in praise of sardines

Remembering farmer Jeff Young

The commemorative statue of Mahatma Gandhi keeps watch over the farmers at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. Yesterday, in the spirit of the Halloween season I suppose, the statue was adorned with garlands of flowers.

This month (October 2) marked the 136th birthday of this great leader.

A few days before this date, Jeff Young, one of the most outstanding farmers at our market, passed away from a long-term illness. Jeff's peaceful demeanor, cheerful eyes, and kind smile reminded me of Gandhi, so perhaps it was no small coincidence that his farm stand was positioned under the direct gaze of the statue of this advocate for non-violence.

Jeff (pictured left, from the CUESA website) was particularly well-known at our market for his pristine lettuces and beautifully arranged bouquets of fresh flowers that he grew on a small 2.5 acre farm in Watsonville, 90 miles south of San Francisco. His stand was a routine stop on my market forays, and I never failed to be stunned by the beauty of his perfect little gem lettuces, tiny green and yellow zucchini, or his bunches of basil with the roots still attached.

Amongst farmers, he was renowned for being the first farmer to arrive at the market, always set up and ready to go well before 6 am. In his most recent newsletter, fellow farmer Andy Griffin of Mariquita Farm wrote that Jeff's farm was a "little jewel-like epitome of everything you might imagine an organic farm to be."

Jeff is survived by his wife Noelle, who along with friends will continue to run the farm and farm stand until the end of the season. We will all sorely miss Jeff's warm presence and offer Noelle our sincere condolences. The memorial was held at his farm last Sunday.

Food|and Drink|Markets|Farmers|San Francisco

An alliterative supper: Pork, Pimentón, Peppers, Polenta and Parsley

When you sit down to write a menu for a restaurant, you hate to see combinations like this. It's just too difficult to work around the fact that everything on the plate begins with the letter P (including the plate itself!).

But, thankfully this is not a restaurant.

And you are the kind of people (sorry, another "p") who probably (oh no) won't be perturbed (somebody stop me) by this preposterous post (let's just roll with it).

I prepared Pimentón-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Parmesan Polenta, Peperonata (peppers- perhaps pasillas, pimientos and jalapeños- and purple onions) and Pounded Parsley Pesto (with neither pine nuts nor parmesan can I proclaim it a pesto? Perhaps I should pass and pronounce it a positively perfect salsa).

Please don't presume that the plethora of P's means that this pleasantly pink pork should not be a priority for your next party.  Permit me to plead: print this prime prize of a recipe. Consider yourself as privileged as a pasha to peruse such a precious and particularly plum piece of passionate poetry.

Pardon me, but this playfully plucky post is becoming a pathetic and pathological parody! (Per chance, my past posts about pears, persimmons, pomegranates, puffed-up puddings and even poached prunes have made me positively potty).

Hopefully a pleasurable picture will pique your appetite.

Porky Pig would be profoundly proud!

(If you read all that aloud, you may want to pause to wipe the spittle off your screen).

Th-th-th-that's all folks!

For those of you who are still reading (all, rather both..., no just you now), I've included the basic directions to reproduce this meal, my favorite of the past week or two. I honestly didn't even notice it was full of P's until I sat down to write this!

I especially enjoyed the complementary interplay of textures and flavors: creamy polenta, spicy peppers, smoky Spanish paprika (pimentón de la Vera), juicy tender pork, all topped with a piquant and crunchy hazelnut-parsley sauce. Hurry up and make this while you can still find fresh local peppers in the market.

I promise you'll be pleased!

PBT#1: Masala Chai Poached Prunes

The average tourist travels to Granada for one reason, to see the famed Alhambra, the fourteenth century Moorish palace. Unfortunately for the gastro-tourist, the food in Granada is definitely not, as the British like to say, more-ish.

For that reason alone, N and I planned to make our stay in Granada in the summer of 2004 brief. Most of our dining experiences met our abysmally low expectations. Happily however, we experienced two memorable exceptions. The first was lunch at a rollicking working class tapas bar called Los Diamantes (Calle Navas, 28), where we tucked into some of the most perfectly fried baby cuttlefish, anchovies and eggplants of our trip.

