decided to use some duck stock and port wine in a 3:1 ratio, reducing the port before adding the stock. I added a little of the spice rub I used for the duck and let the prunes simmer in the sauce as it reduced. I then strained off the sauce. When the prunes cooled, I stuffed them with cheese and wrapped with bacon. I arranged them on a silpat, with the overlapping bacon side down, and stuck it in a 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes until the bacon was crisp.

Or at least, that was the plan – halfway through the cooking process, the bacon shrunk and most of the bonbons came unwrapped. So I pulled them from the oven, skewered them back together with toothpicks, and stuck them back in to finish cooking.

The one big problem with the meal was that I'd over-salted the duck. The recipe had called for putting the rub on the duck (containing salt) and then salting it again when you put it on the pan. It sounded like a bit too much salt, but did it anyway. Aside from being too salty (which was distracting), the duck was quite good. The spices went well with the duck, and the salad complemented it nicely. The bonbons also went well with everything. I don't think Emily will let me get away with making this dish again without them.

Next up is grilled calamari with chorizo and San Franciscano beans. Also Contigo inspired – someday I should put together a post of all my restaurant-inspired dishes.

Week 3: Braised duck legs with red wine and prunes

2010-03-08T11:31:00.001-08:00

This week I made braised duck legs with red wine and prunes. Emily wanted me to do something with duck breasts and prunes, similar to a dish we had for my birthday at Contigo. Unfortunately, it was the one time we didn't take photos at Contigo.

I've been looking forward to working with duck again. It has been a while since I've used it. A few years ago, I made confit of duck legs and prosciutto out of a duck breast. A little more recently, I made cassoulet and tacos out of duck confit. But I haven't had a lot of practice with fresh duck. It's a little different from chicken, there is a bit of fat to deal with and you need to leave it medium rare to keep from drying it out. (Unless you confit it.)

Since I've never cooked duck breast before, I did a little research to see how it was typically done. (Score the skin, slowly cook, skin side down.) While researching options, I came across a braised duck leg and prune dish in the Zuni Cookbook. It was a completely different dish from the Contigo one, but had similar flavors, so we decided to give it a try.

Sunday morning I went to Drewes Bros to buy a couple of legs for the dish, but I impulsively decided to get a whole duck. I figured I could cook the breasts for dinner later in the week, make some stock out of the bones, and render the fat for potatoes. They offered to break it down for me, but I wanted some practice, so I took it home whole and broke it down myself.

When I went shopping for ingredients I saw some fresh prunes and decided to use them in place of dried ones. The recipe wasn't specific, aside from insisting on the prunes having pits. The other deciding factor was that dried prunes make me a little nervous. They tend to be sold in open bins alongside nuts, and I always assume that little care is taken to prevent cross-contamination. Next time, I think I'll use dried ones both for color and a more concentrated flavor.

The duck was plated on a bed of arugula and the fried bread croutons from the Ad Hoc cookbook, along with the sauce, onions, and prunes. The arugula ended up wilting a bit more than we wanted, so I'd plate the salad next to the duck next time.

Tomorrow we'll have the breasts. I'm using the spice-crusted duck breast recipe from One Spice, Two Spice (allspice and star anise crusted). I'm also going to try to replicate the bacon-wrapped, chèvre-stuffed prunes from Gitane to accompany it. And maybe a simple salad to round out the meal.

Week 2: Asparagus and Robiola risotto.

2010-03-02T18:05:00.001-08:00

For week 2 of my cooking project, I made an asparagus risotto with a dollop of Robiola cheese in the middle. This dish was inspired by a risotto we had at Beretta. It's been on our to-do list for quite a while, waiting until spring when asparagus would come back in season. Since asparagus has started to show up on menus again, I decided it was time to make it.

Robiola is not something I've seen at the corner stores, so I figured I'd have to do a little hunting for it. Fortunately, they had some at our closest cheese shop, the 24th Street Cheese Company. They're a short walk away and have a good selection of cheeses. The Robiola turned out to be a little more expensive than I expected, but once I got it home and sampled it, I decided it was worth the price. Yes, it smells slightly of gym socks, but it's incredibly rich, creamy, and tangy.

Although I improvised the recipe, I did take a look at one in Boulud's book. He took asparagus risotto in a slightly different direction, inflecting it with lemon and lime juice, but I did follow his suggestion on how to cook and introduce the asparagus to the dish – peeled, blanched, and warmed in butter. My educated guess would have been to blanch them and add them to the risotto for the last 2 minutes of cooking, but you can't go wrong with butter. My changes included shortening the blanching time, because I had skinny asparagus, and cutting the stems on the bias rather than into coins to give them a fun shape. And I'm still wondering if I should have caramelized them in a hot skillet instead just reheating them in butter.

For the risotto itself, I used shallots and arborio, deglazed with dry vermouth, and cooked with court bouillon. I finished it with parmesan and a squeeze of lemon juice. At Emily's suggestion, I also mixed in a little of the Robiola. Then I added the reheated asparagus and plated it with a dollop of Robiola in the middle.

We were very happy with the results, but I think I'd add a bit more asparagus next time. We've got more Robiola, despite my snacking, so we'll be making another batch soon.

Week 1: Lamb and Beans

2010-02-23T12:10:00.001-08:00

Sometime last week, Emily decided that I should start cooking a new dish every weekend. Since both my to-do list and my cookbook collection have been growing way too fast, I agreed. Last weekend we had our first installment.

After a busy week at work, I didn't really put much effort into research. One morning I flagged a bunch of recipes in Michael Symon's book, and Emily followed up with a bunch in the Café Boulud Cookbook. I flipped through her choices and settled on a "Lamb Haricots" dish from the Café Boulud book. I like lamb and beans, and Emily doesn't usually go for stewed or braised dishes, so I thought I'd give it a try.

I was a little uncomfortable with the recipe after I started putting it together. It seemed to call for way too much liquid: 10 cups of liquid for 1 cup of soaked, dried beans, double-sealed in pot. Yet the instructions mention the possibility of needing more liquid. Also, the vegetables were to be cut in large chunks, but there was no mention of either removing or plating them.

After almost two hours in the oven, I uncovered the dish, hoping to reduce the liquid a little. At about the two hour mark, I ended up pulling the lamb; it was super tender, and I didn't want it to fall apart. The beans weren't done, so I gave them another 30–45 minutes. I still wasn't happy with the beans, but the broth was good. At this point it was getting late, so I reheated the lamb in the broth and plated.

So I fished out some beans, strained on some of the broth, added a few chunks of lamb, and garnished with parsley. I also strained some broth on top of the lamb, but it dried out again by the time this picture was taken.

In the end, the broth was really good, the beans were just short of being done to my taste, and the flavor didn't seem to penetrate the lamb very well. For leftovers I added bacon, broke up the lamb, and cooked it for another 30–45 minutes. The leftovers were decent, but the beans were still not quite right.

In the end, I have much better uses for lamb shoulder, so I doubt I will make this again.

Valentine's Day 2010

2010-02-15T17:02:00.000-08:00

For Valentine's Day, in lieu of going out to a crowded restaurant, we like to stay in and have a fancy dinner at home. It's the one time of year when I take the time to do excessively fancy dishes that just aren't practical to do every day at home. Typically, Emily will pick out a fancy dessert that reminds me that I am not a pastry chef, and we come up with a couple of savory courses to go with it. The meal usually includes "Oysters and Pearls" from the French Laundry Cookbook and an entrée.

This year I went a little overboard and spent most of the weekend cooking.

On Sunday morning, I made macarons as a surprise for Emily. I used the recipe from the Bouchon Cookbook for the cookies and filled them with the chocolate/caramel buttercream from our dessert. The dough spread a little, yielding larger cookies, but I think they turned out well for a first attempt. (The buttercream was a little loose too, making them messy to eat at room temperature.)

As an amuse bouche, I also made a small (1-egg) batch of gougères—cheese puffs made with Comté cheese. I wasn't planning on making them, but they're pretty easy to throw together and have been on my to-do list forever. They turned out fairly well but were a little denser than I'd like. I think the dough needed a little more egg and some tweaks to the cooking time.

For an appetizer, we decided it was about time to try making the Salmon Cornets from the French Laundry Cookbook. They're adorable little savory "ice cream" cones filled with a red onion crème fraîche (French sour cream) and topped with salmon tartare.

It's a great dish, but people on the internet reported having a lot of trouble making it. The tricky part is making the cones themselves. You bake 4" diameter disks of batter in a 400˚ oven until they are just set. Then pull the sheet pan out a little, flip over disks of molten batter, wrap them around conical molds, and finish baking then until they set. To avoid burning myself, I did most of the work with a mini offset spatula. However, I found that I needed to use my fingers to get the disk wrapped around the cone.

The results were worth the effort; it was my favorite dish of the night.

Next, I made our traditional Oysters and Pearls. This year it was good but not as good as previous years. The base was not thick enough, so the oysters sank in, instead of resting on top. (I had extra oysters and managed to get Emily's dish photo-ready by resting a second pair of oysters on top of the first.)

The base is a mixture of pearl tapioca, a savory sabayon (foamy cooked egg yolks), crème fraîche, and whipped cream. On top are two oysters, some caviar, and a foamy beurre blanc containing butter, shallots, chives, vermouth, vinegar, and oyster juice.

Our main course was another dish from the French Laundry Cookbook: a butter-poached lobster with pommes Maxim (crisp sheets of potato), leeks, and beet essence. Keller likes to steep lobster in hot water for a few minutes to remove the meat and then poach it to order in beurre monté. Beurre monté is essentially a bunch of butter that has been slowly whisked into a tiny bit of water. It is slightly tricky to work with, because it will separate if it gets too hot or too cold.

The pommes Maxim are thinly sliced potatoes that have been coated in clarified butter and baked into a thin, crisp sheet. The result is similar to a solid sheet of buttery potato chip, but I didn't quite get it right. The edges were rather dark but crisp, and the middle was a little leathery. It didn't crisp up right. I think I needed to dry the potato slices and back off on the butter. Nonetheless, I made extra and managed to get some decent pieces from the edge.

The beet reduction was tasty: beet juice reduced to a syrup, with some beurre monté and a splash of red wine vinegar whisked in. The vinegar complemented the sweetness of the beets, and the butter added a nice richness. On top of the sauce was a mixture of leeks, tomato diamonds (Keller cuts tomatoes into little diamonds), and "brunoise"—tiny cubes of carrot, parsnip, and leek greens. The brunoise mixture appears in a lot of French Laundry dishes. This was topped with half of a tail, a claw, and a shard of potato.

Emily chose the "Vanilla Fleur de Sel, Caramel and Chocolate Dobos Torte" from Cannelle et Vanille for dessert. It's a thin sponge cake layered with vanilla fleur de sel, chocolate, and caramel buttercream, topped with milk chocolate chantilly and caramel decorations. The torte itself wasn't terribly difficult, although it did take me a few hours on Saturday to put together.

Pastry is a bit outside my comfort zone, and Emily always finds something challenging for Valentine's Day. Two years ago, it was an Elizabeth Falkner recipe with a dozen components that I had to adjust for her allergies. Last year, it was a layered dessert, also from Cannelle et Vanille, with tempered white chocolate wrapped around it.

The real challenge for me this time was trying to form the caramel rings. The ingredient list for that recipe reads, "sugar." The rest is technique, which I don't have. Working with molten sugar makes me nervous, because it's tricky to work with and can cause severe burns. I carefully melted sugar in a pan until it was liquid and caramelized, then shocked the pan in an ice bath to lower the temperature, trying to get the sugar to just the right consistency so I could drizzle a ring of sugar around a greased metal measuring cup. If it's too hot, it pours too quickly and comes off as you get to the bottom side. If it's too cold, it seems to pour too thickly. Finally, I tried to remove the sugar from the form without mangling or breaking it. It took a lot of tries and some reheating and cooling of the pan, but I finally got a few acceptable rings. (I also got a pan with 1/4" of rock-hard caramel in the bottom.)

Rosemary and Ricotta Tart

2009-04-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

This tart was inspired by a dessert we had at Contigo in San Francisco. I based the filling on a ricotta/pine nut tart found in Mario Batali's book, Molto Italiano, and the crust is from Michael Ruhlman's book, Ratio.

If you can't find a meyer lemon, use half of a normal lemon. I used Bellwether Farms sheep's milk ricotta, but a cow-milk ricotta would work too.

This is best made in a 9" tart pan, but a pie tin will do. If you use a pie tin, the filling will come up halfway. After it is done baking, carefully trim the crust to be level with the filling. If you're feeling particularly lazy, you could use a store-bought pie or tart crust.

Crust

9 oz All purpose flour (a scant 2 cups)

6 oz butter (1 1/2 sticks)

2 tbsp sugar

2-3 oz cold water (1/4 cup plus 1-2 tbsp)

pinch of salt

pie weights (1/2 lb dry beans)

Filling

1-2 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped

8 oz ricotta cheese

1/4 cup of honey

1 small meyer lemon, or half a lemon

2 eggs

pinch of salt

Make the crust: Mix the flour, sugar, and a pinch of salt. Cut up the cold butter into chunks and work into flour and sugar, until you have pea-sized chunks. Try to use a squeezing rather than a rubbing action, so you don't heat up the butter too much. Add 2-3 oz cold water and mix to combine. I used almost 3 oz, but the dough was a little to sticky.

Form into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Roll and blind bake the crust: Flour your counter and rolling pin, and roll out the dough until it's about as thick as pie crust. To get it onto the tart pan, roll it onto your rolling pin and then unroll it over the pan. Trim the dough, leaving a little bit of overlap around the edges to account for shrinkage.

Cover with the dough with tin foil and add the pie weights. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 375°F. Remove the tin foil and weights.

Assemble the tart: Meanwhile, mix all of the filling ingredients together - I used a tsp or two of finely chopped fresh rosemary. Add both the juice and the zest of the lemon. Taste it and adjust with salt, honey, and lemon juice if necessary. There should be a subtle sweetness.

Pour the mix into the tart shell and bake for 30-35 minutes. The crust should be golden brown. Allow to cool on a rack, then trim the crust to be level with the filling. (Emily saved the extra bits of crust for her morning tea the next day.) Cut into slices and serve with a drizzle of honey.

This can be served at any temperature, but I think it'd be best served warm with a quenelle of ice cream or crème fraîche.

Update: This didn't set up the second time I made this, not sure why. I'll update this post if I figure out the issue.

Valentines Day Dinner

2009-02-16T17:56:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Valentines day at home this year, and I had a lot of fun putting together a special dinner for it. It helped that the 14th fell on a Saturday, giving me a nice, leisurely day at home to put dinner together.

Oysters and Pearls

Sabayon of Pearl Tapioca with Malpeque Oysters and Osetra Caviar

For a starter, I made Oysters and Pearls again - it's a great dish and the oysters and caviar seemed appropriate for Valentines day. We made this dish last year for Valentines day and once last October. It's a great dish and most of the work can be done ahead. (At serving time, you bake it in the oven briefly and make a beurre blanc.) We also enjoy having the leftover caviar, crème frâiche and chives on crackers as a snack.

Black Sea Bass with Sweet Parsnips, Arrowleaf Spinach, and Saffron-Vanilla Sauce

The main course took us a little longer to narrow down. We wanted something light, since the Oysters and Pearls is rather rich. We eventually settled on this dish from the French Laundry cookbook. It turned out really well, and we'll definitely be making it again. There are a lot of different flavors in this dish that play off each other really well.

The sauce is a saffron/vanilla infused mussel broth, finished with a little cream and butter. On top of that is a parsnip purée. The purée is topped with a ball of spinach, and finally there is a a fillet of black sea bass. There is a more detailed description of the construction of this dish on Carol Blymire's blog.

Coconut, Meyer Lemon, and White Chocolate

For dessert, Emily suggested a dish that she found on Cannelle et Vanille, a food blog. It consists of alternating layers of a coconut cake and meyer lemon custard, surrounded with white chocolate and topped with some fruit. I was a little hesitant about the dessert at first because it called for tempering white chocolate and wrapping it around the dessert, and pastry work is a little outside my comfort zone. The chocolate ended up nice and crisp, so I think I pulled off the tempering correctly.

Venison Loin with Potato and Celery Root Gratin

2009-01-25T19:00:00.000-08:00

So, there is this venison dish that I'd been meaning to make ever since we saw the "Furred Game" episode of "Jamie at Home," but I never got around to it.

This Saturday we went to Ferry Building to see if we could find some venison loin (aka backstrap). Golden Gate Meats did have it, but it was not cheap (very not cheap). We bought it anyway. While we were there, we also picked up some Rancho Gordo beans and some Boccalone guanciale and prosciutto cotto.

I ended buying 1.5lb of venison loin. I cut it in half and saved one piece for another meal. I oiled the remaining piece and crusted it with a mixture of rosemary (obtained from a nearby bush), juniper berries (from the store), salt, and pepper. Then I seared it and roasted it for about 10 minutes, turning once. For the sauce, I deglazed with a little red wine, reduced it, and mounted with butter.

The side was a gratin of potatoes and celery root, cut into thick disks, par-boiled, and baked with sage, cream, and parmesan. I then topped it with more parmesan and browned the top.

The dish turned out really well, it was worth the expense. The meat was perfectly done all the way through, and the flavor of the crust nicely complimented the flavor of the meat. I thought the sauce had some bitter notes (I got some singed garlic in there), but Emily said it was fine.

The gratin was also tasty, but I think the sauce could be refined a little - it tasted too much like cream for my tastes. At the very least it could use a little nutmeg, possibly a second cheese, and maybe a dash of wasabi or curry powder. (Compare Keller's cauliflower gratin.)

We frequently make venison burgers, but this was the first time I've eaten a venison steak since I was very young. It was also the first time I've worked with juniper berries - they have an interesting flavor that seems to go well with the rosemary. I look forward to using them in the future.

Our Wedding

2008-08-31T08:08:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since my last post that I don't really know where to start. Generally I'm inspired by Emily's photographs, but in the last couple of weeks she's taken about five thousand of them - this is going to take a couple of blog entries.

First things first - we're now married. We had a lovely wedding, which went perfectly. I was expecting something to go wrong - they say it always does - but it was great. People had fun, the setting was beautiful, and our dance worked out well.

Emily will go into better detail on her blog, but here is my summary:

We had an intimate wedding at the Acqua Hotel in Mill Valley, about 40 people were able to attend. The wedding was outdoors, on a lovely little lake with the mountains in the background.

