the idea: there is always a story behind what you eat
I recently cooked an impromptu meal for my husband, because I had Monday off and he didn’t. When I have a day off, I like to cook a longer meal that I normally would, or I might be tempted to whip out a little bit fancier wine from the cellar. So, this Monday I decided to build a meal around a bottle of 2005 Rosenblum Cellars Rockpile Zinfandel, which is an extremely well rated Zinfandel that Tony, our wine guy, was able to snag for a steal. I thought I would match this fruit bomb with some fruit-glazed country ribs and some tasty cheese-y potatoes, which would allow me to use up my leftover Beaufort.
I wasn’t really expecting to blog about it, but as I was looking for a pairing match for the wine I began to realize that my kitchen is stocked full of interesting items, each of which has a story behind it…
ROCKPILE ZINFANDEL
The Rockpile appellation or AVA is located in a remote region of the Sonoma Valley. What makes this region special is that it has an altitude above the summer fog line, which means plenty of sunshine, but moderate temperatures (touring the valley in mid-August, I can vouch that the fog/clouds don’t lift until about noon). The hillside conditions are very rocky, which stresses the grape vines. This results of this demanding terrain are in small yields with intense flavors, which brings out the best in such varietals as Petit Sirah, Zinfandel, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Very few dare to grow there, but those that do make arguably some of the best Zinfandels in the country (or any country since Zin is California native).
BEAUFORT D’ALPAGE
Beaufort is a cheese that my husband and I experienced in France. It tasted like Comte, but with an incredible intensity of nuts and cocoa. It coated your mouth and made you feel as if you had just eaten a rich dessert. We consumed almost an entire block during a make-shift picnic in the Forest of Fontainebleau, where we utilized the dashboard as a cheeseboard and a credit card as a cheese cutter.
I was never able to match the exact quality of the already hard to find Beaufort here in the States, but I was able to snag a still pretty tasty version from the Cowgirl Creamery in San Francisco. We slowly snacked on the big Californian chunk of cheese, before I had to grind it up into the mashed potatoes in order to save it from mold… a delicious solution.
Beaufort is known as the “prince of the Gruyeres”, because it is richer and creamier than similar cheeses. Beaufort d’Alpage, specifically, comes from a small rural town in the Alps using milk from a specific type of cow, known as Tarine cows. They graze in the mountains, exclusively, which supposedly gives the cheese its rustic flavor and sometimes floral smell.
THE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA
Another reason I felt like exploring this idea of the story behind food is because I am about to start a book called The Omnivore’s Dilemma (I was drawn in by its delicious looking cover). The book details the entire life-cycle of how food gets from its origin onto our plates, exploring ethics, politics, and science. I’m intrigued because it seems like it is more educational than preachy, and as a total happy omnivore, I’m glad to see a book that explores these ideas from a non-vegan, more holistic perspective. Should be an interesting read, but first I have to finish my weird book about quantum physics and the human brain, which is both fascinating and incredibly hard to read before bedtime… quarks, neurons, consciousness, zzzzzzzzz.
recipe: ratatouille from the movie
I love having a new cooking challenge every week. While some of them are not worth writing about, I’m hoping that some will inspire me with some topic for my blog. For instance… I’m very excited to try out one of my new spices, juniper berries, because they are so strange. Apparently, pregnant women are not allowed to eat them? So, I’ve got to figure out what that is all about.
My first cooking challenge was to try and use some of the persimmons I snuck back in my suitcase from the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market in San Francisco. I had never heard of persimmons, but had seen weird orange tomatoes growing on trees in Tuscany.
After I returned someone informed me that these were the fruit known as persimmons, which taste somewhat like a milder mango to me. I baked them into a bread, but it didn’t really bring out the flavor of the fruit like it could. In retrospect, I should have smuggled more persimmons or I imagine they would taste good as part of a sweet and spicy sauce for meats, like mango habanero.
