in praise of sardines

IMBB#19: Socca Crèpes filled with Ratatouille

Don't let the name of my blog fool you. I am a big fan of vegetarian cooking.

When I learned that Sam chose a vegan theme for this edition of Is My Blog Burning (my first!), I delved into my past to try to recall some of my favorite recipes from my veg days.

You read that right. Once upon a time over a dozen years ago, I was a strict vegetarian. The same Brett, who goes out of his way to consume odd bits like barnacles, salt cod tripe, razor clams, anything with tentacles, the snouts, feet and everything in between on the pig, and who even named his blog after the lowly sardine, was a vegetarian for three whole years.

And I don't use the term vegetarian loosely. I was not one of those annoying people who proclaims himself "vegetarian" even though he eats chicken and fish and sometimes bacon (what the hell is that all about, I'd like to know). Nary a piece of flesh passed my lips during that time.

True, although I live in San Francisco and used to cook at the Greens restaurant, I never even considered becoming a vegan, fruitarian, raw foodist (sorry Sky), or breatharian. No, I needed my eggs and dairy like a heroine addict needs smack.

Ratatouille is one of those dishes that entered my repertoire back in those days and I've continued to make it several times every summer for the last decade and a half.

I want to share with you here the keys to success so that your ratatouille will sing with the vibrant flavors of summer (yes, I know it's technically already autumn).

First, buy the best available, freshest vegetables (duh!). But really, please don't make this in the winter. It's a summer dish.

Second, cook each vegetable separately for maximum flavor impact before combining them. This means, fire roast the peppers (a gas burner works fine), quickly sauté the eggplants and zucchini until caramelized, and slowly stew the onions and garlic until meltingly tender.

Third, ideally, cook it the day before you want to eat it to allow the flavors to blend.

To trick carnivores into proclaiming afterwards "I can't believe I ate vegan!," I've served the admittedly mushy vegetable stew in a crispy, protein-packed chickpea flour crèpe (more like the Indian dosa than the traditional French crèpe, as it doesn't require any eggs or dairy). Socca, served at street stalls on the streets of Nice like pretzels are in New York, is a Provençal cousin of ratatouille. Although I don't know if they are ever served together in their native land, I've taken the liberty to wed these two kissing cousins (and I didn't even need a shotgun) into one satisfying dish.

When potato farmers get bored....

Ferry Building at dusk

I captured this picture of the San Francisco Ferry Building after the night market on Thursday. It's already Friday which means tomorrow (at least in our town) is another market day.

"Then I spied the sign."

That was the fifth sentence of my 23rd post.*

It came at a time when I was struggling to make a decision (seems to be the story of my life...see yesterday's post, for example).

On the 21st of July, or thereabouts, I was trying to decide between two choices, A or B. Time was of the essence, so it was vital that I figure out what to do soon. In my mind, the two choices were equal. I could only choose one course of action and I didn't want to make the wrong choice (nobody ever wants that, do they?). I searched and searched, hoping for some divine, heaven-sent intervention.

"Then," as I wrote, "I spied the sign." This sign was so helpful that I was immediately able to determine my course of action.

Because I want to help you resolve those personal dichotomies and dualities in your life (Should I take that job? Should I marry _____? Should I move to _____? Should I buy those shoes?), I have, out of the kindness in my heart, decided to share this sign with you. Because this sign was so helpful to me, I actually took a picture of it so that I would remember it always.

To see this holy sign and read the context of my personal struggle on that day, click here (my 23rd post).

* So what is all this nonsense about? It's about a bizarre little meme that's making the rounds (yes, I am no longer a meme virgin). I was tagged by Cookiecrumb of I'm Mad and I Eat. Here are the instructions for the meme:

1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five people to do the same.

MonkeyGland of JamFaced added the following instructions to line 4 to make it a little more interesting: Ponder it for meaning, subtext or hidden agendas...

I tag the following people: Melissa of The Traveler's Lunchbox , Fatemeh of Gastronomie, Alice of My Epicurean Debauchery, Shuna of Eggbeater , and the person who writes the blog Bayarea, Where the Wild Thing Are (which is written in Japanese).