The rehearsal dinner was down the street at Buckeye Roadhouse - a place that we happened across a few years ago after hiking in the Marin Headlands, which turned out to be in the list of top 100 bay area restaurants. They did an excellent job, details to follow.

It was a little cool out, but the guys didn't notice in their tuxes. After the ceremony, there was a cocktail hour, which started a little earlier than planned. During that time, Emily and I had photographs taken. After the cocktail hour, we had a sit-down dinner catered by Piazza D'Angelo in Mill Valley.

After a bit of mingling, we had our first dance, a foxtrot choreographed by Alyson - the part of the wedding I was most nervous about. It went really well, despite a couple of missteps on my part and Emily having the extra difficulty of dancing in a wedding dress. Learning the dance was a lot of fun. Alyson did a really good job teaching us the dance and designing a beautiful and cute dance that matched our skill level. (I got the easy part.)

The cake was beautiful. Emily had gotten a spiced "Carrot Cake" from the Shannie Cakes. She did the cake tasting with Alyson, so I hadn't tasted it before the wedding. When we did the cake cutting, I decided that the cake was really good and we should do a second take. I'm sure the photographers appreciated it.

There were a lot of people who were unable to make it - travel has gotten expensive and budgets have gotten tight - but the size was really nice. We were able to spend a lot of time with each guest, eat our entire meal, and have a fun, relaxing time. We hope to have a reception in Michigan around the holidays to catch up with some of the people who couldn't make it.

After the wedding we spent the night at the Acqua Hotel, got up the next morning and got ready for our honeymoon on the big island of Hawaii.

to be continued...

Got my Goat

2008-06-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

Confit of Goat Ribs with Ratatouille

So I finally got around to making the "Colorado Rack of Lamb" dish from the third season of Top Chef. I saved the recipe back in October, with the intention of making it. I quickly made the olive oil poached tomatoes with a roast chicken, but didn't get around to making the whole dish.

Last April, when Rich was visiting, I bought a half rack of goat to use for this dish and then realized that it was a summer dish (summer squash, tomatoes, etc.) - it has been sitting in my freezer since. In the last few weeks, I'd been looking for the "white anchovies" called for by the recipe with no luck.

By now I'd been almost regretting this - I'd put it off enough that expectations were raised so high it was bound to disappoint. Still, I picked up some zucchini and eggplant at the farmer's market on Thursday and started thawing the ribs. Saturday morning, I got some heirloom cherry tomatoes, and a spherical yellow summer squash that I can't identify.

That night, I put the herb rub on the ribs and decided that they needed to be trimmed. They weren't quite frenched the way I wanted. I tied them and put the rub on and left them in the fridge overnight. I was a little burned out, so I decide to make the sauce Sunday morning (the recipe specifies that it sit overnight).

For the sauce, I used some anchovies that I cured a few weeks ago. I had picked up some fresh anchovies from a farmer's market when I was returning from picking up our marriage license and cured them that night per the instructions in the Zuni Cookbook.

Sunday night, I put everything together. I brought the duck fat, the rub from the ribs, and some of the sauce to a simmer in the smallest pan that would fit the ribs, seared the ribs, and put them in the fat and turned off the heat. They finished cooking while the fat cooled down kinda like cooking sous vide without the bag. After 25 minutes the oil was down to 135 degrees, and the ribs were perfect. Meanwhile I made the eggplant sauce and cut up the squash.

In the end, the dish was very good, although it took a bit of duck fat to make. I may make the dish again someday, if I've got enough duck fat on hand. I do reuse the fat from my confit, so I may have it at some point in the future. (I wouldn't reuse the fat from this dish, too much random stuff in it.) Otherwise, I'll definitely reuse some of the components.

The Sauce Vert was tasty and would make a very good dipping sauce for bread - if I dial back on the garlic a little.

The eggplant sauce would also be good paired with the right dish. I'll have to figure out what to pair it with.

wagyu fajitas

2008-04-29T22:56:00.000-07:00

So now we've finally got a picture of the fajitas, one of our regular dishes. I saw the wagyu skirt steak at the grocery store and decided to make some fajitas with it. The marinade I use is lime juice, soy sauce, chili powder, rice wine, and a bit of sugar. I roast and slice poblanos, slice some onions, then use a stir fry method to make the fajitas. It's not entirely traditional, but it works.

The Usual Suspects

2008-04-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

I was looking through Emily's flickr images and thought I'd throw together an overview of the dishes that are currently in our regular rotation.

Fusilli Carbonara

Our Fusilli Carbonara comes from the book Italian Easy. Their recipe substitutes fusilli for the traditional spaghetti and prosciutto for the traditional guanciale or pancetta. The smaller pasta is easier to eat and the sauce sticks to it nicely. Recently, we've been using Boccalone pancetta in lieu of the prosciutto.

Chile Verde

We usually serve Chile Verde when we have company, especially for mexican-themed holidays. It's a pork chili with tomatillos and roasted poblanos. It started as my attempt to reproduce a dish from a mexican restaurant in Vegas. I've posted a version of the recipe is posted on recipezaar.

Chicken Roulade

The chicken roulade is a Gordon Ramsay recipe that I adapted to our tastes. It is a boned out chicken leg and thigh wrapped with prosciutto and stuffed with sausage, currants, and shallots. I serve it with a cheesy risotto. It's a regular dish, but I'm still tweaking the sauce.

Onglet Bordelaise

Steak Frites is another regular at our house. We make it almost weekly. The recipe is loosely based on the steak frites in the book Bouchon. My changes are to make the sauce à la minute, scale back on the butter a little, and add some more shallots. I like to use onglet for this, but occasionally use skirt steak. (The original called for bavette.)

Sushi

We have sushi at home once a week. Typically it's salmon rolls and sashimi, california rolls, and oysters. I'm still looking for a good source for sushi quality hamachi nearby.

Pizza Margherita

We usually have pizza margherita for lunch on the weekends. We have a couple of basil plants that we harvest and use a local buffalo milk mozzarella. It's much better in the summer, when the tomatoes are in season, but I have a source for local hot-house tomatoes in the off season.

Rigatoni con Salsiccia

A few years ago, I found the recipe for rigatoni with sausage in Tastes of Italia magazine, and it's been in our regular rotation since. The rigatoni is served with arugula and a simple sauce of tomatoes, garlic, sausage, and balsamic vinegar. (I don't have an Emily photo of this, so I included an old one that I took in Vegas.)

Steak Fajitas

Steak Fajitas is another regular dish, but we don't have photos of it. I typically use skirt steak, marinated with lime, soy, chili powder, and some sake or sugar water. I stir fry it with onions, roasted poblanos, and serve with tortillas, black beans, and crema.

Pumpkin Penne

The pumpkin penne recipe originally came from Rachael Ray. It's penne served with a sausage and pumpkin sauce. We've had bad luck with Rachael's recipes in the past, but we like this one.

Lemongrass Sea Bass

2008-04-09T22:05:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I made a Joël Robuchon recipe that I've had on my to-do list for well over a year. The recipe originally caught my attention because of the amount of lemongrass involved. I halved the recipe, so about 5 stalks went into it.

I sautéed striped bass in lemongrass oil and served it with a lemongrass cream sauce, roasted tomatoes, blanched green garlic, and fried, julienned leeks. (I substituted green garlic for scallions because I had some on hand.)

It turned out well, we'll definitely make it again. The sauce was very good, the lemongrass came through nicely. I also liked this method for cooking tomatoes, quartered and baked with some olive oil and herbs. They were sweet and had a nice, concentrated tomato flavor. I made them again the next day to serve with a roasted game hen and potatoes.

Bacon-wrapped Salmon

2008-04-08T22:18:00.000-07:00

On monday we had bacon-wrapped salmon. We used a recipe that Chef Daniel Boulud presented on an episode of Martha Stewart's show. It was accompanied with a red wine sauce and celeriac purée.

The celeriac was cooked in milk with some thyme and garlic and mashed with some of the cooking liquid and some browned butter. It turned out well, although I might up the butter a little bit. (Or at least add some more milk solids to the butter before browning it.) I left out the salsify because I couldn't find any.

I considered not making the red wine sauce. I wasn't sure how well it'd go with the salmon, but Emily suggested I give the recipe a try as-is. It worked out well, although I wish I had reduced it bit more and left the shallots in the sauce. (I didn't read the recipe carefully enough and strained them out.) It's somewhat hard to see the sauce in the photo - I think it would have photographed better on a white plate, but my corelware plates don't have the thermal mass to keep the fish warm. (We put some nicer plates on our wedding registry.)

Because the bacon was doubled on one side of the fish, the inside layer didn't crisp up to my liking, and I think the thickness kept the salmon from browning on the end. I will make sure the doubled bacon is not on the presentation side next time.

Valentines Day

2008-02-17T14:36:00.000-08:00

This year we decided to stay in and have a nice meal at home for valentine's day. About a month in advance Emily went through Elizabeth Falkner's book, Demolition Desserts and picked out a dessert for our special meal. And of course she chose what had to be the most complex dish in the book, the Battleship Potemkin. (The instructions run four pages and reference recipes on three other pages of the book.)

It took a few more weeks to get the other courses out of her. She wanted oysters because seafood seemed right for valentine's day - she had fond memories of last year's meal at Fresca. Since we have oysters weekly with our sushi, I decided to make it a little extra special and prepare Keller's "Oysters and Pearls" recipe. And for the main course she asked for steak. I planned on doing my typical beef tenderloin. (Poached briefly in wine, then seared.)

Then about a week ahead, I realized there was almond flour in the cake. After a little research,I decided to substitute desiccated coconut and a bit of all purpose flour for the almond flour. On the Sunday before, I got the flu and was fairly miserable for a few days. I did manage to prepare the Cocoa Nib Streusel that Sunday. Fortunately, I was well enough on wednesday to start my prep. I got supplies at the Ferry Building and Sun Fat, then I made sushi for dinner, without oysters, and I made the base for the Oysters and Pearls: tapioca cooked in milk and cream with some whipped cream, crème fraîche, and sabayon stirred in. I also made the ganache, chocolate shortbread cookies, truffles, strawberry sauce, and chocolate ice cream that night. And then I was quite tired. :)

Thursday morning, Emily surprised me with some scones that she had made the day before. They were quite tasty. After work, I went with Dan to fetch the meat and found that they were out of tenderloin at Drewes Bros - which we were both planning on cooking. They did have the short bit of roast from the small end of the tenderloin. I told Dan to get that, wrap it in herbs and prosciutto, and roast it. I got a cowboy steak for Emily and me. (I've done the tenderloin dish before - Drewes often sells the small end of the tenderloin for quite a bit less than the middle, and it works well.)

Above is the "Oysters and Pearls" - I used American Paddlefish roe, which was the cheapest but still cost me $35 for an ounce. (We didn't use all of it, I could easily have served 4-5 people from that jar.) It was my first time making a sabayon sauce and beurre blanc. I'm not sure if I'd whipped cream by hand before. We're definitely going to do this again, although I will want to make smaller portions.

This is the cowboy steak - essentially a bone-in rib steak. I sliced it into 1/2" slices and fanned them out, making it easier to serve on a shared plate. To accompany it, we had pan-roasted potatoes and my usual green beans. (Blanch, sautée with shallots, and finish with salt and a splash of rice wine vinegar.)

And here is the dessert that I slaved over. Emily isn't a fan of raspberries, so I used strawberries and strawberry sauce instead. I substituted desiccated coconut for the almond flour in the cake, and used the Bouchon cookbook recipe for the chocolate ice cream (I wanted leftovers). I got a bit of cocoa powder on the plate (behind the cake) so I sprinkled a bit on the rest of the plate.

I used the leftover ice cream, sauce, and streusel for my birthday party the following day.

It was hard work, but it was tasty and a good learning experience. The cocoa nib streusel went over really well. Emily was eating small bowls of it before valentines day, everybody who sampled it loved it. I even sent some home with Rob and Traci after they tried it at my birthday party.

Morelity tale

2008-02-09T18:58:00.000-08:00

Emily was off working Saturday, so I decided to use some of the dried morels that I've had in my pantry for way too long. They were foraged and dried by my Grandfather, who lives in Northern Michigan. I had put off using them because of Emily's allergies.

I mostly followed a Gordon Ramsay recipe for pan-roasted chicken with potatoes, asparagus, and a morel velouté. I left out the thyme, because I forgot to pick it up at the store, used dried morels in lieu of fresh, and left out the pancetta, because I'm saving it for carbonara with Emily. (In retrospect, there is a wee bit of guanciale in the freezer that I could have used.) Also I used two cubes of homemade chicken demi-glace in lieu of chicken broth.

The result was probably one of the best sauces I've made to date. I have a handful of morels left and definitely will try it again. And the pan-roasting technique is a nice way to get a roasted chicken without making a whole bird.

Buta no Kakuni

2008-02-07T14:09:00.000-08:00

The year of the pig is over, and we gave it a proper send-off with Morimoto's recipe for Buta no Kakuni - slowly braised pork belly. Actually assembling the dish was a bit of an adventure - I was missing two ingredients: burdock root (used as a garnish) and conpoy (dried scallops, 江瑤柱).

I started it on Saturday, braising the pork belly for 7 hours in water and brown rice. On Sunday, I started soaking the rice in a homemade scallion oil.

On Monday, I walked through Chinatown looking for conpoy. I found one place, but they only had a 1lb bag for $39 - I didn't want that much and thought they were taking advantage of me, so I passed it up. When I got back to work, I looked it up and found that it was a reasonable price.

I'd planned on finding a place off of Grant street on Tuesday, to buy bulk conpoy. But on the way back from dropping Emily off at her show, I found a place in the Richmond that sold conpoy.

The dish was tasty, but night quite what I expected. I think after three days in the making, my expectations were pretty high, and I was a little rushed because I wanted to feed Emily at a somewhat reasonable hour. In retrospect I would have liked the congee to be a little more watery and a little more broken down, like Carmen's jook. The sauce should have been a bit thicker (more reduced). And I would have liked the meat to be a bit more tender. Next time I'll use lower temperature, a bit less brown rice, and reduce the sauce a bit more.

Christmas Vacation

2007-12-27T14:59:00.000-08:00

I figured I should get around to writing this up, only about a month late. :)

This year we flew back to Michigan early to attend my grandmothers 100th birthday. We ended up spending about two weeks there. As usual I brought my knives and spices with me and got to cook a few meals for my parents. My mom was starting chemo, so we weren't sure if she'd be up to eating. It turned out that she was able to eat, so it was extra special to be cooking for them.

I wanted to have some chicken broth on hand, so for the first meal I made a roast chicken and potatoes. We found that Horrocks had some nice Amish-raised chickens and reasonable prices, and I was surprised to see a nice variety of vegetables there, including obscure ones like bitter melon. After the roast chicken I made pumpkin-sausage penne and a chicken cacciatorra. (So I could make more broth.)

The next night, I set out to make my "bavette bordelaise", which I usually make with hanger steak (onglet). Unfortunately Horrocks didn't have it, but made a couple of suggestions. The guy at the first place has been a butcher for 15 years and had never heard of it. He suggested a mexican place, which wasn't a proper butcher (they had skirt, but it was frozen and in 5lb packs). I ended up trying a place in East Lansing, which claimed to have it, but ended up giving me flap steak (bavette), calling it hanger. I made it with my usual red wine / shallot sauce, potatoes sarladaise, and green beens. A few days later, on christmas eve, I used the extra meat (it was a big chunk of steak) to make my fajitas. (They do have poblanos in Michigan.)

For our big Christmas meal, I made a standing rib roast. Emily likes it, it is traditional in some families, and it was what I made for them before they last left San Francisco. I again started with Alton Brown's instructions, aging the roast in the fridge for a few days. But I added a garlic-rosemary rub and salted it ahead of time, per the Zuni cookbook. For sides I made a squash and brussel sprout dish that I also made for thanksgiving. (You would have read about it last November, but it seems I forgot to actually post the article - I'll post it now.) I also made my parmesan mashed potatoes, green beans, and swiss chard sautéed in oil with some garlic. I got to feed my Grandmother, which made it extra special. (She loved the vegetables - probably one reason why she's 100 years old.)

It was a good Christmas, and a nice break from a busy time in my life. Although I wish Dan and Carmen could have joined us, and I missed having Carmen's parents join us - they always brought a couple of dishes, usually a chicken lo-mein and some kind of shrimp cake, to go with our food, and I always made cucumber kimchee for her Dad.

Still, we were happy to be back in the bay area. The weather was happier, I get all of my wacky ingredients again - everybody has hanger steak, I can pick up goat loin at the farmer's market, the corner stores have fresh herbs, and local produce have extra-long seasons.

Oh, and christmas gifts - it was the year of the thermometer for me. I got two of the probe thermometer on my list, which seems to work well - it's faster and more accurate than my old, broken one. My Dad also fixed my broken one, and Emily got me a IR thermometer. You aim it at something, pull the trigger, and it tells you the temperature. It's a toy, but it has turned out to be more useful than I'd thought it would be. I know when things are getting close to going into the fridge, double check oil and sugar temperatures, and look for cold spots in the house.

I also got some wonderful books including Peterson's fish and seafood book and the citizen cake book. (Emily has me on the hook for one of the desserts for Valentines day, the recipe spans 7 pages, wish me luck.)

Menu for Hope

2007-12-11T18:48:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again - Menu for Hope IV is underway, go check out Pim's blog, pick out some nice prizes, and donate. The prizes are provided by food bloggers, each $10 of donation will get you a spot in a raffle for one of the items, donations go to the UN's food program.

Thanksgiving

2007-11-27T19:02:00.000-08:00

It seems I wrote this last november, but never posted it, so here it is now.

Another thanksgiving has come and gone. Carmen made her turkey again, this time with a heritage turkey. The only real incident was an explosion involving the gravy. Carmen was making a slurry, shaking some of drippings with some flour in a tupperware container. This technique had worked for her in the past, but this time pressure built up and gravy came shooting out of the container and all over the kitchen. We ended up using beurre manié to thicken the sauce, which worked out well.

My contribution to the evening was two custard ice creams, cinnamon and vanilla, and three side dishes. I made my parmesan mashed potatoes and green beans with shallots. And I also made brussel sprouts with butternut squash and fried sage, based on a Thomas Keller recipe that I got from Food and Wine magazine. They were very tasty, but I'd probably augment it with bacon or parmesan next time. This dish is a little different from most brussel sprout dishes in that the leaves are separated and blanched. I did notice that the sage had to be fried for a shorter time and at a lower temperature to keep it from burning.