This week, I decided (based on an eggplant that needed to be used up in my fridge) to attempt to cook ratatouille. Now I have cooked ratatouille in the past, and while good, it has never been quite as delicious as the ratatouille I had while in France. I’m hoping a French cookbook I got will shed some light on their secrets. Anyway, my goal this week was not to emulate the dish I had in France, but to attempt the fancy artful ratatouille that was featured in the Disney film (pictured above).
While mine wasn’t quite as beautiful (the picture is pre-baked, so I had made no attempt to “plate” the dish), it was still a more elegant twist on a traditionally rustic dish. In fact, I wouldn’t mind trying to do a few more elegant rustic dishes, or maybe try a few more movie-inspired dishes in the future.
technorati tags: persimmons, ratatouille
restaurant: diamond jim brady’s bistro
Since one of my resolutions was to write more blogs by injecting a little bit of spice in the routine, I’ve decided that one of the ways I’m going to help that effort is to try and go to a new restaurant whenever I get the chance. There are a large number of restaurants within an hour’s distance from my home, not to mention a good number between where I work and where I live. So, why not try something new and different? Maybe I’ll find a new favorite.
Unfortunately, both attempts so far have landed my husband and I at semi-expensive restaurants with decent enough food, but surrounded by (how can I put this delicately?) “old people”. I’m not talking about dining with people my parent’s age, I’m talking about gray poofy hair as far as the eye can see. Why is it that any restaurant I find that is in an odd location, a “hidden gem” with a good wine list, is unknown to anyone under the age of 60?
Diamond Jim Brady’s Bistro is no exception. I can see why the youngsters don’t come a running. First, its sign (not pictured above) makes it look like a downriver jewelry store with the word “bistro” precariously slapped to the bottom. Second, no one born in this century is even going to understand who Diamond Jim Brady is. And while the location, tucked into the Novi TownCenter strip mall, certainly can’t help it… Bonefish Grill, just a few storefronts away, proves it can be done, and it can be done in swanky style.
Maybe these restaurants (Shiraz being the other one) are doing fine. But the extra friendliness of the owners and staff make me guess otherwise. Someone needs to put some Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares magic into these places. I’m not talking about the terrible American show, but the BBC version, where he actually comes in and uses smart business sense to explain why a restaurant that should be doing better isn’t. Lower your prices, give the waitresses outfits that don’t look like a Denny’s, get a new sign, fix up your storefront, work on your food presentation skills, rearrange your menu to be more “fun”.
All and all, I enjoyed my food and experience at these restaurants, but I can’t say I’ll be dying to ever go back. With so many nearby options to choose from, I would rather take a little bit of fun flash and younger dinner companions over the tried and true cooking approach from a mom and pop shop full of gray hairs. I’m just not willing to admit that my culinary tastes put me in the upscale senior citizen category… not yet.
Next time, I’m thinking of trying Assagi in Ferndale, based on Nick & Carrie’s glowing recommendation. We also are still looking for the perfect spot for Valentine’s Day. Other blog writing techniques I’m going to be implementing are trying to… read a book a month, attempt to bake more often, integrate new web technologies into my daily life, and trying a new cooking challenge once a week (tonight I’m making persimmon bread before the LOST finale… although I might be more inspired to write about the show rather than the bread, I loves me some LOST).
food: Ellie’s White Chocolate Butter Bars
I have to admit that I am incredibly hooked on Top Chef. Maybe it is because I’m a foodie, maybe it is because Bravo actually does make some decent reality shows sometimes. Anyone who watches the show becomes familiar with its repeated dialogue: “amuse bouche“, “trio of dishes”, “flavor profiles”, and my favorite “this isn’t Top Cook, this is Top Chef.” And while the judges insist that being a Top Chef (not a Top Cook) means things like leadership, design, conceptualization, perfect execution, and knowing good well what to serve and what not to, I think Dale (who has my vote for Viewer’s Favorite) has the right attitude when it comes to cooking. It is about heart, it is about putting your soul into what you cook, and it is about not forgetting to be a good person.