Good luck!

Canteen: looking at restaurants through my eyes

When I read about Canteen, a tiny cigar box of a restaurant in the theater district, a few months back in the San Francisco Chronicle, it was inevitable that I would fall for its charms. I'm a sucker for small, quirky restaurants with big personalities. My favorite restaurants are all tiny, usually 35 seats or less. They are places where the chef is the sole or co-proprietor, so that his/her vision and attitude are apparent in every detail, from the color of the paint on the walls to the font on the menu to the choice of butter dish.

Let's face it. Like a painter must feel when visiting an art gallery or a classical singer upon going to the opera, every time I go to a restaurant my senses are heightened. I take in every minute detail. At one moment, I'm critiquing the experience (I would've done it like this), in another finding inspiration (what a brilliant idea!).

But mostly, I am in awe. I love to watch the complex ballet that goes on in the kitchen and on the dining room floor. A server with a tray-full of drinks dodges drunken guests and their raucous children. The cook juggles 6 or 8 different pans on the stove and in the oven. When performed gracefully, it's a on par with a symphony rock concert.

I'm not saying this to romanticize the business, though. It's hard, backbreaking, unforgiving work with little financial compensation. More hours on your feet than anyone who has never worked in a restaurant can even begin to imagine. Try being on your feet for 8 to 10 hours without once sitting down, knowing there's not enough time to possibly finish the million things that need to be ready now (or preferably 10 minutes ago), that you've been dying to pee for the last hour, that the burn you just suffered from the spattered grease will only get worse if you don't stop to treat it, that you're starving because you yet again skipped your last meal, but you know you won't be able to do any of it because there just isn't enough time.

Those are some of the reasons I'm in awe of these people (and you should be too!).

But really, when I go to a restaurant like Canteen, it's not just my senses that are heightened. My emotions go into overdrive. Although it's difficult for me to express (hey, I'm a guy, cut me some slack), I feel a mixture of envy and anxiety and anger and confusion and joy.

In case you were wondering what I look like...

That is, what I would apparently look like if I happened to live in South Park! Appears I'm feeling a little miffed that someone made me wear that silly toque.

If you want to see what you'd look like as a character on the Comedy Central show, follow this link.

Thanks to Chubby Hubby of Singapore for pointing me to the website! Stop by his site and see how he transformed his entire family into South Park characters.

Promise to return to food blogging tomorrow.

in praise of Manresa

Near the end of our nearly five-hour extravaganza at Manresa, the most talked about restaurant in the Bay Area, I asked my three friends who, on separate occasions, had also dined at the French Laundry the inevitable question: which meal was better?

 

But, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Four of my friends, N and I all dined at Manresa on Saturday to celebrate N's and my thirteenth anniversary and my friend's fabulous new job.

Arriving at Manresa, you feel like Alice (no not that one, this one) must have felt after she stepped through the looking glass. You've entered a world of paradoxes, juxtapositions and incongruities. You've entered chef David Kinch's mind.

The first hint that you're in for an unusual night is the location. Of course any time a city boy like myself leaves the big city and heads to unexplored regions of suburbia, I feel a sense of anxiety (my favorite Roz Chast cartoon from a few years ago depicts New Yorkers driving through the depths of New Jersey nervously exclaiming "Where are we? Are we in a town? Are we between towns? How can anybody live out here? Look! Look at that weird mall!!").

After driving for an hour south of San Francisco to Los Gatos (a suburb of San Jose?), we followed Manresa's own directions to the letter, for, as the website warns, "Google and MapQuest are not reliable." We carefully parked as directed in the bank parking lot, just behind Pedro's Mexican Restaurant.

Although I felt a sense of relief just to have arrived safely at the restaurant, this turned out to be my first lesson of the night: Trust Manresa. Allow Chef Kinch and General Manager Michael Kean and their capable staff to take care of you.