Weekend of Cooking

2007-10-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted to my blog. I'm still cooking, and Emily is still taking amazing pictures, but I've been too busy with work to blog. Last weekend I had a bit of a cooking marathon, and Emily took pictures, so I figured I'd write it up.

For lunch on Saturday we had pizza margherita. We have this about once a week when tomatoes are in season. This week we used the green zebra heirloom tomatoes (Emily's favorite varietal) and "Bubalus Bubalis" buffalo mozzarella from Cowgirl Creamery.

For dinner we had a goat loin roast, stuffed with cumin, apricots, roasted pumpkin seeds, and bread crumbs, and wrapped in prosciutto. Served with baby spinach (with garlic and pumpkin seeds), red onions cooked in balsamic vinegar. This was a Gordon Ramsay dish that I've been meaning to make. He calls for a boned out lamb saddle, which I believe is called a double loin roast in this country. I substituted goat from Marin Sun Farms because somebody sniped the lamb. The "sauce" in the photo is the jus from resting. The onions and spinach were quite tasty, although the onions look a bit dark. I'd definitely make them again. The potatoes weren't spectacular, as I wasn't using my usual recipe, and I don't think they were really necessary.

I actually only used half of the loin for this. I thought I froze the other half, but it seems to have disappeared - I may have thrown the wrong thing out while cleaning the freezer.

For lunch on Sunday I made Keller's "Soup and Sandwich." This time I didn't screw up the brioche. I used "Lincolnshire Poacher" from Cowgirl Creamery for the cheese. I also made the tomato consommé and potato chips (fried in canola oil and clarified butter) to go with it.

The consommé was easy to make and quite surprising - it's hard to me to accept that a clear liquid has so much tomato flavor. You rehydrate a chipotle (or half of one) add it to a couple pounds of chopped tomatoes and strain in cheese cloth (or a dish towel) hung over a bowl in the fridge overnight. Add a few peeled cherry tomatoes (one of each color if you can) and serve cool.

For dinner, I made pork and beans and invited Dan and Carmen over to join us. Emily suggested I also make Pim's Pumpkin Panna Cotta, so I decided to make it a four course dinner with tomato consommé and some cheese.

I served smaller portions of the consommé this time, a little bit goes a long way. Dan and Carmen got the cherry tomatoes that were left over from lunch, and I garnished with little baby basil leaves. I'll definitely make this again - it's an easy course to make, holds at room temp, and is tasty.

For the pork and beans, I cooked and reserved some bits of bacon, softened some onions in the fat, added 1/2 lb of soaked Rancho Gordo Borlotti beans, water, and half a smoked ham hock. I cooked it for 1-2 hrs, removed and cut up the meat, then cooked it for a few more hours with the cover off, occasionally sprinkling with bread crumbs or mixing in the crust that had formed on top. It's garnished with some mexican crema and cilantro.

The Lincolnshire Poacher and an Italian Fontina on fancy crackers served as a simple cheese course. (I didn't have any fruit handy, and wanted them to try the cheeses.) The fontina was rather mild and a bit overpowered by the cracker, I probably should have cut it a bit thicker or omitted the cracker.

The Pumpkin Panna Cotta, in a jar from Miette. I also had some in bowls, but we were rather full dessert time, so I served the smaller portions. (Pim's recipe yields at least 8 portions, so we had plenty of leftovers, too.)

Ratatouille

2007-07-15T16:47:00.000-07:00

This was the weekend of ratatouille: I spent most of Saturday preparing for dinner Sunday night. I made two French Laundry dishes, one of which was derived from the classic french ratatouille dish. On Saturday night, we had Dan and Carmen over for a simple dinner - various sausages from Fatted Calf, a good french mustard, and the leftover ratatouille vegetables sautéed in olive oil. After that, we went to see Ratatouille. The movie was a lot of fun and very well done. The attention to detail was amazing. I'd definitely recommend it.

"Macaroni and Cheese"
Butter-poached Maine Lobster with Creamy Lobster Broth and Mascarpone-Enriched Orzo

The first course was lobster poached in butter served with with orzo in a lobster cream broth and a Parmesan crisp. The parmesan crisp was very easy to make. They lobster was briefly boiled yesterday, the meat removed from the shell and refrigerated, and then I spent a few hours were spent making a lobster broth, reducing it, adding cream, and reducing again. I added a some cooked orzo the next morning. I left out the coral oil, as I didn't have any lobster coral.

On Sunday, I reheated the broth, made up a batch of buerre monté, briefly poached the lobster and put it on warmed plates.

Roasted Guinea Fowl en Crépenette de Byaldi with Pan Jus

Imam Byaldi is a turkish dish which is a more refined version of the classic Ratatouille. In the movie, the byaldi is removed from the pan and artfully arranged on the plate. (And, according the recipe in the New York Times, served with a vinagrette.) The byaldi itself takes 2 1/2 to 3 hours to cook, by the way.

On Saturday, I cut up a guinea fowl, reserved the breasts and boned-out thighs for the next day, and used the rest of the bird, along with some vegetables and chicken stock, to make a sauce. (Which also spent a good hour or so reducing.)

On Sunday, I placed a bit of the byaldi on each piece of breast and thigh, wrapped it in caul fat, seared it, and baked it. They were then sliced in half, and served on some of the remaining byaldi with some sauce on top.

The actual cooking on Sunday was a half hour at most, but I spent most of Saturday preparing. It was a lot of work, but a fun learning experience. Not something I'd do every weekend.

Catching up

2007-07-12T21:47:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since my last post. I've been really busy at work and neglected to write up my parents visit. They were here for a month, helped us a lot with the house. Most of the plaster work is now done, and we have a completely finished bathroom and living room. I got to feed them almost every night, showing off what I've learned in the past year. (And skipping dishes that they might not like.)

For mother's day, I made short ribs and oxtail, vaguely following the zuni recipe. They were accompanied by parmesan mashed potatoes, carrots and parsnips (turned and glazed, if I remember right). Each plate contained both cuts of beef, removed from the bones. (I cooked the ribs for a little less time.)

From my repetoire, I made pasta norma, the chicken roulade, and zuni chicken. I also made the posole rojo recipe from Rancho Gordo.

And, of course, one night my mom made our traditional fish fry. She takes Michigan lake fish, breads them with flour, salt, and pepper and fries them in olive oil. I'm always thinking there is some way to tweak it to make it better - but I rarely have the opportunity to have it, and it invokes such memories from childhood, I don't mess with it. The best way to enjoy the fish, is sneaking a fillet off of the plate next to my grandfather's grill while he's cooking a batch. This year, I let my mom do her thing and just prepared some sides. For the first, I sweated down some onions and then sautéed some diced summer squash in olive oil, salt, and pepper. The second was swiss chard sautéed in olive oil with garlic, salt, and pepper. The squash was quite good, but the chard didn't work so well with the fish. (The fish is a bit too delicate for the chard.)

For an early father's day, I made a standing rib roast from Prather Ranch beef. It was my first standing rib roast and turned out perfect, even though I was aiming for a little more well done, because my parents aren't big on rare beef.

For sides, I reprieved myself by making green beans again but getting it right. (My mom liked them the previous time I made them, but I thought they were a little too raw.) And I made my parmesan mashed potatoes. (They're tasty - and the leftovers work well, Emily rarely lets me cook potatoes another way - but I like them roasted, too.)

One Sunday, I attempted to make Keller's grilled cheese sandwich recipe. I got some excellent English cheddar, but I managed to use twice as much butter as I should have when making the brioche. I was making a half recipe. It called for "10 oz (20 tbsp) butter" - I halved it and got 10 oz. In lieu of his fussy tomato soup, I served it simply with some sliced apples. It wasn't bad, but the bread was too crumbly, too buttery, and I didn't use enough cheese.

On a subsequent Sunday, I finally got around to making Osso Buco. I saw some wonderful Vitellone at Prather Ranch in the ferry building and picked it up for the freezer. (Vitellone is a bit older than Veal and free range.) I also added some saffron to the parmesan risotto that I usually make with the chicken roulade. It turned out really well, and I'll definitely try it again. I consulted a few recipes and ended up salting ahead (per the Zuni cookbook), using red wine (because I had it on hand), tomatoes, leeks, a little bit of celery and carrot, rosemary, thyme, onion, bay, and black peppercorns. Per Keller, I used a bit of cheesecloth to keep the veggies separate from the meat.

And tonight I made red-cooked fish again. This is the second time I've made this dish. This time I made it with a, err, red fish that I got at Sun Fat. (I don't remember what kind it was, but it looked like it was fresh and the right size for one person.) Emily hasn't been around either time I made this dish, so I decided to take a picture myself. I'll have her work her magic and replace this with an edited one.

The fish is fried in a wok, some aromatics (scallions and ginger) are fried, and then everything is braised in a soy, sugar, rice wine sauce. The fish and veggies are removed to a plate and the sauce is reduced. The resulting sauce is a savory, caramel sauce that is quite tasty.

Sushi Night

2007-06-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

The day before we went back to Michigan, Emily asked me to make sushi. The results were a little crude, but tasty.

I stopped by Sun Fat on the way home for some salmon, tuna, and oysters. I was hoping for hamachi, but they didn't have any. I picked up some nori, avacado, and sushi rice from the at 24th and Valencia. My bamboo mat was lost in one of my many moves, and I couldn't find them at the store, so I had to improvise with a piece of tin foil and plastic wrap. It worked surprisingly well.

Of the maki, we liked the california rolls the best - real crab legs make a big difference. (I had some in the freezer that I'd been meaning to use.) For the outside, I used furikake because I didn't know where to find tobiko.

The tuna and salmon rolls were a little overpacked, so the rolls didn't always close up. The fish wasn't placed right, so it didn't end up in the center. I don't usually order maki rolls. They were good, but I will probably try my hand at nigri next time.

I also sliced up some sashimi and opened some Fanny Bay oysters to accompany the rolls.

Sunday Dinner

2007-05-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

A week ago Sunday, I made the pork chops again for dinner, along with a cauliflower gratin and some glazed baby carrots. For dessert we had a malted milk ice cream. Emily got some great shots of the food, so I figured I'd write up the recipes.

Bourbon Peach Pork Chops
This is southern American classic, found by Carmen on Williams-Sonoma's web site. I've substituted thicker pork chops, and use a thermometer to determine doneness. The pork chops can be glazed and refrigerated a few hours ahead of time, but I'd take them out of the fridge 30 minutes before cooking. I substitute moutarde de meaux pommery for the mustard seeds and some of the lemon juice and make the mayonnaise myself. (Is the mayonnaise necessary? I don't know, but it was a good excuse to try my hand at making it.)

6 pork chops, cut 1" to 1 1/2” thick
3 tbsp mustard seeds
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 cup apricot or peach preserves
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup dijon mustard
1/4 cup Maker's Mark
2 shallots, minced
1 tbsp chopped rosemary

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Combine the mustard seeds and lemon juice and let sit for 30 minutes. Then mix in the rest of the ingredients. Adjust and season to taste.

Put a third of the glaze in the bottom of a baking dish. Add the pork chops and cover with the rest of the glaze. (Optionally sprinkle with some fine bread crumbs.) At this stage, you could refrigerate the pork for a few hours if you're preparing this dish ahead of time.

Cook until it's about 145 degrees in the center. Check the other chops with an instant read thermometer, them cover with foil and let rest for 5-10 minutes.

Cauliflower Gratin
This recipe came from Keller's book, Bouchon. I substituted a wasabi/horseradish powder for the horseradish, and added a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper to the sauce. If you are serving guests that are not big fans of cauliflower, cut the florets in smaller pieces and mix some cheese into the sauce, to taste (some of the Emmentaler, some parmesan or pecorino). If you use pecorino - adjust the salt after adding the cheese.

1 head (about 1-3/4 pounds) cauliflower
Kosher salt
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons minced shallots
Freshly ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
1 thyme sprig
1 Italian parsley sprig
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon prepared horseradish
Pinch of curry powder
Freshly grated nutmeg
1/3 cup grated Comté or Emmentaler cheese
1 tablespoon panko (Japanese bread crumbs) or fine dried bread crumbs

Remove the leaves from the cauliflower. Cut the florets from the core. Remove the exterior of the core and throw it away. Dice the rest of the core and put in a food processor. Cut the florets into 1" (or smaller) pieces. Put the stems in with the core. Process the core and stems until they are finely diced. If you don't have 1 cup of processed cauliflower, add some florets to make up the difference and process them.

In two batches, blanch the florets in water season with salt and vinegar for about 2 minutes. Strain and place in a bowl. Season to taste.

Cook the shallots in butter for a couple of minutes, until they are translucent. Add salt, pepper, thyme, and bay leaf. Add the cauliflower stems and 2/3 cup of water. Simmer for 5 minutes or until most of the water is gone. If the cauliflower is not cooked, add a bit more water and cook longer.

Add the cream and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove the whole herbs and put in a blender. After it cools, add the horseradish, curry powder, and nutmeg. Blend until smooth and season to taste.

Mix the cauliflower with the cream mixture and place in a baking dish. Refrigerate for 1-24 hours.

Sprinkle with bread crumbs and cheese and cook in the oven at 450 degrees until warm and bubbling. Use the broiler to brown the top, if necessary. Let rest for 5-10 minutes and serve.

Glazed Baby Carrots
I used Keller's instructions for glazed vegetables, from his book Bouchon.

1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp butter
1 pinch salt
baby carrots
thyme or parsley leaves (optional)

Trim the carrots and stems. Try to get them a uniform size, if possible.

Put the vegetables in a saucepan, add the water to cover. Add the water, salt, butter, and herbs. Simmer until the vegetables are tender. The sauce should be reduced to a glaze. If not, remove the carrots and continue to reduce to a glaze, replace the carrots and reheat. The results can be held for a few hours. If the carrots vary in size, you'll have to remove the smaller diameter ones earlier.

This can be done with any root vegetable, pearl onions work too, but you should add a little white wine vinegar at the end. Keller's book explains this in much more detail.

Malted Milk Ice Cream
This is from David Lebovitz's Book "Perfect Scoop," reworded by me for copyright reasons. I got the recipe from Ruhlman's blog, but have been directed by Emily to pick up a copy of the book. It was unclear whether the original recipe was calling for actual malt powder or malted milk powder. I went with the latter, since pure malt powder was hard to find. (I think brewing supply places may have it.) The process is a little different from Keller's - the cream and flavoring are added at the end - but I followed it as-is. (But if you choose to use half of a vanilla bean in place of extract, put it in with the half and half, and let it steep for an hour or so.)

1 cup half and half
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup malt powder
6 large egg yolks
a handful of malted milk balls, chopped

Mix the cream, malted milk, and vanilla in a bowl and prepare an ice bath. Warm the half and half with the sugar over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Be careful to not let anything stick to the bottom. Lightly whisk the egg yolks in a bowl, then slowly whisk in the warmed milk. Return the milk mixture to the pan and gently cook it over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon and making sure nothing sticks to the bottom, until it coats the back of the spoon, about 5 minutes. Strain into the cream mixture, stirring to combine. Place the bowl over the ice bath and stir occasionally to cool.

Refrigerate for at least 6 hours (preferably overnight) to cool and allow the flavors to meld. Process in your ice cream machine, then freeze for at least 6 hrs (preferably overnight) before serving.

What happened in Vegas

2007-04-11T22:14:00.000-07:00

Emily and I went to Vegas last weekend on rather short notice. We had been meaning to go there to visit friends and see the sights before everybody I knew scattered around the country. We also wanted to check out a restaurant or two, see a show, and get some pictures of the strip. Sally got us some really good seats for Mystère (it helps to know people).

When we got in Friday, after going to the office, we went to a nearby mexican place, Viva Michoacan, to have a late lunch. That night we went to Bouchon, which was very disappointing. Since we had a late lunch, we weren't very hungry and ordered the petit plateau. The oysters were good, but everything else was badly overcooked (shrimp, mussels, and lobster). Friends whose taste I trust do like the place, so maybe they were just having an off night. I remember liking the food there when I lived in Vegas, but that was a few years ago.

Saturday we went to a Cuban restaurant (Cool Place cuban cafe), which was quite good. I wanted to see if their Tequila Chicken was as good as I remembered and get more data so I could reproduce the dish. That night, we went to Mesa Grill. We split three appetizers, so we could get a variety of dishes. My favorite was a tuna tartar dish with a habanero sauce. Emily liked the Queso Fundido best (chèvre was involved), and the quesadilla was also good, but I would have made a few changes. After that, we went to see Mystère. A good friend, Sally, got us excellent seats, right up front. And the show was very good, as usual. (We refuse to go to musicals in Vegas - they tend to cut half of the material out of them.)

For lunch Sunday, we went to Mon Ami Gabi. There was a wait for the patio, and we were hungry, so we ate inside. I didn't expect much from previous experience. I almost got the croque monsieur (one of my favorites), but decided to try the steak sandwich after grilling the waiter (pun intended) - the meat was medium rare, as promised, but it seemed to lack flavor, was under-seasoned, and the jus was unimpressive (pale yellow with little flavor).

Sunday night, we had Easter dinner with the Macy's and Jamie. It was a lot of fun, steak for all and kids running around looking for easter eggs.

On Monday, we finished up our sightseeing. We went to Supermex for lunch, another lunchtime hangout from my days in Vegas. This place inspired my chile verde, and I wanted to try theirs again. It was good and the meat was very tender, but I prefer mine. (I don't think they used any tomatillos - even though they have a nice tomatillo salsa, they didn't roast the peppers, the sauce was thinner, and there was less of it.)

Vegas was never my thing, although I've said that it isn't bad to visit occasionally. It was a good trip, but I don't think I'll be heading back that way. Many of my friends are leaving, we've already got our pictures - and, given the state of the restaurants, there really isn't anything there for me. Perhaps we'll head back up to Oregon or visit Billy in San Diego next.

French Laundry

2007-04-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

Last night Emily and I dined at French Laundry with Rob and Traci. It was definitely the best meal I've ever had, and probably the best I will have. The company was great, the service was excellent, and food was perfect.