The second exception was breakfast at our hotel, a fabulously romantic, exquisitely renovated fifteenth century Moorish house, by far the best hotel of our trip. N, in particular, is a breakfast lover. She had grown weary with the traditional Spanish breakfast of a croissant or a suizo (sugar topped roll) and a cup of coffee. She craved a more substantial breakfast, one that includes a bit of protein, some warm bread and perhaps a bowl of fruit.

The first morning at our hotel, we trundled down the stairwell from our room, bleary-eyed, into the cozy, barrel-vaulted former wine cellar (pictured left) where the breakfast buffet was served. We blinked several times when we saw the breakfast buffet spread out before us: jamón ibérico, manchego cheese, hard-boiled eggs, tortilla, the fixins to make our own pan con tomate (including freshly grated tomato pulp in a bowl mixed with excellent local olive oil), a do-it-yourself toaster, marmalade, fresh fruit, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and the usual rolls, suizos, and croissants. We were having such a good time, we nearly missed our scheduled entrance time to view the Alhambra!

There was one other item on the breakfast buffet: prunes. And, though it sounds ridiculous to say, they were a revelation. They were double the size of their emaciated cousins in California, although they are both the same variety as the French pruneaux d'Agen. Nearly as soft as a ripe fig, these prunes even managed to be moist and succulent, an unexpected trait for a dried fruit. My guess is that these prunes were picked when they were riper and sweeter, and then dried to a lesser degree than their Californian counterparts.

Our last stop on our gastronomic tour of Spain was Barcelona. We visited Casa Gispert, a wonderfully aromatic spice shop founded in 1851 where the owners still roast almonds and hazelnuts over a wood fire every morning. Tucked away in one of the bins, we noticed our prized plump prunes (pictured right, from the Casa Gispert website), which the shopkeeper told me were grown in northern Catalonia across the border from where the famous French prunes are grown. Although we bought several pounds of roasted Marcona almonds, we decided against buying the prunes, figuring we could find respectable ones in San Francisco.

After a year of fruitless* searching, one of the few things N requested (or more aptly, demanded) from my return visit to Barcelona this past July was, yes, a bagful of those humble, yet succulent prunes.

Since California prunes aren't as juicy as those I had in Spain or the pruneaux d'Agen, I riffed off of one of Judy Rodgers' recipes from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook to create "Masala Chai Poached Prunes" to have with our breakfast tomorrow, perhaps with a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal (pictured below).

Why tomorrow? Because pastry chef/blogger extraordinaire David Lebovitz has declared tomorrow the first (and only) Prune Blogging Thursday! (I personally think this should be a more regular occurrence myself).

If you'd like to see what other delicacies you can make with the lowly prune, David has linked to all the recipes from other prune lovers here.

* Excuse the fruitless pun. The closest resemblance to the Spanish prunes we have found are the prunes sold by Bella Viva Orchards at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco and online.

The fruit that blushes when you cook it

Quince are a difficult fruit to get to know. Every autumn, I buy one or two with the best intentions.

I tell myself I'll poach them or make a lovely marmalade or perhaps a batch of membrillo (Spanish quince paste). They generously perfume our kitchen with their floral honeysuckle aroma for a week. Then the scent fades, and N starts asking when I'm going to do something with those hard fruits. "Soon," I reply, "I have some great ideas." Then another week passes, and the guilt builds. Then a third week of neglect. I start to regret ever having bought those damned, overly demanding fruit. Then a fourth, and I can barely stand to look at them. Their very presence seems to expose my every shortcoming and weakness. Eventually, they rot and I happily throw them away.

So it was with some apprehension that I brought home my usual two quince this year. N saw them and muttered, "hmmm, quince." Not usually one to hide her opinions, she uncharacteristically bit her tongue, while I averted my eyes and changed the subject.