Because one of my friends had previously co-managed Silks Restaurant with Michael, we were warmly greeted and offered complimentary glasses of bubbly (thank you, Michael). This set the tone for a glorious, somewhat gluttonous five-hour feast that lasted until 1 am (sorry, Michael).

Unlike many other celebrated food bloggers, I'm admittedly not often lured into the rarefied air of four-star (or in Michelin land, three-star) dining. I'm probably the only so-called foodie to have eaten all my meals at tapas bars when I visited San Sebastián, Spain, the town renowned for having  more Michelin stars per capita than any other place in the world. As N somewhat embarrassingly commented upon learning that half our table had eaten at the French Laundry and we hadn't, "how come you only take me to Suzu?" Ha ha, isn't she funny! Of course, she was just joking...I think?

The tiny seed that packs a big punch

If I had to pick one favorite spice, mustard seeds would win hands down. Black (or brown) mustard seeds, to be more precise. Not only are they the main ingredient in the best condiment on the planet, Dijon mustard (especially the version made in Beaune by Edmond Fallot), but they are indispensable to Indian cuisine.

Although there was a dusty old bottle of yellow mustard seeds that sat untouched for decades on my mother's spice shelf, I had never known the alluring power that lay within those tiny seeds until I met the woman who would become my wife.

After we were engaged, N and I traveled across the country from Washington, D.C., to California in an old station wagon. We saw the country from the slow lane at 45 mph, as we foolishly dragged the Ikea furniture accumulated in college behind us in a rented U-Haul trailer. Our car never fully recovered from that trip and I think we've since sold all the furniture.

A couple of days of driving brought us to Dayton, Ohio, to the home of some of my future relatives. N's aunt, the best cook in the family, offered to give us a crash course in Indian cooking, particularly the vegetarian specialties of Gujarat, the region of northwestern India where N's family comes from.

Masi (which means mother's sister in Gujarati) proved herself to be a masterful teacher. Our little blue notebook of carefully transcribed recipes is probably the most valued cookbook in my collection of over 200 cookbooks!

It was there in Masi's kitchen in small town Dayton (actually a suburb of Dayton) that I first encountered the incomparable aroma of toasting black mustard seeds, called rai in Gujarati and Hindi.

Many of Masi's recipes begin with frying rai in hot oil until the seeds turn gray and start to pop. When the seeds pop, they release this intoxicating scent that combines elements of toasted peanuts, brown butter and popcorn. I can never get enough of that smell!

This morning (for our thirteenth anniversary) I prepared a traditional savory Gujarati breakfast dish called batata poha (pictured left) from one of Masi's recipes that features the taste of rai. If you've never cooked with this spice before, this would be a good place to start.

The only unusual ingredient in the dish, aside from black mustard seeds themselves, is poha (sometimes spelled powa). Poha is flat pounded rice (see picture next page). There are two varieties of poha, thick and thin. You'll need the thick one for this recipe. It can be purchased at any Indian store or on line at Kalustyan's. It's also a flavorful and spicy alternative to the standard American breakfast options, like cold cereal or toast.

Recipe: Tomato and Corn Soup with Basil

When I bought a few pounds of our super-concentrated, extra flavorful local dry-farmed tomatoes at the farmers market last weekend, I had intended to make some authentic creamy Andalusian gazpacho (to contrast it with the chunky style so prevalent in America). I waited all week for the perfect warm sunny day when a refreshing cold soup would be most appreciated.

And waited.

And waited.

It never came. I finally threw in the towel after being reminded by Fatemeh of Gastonomie (also in the Bay Area) how delectable (and utterly simple) hot tomato soup can be. And, on a cold, foggy San Francisco day, nothing could be more satisfying.

Sadly, like so many things I do, I neglected to plan ahead (just look at the time of this post). It was nearly dinner time, so I had to go with what was on hand.

No cream. Darn, I liked the sound of Fatemeh's cream of tomato soup! It brought back a flood of childhood memories for me. Whenever I was sick, my liberated convenience-food loving mom opened one of Andy Warhol's iconic cans of Campbell's and a package of those little hexagonal oyster crackers. She always accompanied it with a grilled cheese sandwich (sadly, made with American cheese and margarine...I now shudder at the thought).