The reservations were for 5:30 pm, we arrived on time and left around 9:15 pm. By the end of the meal, the first few courses were a pleasant memory. (And, consequently, this will be a long post.)

	The Menu

	They started us off with gougeres and their famous salmon ice cream cones. (Salmon on top, crème fraîche inside and a savory cone.)

	The first course was "Oysters and Pearls," a Sabayon of Pearl Tapioca and Point Reyes Oysters and White Sturgeon Caviar.

	Then some cute loaves bread were delivered, with two different styles of butter. (And butter baked inside.) They made sure to inform us that the breads were all from the Bouchon Bakery down the street. (Emily has some pictures of that, too.)

	For the salad course, most of us got a salad of glazed sunchokes and navel orange suprêmes. (Emily's was served without pine nuts.) I opted for the foie gras dish, which came with an assortment of sea salts and brioche.

	For the first fish coarse, we had a choice between a sea urchin dish and a Japanese Suzuki (some kind of sea bass, I believe). Both were excellent. The "gratin" under the sea urchin was one of the best sauces of the meal, and the clear ginger sauce around the peas was also amazing. I'd love to have the recipes for both, maybe if I wrote the chef...

	The second fish course was a main lobster tail, poached in butter, with an asparagus/serrano ham "omelette" (more of a roulade) and a tarragon coulis.

	The first meat course was milk-fed chicken, with a truffled sauce inside, swiss chard, and Michigan cherries. The meat was very tender and flavorful; the cherries were perfect.
	Emily got an off-the-menu duck dish, which was also quite good, but I didn't quite catch the full description.

	For the second meat course, we had a choice between a lamb and beef dish. The lamb dish had to be ordered for two, so both couples got it. It included three different cuts of lamb, artichoke, a "garlic pudding," and a rosemary jus. I think the reddish lump was the garlic pudding, but it had a lovely roasted red pepper taste that made more of an impression than the garlic.

	The cheese course had a washed-rind cow's milk cheese. The flavor kinda reminded me of Italian Fontina. It was accompanied by poached onions and some greens.

	The first dessert course was a rhubarb sorbet.
	Emily got a mango sherbet on something resembling angel food cake for her first dessert course. (Again, it was off the menu, so I'm not exactly sure what it contained.)

	We had a perfect espresso. The cup was narrow and tall, which caused a nice, thick layer of crema on top.

	For the second dessert course, I had a green tea and white chocolate dish with a passion fruit jelly and a passion fruit foam. The foam was quite amazing, the flavor way more intense than I'd expected. Emily had the Baked Alaska with coconut ice cream, persian lime, pound cake, and compressed pineapple.
	"Mignardises" - French for assault by desserts. The ladies were given a small Tahitian vanilla crème brûlée, the gentlemen got a meyer lemon pot de crème. Then they gave us roasted macadamia nuts coated in chocolate, and a orange tuile.
	Then they came around with a tray of truffles. About six varieties, we were encouraged to choose whatever we wanted, but were so full that we only went with 2-3. (I chose coffee and banana ones, the others were caramel, praline, peanut butter, and raspberry.)

	Finally they gave us some shortbread as a parting gift.

	And, the laundry bill...

Braised Oxtail

2007-04-02T09:08:00.000-07:00

One last fancy dinner before Emily is spoiled for good (we're going to French Laundry tonight). For this one I use Zuni Cafés braised oxtail recipe, my parmesan mashed potatoes, and some glazed baby carrots (per Keller's instructions for glazing vegetables). The inspiration for this meal was the carrots - I've seen pictures of baby carrots prepared this way, saw some in the farmer's market, and had to try it. There is a little bit of a disconnect between the potatoes (homey) and the carrots (fussy/cheffy). Turned potatoes would have matched better visually, but Emily wanted my mashed ones, and the cheese goes well with the rest of the dish anyway.

Onglet à la bordelaise (avec pommes frites!)

2007-03-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

Once again, I made Thomas Keller's "bavette" recipe. This time I used onglet ("hanger steak") instead of skirt steak, cooked it for a little longer in both the browning stage and the oven stage, used a shallot and red wine marinade, and prepared the sauce à la minute. The fries turned out better this time. Most of them were perfectly done and crisp, and I was enjoyed them without ketchup.

(This would also be nice with a mixed green salad in lieu of fries.)

Roughly, the recipe is:

Cook a half cup or so of malbec (red wine) in a pan. Light it on fire and let the alcohol burn off. Add some minced shallots, a squeeze of lemon, and a good pinch of salt. Put it in a zip lock and cool in the freezer. Season the steak, add it to the bag, and put it in the fridge for at least a few hours.

Within an hour or two of dinner time, cut the fries from russet potatoes. Rinse them well, and blanch them in 320 degree vegetable oil for about 5 minutes. (They should be golden brown, no darker.)

Take out the steak, dry it off and let it warm to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Season the meat with salt and pepper. Heat a couple of tablespoons of light olive oil in a cast iron skillet on medium heat. Add a tablespoon of butter and melt. Add the meat and brown, a couple of minutes per side, basting the meat with the butter/oil after you flip it. (Cook a bit longer for onglet, I flipped it a couple of times.)

Remove the meat to a small baking dish and cook 3-4 thinly sliced shallots in the same pan for a minute or two, then add a couple more tablespoons of butter, some thyme, and cook for a few more minutes to caramelize the shallots. Spoon the shallots on top of the meat and place it in the oven for 5-8 minutes.

Warm plates for serving.

Deglaze the skillet with a little of the red wine, reduce. Add some chicken or veal broth and reduce a little. Adjust the seasoning. This is your sauce, keep it warm somewhere.

Cook the fries at 375 degrees for a couple of minutes, remove to a drying rack and salt immediately.

Slice the meat against the grain. Plate next to the fries with shallots and sauce spooned on top of the meat.

Catch up

2007-03-06T20:04:00.000-08:00

It's been almost a month since my last post. I'm still cooking, but I've been too busy with life and work to post.

Since then I've made a Spanish version of Chicken Paprika (I added red bell pepper and chorizo), which wasn't bad, but reminded me a lot of the Murgh Korma.

I used a Bobby Flay recipe for a skirt steak roulade with fontina, prosciutto, and basil. It was good, but it ended up a little rare in the middle. I reprized this with a beef tenderloin and italian fontina. It turned out really well, and the cheese itself was also quite good - it was melty at room temperature and had a strong flavor that reminded me of blue cheese - definitely a good match for beef, I'll have to try it on a burger someday.

In the variations on a theme department, I made a shrimp version of my Larb Gai recipe twice while Emily was away - because I was too lazy to pick up chicken, and we made Moules Marinière with clams once because Sun Fat was out of mussels (due to weather).

More recently, I made a shrimp chowder from a recipe in the most recent issue of Saveur - it was quite easy and tasty.

Finally, while Emily was working last night I made a modified version of a Gordon Ramsey recipe. I boned out a chicken thigh and leg (bask in my mad knife skillz) and rolled it around a mixture of italian sausage, basil, and currants (he called for parsley, egg, and pistachios). Then I wrapped it in leftover prosciutto (in place of bacon), wrapped it in tin foil, and poached it for 25 min. I refrigerated it to let it set, fried in a pan, and put into a 170 degree oven to rest. I made a pan sauce with dry vermouth (in place of marsala), sherry vinegar, and homemade chicken stock and made a parmesan risotto to go with it.

Profiteroles

2007-02-11T21:40:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to making cream puffs last night. I used Thomas Keller's recipe for the Pâtes à Choux. The dough came together rather easily, although it was a novel process for me. The tough part was piping the dough onto a baking pan, I ended up with more dough on my hands than on the pan. I'll have to dig up some instructions for using a piping bag.

I wanted a custard filling (Keller used ice cream), so I made up a batch of pot de crème, put one of them into a piping bag, and injected it into the cream puffs. I topped them with chocolate ganache.

I also made my largest batch of chicken stock this weekend, I wanted to use up all of the leftover chicken in the fridge, and ended up with at least 6 qt of stock.

Superbowl Sunday

2007-02-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

We had a bit of an impromptu get-together for the Superbowl last Sunday. While my cassoulet was cooking, Emily and I tried to go the palace of fine arts to take some pictures. We figured it wouldn't be very crowded during the game. It turned out that a record-breaking ship was coming into port and there was no parking to be found in the area. So we returned home and joined Dan and Carmen to watch a bit of the game.

Carmen was making a turkey meatloaf in her slow cooker, so I brought down the cassoulet and made some mashed potatoes to round out the meal.

"Cassoulet"
Perhaps not a proper cassoulet, this was inspired by the classic french recipe and made from ingredients that I had on hand.

1 lb dried barlotti beans.
2 sprigs thyme
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 onion, large dice
1 smoked ham hock, cut in 2" thick chunks
a couple of strips of bacon, diced
a bit of duck confit (I used two winglets)
1 litre of duck broth
a bit of parmesan rind (optional)

Rinse the beans and pick out any sketchy ones.

In a dutch oven on medium heat, cook the bacon in a little bit of oil, until crispy. Brown the cut edges of the ham hock. Add the onions and cook for 5 minutes or so to soften them up and brown them a little. Add the broth, thyme, parmesan, and beans and simmer for a couple of hours, stirring occasionally. Add water or broth as necessary to cover. About an hour or so into the simmering, add the duck confit.

Once the ham is falling apart and the beans are done, fish out the ham hock and duck, chop up the meat. Fish out the parmesan rind and thyme and discard.

At this point one should strain the beans and layer half the beans, the meat, and the rest of the beans and enough of the liquid to cover. I just stirred in the chopped up meat. I also cooked a bockwurst and hot dog in a bit of duck fat and cut it into 1" thick slices, but forgot to add it. (I remembered later, but Carmen doesn't eat veal.)

Put the dutch oven, uncovered in a 250 degree oven for a 3-6 hours. Every hour or so, gently break the crust that forms with a wooden spoon, so that wet beans come to the top. Add liquid as necessary. Leave a crust on top when it's time to serve. Bring the pot to the table and break the crust at the table.

At any point during the slow cooking, you can cool the pot and refrigerate it overnight. Bring it up to room temperature and cook it once again in the oven until it heats through and a crust is formed.

Oh and the stew/soup is quite tasty before the oven stage, so feel free to cut it short if you're in a hurry. (You can probably use roast or raw chicken in place of the duck and substitute chicken broth for duck if it's not available to you.)

Last Weekend

2007-01-22T21:15:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday was a bit of a cooking marathon. I rendered the duck fat and used it to cook the duck confit, made stock out of the duck carcass, and braised the oxtail in red wine. And for dinner I made Chicken Cacciatora.

Sunday morning I made pancakes for breakfast, pizza margherita for lunch, and we had the oxtail with Dan and Carmen for dinner. I got the recipe from the Zuni book, but to chef it up a bit I turned and glazed some carrots, parsnips, potatoes, and pearl onions to go with the ribs (following the instructions from the Bouchon book). It turned out quite well, but I need a bit more practice turning and glazing vegetables.

And so it begins...

2007-01-18T20:36:00.000-08:00

I've started my latest project, charcuterie. Tonight, while Emily was working, I hiked 3/4 of a mile to Drewes Bros to pick up a duck, 5 lbs of unrendered duck fat, and a 4-5 lb oxtail.

My plans for the Duck are:

Duck Prosciutto - I've salted the duck breasts, which I will cure for 24 hrs and hang in a cool place for a week or two. With luck I'll have duck prosciutto at the end of the process.

Duck Confit - I'll apply a milder cure to the legs, cook them in duck fat, and store them in the fat.

The rest - I'm planning on making a broth out of the carcass, maybe reduce it to a sauce or glacée. And, the extra skin &c will be rendered into duck fat.

The oxtail, a separate project, will be braised in red wine, using a recipe from the Zuni cookbook. We'll probably eat it Monday as it needs to rest a bit after being cooked. We've had good luck with short ribs in red wine - I look forward to seeing how the oxtails turn out.

Pot au Feu

2007-01-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

Above is the "Pot au Feu" that I cooked last week. For the photo, I plated the serving with the bone on a white dish so the sauce would show up nicely. But the other serving, on the black dish, ended up being a bit better plated. Oh well. The meat and sauce was quite tasty, but the veggies were just so-so.

The recipe was rather fussy (or chefy), but it was a good learning experience. I learned some new knife techniques and got a better understanding about how dishes are built in restaurants, by preparing parts ahead of time. I'd definitely marinade with red wine again, but I think I'd try to get more of the flavor of the broth into the vegetables. My next beef dish will likely be the braised oxtail dish from the Zuni book. (I also have duck confit and Pâtes á Choux on my todo list, and I need to learn how to glaze vegetables.)

Last weekend I made the Zuni chicken again. I also tried my hand at Crème Brûlée using a propane torch and one of my mint Pots de Crème. And Sunday night I made a batch of cinnamon rolls using an Alton Brown recipe. They turned out quite well, although next time I'll spread them out a bit more and perhaps make a smaller batch. (I did tweak the instructions a little so I could make it in one night.)

Pots de Crème

2007-01-12T21:04:00.000-08:00

Since I got back from Christmas vacation, I've made three batches of the Pots de Crème recipe from Thomas Keller's book, Bouchon. The first batch was split between chocolate and vanilla. The second was cinnamon, and last night I made a mint one.

Pots de Crème
This is a half batch of the recipe from Thomas Keller's book, Bouchon. The book has much more detailed instructions and highly recommended, but this should be enough to pull off the dish.

1 1/4 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup milk
2 1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
3 egg yolks
2 tbsp sugar

Combine cream, milk, and 2 1/2 tbsp sugar. Cut the pod in half, scrape in the vanilla seeds, and add the empty pod.
Bring to a simmer and make sure the sugar is dissolved.
Remove from heat, cover, and let it steep for an hour.
Whisk the egg yolks and 2 tbsp sugar together.
Rewarm the liquid and strain it.
Slowly whisk the liquid into the yolks.
Gently stir the liquid. Then fill ramekins with the liquid.
Refrigerate for a day to let the flavors meld (optional).
Put the ramekins in a 9"x9" cake pan, fill with water 1/3-1/2 way up the side of the ramekins. Place the cake pan on a cookie sheet, to protect it from the heat.
Cook in a 300 degree oven for 45-55 min. (They should be set, but jiggle slightly. It'll take longer if they just came out of the fridge.)
Remove and place on a cooling rack
Refrigerate for at least 8 hours, at most 3 days.

Chocolate
After step 5, gently warm the sauce and stir it into 3oz of finely chopped bittersweet chocolate (about 55% cocoa). Gently stir until the chocolate melts.

Cinnamon
In step 1 add 4 cinnamon sticks and 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon.

Mint
In step 1 add a handful of mint leaves (about 1/4 oz).

Almond
In step 1 add 1/4 cup toasted, sliced almonds.

Weekend Update

2007-01-07T19:06:00.000-08:00

This weekend I finished putting together the wardrobes for the bedroom, Emily finished painting the windows. We need to clean, but we're pretty much ready to move back into the bedroom. It turned out that our low voltage outlet (and one electrical outlet) ended up in the middle of my side of the wardrobe - so my wardrobe has internet! (yay)

Saturday evening, I made Murgh Korma. It turned out well, I cranked up the ginger a bit, but the rice didn't turn out so well.

For lunch on Sunday, I made a couple of pizza margheritas, which worked well (7 minutes @ 525 degrees). And, for dinner, I made the "pot au feu" from the French Laundry cookbook. I started it Saturday morning, cooked it Sunday morning, and finished Sunday evening. Details and photos to follow in a separate post.

Christmas Vacation

2007-01-01T20:37:00.000-08:00

Christmas vacation is now over. It was relaxing, although our schedule was very full this year.

We only stayed in Michigan for a week this year, so I didn't get a chance to see everyone I wanted to see. We had two Christmas events on my side of the family - one up north, in Harrison with my mom's parents, and our traditional Christmas get together. On Emily's side we also had two Christmas get-togethers - at Sheri's house and at the farm in Illinois.

I did find time to cook while I was in Michigan. On three different nights, I made the Murgh Korma, Roast Chicken, and Baked Orecchiette. I also helped on Christmas day by making some side dishes: my mashed potatoes, some green beans, and cucumber kimchee.

When I got back, I spent the remainder of my free time cooking and playing NWN2. I made the Zuni Chicken, both vanilla and chocolate Pots de Crème, Rosemary Focaccia, and Chimay Braised Short ribs.

The focaccia had been on my todo list for a while. I ended up rolling it out a bit too thick, so it turned out a bit tall. But it turned out quite well. I used the recipe from Jamie's Kitchen, but substituted milk for half of the water and threw in a couple tablespoons of olive oil and some minced rosemary. The texture was just right, the only issue was the thickness of the loaf.

The Pots de Crème were from the Bouchon book. The turned out quite well, the chocolate one was a little dense but smooth, a combination of the chocolate and perhaps cooking it a bit too long. The vanilla was light and silky. I have since made a cinnamon batch, and will do mint and cardamom versions eventually. Then I'll move on to Crème Caramel and Crème Brulée.

The Chimay braised short ribs were easy and tasty. We didn't get a photo, but I will be making it again. This sunday I'm planning on making the "pot au feu" from the French Laundry cookbook out of the remaining ribs.

Chicken with Zuni Goodness

2006-12-30T20:02:00.000-08:00

Bethany got me the Zuni Cookbook for Christmas. Yesterday we made their roast chicken. It is quite similar to our usual chicken recipe, with a bit of fussing about with flipping the chicken, and a nice bread salad as a side. Also, they like to salt/herb the chicken ahead of time. It turned out quite well. My only modifications were to add a thermometer for the last step to double check things and to use a few more herbs. The book is quite good. Not just a collection of recipes, it has a lot of cooking tips and wisdom.

From Emily I got the Bouchon and French Laundry books. They are also quite good. The Bouchon book has a lot of insight into Keller's cooking techniques and Bistro cooking. I've made the Pots de Crème and look forward to trying my hand at some other bistro fare.

French Onion Soup

2006-12-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

A couple of Sunday's ago I got up and made French Onion soup. It was based mainly on a Michael Mina recipe that I found in Food and Wine. We liked it a lot, although Emily thought I was a little heavy handed with the onions. I'll reproduce my version below for posterity.

French Onion Soup

5 onions, sliced 1/4" thick
4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
2 sprigs rosemary
2 cups beef stock
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup dry red wine (I used a malbec)

Heat the butter in a dutch oven. Add the onions and bay leaves, cover and cook on high heat for 15 minutes. Lower the heat to medium and cook until they are deeply brown. Stir occasionally. Add water as necessary to keep the onions from drying out. It should take an hour and a half.