There they sat. Waiting. I snapped a picture for my blog. Then a week, maybe two passed. The aroma started to fade....

Happily, this year is different! I followed Paula Wolfert's unusual Turkish-style recipe in The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen which calls for slow-roasting the quince for 5 hours. The transformation was unbelievable! My homely, hard quince turned into a pair of ruby red slippers. The powerful aroma transformed into the most exotic flavor, tasting as if an entire garden of red roses had been distilled into a single bite. A reminder that cooking can be magical!

A little bit of research in Harold McGee's book demystified the process and put a damper on my romantic notions. I'll attempt to summarize the Professor's explanation. Quince are inedibly tannic in their raw state. When they are cooked, the same chemicals that cause this astringency on our tongues break down and bond with oxygen chemicals to form anthocyanins, the plant pigments that cause fruit and vegetable to appear red.

[Long pause]

As I was saying, the quince turn red through some inexplicable, mysterious, magical process. Perhaps they are blushing, knowing that the one who tastes them is about to fall in love.

When I served the roasted quince for dessert the other night, falling in love is exactly what happened to N. She was astonished and entranced by the beguiling taste. She was convinced I had added some secret ingredient like rose water or cardamom or vanilla. Believe me, folks, she is a tough critic and she was enraptured.

Or perhaps she was just stunned that I actually cooked the quince this year.

IMBB#20: Butternut Squash Pudding Soufflé

Who doesn't like soufflés? They never fail to impress your guests, yet are surprisingly easy to make. The only pitfall is that they have to be made at the last minute and eaten the moment they emerge from the oven.

My favorite type of soufflé solves this problem. It is the love-child of a pudding and a soufflé that is known, not surprisingly, as a pudding-soufflé. Unlike its more jittery cousins, it is baked in advance, unmolded from its ramekin and rebaked later when you are ready to serve it. This convenience makes it ideal for a restaurant or a dinner party (perfect as a starter or vegetarian entrée for Thanksgiving or other holidays).

The texture of the pudding-soufflé combines the best of its parents, coming out both velvety smooth, yet light and airy. But what really sends this type of soufflé over the top is the contrast between this exquisitely creamy interior and its crunchy breadcrumb-lined exterior.

According to Richard Olney, whose recipe for Zucchini Pudding Soufflé appeared 30 years ago in his Simple French Food, this convenient twice-baked soufflé is based on the soufflé à la Suissesse, a parmesan pudding soufflé. My riff on Olney's recipe (and on subsequent derivations by the chefs of Chez Panisse in their many cookbooks) is this Butternut Squash Pudding Soufflé, my entry for the 20th "Is My Blog Burning?" event sponsored by Kitchen Chick.

Pomegranate trick (and therapy)

As promised yesterday, here's a quick and easy way to get the seeds out of the pomegranate that I learned a decade ago from Persian-born Bay Area chef Faz Poursohi.

You'll need just a few items:  your biggest bowl, your biggest spoon, some juicy ripe pomegranates, and all your pent-up aggressions.

First, cut off the little tiara that sits on top of the pomegranate (just who does she think she is, any way?) and cut the fruit in half across its equator. In each half, cut 4 or 5 one-inch nicks in the skins along the side where you cut, forming the beginning of a star.

Place one half in the palm of your non-dominant hand, cut-side face down over the bowl, preferably in a sink or outdoors.* In the other hand, hold your spoon, with the back facing down. I'm left-handed, so the spoon is in my left hand.

Now comes the fun (and potentially messy) part. Whack the pomegranate firmly with the back of the spoon.

Keep slapping it like you mean it, until you knock almost all of its teeth seeds out. Depending on your temperament, you may find it helpful to imagine that the pomegranate is a politician or boss that you don't particularly like. I'll leave that up to you.

Voila! Most of your fruit's juicy jewels will be laying in the bowl, still intact and surprisingly unharmed.

When you're done, manually dislodge any seeds that have, despite your best efforts to persuade them otherwise, continued to stubbornly cling to the membranes of the fruit. Also pick out any stray bits of the bitter membrane that have fallen into the bowl.