Back to my fridge. I found one lonely ear of corn. It still tasted sugary sweet, which would help to balance out the tartness of the tomatoes.

Herbs? The only herb on hand was basil. A couple of farms at our market conveniently sell bouquets of basil with the roots still attached, so when you get home and put it in a vase full of water it thrives for about 2-3 weeks. It's convenient and I, such a city boy, get to play the farmer (pitiful, no?). I stripped the leaves from the stems, puréed the leaves and used the stems to flavor the soup.

So, together with one of my famous caesar salads (you can't survive as a cook in this town if you can't toss together a decent caesar), some tender sautéed rainbow chard from my favorite Zen farm, and a hunk of fresh, crusty bread still warm from our bakery's oven, I was able to improvise a quick summer vegetarian menu for two.

Click "continue" to see how easy it is to make this soup!

You and I need to sit down and have a little chaat

The Indian restaurant scene in the Bay Area is, for the most part, abysmal.

If you have had the good fortune to sample the authentic flavors of any of the cuisines of South Asia at the source or, at the very least in London, or even New York or Chicago, then you know what I'm talking about.

With few exceptions, there is nowhere to go when you get a hankering for a crispy butter dosa, a sweet jalebi, or an exquisitely aromatic biriyani. So Indian expats and other members of the desi community (collective term for members of the South Asian diaspora) in the Bay Area, along with those who have become addicted to the flavors of their cuisines, have learned to make do with pale imitations of their favorites.

The situation improved markedly about five years ago with the sudden influx of inexpensive Pakistani kebab and curry houses, beginning with Shalimar and Naan-n-Curry in what has been dubbed the Tandoorloin, and the subsequent explosive expansion of franchises and imitators throughout the Bay.

But, really, the one place that everyone unanimously agrees is truly exceptional is, perhaps, the most humble of them all.

When N and I first discovered Vik's Chaat Corner over a decade ago, it consisted of a few rickety tables and chairs hidden in the back of a dusty spice wholesaler's warehouse located in an unassuming, somewhat run-down part of Berkeley. It was a well-kept secret that was just beginning to be revealed.

That was then.

Now, Vik's is an institution. Despite several expansions into the warehouses next door, there are still impossibly long lines on the weekends. On Sundays, it feels as if the entire desi community and all the hippie wannabes of Telegraph Avenue have descended upon the place.

The press hasn't stopped its adoration of the humble snack emporium, either, adding accolade after accolade to the wall of press clippings. In the 2005 Zagat Guide, Vik's is tied for best Indian restaurant in the area, pulling in an impressive 25 points for food (although only 5 points for its decor!). This also marked the first year that they were (rightfully) included in the San Francisco Chronicles annual round-up of Top 100 restaurants.

And so I, too, give Vik's perhaps its highest honor yet by adding it to my personal Short List. Like its other legions of fans, I go for the well-crafted masala of contrasting flavors, textures and aromas found in their renditions of North Indian street food known collectively as chaat.

There isn't a clunker on the menu, so I find it difficult to single out just a few dishes to recommend. I'd be sorry to see anyone miss Vik's stellar renditions of sev puri, bhel puri, pani puri, and samosas, but my favorites on the daily menu are the dahi papdi chaat (pictured, right, crisp wafers topped with chick peas, steamed lentil dumplings, creamy yogurt, and tamarind and coriander chutneys) and aloo tikki cholle (pictured, above left, fried potato patties stuffed with peas and topped with spicy chick peas, tamarind and coriander chutneys).

When I'm willing to wade through the Bollywoodesque weekend crowd, I never fail to pick up a box or two of dhoklas (steamed chickpea flour cakes), N's favorite Gujarati comfort food, for the next morning's breakfast. They also serve a passable masala dosa and pav bhaji on weekends, but my favorite weekend treat is the lamb baida roti, a buttery bread stuffed with spiced ground lamb.