Sprinkle on the flour and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the wine and reduce until it is almost gone. Add the stock and rosemary, simmer gently until reduced by a quarter.

Discard the whole herbs and season to taste. If some leaves broke off the rosemary, don't worry about it.

At this stage you can refrigerate or freeze the soup. When you're ready, reheat it.

Put it in small bowls. Add toasted baguette slices, sprinkle with cheese, and broil until the cheese is melted.

Mini Chickens

2006-11-30T20:41:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday I decided to make braised lamb shanks with orzo. I ended up using Bobby Flay recipe. It turned out quite well, but next time I'd de-fat the sauce before reducing it. The leftover sauce had a lot of gelatin in it. In the fridge it set up like jello. The leftovers are in the fridge, waiting to be turned into shepherd's pie.

While I was at the butcher's, I picked up a couple of cornish game hens. I figured that they'd make cute little individual chickens. I used my usual roast chicken recipe - I carefully stuffed an herb/oil/garlic mixture under the skin and salted and oiled the outside. I cooked it breast down for 10 minutes, then turned it over and covered it with bacon to keep it moist. I would have roasted potatoes with it, but after having the cheesy mashed potatoes, I don't think Emily will let me make potatoes any other way.

The chicken was quite good, although I'd cut back on the marjoram a bit and serve it without the bacon. The hens were a bit more work to prepare than a turkey, and perhaps more to eat (I need some steak knives), but it was fun and tasty.

Woot

2006-11-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened since the last post, between announcing my engagement, work, and finishing stuff on the house, I left out my blog.

On October 6th I proposed to Emily. She knew it was coming, but the ring was finished ahead of time, so I still managed to surprise her. The ring arriving early was unexpected. I had to move quickly to keep it a surprise, so the proposal wasn't as elaborate as I would have liked.

As you can see from my cooking calendar, we had chocolate gelato and champagne with Dan and Carmen, and Emily and I just had a caesar salad for dinner - neither of us were very hungry.

Last Friday we passed our final inspection on the house. One less thing for me to worry about. We still have painting to do, but the city is happy with the important stuff and all of our permits are closed out.

No food pictures for the last few weeks. I didn't make a lot of new dishes. Last weekend I tried to make fish stock, but the fishmonger didn't have the right bones for me. I did make about a gallon of chicken stock, however. Last monday, we had a classic french preparation of mussels. (Steamed with wine, butter, and cream.)

Last night I made "Midwestern Fajitas" – or perhaps I should call them Fajitas al Cacciatore (Hunter's Fajitas) – my usual fajita recipe made with venison flank steak. They didn't have the skirt steak that I usually use, so I figured that the venison flank would have a bit more flavor and be healthier than the beef. The steak was rather thin - like a butterflied beef flank steak - so I only cooked it for about 30-45 seconds per side. It turned out quite well. I'd definitely make it again.

Cowboy Steak

2006-10-29T12:46:00.000-08:00

Saturday night I made a cowboy steak, which essentially is a two inch slice of a standing rib roast. We had green beens and garlic/rosemary mashed potatoes on the side.

Dry age the steak for a day by wrapping it in a towel and putting it on a plate near the top front of the fridge. I set mine on a couple of chopsticks to keep it off of the plate.

Heat up your broiler, and rub the steak with oil, salt, and minced rosemary. Broil it in a cool cast iron skillet for 5 minutes per side. Remove the steak to a plate, to rest, and season it with some pepper. In the skillet, on medium-high heat sauté some green beens and minced shallots in the pan. Remove the green beans with a slotted spoon, and toss with a dash of rice wine vinegar and salt.

Deglaze the pan with some red wine and an equal amount of broth. (I used chicken, I didn't have been handy.) Reduce the liquid by about half, turn the heat down, and stir in some cold butter (about the same amount as the wine).

Since we were splitting the steak and I have no steak knives, I sliced it into 1/2" thick slices, cut out the fatty bits, and plated it with the beans and mashed potatoes, and drizzled some of the sauce on top. I also sprinkled on a bit of grated parmesan.

The steak was good but the mashed potatoes were the star of the show.

Garlic Rosemary Mashed Potatoes
These would go well with Peach/Bourbon pork chops, Roast Chicken, Beef or Lamb steaks, or grilled, herby portobello mushrooms.

5-6 largish red potatoes
1/3 cup heavy cream
4 tbsp butter
1 handful grated parmesan
1/2 handful grated pecorino romano
1 tbsp minced, fresh rosemary

Cut the potatoes into chunks, with the skin on and boil until they are cooked through.

Meanwhile, roast the garlic cloves, skin on, in a dry cast iron skillet for about 10 minutes on high heat. The skin of the garlic should have black spots all over. Let the garlic cool.

Put the rest of the ingredients in a small pan, bring to a gentle simmer, and stir until the cheese and butter melts in. Squeeze the garlic out of the skin, smash it with the side of a knife, and add it to the pan.

Drain the potatoes, put then in a pot, pour in the cream mixture and mash together. I like to leave some chunks of potatoes for texture, so I don't mash too thoroughly. If you need more liquid, you can add some whole milk, cream, or butter.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Or pecorino and pepper.)

Update

2006-10-03T09:15:00.000-07:00

Sunday I did a tagine of lamb. I used a Bobby Flay recipe off of Food Network, probably not the best choice since it's not his area of expertise, but their kitchens tune most of their recipes. It turned out ok, but wasn't my best work. (The harissa doesn't look right either, but I don't know moroccan food.) I think it needed a bit more spice and probably could stand to cook a while longer.

I also made a ersatz papalote salsa that I found on the internet - it also was so-so. It seems to be lacking some depth, and was a bit different from the real thing. For now I think I'll stick with Rick Bayless' recipes techniques, as I've barely begun to explore his books.

We had my fajitas in a wok again last night and had Dan and Carmen over to share them with us. They were good, I used the salsa to season the rice to good effect, and also served it with the rest of the food. I also made guacamole with heirloom tomatoes, unfortunately I'd forgotten to pick up a jalapeño, but it was still good. For dessert, we made sopapillas, which I highly recommend because they are so easy to throw together. Just heat up some oil in a pan on medium high heat, fry a flour tortilla for a minute per side, dust with cinnamon and sugar, let it cool, and drizzle with honey. I usually cut them into quarters.

In other news, we've now passed plumbing and electrical inspections - we only have the final inspection left. Emily is making progress painting the house - the office is almost ready, we'll do our bedroom next.

Indian Redux

2006-09-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

On friday we had pizza with Dan and Carmen, so I had to come up with something else to cook. Emily has been hinting that she wanted stuffed Naan so I decided to make one of those Southern Indian dipping sauces for it.

Tonight, I made the meat stuffed Naan, some paneer (fresh cheese) stuffed Naan, mango chutney, raita, rice, and Murgh Korma (a chicken curry). I hadn't made the cheese or the chicken dish before. Emily has declared the Korma to be her new favorite Indian dish, but that still may be second to the stuffed Naan. :)

Rasam (lentil soup)

This a nice lentil/tomato soup that can be served it's own with some cilantro and a dollop of sour cream or used as a dipping sauce for Naan.

1/4 cup tanish lentils (tuar dal)
1/4 cup red lentils (masoor dal)
4-5 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/2 tsp tamarind extract
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp hing (aka asafoetida - I left it out)
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds (optional)
1/2 tsp fennugreek seeds
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 bunch cilantro (for garnish)

I usually use chunks of chicken, with bone in, and skin removed, cut into chunks. (Thighs and legs hacked in half, to get some of the marrow flavor into the sauce.)

Cook the lentils in water. Roast and grind the cumin and mustard seeds. Grind the fennugreek and fennel. Add the tomatoes and spices. Simmer for a while.

If you can get it, add 1/2 tsp of hing and a handful of curry leaves.

Adjust the seasoning with salt, tamarind extract, and garam masala.

To serve as a soup, garnish with cilantro, yogurt or sour cream, and maybe a squeeze of lime juice. For a dipping sauce, optionally puree the rasam.

Paneer Cheese

1 quart milk
2 tbsp lemon juice

Simmer the milk for about 5 minutes. Add the lemon juice a little at time, while stirring, until the curds separate from the whey. Pour into a clean tea towel in a collander. Season to taste. Tie up the towel and hang it to drain for 10 min or so. Press it under a weight for an hour or so and then unwrap and refrigerate.

Murgh Korma

Adapted from Quick and Easy Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey.

1.5 pounds chicken pieces (with or without bones)
1/4 cup yogurt
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 bay leaf
2 in cinnamon stick
3 cardamom pods
3 cloves
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 small tomatoes
1 in piece of ginger
5-6 cloves garlic
1 tbsp heavy cream
1 pinch saffron (optional)
garam masala

Mix the yogurt with the dry spices (corriander, ground cumin, and chili powder). Lightly whip the yogurt until it's smooth and use it to marinade the chicken. (From a half hour to 3 hours.)

Heat the cream in a microwave and add the saffron. (Be careful not to overheat or it will boil over.)

Mince the garlic and ginger and add a tablespoon of water.

Put the oil on high heat. Add the whole spices (cardamom, cloves, cumin, cinnamon, bay leaf) and fry for 15 seconds or so. Add the onions and cook until they brown a bit. Add the garlic/ginger paste and fry for 30 sec or so. Add the tomatoes and fry. Add the chicken, its marinade, and 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 15-20 minutes, turning the chicken occasionally.

Uncover, add the cream mixture, and cook on high for 8 minutes or so, while stirring, until the sauce thickens. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and garam masala.

Dan's Birthday (observed)

2006-09-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

Last night we celebrated Dan's birthday. We had dinner at the blue plate, which serves somewhat american food from high quality, local ingredients. Well, the reviews say american. Beef Carpaccio was on the menu and most of us had the Duck Confit, but there was a Meatloaf on the menu, which Dan had. As usual Emily and I split all of our dishes - two appetizers and an entree, so we could get some variety without having too much food. The confit came with this cute little spherical red peppers that were halfway between pepperonicini and red bell peppers. Unfortunately I don't remember their name. (They were just on Bobby Flay - cherry peppers). Afterwards, we had cake from Citizen Cake and opened gifts.

Indian Night

2006-09-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday we had Indian food. Drewes brothers didn't have any appropriate cuts of lamb on hand, so I used beef instead of lamb. We invited Dan and Carmen to join us, and played a board game afterwards. Instead of the usual dishes, I made Saag Ghosht, Naan stuffed with ground meat, and a couple of dipping sauces for the Naan.

Saag Gosht
From Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking.

1/4 tsp black peppercorns
6-7 cloves
2 bay leaves
6 cardamom pods
6 oz onions, finely chopped
6-8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 in cube of ginger, finely chopped
2 tsp cumin, ground
1 tsp corriander, ground
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or more, to taste)
2 tsp salt
5 tbsp yogurt, beaten
2 lb fresh spinach, finely chopped (or frozen)
2 lb lamb shoulder in 1in cubes (or beef chuck)
1/4 tsp garam masala

Heat the oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the whole spices. Stir for a few seconds until they start to darken and become fragrant. Add the onions, and cook until they start to brown (5 minutes or so). Add the garlic and ginger and cook for half a minute. Add the cumin, corriander, cayenne. Add the meat and 1 tsp of salt. Cook for about a minute while stirring. Then add the yogurt, one tablespoon at a time. Stir in each tablespoon before adding the next. Add the spinach and another teaspoon of salt. Stir until the spinach wilts down. Cover tightly, turn the heat to low and simmer for about an hour and a half (two hours for beef) - until the meat is tender.

Remove the lid, turn the heat up to medium and simmer off most of the liquid. You should have a thick green sauce.

Add the garam masala, season to taste and serve.

Naan

Also from Indian Cooking. I stuffed it with the keema below and used Raita and Green Mango Chutney for dipping.

150 mL warm milk
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp dried active yeast
1 lb flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp oil
150 mL yogurt
1 large egg lightly beaten

Mix the milk, 1 tsp of sugar, and yeast in a bowl. Let it sit until it starts to get fizzy.
Put the flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl. Add 1 tsp sugar, the yeast mixture, the oil, yogurt and egg. Mix, knead, and form int a ball. Let it raise for an hour. Punch it down, roll into a tube, and cut into 6 balls.

Roll out each ball into a thin flat loaf (think pizza dough) and cook it in the oven. Jaffrey suggests your heaviest baking pan on the highest temperature. I used a pizza stone the first time I made this. This time, I used the flat side of a cast iron grill pan underneath a broiler. (If you have room, you could use the bottom of a large cast iron skillet.) Put the bread on the preheated surface, and cook until it turns golden brown. (It should take a few minutes, but keep an eye on it.)

To make the stuffed naan make an hole in the ball of dough and add a couple of tablespoons of the filling. Close up the hole, forming into a ball again, and roll out the bread as flat as you can get it without losing the filling.

Keema
This is the stuffing for the naan. It is an original recipe following Indian techniques. I ground the beef myself with a food processor. If you choose to do this, pulse it and be careful not to go too far, or you'll get beef paste.

1/2 lb ground lamb (or beef chuck)
1/4 cup onions, finely chopped
2 tsp minced ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp garam masala
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Put a skillet on medium-high heat. Add some oil and the onion and cook until they start to brown. Add the ginger and garlic and cook for 30 seconds or so. Add the dry spices and meat and cook. Season to taste with salt, pepper, cumin seeds, and cayenne. (This is designed to be a little spicy and earthy, to be balanced by the dipping sauces.)

Raita

This is adapted from Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey.

1 cup yogurt
1 tsp cumin seeds, ground
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 handful mint, finely chopped
1/2 English cucumber, grated

Wisk the yogurt to lighten it up a bit, then wisk in the rest of the ingredients. Adjust the seasoning to taste. (The cayenne and cumin should be in the background, just a hint of bite and earthiness to accent the mint/yogurt.)

Fresh Green Mango Chutney

This recipe was adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's book, Quick and Easy Indian Cooking.

1 lb green mango, diced
1-2 jalapeños, minced
1" piece of fresh ginger, minced.
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp fennugreek seeds
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp kalonji seeds (omitted - I don't know what they are)
1/8 tsp turmeric
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
2-3 tbsp sugar

Gind the seeds, chuck everything into a food processor. (I seeded the chilis, but left the membrane). Adjust the seasoning to taste.

Indian Rice

This also is my own recipe, and it varies each time I make it. Here is what I made last night.

1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp oil
4 cloves
5 peppercorns
2 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 cup rice
1 1/2 cups water

Heat the butter and oil on medium or medium high heat, being careful not to burn the butter. (Don't worry if it browns a little.) Fry the whole spiced for about 30 seconds or so. They should make popping noises and smell fragrant. Add the rice and stir for about 30 seconds. Add the liquid and turmeric. Bring to a simmer. Give the pot one stir, cover and turn the heat to low. After 15 minutes, turn the heat off. Wait 5 minutes before removing the cover.

Garam Masala
This one also comes from Indian Cooking. You can buy it from a store, but it will not be as good. Garam Masala is frequently added to Indian dishes at the end of cooking.

1 tbsp cardamom
2" cinnamon
1 tsp black cumin seeds
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp black peppercorns
1/4 nut nutmeg, grated

Grind in a spice grinder or mortar/pestle. Store in an airtight spice jar.

Catch up

2006-09-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a couple of weeks since the previous post. In the meantime, I've moved my blog over to blogger so people can actually reply to my posts. My cooking exploits for the last few weeks:
The 26th and 27th marked a weekend of laying in supplies. In addition to making the Roast tenderloin and apricot/bourbon pork chops, I put together some cioppino stew base; made some homemade chicken broth and a simple red mole sauce out of it; and I made a batch of pizza crusts for Emily.

The next friday, we made the Cioppino for Dan and Carmen, and on the 8th I made my first attempt at seafood paella. It turned out well, but I didn't use enough liquid, so I had to add some halfway through and adjust the cooking accordingly. I used mussels, clams, squid, and chorizo for the Paella. The sofrito was tomatoes, red bell pepper, onions, etc, and there was a bit of white wine in there somewhere.

I couldn't bring myself to buying a Paella pan - they're cheap, but tricky to heat evenly; so I bought a nice, but much more expensive 12" All-Clad skillet to use instead. (It is enjoyable to cook with, since I got it, I also made chicken cacciatora and Fregula con Cocciola. For a lid, I either make a cartouche of wax paper or use the le Creuset lid, which happens to fit slightly below the top of the pan. I will post a recipe the next time I cook it, but I got the general technique from an article from Fine Cooking's web site. It is the best article I could find on the web, explaining the general philosophy, providing a recipe, and variations. (Don't miss the second page and a couple of links with details.)

Leftover Night

2006-08-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, we had "leftovers" tonight. Which means we took the leftover stew base from our cioppino, added some tomatoes, saffron, a pinch of new mexico chile powder, and a bit of chicken broth. Cooked up some fregula pasta in it, and then a dozen clams. (We found a bonus clam in the stew, but Emily ate it before we got to the fregula part.) The result was quite tasty. Not quite as soupy as the version at La Ciccia, but very good.I'll add a photo when Emily puts it up on flickr. (She's busy backing up photos at the moment - 15 CDs so far.)

San Francisco Treat

2006-08-22T21:14:00.000-07:00

On Monday we made Cioppino, a seafood stew which originated in San Francisco. We used a recipe from food network, substituting lobster for crab because of availability.

This was was the first time I've cooked mussels, scallops, clams, and lobster. The Cioppoino also included shrimp, which I've worked with before. I've cooked squid before too, but I left it out this time.

The stew base was made with a homemade fish stock that we put together on Sunday. The stew was very tasty by itself and would have made a very good meal with a can of white beans.

We decided to eat all of the meat, because we weren't sure how well cooked seafood keeps. There was some leftover broth, which we plan on cooking up with some Fregula (a toasted pasta similar to large cous-cous), saffron, and clams.

More pictures can be found in Emily's flickr collection.