So, I want to nominate Tom Wolfe of Peristyle and Wolfe’s of New Orleans as my personal “Top Chef” of they year.
Let me back it up for a second… Five years ago, my husband and I took a trip to New Orleans. To save a bit of money, we stayed a little outside the city limits. I didn’t mind so much as I knew there were some good restaurants in the area. One of those restaurants was Wolfe’s of New Orleans.
Our dinner at Wolfe’s could be said to be one a ground-breaking moment for my husband and I, although I did not realize it until later. This was our first real vacation together. This was the first truly nice restaurant we had gone out to together. This was the first time we shared good wine over a fancy meal. And it is because of this that I so vividly remember ever moment. I remember my potato encrusted lobster tail, the way the crispy potato perfectly complimented the soft buttery lobster without overpowering it. I remember a light going off in my head that cooking is something more, a combination of flavor, texture, smell, and visuals all combining into a unique experience.
But most of all, I remember Ellie’s White Chocolate Butter Bars. A seemingly simple sounding desert made from an old family recipe, these bars were so very moist and delicate, yet rich in combination with homemade vanilla ice cream and raspberry coulis. The sweet with the tangy, the rich with the tart, the soft and warm with the smooth and cool. Flavor combinations at their best.
It was completely random that one day I decided to e-mail Tom Wolfe and just mention how much I loved and still remembered my meal there, even though it was 5 years later. So appreciative was Tom for the praise that in a series of e-mails he offered to send me a couple butter bars in the mail at no extra charge.
They came and were every bit as amazing as I remembered. I surprised my husband on our anniversary by bringing them out and making him guess what they were. Turns out he had not forgotten our experience at Wolfe’s either.
Tom Wolfe, you are my Top Chef, for not only making good food but for being an incredible person who made this anniversary particularly special by reminding us what it means to “cook with heart”.
food: bolting spinach
So, our garden is not doing so hot this year. The bunnies are devouring our beans. The zucchini doth not flowereth the way it did last year (when at this time we were trying to give our zucchini crop away to whoever would take it). It must just be a weird year.
The weirdest of all was our so called “spinach”. As it poked through the surface in perfectly formed little rows, I knew there was no way it could be weeds. But, the more it grew the stranger it looked. I guess I had assumed the plants would eventually start to look like spinach, but to my dismay… they just kept growing until they grew to be about 2 feet tall, turned yellow, and died. They had no smell, no flowers. I think I’ve finally admitted to myself that these plants were probably not, never were, and never will be spinach.
I’ve been looking all over the internet for some sort of “identify my mystery plant” web site. The only sites I could find have you start off by entering in a species name. If I knew what the species name was, then why would I need help “identifying” it?
So add this to my list of useful Flickr mashups. I want a web site that will pull up photos of plants via tags (broad leaf, prickly, tall, yellow). Only then would I be able to discover if my mystery plant was bolting spinach, a particularly boring herb, weeds, or something else entirely.
technorati tags: bolting spinach
food: pluot
Mmmm… pluots. Even the name is fun (plü-ot). It makes it sound like a weird celestial formation or a hip foreign car. Way cooler than a peacotum, which sounds dirty, or a grapple.
I discovered this meld between a plum and an apricot at my local grocery store on a weekly fruit run. I forgot about this weird genetically engineered fruit until I pulled it out of my lunch bag for a mid-morning snack. First, I was awed by the perfect heart shape and candy red color. It was like a bright red apple, only soft and shaped like a heart, so really nothing like an apple. It was the perfect weight to hold in the palm of your hand and the skin was so smooth and rubbery that it almost felt like a toy. I really didn’t want to eat it, I was finding myself so infatuated with my pluot.