Now the little rubies are ready to garnish your favorite fall salad, morning müesli or silken panna cotta.

*To preserve marital bliss, I have learned through trial-and-error that it is best to perform the above task in the deep well of the kitchen sink or even outdoors. Also, don't wear white; an apron is advisable. The above is especially true should you decide to juice your pomegranate halves, which I prefer to do with an old-fashioned 1950's citrus press (Juice-O-Mat says "Hi") that I inherited from my mother.

Food|and Drink|Farms|Markets|Fruit|San Francisco

If there's pomegranates at the market, it must be autumn

I have a theory regarding why so many cooks in the Bay Area are obsessed with seasonality (meaning using fruits and vegetables only when they are at the peak of their season). Yes, there are the obvious reasons: close proximity to excellent farms, good distribution at farmers markets and local stores, desire to support local farms, and the majority's left-leaning support for environmental policies. Of course, everything also just tastes better when it's in season.

My theory adds our weather to the equation. We, in San Francisco at least, can't tell what season it is by the weather alone. When you live in a town where nearly every day of the year the meteroligist predicts "patchy morning fog, highs in the mid-sixties," you need to go to the farmers market or a store that specializes in seasonal, local produce to figure out what season it is (yes, I'm aware you could also simply look at the calender).

I know that it is now early autumn because, while a few tomatoes are still available, summer's sweet peaches, nectarines and figs have been replaced by pomegranates, persimmons, pears and quince.

Here's some of my loot from a recent visit to the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Amazingly, all these fruits were grown within 200 miles of San Francisco.

This gorgeous and very ripe pomegranate comes from Balakian Farms, located about 200 miles from San Francisco in Reedley. One indication of ripeness and sweetness are cracks in the skin of the fruit. Only the sweet-tart seeds of the pomegranate are eaten. Tomorrow I'll show you a neat trick to help you remove the seeds from this fruit with little effort.

Husband and wife James Beutel and Kalayada Ammatya of K&J Orchards are my favorite growers of the fuyu persimmon. Kalayada first convinced me to try one of her persimmons a dozen years ago when I started to shop at this market. Unlike the hachiya variety which must completely soften before it can be eaten, the fuyu is typically eaten when it is still firm. I usually peel and slice my persimmon across the horizon to reveal its beautiful star pattern. Kalayada and James (K&J) grow their persimmons in Winters, about 67 miles from the city.

According to Al Courchesne of Frog Hollow Farm, the juicy Warren pear is a difficult variety to grow. It is similar in taste and texture to the Comice pear, another of my favorite pears. Al's farm is located in Brentwood, about 54 miles east of the city.

The folks at The Apple Farm, Tim and Karen Bates, grew these quince at their beautiful farm in Philo, about 120 miles north of San Francisco (which, by the way, has reasonably priced comfortable guest rooms for visitors). Like a firm hachiya persimmon, quince are unpleasantly tannic when eaten raw. Unlike the hachiya, a quince must be cooked before it is eaten. It is naturally quite tart, so often requires a sweetener like sugar or honey. Quince can be roasted, poached, or cooked down to a paste called membrillo in Spain (traditionally served with Manchego cheese as a tapa).

Expect to see more of these lovely autumn fruits in upcoming recipes!

Food|and Drink|Farms|Markets|Fruit|San Francisco

Small plates done right: A.O.C. in LA

I have a love-hate relationship with the so-called "small plates" restaurant.

For the most part, "small plates" restaurants are a Bay Area phenomena. They are, as Marian Burros wrote in her 2002 article in the New York Times on Bay Area dining, "places that are devoted entirely to serving small portions of serious food." The appetizer-sized portions are meant to be shared and cost from a few dollars to the high teens.