I'd recommend making the stew base ahead of time, after which you can easily throw this together on a weeknight. (Otherwise, it'll take 30-45 min to put the base together.) Definitely serve with crusty bread, preferrable sourdough. And give your guests plenty of napkins or a nice, wet towel. Peeling shrimp, etc at the table can be messy. You could peel the seafood prior to serving, but that does take some of the fun out of it. :)

Steak Fajitas

2006-08-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

And now, the steak fajita recipe. This started out as an Alton Brown recipe which mutated when I reproduced it from memory. We had this for Emily's birthday on thursday, then we used the leftovers, with a bit of cheese, to make cheesesteak sandwiches.
Rich pointed out that proper fajitas would not use soy sauce and would use poblanos rather than bell peppers. The version below is how I have been making them and is more asian in character than south-western. This is mainly because asian techniques are what I know well. (If you want to use poblanos, roast them first and don't use soy sauce - I think it will overwhelm the poblanos.)

Marinade

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup oil
1 lime, juiced
1 tbsp sugar
1 lb flank steak (or skirt steak)
2 tsp chili powder

Fajitas

1 onion
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
2 lb flank steak (or skirt steak)

Mix the marinade ingredients together, put the meat in the marinade, and let sit for a half hour to an hour. (Turning at least once.) Dry off the meat and reserve the marinade. Rub each side with chili powder, and season with salt and pepper.
Heat a large cast iron skillet on high heat. Add the flank steak, cooking for 2 minutes on each side. Let the meat rest for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, add some oil to the skillet. Add the onions and cook them until they soften and color up a bit. Add the peppers and sprinkle with a little bit of chili powder. Fry for a minute or so. Add the marinade and cook down for a minute.
Pour the veggies on a plate. Slice the meat into thin slices against the grain and cut into 2 inch lengths. If the meat is too rare for your tastes, you can stir fry it in the pan briefly, but be careful not to overcook it. If you cook it past medium it will be chewy.
Serve with Mexican rice, black beans, pico de gallo, and tortillas.

Alton Brown's Chili Powder

3 ancho chilis
3 cascabel chiles
3 dried arbol chiles
2 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp smoked paprika

Roast the chiles and cumin seeds in a dry skillet. (10 sec / side for the chiles, be careful not to burn them) Remove the stems and seeds from the chiles. Put them in a blender and process into a powder. Store in an airtight container.

How to Roast a Chicken

2006-08-11T21:15:00.000-07:00

This is the recipe which Emily has dubbed Chicken with Herby Goodness. I developed it from a few Jamie Oliver recipes, the first of which was in The Naked Chef, a Jamie Oliver book. A few variations follow the recipe, but this is our favorite.

Chicken with Herby Goodness

One 2-3 pound free range chicken
3 handfuls of herbs (any 3 or 4 of thyme, basil, marjoram, and parsley)
2-3 bay leaves
1 lemon

1 lb potatoes, cut into 1/2" chunks
1 celery root, cut into 1/2" chunks
2 sprigs of rosemary
2 garlic cloves, crushed (don't bother removing the skin)

Preheat a roasting pan in the oven to 425 degrees.

Wash the chicken inside and out and pat dry. (If it came with extra bits, you can save it in the freezer for broth.) Rub some kosher salt on the inside of the chicken.

Chop up the herbs, mix in some salt, olive oil, and a little pepper. Gently separate the skin from the breasts of the chicken and stuff the herbs between the skin and the meat. Afterwards, try to make sure the skin covers all of the meat. Cut a couple of slashes into the legs and thighs (so heat can penetrate) and stuff the herbs under the skin and into the slashes. Rub some oil and salt on the outside of the chicken.

Cut the potatoes into 1/2" chunks, boil them for 5-10 min, along with the lemon.

Drain the potatoes. Take the lemon, stab it about 10 times with a knife, and stuff it into the middle of the chicken, along with the bay leaves, rosemary, and garlic cloves.

Put the potatoes and celery root into the pan, put the chicken on top, put a thermometer in the middle of the breast, and put it in the oven. (You can tie up the chicken if you wish.)

When the internal temperature reaches 155 degrees, take it out of the oven. Cover it with foil and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Carve the chicken and serve with the potatoes and chickeny rice. (I usually cut the breasts in half, and separate the legs from the thighs, so people can get a bit of each kind of meat.)

Chickeny Rice

1 cup rice
1 tbsp butter
2 cups chicken broth
1 small tomato chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 small onion, chopped

Add a tablespoon of butter and about tablespoon of light olive oil to a pan on the stove over medium heat. Add the onions and cook the for 5-10 minutes, till they soften up. (Try not to burn the butter, the oil should help.) Add the rice and let it cook for a minute or so, while stirring. It should turn a little opaque. Add the tomatoes, and let them cook down for half a minute. Add the chicken broth, bring to a boil. Add the Bay leaf and rosemary sprig, stir once. Cover and reduce heat to low. Let it simmer for 15 minutes. Turn the heat off, and leave it covered for another 5 minutes.

Variations

If you want to reduce the prep/cooking time: instead of boiling the lemon, you can cut it into four chunks and stuff it in the chicken. Then put the chicken in the oven and start the potatoes. Pull the chicken out after 30 minutes, put the potatoes under the chicken, and put it back in the oven until it is done. (BTW, the easiest way I've found to pick up the chicken is to stick a fork in the cavity.)

For an alternative stuffing (under the skin), you can melt some butter (1/4 cup or so) mix in some thyme, lemon zest, and chopped up prosciutto.

Night Out

2006-08-03T11:09:00.000-07:00

Last night Emily and I went out to dinner at Café Claude and went to see Rent at the Golden Gate Theatre. Emily got the Tuna tartare, which was arranged in a low rectangular shape, topped with a quail egg in half a shell, and festively garnished with bits of red pepper, etc. I had the lamb, which was also quite tasty, and came with a nice sauce, and a single plumb tomato which had been poached, possibly in something other than water. It was quite tasty, one of the better tomatoes I've had in a while. (That reminds me, it's farmer's market day.) Dessert was chocolate cake and Creme Brulée. Service was good, Café Claude is proudly French, as is most of its staff.

Next was Rent. We managed to get some decent seats at a reasonable price. We had a mild earthquake during the opening number, but it didn't interrupt anything (there was brief murmering in the crowd). The performances weren't as good as the movie version, but it was nice to see it live. I'll let Emily post a proper review. The next show for us will be Chorus Line in a few weeks.

Rigatoni con Salsiccia

2006-08-01T22:16:00.000-07:00

Here is yet another recipe that will go into the book when I get around to putting it together.

This one originally came from Tastes of Italia magazine. It's fast, easy, and has been a favorite of friends and family. The recipe can also be made with baby spinach or basil in place of arugula, and tortiglioni or penne rigate in place of the rigatoni. (But not penne - the sauce is thing and really needs the ridges on the pasta.) And if you have old, syrupy balsamic vinegar, use something cheaper for this and save the good stuff for bread or dessert.

1 lb rigatoni
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 cup roma tomatoes, diced
4 bunches arugula
2 tbsp olive oil
1 pinch crushed red pepper flakes
1 lb sweet italian sausage
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
parmesan cheese

Cook the rigatoni, keeping 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid.
Remove the casings from the sausage and crumble the contents.
Add the oil and pepper flakes to a skillet on medium heat and brown the
sausage. Deglaze with the balsamic vinegar. Turn down the heat and add
the tomatoes and garlic. Cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the pasta, arugula, and reserved water to the sausage mixture. Cook
on low heat until most of the liquid is absorbed.
Serve with parmesan on top.

Fillet Redux

2006-08-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight I made the beef fillet again. This time I used a smallish, one pound piece from the smaller end of the fillet, which our butcher sells at a reduced price. Since it was small, I made the dish in a cast iron skillet. I preheated the skillet in the oven to 350 degrees.

I cut some assorted potatoes into chunks, parboiled them for about 10 minutes, and then drained them.

Meanwhile, I mashed up some rosemary leaves, thyme leaves, oil, salt, pepper, and garlic, spread it on the fillet, rolled the fillet in the prosciutto, and tied it.

I dumped the potatoes into the pan, added the fillet, stuck in a thermometer, and cooked it to 120 degrees.

(Note: I now take this dish out at of the oven between 95 and 100 degrees - remove the meat from the skillet and let it rest for 5-10 minutes before cutting - if you leave it in the skillet, it will continue to cook.)

After resting, the beef was overdone (medium-well) but tasty. The potatoes turned out really well - there were no leftovers. I'd definitely do the potato thing again, although I'd take it out a bit earlier, and use higher heat, 425 or so. (It took too long and didn't cook as evenly as I'd have liked.)

To serve it, I sliced the fillet into one inch thick slices, put it back on the potatoes (in the skillet), and poured the juices on top.

The original recipe came from The Naked Chef Takes Off, by Jamie Oliver. It calls for a butter, porcini mushroom, and herb mixture, which I highly recommend if you don't have mushroom allergies.

untitled

2006-07-27T21:02:00.000-07:00

I'm experimenting with a new journal system from sixapart called vox. I've made a few entries there.

Update: I've moved from vox to blogger beta, so friends and family can actually reply to my posts. As an added bonus, I got a bit more control over the layout. I will eventually move all of these posts over to that site. See me at:

http://dunhamsteve.blogspot.com

Home Alone

2006-07-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

Emily is working in the evenings this week, so I'm left to fend for myself for dinner. I've taken the opportunity to experiment a little. On monday, I made Indian food, Saag Gosht (lamb with spinach) and a chick pea dish. I brought them to work the next day and fed the leftovers to my coworkers.Last night, I made a vietnamese dish - caramelized shrimp. It was very easy and tasty.

My version of the recipe: (the original recipe comes from Charles Phan of The Slanted Door)

Sauce

1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp water

Stir Fry

2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 small onion, sliced
2 scallions, cut into 1" pieces
1/2 lb shrimp (approx)
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp chili oil

Mix the sauce ingredients together, dissolving the sugar. (The original recipe calls for bringing it to a boil to dissolve the sugar, I didn't need to.)

Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet.
Stir fry the garlic and onion until they are golden brown.
Add the shrimp, pepper, and the sauce. Cook for about 2 minutes, until the sauce thickens up a bit.
Add the scallions and cook for about 30 sec.

I served it on rice. Cook and plate the rice before you start the stir fry, the dish comes together fast.

Woot

2006-07-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

Dan and Carmen have finally moved into the bottom unit. I helped Dan with the big stuff yesterday. It's a nice feeling having the place to ourselves. Yes, I will miss having them around, but they are just downstairs, so it's not that big of a deal. Their place is beautiful, although full of boxes at the moment, I look forward to seeing how they decorate.
Yesterday, I also put together a meal from the show Oliver's Twist. I made Cannelloni (hope I spelled that right, Emily has had great fun correcting me) with a Ricotta/Spinach filling, in a fresh tomato/basil sauce, topped with mozzarella and parmesan, and baked in the oven. For dessert, I make some candied strawberries with a mascarpone/rosemary/limoncello sauce. I'll add a picture of the dessert as soon as Emily gets it posted. (I should have photographed the food, too. Oh well.)
I've been thinking of assembling a cookbook. Between Dan and Carmen living with me, my parents visiting, and Emily flying off to visit her sister, I've had a few requests for recipes for the food people have enjoyed while visiting. I'd like them to be able to make some of it for themselves.

Pasta al forno

2006-07-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

I got a preview account on vox to test it out. It looks very promising - attractive interface and integration with Flickr and Amazon. Over to the right, you'll see the book I mentioned a while back on my livejournal blog, Jamie's Italy. I still highly recommend it if you like Italian food. (It won't be available in this country for a few more months, still.)
On Sunday, I made the dish on page 144, a baked orecchiette dish with tomatoes (san marzano!), basil, mozzarella, and parmesan. We topped the dish with some sliced heirloom tomatoes. It was quite tasty. Emily and I saw the dish on an episode of Jamie Oliver's Great Italian Escape on Saturday. I checked the book for the recipe, and it was there, with a still picture from the show.

Yay Fourth

2006-07-07T21:24:00.000-07:00

I got a nice four day weekend fourth and didn't get much productive done, but I got to unwind a bit (i.e. play games), hang out with Emily, and cook.

Saturday, I made Alton Brown's Stovetop Macaroni and Cheese recipe. It is quite quick, the sauce comes together in the time it takes to make the pasta. The sauce is nice and creamy, but it didn't turn out so well for us because I used a 2-yr cheddar, which was way too intense for this dish. (We toned it down a little with sour cream, but it wasn't enough.) That evening Emily and I went to Andalu - we got a fondue with apples and asian pears, tuna tacos, and rosemary braised lamb cheeks with parmesan mashed potatoes. It was all good, they had to bring us more bread so we could finish the fondue, the tacos were cute (basically a tuna ceviche on a tiny fried taco shell with some melted yellow cheese - a bit sweet, and I might loose or change the cheese if I did it myself), and the lamb was very tender.

Sunday, I rendered some pork fat into lard for use in mexican dishes. (Rick Bayless says homemade is better, so I figure why not.) Then, for dinner, I made the peach and bourbon pork chop recipe that Carmen usually makes, per Emily's request. (Which is high praise, given that she hasn't been a fan of pork chops in the past and doesn't like mustard.) One modification is necessary: the pork chops should be cut to 1.5", not the 3/4" specified in the recipe. Chops off of the ends are better for braising, according to various web sites. I cooked it in an uncovered french oven with a thermometer set to 145 and it turned out well. (I also made the mayonnaise myself - it's easy and better than the stuff that comes in jars.)

On Monday I made Fajitas again. I'll have to write up the recipe, since it was improvised (I also use it for steak enchiladas).

For the fourth, we had a "BBQ". We decided to go more traditional, so I got some ground beef, hotdogs, and bockwurst from Drewes Brothers. Carmen mentioned the orange soy ribs, so I picked up a half rack of babyback ribs, and I also got a chicken because I wanted to make another batch of the red mole sauce.

I started on the mole sauce (poaching a chicken, toasting spices and dried peppers, and roasting tomatoes and bread) a little before lunch. For lunch, I boiled some spinach ravioli from Lucca and threw together a sauce with parmesan, white wine, garlic, and butter. (I also added some cream, but I'd gotten the butter to emulsify in the wine, so it wasn't necessary.) I do like the sauce, I think I'll do some fettucini with it sometime. Afterwards, Emily and I made some white sangria from the leftover wine (a kabinett riesling), and I finished the mole. I then took a break to play Oblivion.

For dinner, I used a grill pan across two burners of the gas stove. I think this was the first time that I'd actually cooked hamburgers, but they turned out well (or medium well :). I mixed a little onion and garlic in the beef, seasoned it, and grilled the patties, taking care not to press them. (That causes them to cook faster, but dries them and removes all the flavor.) We also had bockwurst, a veal/pork sausage with a little herby goodness, and hotdogs for the less adventurous. Unfortunately, I managed to burn Carmen and myself when I handed her a plate that had been sitting next to the stove. The side I was holding was cool, but the other side had been close to the stove and had gotten very hot. (She tossed the plate onto the empty part of the stove, and I instinctively grabbed it, not realizing how hot it was. We both have second degree burns on our hands.)

Tortellini

2006-06-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a day for shopping and cooking. Emily and I went to Target, BevMo, Trader Joe's, and the 21st Ammendment. (I wanted to pick up some of their Watermelon Wheat beer.) Afterwards I embarked on a few cooking projects: I made some stock and some chili powder to replenish supplies (and get some carcasses out of the freezer).

Then we made cheese and basil tortellini. It was my first attempt at making pasta. I pretty much fudged the pasta recipe, using four cups of semolina and enough eggs to get a dough (about 6). The cheeses were a soft goat cheese, parmesean, pecorino, and asiago; I mixed in a good handful or two of basil, a bit of olive oil and a dab of sour cream to get it to bind, and then seasoned it. I served the tortellini with a simple red sauce and accompanied it with a pizza margherita that Emily made.

The pasta was decent, but they were a bit large and misshapen, and the dough was a bit chewy, even though I cooked it for the specified 4 min. I think I didn't make the dough thin enough and cut the circles too big. The process was a bit labor intensive; I'd probably do it again, but I'm more likely to try ravioli next time. :)

In related news, I'm keeping a record of what I'm cooking in a google calendar - mostly for my own records, but feel free to peruse it.

Farmer's Market

2006-06-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, Emily and I went to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building. Emily got plenty of photos of the Ferry Building and its surrounds, which can be found in the usual location. We held off on getting the perishables until the very end, so I missed out on the Fatted Calf bacon that I'd read about. (I did pick up some pancetta, though.) I broke down and bought a bottle of some amazing 10 yr old balsamic vinegar from Village Market (they were giving out samples). Then we sampled some oysters at San Francisco Fish Company and picked up some mozzarella, a soft goat cheese, and some Saint Benoît yogurt at Cowgirl Creamery. We also split an Éclair from Miette Patisserie, a cute store with very nice looking cakes and pastries. After that, we went home and threw together a pizza margherita with an heirloom tomato and the mozzarella for lunch. It was fun, but the market and stores are a bit crowded on Saturday.

French Dip

2006-06-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

after
Originally uploaded by embem30.

So, I finally got my hands on a perfect "French Dip" sandwich, which I first discovered at Harrison Road House in East Lansing. The secret is to serve cold, rare roast beef on decent bread, along with hot jus. After sampling a few restaurants over the years, I eventually realized that I had to make it myself. (The road house doesn't even make it that way anymore, so sad.)

The Roast

Last Sunday I roasted a Beef Tenderloin. I covered it in a mixture of rosemary, thyme, minced garlic, and olive oil, and then wrapped it in domestic prosciutto. After roasting, I deglazed the pan with a cup each of red wine and water, reduced it, and finished with a pat of butter. I served it fairly simply with some green beens sautéed with oil and shallots and a dash of rice wine vinegar.

The recipe is modified from the one in Jamie Oliver's book, "The Naked Chef Takes Off". His calls for a porcini/butter/herb mixture between the prosciutto and the beef, but, alas, Emily is alergic to mushrooms. The roast is still good without the mushrooms, it was quick to cook and enjoyed by everyone.

The Sandwich

For the sandwiches, I chilled the leftover meat, sliced it thinly, put it some bread and dipped in reheated pan sauce.

Sun Fat

2006-06-17T23:27:00.000-07:00

Last night we had some striped bass with Jicama and a black bean sauce. It was based on a Food & Wine recipe and turned out really well. I ended up using a single wild striped bass for the four of us, so we ended up with 4-5oz half fillets each.

I was quite impressed with Sun Fat - the staff was helpful, the fish looked great, it smelled clean. (There was a slight sea smell, but nothing overtly fishy.) I wanted one of everything there, but I'll have to pace myself.