Taste was a little sour under the skin but sweet in the fleshy center. I think my pluot needed to ripen a bit, but the soft dense texture of the orange flesh was fantastic. So maybe it is a little weird to go on about a fruit in this way, but it really brightened my day. So yeah for genetic engineering. It’s apparently organic or something so even the hippies can proclaim “I Heart Pluots”.
technorati tags: pluot
Web Site: Rouxbe - The Recipe to Better Cooking
As a bit of a foodie and an experimental chef, I find myself online almost daily looking for exciting new recipes to try. The first place I hit up is AllRecipes.com, which does a great job on wealth of content and community features. I can search for recipes via ingredients I have in the kitchen, rate recipes I’ve tried, read reviews of recipes, pictures, browse categories, create a virtual recipe box, and even print out a usefully organized shopping list. What more could you ask for?
Well, recently I stumbled upon Rouxbe.com, a cross between an online cooking show and recipe resource. With its professionally shot videos that are heavy on high quality close-ups, it provides elegant instructional and inspirational qualities that are not available anywhere on AllRecipes. The site is loaded with your typical fun features like downloads, bookmarking, commenting, etc and some not-so-typical features such as separate music and VO track volumes. But what I am more excited about are the features that show a higher level of thought paid to the end user.
There are packages of downloadable iPod and HD videos (main dish, side, dessert) that would make it easy for the user to follow along while working in the kitchen. I’m not sure who is clean enough in the kitchen to feel comfortable putting their iPod near the stove (not me!!), but for people with large screen TVs or computers viewable from the kitchen, this is also a valuable option. Another great feature is the “drill-downs” (which could have a better name). These are conveniently isolated sections of recipes that highlight skills, techniques, and ingredients.
What Rouxbe lacks however is everything that makes AllRecipes so useful. With over 80 videos on the site and presumably more coming every week, they need to develop a better way to organize content, help users find the information that they want to find, and create a structure that will grow as content and community expands. Also, they need a more exciting landing page. Once you register to the site, you are presented with a less than engaging profile page with a few small pictures of new recipes and content. Since the web of the future is all about “personalization“, Rouxbe should hop on board by allowing user to have the content they want on their home page. On “My Rouxbe” I’d want healthy snack recipes, recipes that use wine as an ingredient, and dark chocolate desserts. Yum!!
chocolate goodness: The Edelbitter Mouse series
Before this last Christmas, when I decided to seek out hard to find Lindt chocolate bars for my husband, I never knew that Edelbitter Mousse existed. I had no idea what I was missing. As a Lindt enthusiast, we had long indulged on the Lindt Excellence series, with its delicious Intense Pear and Intense Orange, which feature juicy bits of fruit peel, almond slivers, and rich dark chocolate (3 bars for $5 at Holiday Market). But, Edelbitter Mousse is by far the most perfect series ever created in chocohistory.
Let me explain what makes Edelbitter so scrumptiously amazing. Each bar in the series is composed of three components: a powdery rich layer of chocolate mousse (imagine a high quality truffle covered in excessive cocoa powder), a sticky sweet jam (AMAZING!!), and an encasement of always delicious Lindt dark chocolate. The magic happens when the bitter mousse (which would be dry on its own) is mixed with the sweet jam, which comes in exotic flavors such as: Fig-carmel, cherry-chili, ginger, and guava (personal favorite). The deadly combo is trapped forever together in a dark chocavity.
The entire tactile experience just adds to the enjoyment. You’ll find yourself toying with the candying, lightly pushing the jam side to side as you apply gentle pressure to the outside of the unusually heavy chocolate bar. Pealing the oversized candy bar’s shiny gold wrapper off, you will find yourself thinking back to Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, imaging your special Lindt golden ticket on the inside. Instead what you will get is a cardstock brochure describing (in German) the various other flavors in the Edelbitter series.
I only wish I could share my love with other chocolate (particularly Lindt) enthusiasts on an chocolate lover’s version of Cork’d. I wish there was a website that would list out all of these hard to find candy bars, what areas of the world they are available, and help you find chocolate shops while on vacation. Sadly, I have yet to find a Lindt outlet in Paris where I can grab some Lindt Intense Raspberry, which is not available in the US, while I’m in France this fall.
technorati tags: Lindt, gourmet chocolate, german chocolate
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