Some of the most popular restaurants to open in the past five years focus on this way of dining. Cooking styles vary with the restaurant, with menus inspired by Asia (Betelnut, Eos, and Grasshopper), India (Tallula), France (Chez Nous and À Côté), Spain (Bocadillos and César), the whole Mediterranean (Cortez), Latin America (Destino and Fonda), California (Isa and Fork) and all of the above (Andalu).

So what don't I like about "small plates?" First off, I despise the term. It drives me nuts that I feel like I have to put quotes around it, because it's a made-up construct. I lump it with another globalized word of the nineties: "wraps." There are perfectly good words in various languages for "small plates:" tapas, pintxos, hors d'oeuvres, antipasti, cicchetti, dim sum, chaat. We even have a word already in English: appetizers. Is it really necessary to have a catch-all phrase that lumps all of these disparate cuisines together under one big tent?

What makes me even madder is that I can't come up with a better phrase!

As a diner, sometimes I don't want to share. It drives me crazy when I only get one (or worse, no) bite of the dish that I really wanted and then have to endure other people's boring choices (don't you want to go out with me now?). How often have I left a "small plates" restaurant still vaguely dissatisfied and hungry?

Most of all, I hate that the bill always seems to rise to stratospheric levels, even though you-know-who at the Chronicle rated the restaurant with one dollar sign.

But, when done right, I love the "small plates" restaurant perhaps more than any other. When I'm dining with sensible people (i.e. my wife N and our food-loving friends), I like being able to sample lots of different flavors. When I'm dining alone, I like that I can avoid the typical super-sized American restaurant entrée and save room for dessert.

Some of my favorite restaurants specialize in "small plates:" La Cuchara de San Telmo in San Sebastián, Cal Pep in Barcelona, Tía Pol and Casa Mono in New York, and Bocadillos in San Francisco. You may notice that all these places are Spanish.

The Spanish have a long history with this style of eating and know how to do pull it off successfully. None of these restaurants is the traditional tasca that serves one- or two-bite tapas. In Spain, most of the portion sizes would be more similar to what is known as a media ratión (half portion).

My all-time favorite "small plates" restaurant in America is, however, not strictly Spanish. And it is not in the Bay Area. It is in Los Angeles and its name is A.O.C. (how was that for a rambling, ranting introduction!).

Suzanne Goin, the chef/co-proprietor of A.O.C. and Lucques, shows what wonderful food can be served under the name of "small plates." Her food is seasonal and sensual. The flavors are bold and the portion sizes are perfect.

This visit was my second and I have yet to find a dish that doesn't make me swoon.

My favorite artisan bakery in California is...

Most Angelinos will agree that, compared to the Bay Area, their gastronomic scene can often be as barren as the deserts that surround the city. But, as I've been pointing out these past few days, there are oases in that gastronomic wasteland.

For example, compared to my new home town of San Francisco, the city of my birth (LA) has superior Jewish delis, Indian, Korean and Ethiopian restaurants (although New York bests LA in the first three categories and D.C. reigns in the fourth).

But what really surprises me is that LA has beaten out all contenders in two culinary categories associated with the Bay Area. Today, we'll look at one of these categories: the artisan bakery.

Let me clarify myself. In each of these categories, LA has only one place, well let's be honest, one woman who reigns supreme.

I believe the best artisan baker in the country is Nancy Silverton of La Brea Bakery. I'm not referring to the frozen par-baked bread that you can buy at Costcos all over the country under the name La Brea. These are respectable loaves, but not nearly as good since Nancy and her business partners sold the name and concept to an Irish conglomerate for a reported 55 million dollars (go Nancy!).

I'm talking only about the bread and pastries that you can buy at the tiny shop attached to her and her business partner/former husband's restaurant Campanile. Although I'm more than happy with the loaves I can buy locally (especially those from Della Fattoria and Tartine), you can't beat La Brea for its variety. N, a bread fanatic, won't let me back into our house if I don't return from LA with a bagful of breads and pastries.

This trip I picked up several loaves, including our favorite olive bread infused with thyme, and several varieties of pastries, including a couple of canneles.