I also went to Drewes Brothers Meats last week. Bells was turning people away, so I figured I'd try it out. The meat was decent and reasonably priced. I'd thought that they closed at 6pm, so I didn't take much time to look around. Parking is fairly easy, as there are a bunch of one hour spots a block away.

small plates

2006-06-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

small plates
Originally uploaded by embem30.

Last sunday I did a "Small Plates" meal, to use up some babyback ribs that I bought on impulse. (I didn't have enough for the four of us, and Emily suggested small plates.)

I made the usual Orange Soy Babyback ribs (which I plated poorly), Emily made a pizza margherita (with a frozen crust from a Jamie Oliver Recipe), and I dug up Slanted Door's "Shaking Beef" recipe.

The dinner was great, and I'll definitely make the shaking beef again.

We're famous

2006-05-19T15:28:00.000-07:00

So, it turns out that the #5 destination in CNN's top 10 seafood markets is a few blocks from my house. I'll have to check them out. (I've been a little nervous about getting meat in the neighborhood after getting some really crappy stew beef from the butcher around the corner.)

Also today, I was catching up on my geeky news feeds and saw my house (indirectly) featured on O'Reilly and Associates Blog - they had linked to an article about the the railroad that ran past our house.

Cinco de Mayo

2006-05-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I made Mexican food for Cinco de Mayo. I made some enchiladas with Chicken and a roasted tomato/jalapeño sauce from Rick Bayless' book. I served it with a mexican red rice, canned black beans (cheater!), and some guacamole and pico de gallo that I threw together. (Guacamole really does need to be made fresh.)

These past two weekends, I've gotten into the habit of making my own chicken broth. Last weekend, I made some with the extra parts from my coq au vin chicken, to use for the tomato/jalapeño salsa, and yesterday I made some while I was cooking the chicken - I used it for the rice and will use the leftovers for thai food tonight. Cooking is even more enjoyable now that I have a reasonable kitchen, and it's been nice to have a bunch of people to cook for, although cooking for other people does tend to limit my experimentation a bit.

I also ordered laundry machines today, they should arrive thursday. It'll be nice to be able to do laundry in my own place again. Dayla is installing tile in that room (it looks great, it's done except for grout), and Doc is fixing the windows, which were falling apart.

At Niman Ranch, the cows have no feet

2006-04-16T09:33:00.000-07:00

Funny how none of the upscale butchers in town seem to have calf's feet. (In their defense, Golden Gate Meat Market did offer to special order it for me and said it'd take a couple of days to get it.)

Why a calf's foot? I'm making Beef Burgandy today (Boeuf à la Bourguignonne). The recipe calls for it, and I figured I'd give it a try (it's just for flavor and maybe gelatin or something). A lot of classic french food derives from peasant roots and use cheaper cuts of meat. I was hoping to go a little upscale and use beef that was well cared for (free range, fed with grass, rather than fed corn and antibiotics), but I guess it wasn't meant to be.

I've actually been cooking a bit in my new kitchen. In the last week, I've made:

Larb Gai

Panang Chicken (with a home-made curry paste)

Lamb chops with a fennel relish

A Roast Chicken with Prosciutto, butter, lemon zest, and thyme stuffed under the skin

Rogan Josh, Khatte chhole (sour/spicy chickpea dish), and Rice pudding

In the week or so before that:

Fusili Carbonara

Rigatoni con Salsiccia

Penne in Pumpkin Sauce

Chile Verde

the Panang chicken again

Lots of what have become old standbys. (The chicken and beef are new dishes, though.) I've got a bunch of recipes I want to try, but I've got to sort through them. I am simultaneously working on the house and trying to develop software to keep track of them and present them on the web. (Actually, I'm doing a bunch of semantic web related stuff, but that is one aspect of it.)

My other big problem is picking a direction to head in - I have done a lot of italian in the past, and was planning on learning more mexican stuff. I got Rick Bayless' book for christmas and figured a lot of ingredients would be available in the new neighborhood. Then, I bought a Wok, which needs to be used more (to give it a good seasoning). And, finally, I'd like to gain a mastery of french sauces.

untitled

2006-04-13T11:53:00.000-07:00

Like many people in San Francisco, I tend to avoid fast food and chain resturants. The tends to happen because of the density of decent resturants, health consciousness, and ego. I am however interested in restaurant-related health issues and ran into some interesting research on McDonalds' ingredients:

At a New York City McDonald's, a large fries-and-chicken-nuggets combo was found to contain 10.2 grams of trans fat, compared with 0.33 grams in Denmark and about 3 grams in Spain, Russia and the Czech Republic.

(From the Seattle Times)

Yet another reason to avoid fast food restaurants. (Also, avoid the ice. :)

The other concern of mine is high fructose corn syrup, which is suspected as a contributor to the obesity problem in the US. It only seems to be used in the US, because corn subsidies push the price down. And, apparently, the corn thing is tied to the feeding of antibiotics to cattle. (They're fed corn, they can't digest corn properly, they get sick, and the are fed antibiotics.)

House Update

2006-03-31T09:03:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I moved from the apartment to the house. It's nice to finally be living there - although it is a bit crowded. It's nice having them around, though. We go through food faster, so I end up having a bit more variety. The new kitchen is nice, although I have to finish putting handles on the cabinets, install the microwave and some shelves, and rearrange all the stuff the way I want it. (While still making room for Carmen's necessities.) I also have some more lighting to install, and I need to order a washer/dryer sometime. I keep forgetting that part. Carmen offered to dress up the floor in that room a little (so she could use it as a workspace), I may wait til after that to install the washer/dryer.

The bottom unit is progressing, although a little slowly. The first layer of finish on the wood floors is not drying very well. It's been about a week, the upstairs took a couple of days because of the humidity, I don't know if they put it on too thick, if it's the wood, or what.

Our furnace guys, Peninsula Heating, are a bunch of hacks. They're the only contractors that we feel nervous about leaving on their own. And now Dan had to open up the wall because the furnace pipes were leaking hot air (the neighbor was complaining). We made them fix that joint, but Dan has noticed others. Probably the whole system is bad. I know you get what you pay for (they're cheap), but sometimes it's worth paying more.

The bathroom tile is installed downstairs - it looks really nice. I think the cabinets are ordered now, Dan and I will do the installation, which should be interesting. (They should be better built than my ikea frames, but the european system of hanging cabinets is kinda nice.)

Today's word is Sauce

2006-01-21T09:53:00.000-08:00

I've been playing with some of amazon's new features this morning. I like the new concordance feature. (Note how my book on sauces frequently uses the word "butter". )

The other nifty feature I've been playing with is statistically improbable phrases and capitalized phrases. Go to a book, like Rick Bayless's cookbook. Scroll down to the "inside this book section", there are phrases that Amazon has guessed are significant. If you click on one, say "pork country ribs", it'll give you a list of all the books they sell that contain the phrase "pork country ribs" with a bit of context.

I noticed that you can tweak the url's a bit to search for any phrase in any book:

(Or get my firefox search plugin.)

And now I'm running off to work on the house again.

Christmas

2006-01-02T20:26:00.000-08:00

I went back to Michigan for Christmas vacation again this year. It was a very relaxing and much needed vacation.

This year I bought a knife bag to carry my knives and spices home. I ended up only cooking a few times. I made Pumpkin Penne for my parents. And Emily and I made Rogan Josh, a Chana dish, and an attempt at rice pudding (it didn't set up) as a birthday dinner for Carmen (with Dan and my parents).

I left early to celebrate my Dad's 60th birthday. Followed by Sarah's Christmas party, for the first time. She always has a fun charitable outing in her parties. Last year they went to toys 'r us and bought gifts for needy children. This year we went to Barnes and Noble to buy books for kids. Everybody threw money into the pot and we shopped. It was a lot of fun.

Next I went to Sheri's Christmas party. Last year I went home early to make Sheri's party, and it worked out very well for me. (I met Emily.) Emily and I stayed a couple of extra days, dining on leftover pork, salmon, and shrimp and watching Dr Who.

Then Emily and I went back to Lansing and hung out for a few days. We watched "The Family Stone", made Indian Food, met up with Brad and Maggie for dinner, and made some pumpkin muffins.

I took Emily to my mom's family Christmas on the 24th, and got to do our family Christmas thing on the 25th. (Gifts, lunch, and stockings.) My Dad's mom and Carmen's parents joined us for lunch and stockings. It's been a lot of fun since Carmen's parents started joining us - bringing some Cantonese food to go with our more traditional fare.

Thanksgiving

2005-12-01T19:19:00.000-08:00

Last weekend Emily flew down for Thanksgiving. It was the first time she has been able to make it to San Francisco since this summer, and it was really nice having her around again. I also got to cook for her again. Cooking is a fun hobby, but it's always extra special when you can share the results with someone.

Carmen did her big Thanksgiving dinner, having each of her guests bring a dish. Emily and I were asked to bring a potato and a vegetable dish, so we made garlic mashed potatoes and a zucchini/squash dish. It was a lot of fun, although the turkey ended up being done a bit late. (It was on the large side, so it took longer than expected.)

I cooked for Emily three more times over the extended weekend and ended up using fresh basil in each dish. :) I've got a little basil plant growing at home, and I like to make use of it where appropriate.

On Friday, I made chicken in panang curry for dinner. It was decent, but I think it could use some tweaking.

On Saturday we cooked some salmon fillets and served it with farfalle in a mornay sauce.

Sunday, we made pizza margherita for lunch - I was feeling lazy, so we tried to buy a crust, but they were out. I ended up throwing one together from scratch, and it turned out to be one of the better crusts I've made.

More updates on house progress later.

Christmas List

2005-11-27T10:53:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa,
I'm doing well this year, skip me and give my stuff to someone who needs it. All I want for christmas is a ticket back home to see friends and family, and I got impatient and bought it for myself. :)

Steve

Ok, I have an amazon wishlist, but I figured I'd augment and comment on it here for friends and family. I will probably update this entry a couple of times. I'll start with the usual, "don't spend much, if you must get me something." I've been blessed with pretty much all I need.

A general gift giving guide (I do get to pontificate, this is a blog), I tend to go for:

Something people would enjoy, but wouldn't buy themselves. (Sadly, for me, that is something like socks.)
Something from their list that is both fun or interesting.
non-durable goods - Things that get used up make nice gifts too. (Socks again, chocolate, balsamic vinegar, cheap plastic cutting boards.)

I've put some cooking supplies on the list. One missing item is a Flavour Shaker. I'd like one of these, but they're not available in this country. (They won't even ship them here.) Maybe next year.

Update: Apparently, proleno.com ships the Flavour Shaker to the US - but it looks like it might be pricey.

Quick Update

2005-11-17T18:56:00.000-08:00

Our contractor says he's worked out a satisfactory solution with the inspector which shouldn't be as bad as I thought, we'll see how things progress. (And no curry paste tonight - I forgot to get cilantro, it was a new recipe and I was shopping from memory.) I did have leftover larb gai for dinner, though.

Notice of Violation

2005-11-17T15:42:00.000-08:00

The final rough inspection did not go well at all. We got a different inspector from the one who originally did the foundation, and he didn't really seem to like much of anything. We have to get Engineer/Architect redraw everything (IMHO, he's a bit of a hack and didn't do a decent job in the first place) and get a revised permit, before embarking on the expensive process of fixing things.

The only good point is that he did sign off on the upstairs and said we could close things up in the bathroom. That will at least move along the process of Dan, Carmen, and I moving into the upper unit. But it'll be a bit cramped until we get the lower finished (three people, two apartments worth of stuff).

Tonight I think I'll try my hand at making some panaeng curry paste from scratch. I'm out of the imported, store-bought stuff and really should be making my own so I can control the ingredients.

Weekend Update

2005-11-15T11:13:00.000-08:00

Before working on the house, my brother and I went to a neighborhood meeting at Juri park on Saturday. We ended up getting pulled into a park cleanup project for most of the morning. It was fun, but we had planned on working on the house and that killed a good chunk of the day. We ended up just shoring up the bathroom wall after lunch at Papalote.

Our open wall inspection is scheduled for thursday. If it goes well, we'll be ready to dry wall and finish the bathroom. It'll be nice to see some progress again. Things should start to pick up now, unless holidays and contractor's schedules get in the way.

Yay Electrical

2005-11-10T23:40:00.000-08:00

Our electrical inspection passed today. Only glitch was that the contractor needed to pull a second permit, because the first one was completed, but that will be taken care of on Monday. Now we need to get a general inspection, so we can close up the walls, and we'll be good to finish work on the bathroom and walls. (After that, we do the flooring and kitchen, and then we can move into my unit.)

I tried out the Flock browser today. It's interesting. It's basically just a modified version of Firefox, with some integration with del.icio.us, various blogging sites, RSS feeds, and flickr. It's just a beta version, so it's not quite ready for general use, but seems fairly polished. The del.icio.us support is the most interesting to me - it'd let me synchronize all of my bookmarks, and it integrates the bookmarks with the little search widget. The blogging functionality isn't spectacular, stuff like X-Journal do the same basic thing and grok more of livejournal's features. (Blog this page and Blog this picture are the only real integration, but I wouldn't use it.)

The RSS reader isn't too bad, it looks like it was copied from Safari. I wanted something similar for Firefox at one point, but I'm using Google Reader now. The key benefit for me is that it keeps track of what I've read and I can use it from multiple machines.

So the jury is still out on that one, we'll see how it develops. I can run piggy bank in both flock and firefox, so either is fine for now. (More on Piggy Bank and RDF later.)

New Book

2005-10-19T11:38:00.000-07:00

lj-mood: happy

I got back to the office this morning and found that the book I'd ordered, Jamie's Italy, had arrived. I've only had time to briefly skim it, but it looks really good and is recipe- and picture-dense. I look forward to reading it, and trying out some of the recipes. It looks like it was worth having it shipped from Europe.

Conference Reports

2005-10-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

lj-mood: awake

I spent the last week or so at the Ruby Conference and OOPSLA Conference in San Diego. The Ruby conference had a more grass-roots feel and only one lecture track. Overall it was quite interesting, especially the Rails stuff and the ad-hoc domain specific language stuff. It was also good to see that work was progressing on a byte code compiler for the language, although it's not rocket science and should have been done long ago. I dunno why nobody has bothered yet. (A speaker at OOPSLA pointed out that it's the slowest dynamic language, with a naive implementation, yet people still find it valuable.)

OOPSLA was much more academic. I came away with the vague feeling that it people were a little stuck on the OO stuff and should move on, but there were also a few talks to that effect, so maybe people already know this. The workshop I attended on domain specific modeling was a good experience, although a solid day of academic stuff can be wearying. Sussman's talk and Dave Thomas' talk were both good, too. I think Java Frameworks and over-enginering of tools and libraries has sucked some of the joy out of coding, hopefully we find our way back soon. I think I should skim SICP again sometime soon.

Conference

2005-10-17T23:30:00.000-07:00

It's late monday. I'm in San Diego for the OOPSLA conference. I snuck
into the domain specific modeling conference with a coworker, which
was a lot of fun, the talks were mostly interesting, and the
discussions afterwards were fun. It's been a long day, though, and I
was too worn out to really read any of the posters at the reception in
the evening. They we went back to my bosses room for a brainstorming
session (which was productive, but tiring).

I'll give a little more context in the next entry, going to bed for now.

untitled

2005-09-29T09:15:00.000-07:00

lj-mood: chipper

I've put off updating because too much stuff has passed by and I never had a big block of time to sit down and document it all. So I'll just forget it. :)

I'm going to Phoenix to see Emily this weekend. It's been a month and a half - too long, but we've both been busy.

The house is coming along, the plumbing is done except for a couple of gas details. I'll include a picture of the shower rough-in, not particularly exciting, though. The kitchen cabinets arrived, but I'll have to wait patiently for all the prerequisite work to be completed before I can put them in.

And now I'm off to work.

House Update

2005-06-19T10:38:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a while since the last update, I've been rather busy lately.

The house is coming along well, the tenants will be out by 7/4, at which time I'll need to squeeze in the critical updates and repairs before moving in. I hope to move within a month. Outstanding issues:

Refinish wood floors.
Add wood floors to the kitchen
Redo electrical, fix up plumbing, convert at least one bathroom to a full bath.
Replace/repair a bunch of windows.
Redo the kitchen cabinets/appliances

And that's for my unit. Downstairs will be moving some walls around, putting new wood floors in (they have no floors at the moment), upgrading electrical, adding central heating, and updating plumbing. (Gotta get stuff done while the floor is open.)

For the whole house we're finishing the foundation now, we'll have to replace a section of broken, clay sewer pipe and fix up part of the back wall.

The Book Thing

2005-05-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

From Emily's page:

Bold the ones you've read, and italicize the ones that you started but never finished. (Much easier if you use rich text mode.)

001. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

002. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

003. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman

004. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

005. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling

006. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

007. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne

008. 1984, George Orwell

009. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis

010. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

011. Catch-22, Joseph Heller

012. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

013. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks

014. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

015. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

016. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame

017. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

018. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

019. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres

020. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

021. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

022. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, JK Rowling

023. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling

024. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling

025. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

026. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

027. Middlemarch, George Eliot

028. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving

029. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck

030. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

031. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson

032. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

033. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett

034. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

035. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

036. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

037. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute

038. Persuasion, Jane Austen

039. Dune, Frank Herbert

040. Emma, Jane Austen

041. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery

042. Watership Down, Richard Adams

043. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

044. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

045. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

046. Animal Farm, George Orwell

047. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

048. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy

049. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian

050. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

051. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

052. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck

053. The Stand, Stephen King

054. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

055. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth

056. The BFG, Roald Dahl

057. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome

058. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell

059. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer

060. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

061. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman

062. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden

063. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

064. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough

065. Mort, Terry Pratchett

066. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton

067. The Magus, John Fowles

068. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

069. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett

070. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding

071. Perfume, Patrick Susskind

072. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell

073. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

074. Matilda, Roald Dahl

075. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding

076. The Secret History, Donna Tartt

077. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins

078. Ulysses, James Joyce

079. Bleak House, Charles Dickens

080. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson

081. The Twits, Roald Dahl

082. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith

083. Holes, Louis Sachar

084. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake

085. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

086. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson

087. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

088. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

089. Magician, Raymond E Feist

090. On The Road, Jack Kerouac

091. The Godfather, Mario Puzo

092. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel

093. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett

094. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

095. Katherine, Anya Seton

096. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer

097. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

098. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson

099. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot

100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome

102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

103. The Beach, Alex Garland

104. Dracula, Bram Stoker

105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz

106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens

107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz

108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks

109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth

110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson

111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy

112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend

113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat

114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy

116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson

117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson

118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

119. Shogun, James Clavell

120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham

121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson

122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy

124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski

125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett

127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison

128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle

129. Possession, A. S. Byatt

130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov

131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood

132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl

133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck

134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl

135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett

136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker

137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan

139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson

140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson

141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque

142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson

143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby

144. It, Stephen King

145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl

146. The Green Mile, Stephen King

147. Papillon, Henri Charriere

148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett

149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian

150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz

151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett

152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett

153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett

154. Atonement, Ian McEwan

155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson

156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier

157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey

158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling

160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon

161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville

162. River God, Wilbur Smith

163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon

164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx

165. The World According To Garp, John Irving

166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore

167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson

168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye

169. The Witches, Roald Dahl

170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White

171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams

173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway

174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco

175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder

176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson

177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl

178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

179. Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach

180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery

181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson

182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens

183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay

184. Silas Marner, George Eliot

185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis

186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith

187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh

188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine

189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri

190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence

191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons

193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett

194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells

195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans

196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry

197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett

198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White

199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle

200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien

202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan

203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan

204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan

205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan

206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan

207. Winter's Heart, Robert Jordan

208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan

209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan

210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan

211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto

212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland

213. The Married Man, Edmund White

214. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin

215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault

216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice

217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell

218. Equus, Peter Shaffer

219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten

220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn

222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice

223. Anthem, Ayn Rand

224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson

225. Tartuffe, Moliere

226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller

228. The Trial, Franz Kafka

229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles

230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles

231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther

232. A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen

233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen

234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton

235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry

236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read

237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono

238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde

240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley

241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson

242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny

242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon

243. Summerland, Michael Chabon

244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

245. Candide, Voltaire

246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl

247. Ringworld, Larry Niven

248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault

249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein

250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle

251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde

252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne

253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan

255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson

256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith

257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony

258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum

259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon

260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde

261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde

261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel

263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver

264. A Yellow Raft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris

265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder

267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls

268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock

269. Witch of Black Bird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare

270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien

271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt

272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor

273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg

274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Jester

275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin

276. The Kitchen God's Wife, Amy Tan

277. The Bone Setter's Daughter, Amy Tan

278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child

279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire

280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman

281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry

282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum

283. Haunted, Judith St. George

284. Singularity, William Sleator

285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

286. Different Seasons, Stephen King

287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk

288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby

289. The Bookman's Wake, John Dunning

290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns

291. Illusions, Richard Bach

292. Magic's Pawn, Mercedes Lackey

293. Magic's Promise, Mercedes Lackey

294. Magic's Price, Mercedes Lackey

295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav

296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker

297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice

298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love

299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace

300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison

301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving

302. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card

303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland

304. The Lion's Game, Nelson Demille

305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust

306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh

307. Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco

308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson

309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk

310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz

311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk

313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu

314. The Giver, Lois Lowry

315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin

316. Xenogenesis (or Lilith's Brood), Octavia Butler (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago)

317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold

318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold

319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro

320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill

321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)

322. Beowulf, Anonymous

323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell

324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley

325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey

326. Passage, Connie Willis

327. Otherland, Tad Williams

328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay

329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry

330. Beloved, Toni Morrison

331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore

332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin

333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume

334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo

335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev

336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover

337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson

338. The Genesis Code, John Case

339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen

340. Paradise Lost, John Milton

341. Phantom, Susan Kay

342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice

343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman

344. The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher

345. Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson

346. The Winter of Magic's Return, Pamela Service

347. The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz

348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok

349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler

350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O'Neill

351. Othello, by William Shakespeare

352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas

353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats

354. Sati, Christopher Pike

355. The Divine Comedy, Dante

356. The Apology, Plato

357. The Small Rain, Madeline L'Engle

358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick

359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater

360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier

361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier

362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder

364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King

335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass

336. The Moor's Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie

337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson

338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster

339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky

340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux

341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg

342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy

343. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones

344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown

345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo

346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer

347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck (my cat peed on this book.)

348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby

349. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston

350. Time for bed by David Baddiel

351. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold

352. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre

353. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley

354. Sewer, Gas, and Electric by Matt Ruff

355. Jhereg by Steven Brust

356. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane

357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville

358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte

359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz

360. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje

361. Neuromancer, William Gibson

362. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

363. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr

364. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault

365. The Gunslinger, Stephen King

366. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

367. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke

368. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman

369. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott

370. The God Boy, Ian Cross

371. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King

372. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson

373. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock

374. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K. Dick

375. Assassin's Apprentice, Robin Hobb

376. number9dream, David Mitchell

377. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin

378. Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris

379. Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler

380. Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman

381. Dance On My Grave, Aidan Chambers

382. Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Leguin

383. Hyperion, Dan Simmons

384. Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury

385. Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett

386. To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis

387. A Clash of Kings, George RR Martin

388. The Egyptian, Mika Waltari

389. Moab Is My Washpot, Stephen Fry

390. Contact, Carl Sagan

391. Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock

392. Feersum Endjinn, Iain M. Banks

393. The Golden, Lucius Shepard

394. Decamerone, Boccaccio

395. Birdy, William Wharton

396. The Red Tent, Anita Diaman

397. The Foundation, Isaac Asimov

398. Il Principe, Machiavelli

399. Post Office, Charles Bukowski

400. Macht und Rebel, Abu Rasul

401. Grass, Sheri S. Tepper

402. The Long Walk, Richard Bachman

403. Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

404. The Joy Of Work, Scott Adams

405. Romeo, Elise Title

406. The Ninth Gate, Arturo Perez-Reverte

407. Memnoch the Devil, Anne Rice

408. Dead Famous, Ben Elton

409. Scarlett, Alexandra Ripley

410. Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol

411. Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks

412. The Colossus of Maroussi, Henry Miller

413. Branded, Alissa Quart

414. The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

415. Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac

416. White teeth, Zadie Smith

417. The bell jar, Sylvia Plath

418. The little prince of Belleville, Calixthe Beyala

419. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

420. A King Lear of the Steppes, Ivan Turgenev

421. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

422. Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Peter Kropotkin

423. Hija de la Fortuna, Isabel Allende

424. Retrato en Sepia, Isabel Allende

425. Villette, Charlotte BrontÃ«

426. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse

427. Ubik, Philip K. Dick

428. Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler

429. Solaris, Stanislaw Lem

430. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

431. Nausea, Jean Paul Sartre

432. The Island of the Day Before, Umberto Eco

433. The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq

434. The Angel Of The West Window, Gustav Meyrink

435. A Farewell To Arms, Ernest Hemingway

436. Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs

437. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

438. In the Eyes of Mr. Fury, Philip Ridley

439. Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks

440. Into the Forest, Jean Hegland

441. Middlesex ,Jeffrey Eugenides

442. The Giving Tree -Shel Silverstein

443. Go Ask Alice -Anonymous

444. Waiting For Godot, Samuel Beckett

445. Blankets, Craig Thompson

446. The Girls' Guide To Hunting And Fishing, Melissa Banks

447. Voice of the Fire, Alan Moore

448. The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler

449. Coraline, Neil Gaiman

450. The Circus of Dr. Lao, Charles G. Finney

451. Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins

452. John Lennon: The Lost Weekend, by May Pang and Henry Edwards

453. A Long Fatal Love Chase, Lousia May Alcott

454. Pygmalion, Bernard Shaw

455. Breakfast at Tiffany's, Trumate Capote

456. Skinny Legs And All, Tom Robbins

457. Written On The Body, Jeanette Winterson

458. An Equal Music, Vikram Seth

459. A Widow for One Year, John Irving

460. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Rebecca Wells

461. Reservation Blues, Sherman Alexie

462. Hidden Power, Kati Marton

463. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier

464. Macbeth, William Shakespeare

465. The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer

466. The Iliad, Homer

467. Common Sense, Thomas Paine

468. A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare

469. The Odyssey, Homer

470. Personal History, Biography by Katherine Graham

471. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen

472. Truman, David McCullough

473. One for the Money, Janet Evanovich

474. Blue Dahlia, Nora Roberts

475. Little Altars Everywhere, Rebecca Wells

476. Guilty Pleasures, Laurell K. Hamilton

477. Kiss of Shadows, Laurell K. Hamilton

478. Whispers of the Dead, V. Artemis Reyd

479. The Stranger, Albert Camus

480. Women, Charles Bukowski

481. The Firebird Poems, Gerald Locklin

482. Cannery Row, John Steinbeck

483. The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck

484. Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams, Sylvia Plath

It's a long list, I transformed it into a spreadsheet and back to edit. See also my own list of hugo winners that I've read and not read.

Update

2005-05-03T00:39:00.000-07:00

lj-mood: tired

It's been a few weeks, I haven't gotten around to updating.

I had a nice weekend in Phoenix a week and a half ago. I got to see the opening night of "Anything Goes" that Emily has been working so hard on. It was a lot of fun. I look forward to seeing her again in a few weeks.

I went out and bought a Mac mini. Interesting toy, not sure if it will become a server or if I can use it as a desktop. I'll give it a bit more time. I have been spending too much time playing with it when I should be cleaning the apartment, sleeping, etc.

The house thing is still coming along well. We have a bid on the work that needed to be done, it came in a bit lower than the initial estimate, which is a bit of a relief. I'm anxious to get everything started - it seems like it'll be a long road before we can actually move in, but it'd be nice to have things underway.

Another update

2005-04-18T13:13:00.000-07:00

lj-mood: anxious

It's been a few weeks, I suppose I should update. (Does anyone actually read this thing?) We've got a signed deal on the house. It'll be a lot of work and expense getting it into shape. Hopefully we can start soon.

I miss Emily, she's been so busy that we haven't really gotten a chance to talk much. It sucks for both of us that her schedule is that crowded, but I guess that's the way school goes - I don't know if I could do school again. Fortunately, I get to see her and the show she's been working on this weekend. (And I think things will let up a little bit for her, schedule-wise.)

Finally made Lamb Vindaloo last weekend, after owning the domain name for years. :) It turned out fairly well, but was too sweet. (I switched recipes in the middle of it, I think I may keep the tamarind, but use a lot less next time.) The original recipe called for marinating the meat, the one I ended up with just used it as-is (and browned it). So I skipped the browning, and used the marinade in place of similar ingredients. It was good, but the sweetness kinda reminded me of Koresht Fesenjan. I'll have leftovers later this week. I like the idea of making up more vindaloo and freezing it, to be used as the mood strikes me. Also, while frying the onions, I was reminded that I wanted to try my hand at french onion soup sometime.

Easter

2005-03-30T18:24:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, we got together at Dan and Carmen's place for easter. I made my chile verde and some guacamole. We went with a mexican theme because I'd already gotten the ingredients. Dan made some chicken fajitas and mexican rice. The chile verde went over really well. I don't have my recipes up on my server at the moment, so I'll just put it here for your reading enjoyment:

1.5-2lbs stewing pork, cut into 1/2"-1" cubes
1 onion, thinly sliced into little half-circles, chopped, or whatever.
2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
5-6 tomatillos, diced
1 tomato, seeded and diced
5 Fresh anaheim chiles
1 jalapeno (if you want some more spice)
2 cups of chicken broth/stock
flour, salt, pepper

Roast the chilis in a broiler or over an open flame, put in a paper bag for 5 minutes or so, peel, seed, and slice into inch long strips. Prep all the ingredients. Put some oil in a dutch oven. Coat the meat in flour (mix in some salt and pepper) and brown in the oven and set aside. (Work in batches.) Cook the onions and garlic. (At least get the onions translucent, doesn't hurt to brown them a little.) Add the tomatoes, tomatillos, and chilis. Add the meat. Add chicken broth to cover. Put a lid on the pan and simmer for about 2 hours. Uncover, reduce to desired consistency, and adjust seasonings. (Add salt and pepper to taste, I like a good dose of black pepper in this dish.)

Serve with tortillas, mexican rice, and beans. (Make little tacos with the tortillas, or just eat it with a fork.) This should taste even better the second day, if you save some and reheat it.

New York

2005-03-24T11:33:00.000-08:00

I'm back from our New York vacation. I had a good time, but it was a bit cold and windy, and it seemed to be a bit busy/hectic. On sunday, we got to see one of my friends (Rich Kaszeta) and a few of Emily's friends, who were quite fun to hang out with. We saw five shows: Avenue Q, Phantom, Wicked, Spamalot, and Altar Boyz. Emily showed me here old hang outs, and we went to a few museums and stores. (The Met, Radio & TV museum, and the MOMA.)

The city was interesting. The subway system is much more extensive than BART, neither as nice nor as smooth, though. I also noticed that the pedestrians behave a bit differently. (They don't have the entitlement that the pedestrians in SF have, but everything seems to run more smoothly because of it.) The city seemed rather hectic - there wern't a lot of places or opportunities to sit and relax. Maybe that was just our schedule and the weather, though. I also noticed that it was much harder to find decent beer than in San Francisco. In the end, I much prefer San Francisco.

Dan, Carmen, and I put a bid in on a house today, , we'll see if the seller accepts our terms. It's quite charming, and in a good location, but needs some work done on it. The picture makes it look a little small, because it's wedge (flatiron?) shaped, but it has two 2 bdrm, 1 bath units in it for a total of 2820 square feet.

Houseless

2005-02-26T23:14:00.000-08:00

lj-mood: relaxed

I sold my house yesterday. Or, at least, I signed and returned the paperwork. It should close on monday. Amazing how easy it was - sign some papers, drop them in the mail, wait for the deposit in my bank account.

This weekend I'm in SF alone - Emily is visiting her sister in Salt Lake City. I could have used the time to go looking for furniture or explore the city, but I've settled for staying home and organizing stuff. So, I did the dishes this morning, then my new passport arrived, I had lunch, hung out with Dan for a little bit, unpacked some boxes, throwing out lots of old junk I've collected, and played with the computer a bit. (Also cleaning up old junk.)

Hoppy Thoughts

2005-02-21T16:12:00.000-08:00

Emily visited again last weekend. Despite the constant rainfall, we had a good time. This was our weekend to hang out with other people more; but between cancellations, rain, and time constraints, it ended up being a weekend together. We went out to eat, watched movies in my apartment, and listened to the rain fall. We did take a brief trip downtown, to print her boarding pass and see my work, but we still haven't seen much of San Francisco.

It's been tough only seeing each other for a couple of days at a time - and only one full day. Perhaps it makes the time together intense, but it also feels a bit rushed. I look forward to some more relaxed time together in New York. She won't be able to make it to SF again for a while, but perhaps she'll find a summer position in the area so we can explore the city and its surrounds together.

In other news, I applied for a new passport last week, so I'll have another picture id while I'm replacing my driver's license. (It's hard to survive without one in this age.) Also, I'm currently cooking for my first time in the new place. I'm making Rogan Josh. I managed to get some lamb from the grocery market, so I'm making it in the proper manner this time.

Birthday

2005-02-15T15:40:00.000-08:00

lj-mood: chipper

I keep thinking I've updated my journal, but it appears to have been two weeks. Today is my birthday. I'm now 32 years old. It seems like just yesterday that seemed like a really old age. I celebrated my birthday last sunday with Emily, Dan, and Carmen. We had lunch at the Slanted Door, a vietnamese place that serves small-plate dishes, and then went back to Dan's place for some cake and presents. (Dan and Carmen surprised me with a nice cake from Citizen Cake.) We had a good time, but we had to cut it a little short to get Emily back to the airport.

Last weekend Emily visited, it was her first time in SF. The weather was decent. I showed her my neighborhood, noe valley, and the inner sunset. And we went to Twin Peaks and Golden Gate Park. We had dinner at Zuni and filled the rest of the time talking and watching movies. On sunday, as I mentioned, we celebrated my birthday at the Slanted Door, saw the new ferry building, and hung out at Dan's place.

During the previous week, I finished unpacking. I still have to organize the kitchen and pick up some furniture for the kitchen, but it's basically done. I'm not cooking yet, for lack of counter space, but I'll start again soon.

And the weekend before that I visited Emily in Phoenix. We had a great time, it went much better than the first visit to Phoenix. (No cars broken into or anything.) We had dinner at a fondue place on saturday, hung out in the Tempe area, saw some movies, and I joined her when she was practicing the piano.

On the downside, I found out today that CA will take up to 60 days to give me a driver's license and will take my old one from me. So I'd have no photo id for two months. It's difficult to survive without one, so I will do an expedited renewal of my passport before taking care of the car stuff.

Almost there

2005-02-02T08:07:00.000-08:00

lj-music: birds and street sounds

I'm mostly moved in now. It's been interesting. My stuff arrives any time now, hopefully it's in good shape. After that I will need a couple pieces of furniture, and I'll have to figure out how to fit everything in here. This is my big chance to simplify my life. :)

I don't know how I feel about this. Still getting used to feeling like this is my place, I still have an unrooted feeling. I also don't know about parking. It seems ok for now, but I'm not as used to parallel parking as I was. If necessary, I'll get a garage. The place feels small, and a little run down. I'm going to need to make some counter space in the kitchen, maybe the table will suffice; otherwise, I'll get some kind of side tables. I've eyed a few in the past, but avoided them because I had too much space in the last place.

I've started the DSL process, we'll see how long it takes. I'm guessing 10-15 business days - with the phone company being the longest part. In the meanwhile, I have a dialup connection and work.

Work has begun. I've spent some time setting up my machines the last couple of days and got the software that I'll be working on installed yesterday. I've got to learn a lot of new systems (Zope, Z4I, etc), which may take some spare time. Along with moving details (unpacking, decorating) and Emily, I'll be a busy guy. But that'll help pass the time between weekends. (For me at least.)

My weekends are pretty much booked up, so I'll get stuff done during the week. My life is fairly exciting at the moment, and it's good for me to shake things up a bit.