I couldn't resist sampling Nancy's take on the famous caramelized bordelais pastry that has been whetting my appetite on several other food blogs. The one other cannelé that I had sampled locally failed to excite me. In fact, I had such low expectations for this new cannelé that I didn't even bother to photograph it. However, I'm happy to report that my new friend from La Brea was spot on, crispy on the outside with an alluringly rich and custardy interior. After the first bite, the thought occurred to me that I should grab my camera and take a photo as evidence of its beauty, but I couldn't refrain from taking a second and then a third and then...well, you'll have to forgive me, but it was just too late. I finally understand what all the hoopla is about.

Yet another reason to continue to visit LA.

Food|and Drink|Bakeries|Reviews|Los Angeles

Showdown at the Taco Corral: LA vs. the Mission

Besides the Indian food served at Bombay Café, the Los Angeles culinary scene offers a few amazing treats that are, though I hate to admit it, better than comparable examples found in San Francisco.

In fact (as LA food blogger extraordinaire Sarah of Delicious Life pointed out) in an article in the August 2005 issue of GQ Mark Bittman surprisingly named LA (along with Bangkok, Madrid and Piedmont) one of the four greatest culinary cities in the world. Bittman specifically chose to spotlight LA's excellent selection of Korean, Japanese, Thai, Mexican and breakfast restaurants.

While I didn't see Bittman's article and can't vouch for any of his choices, I am always pleasantly surprised when I find gastronomic delights within the Sprawl of the LA that I grew up in.

For example, I had lunch at a highly regarded taqueria, ¡Lotería! Grill, in the LA Farmers Market. I was dying to discover if the tacos tasted as good as those at my favorite La Taqueria in the Mission district of San Francisco. For what it's worth, in the latest Zagat guides, Lotería (I'll dispense with the emphatic ¡! from here on out) receives a  25 for food, while La Taqueria garners a 24.

I was immediately smitten with the counter, because as you may know, I love restaurants with counters.

The first difference I noticed between the two taquerias is that the menu at Lotería offers more choice. While variety may be the "spice of life," it has no significance when it comes to taquerias. I also got a chuckle from the menu when I read that the restaurant will make tacos from lettuce cups if you are on a low-carb diet. Only in LA!

On closer inspection, I was impressed by the unusual choices of fillings, including nopalitos (fresh cactus), mushrooms with the Mexican herb epazote, and pollo en pipian rojo (chicken in a spicy pumpkin-seed and peanut sauce).

I initially ordered two tacos, a calabacitas made from zucchini and roasted corn topped with salsa verde, minced onion, cilantro and queso fresco and a tinga de pollo, which consisted of chicken stewed with chipotle peppers and house-made chorizo, topped with salsa roja. I requested guacamole on both.

Being used to the size of the tacos at La Taqueria, which are wrapped in two 6-inch corn tortillas, I was taken aback by the puny 4-inch size of Lotería's tortillas. But, apparently size isn't everything, as these mini tortillas were exceptional. They are freshly hand-made, arriving warm and tender without being reheated on a griddle as the tortillas are at La Taqueria.

Another difference that's readily apparent is that you have to eat these tacos the second that you are given them. With just one soft tortilla holding in the moist fillings, if you don't act fast, you're out of luck. I'm speaking from experience here. It took a lot of napkins to wipe all the overflowing juices off my arm and chin as I hurled the quickly disintegrating taco into my mouth.

I liked the two tiny tacos so much, I ordered a third, this one made from cochinita pibil, pork shoulder slowly roasted in a banana leaf, then shredded and topped with pickled red onions and habanero chile. By now I had learned that the fillings are so good that you don't need to order guacamole.

I considered a fourth, but decided it would be prudent to save lots of room for dinner later that night at AOC.

So, who won the showdown of the taquerias? Because I am fiercely loyal to my local La Taqueria, I'll call it a draw. But, believe me, no future visit to LA would be complete without a stop at Lotería to sample a few more of their offerings. I wonder which places Bittman included in his GQ article? What if there are even better taquerias in LA that I have yet to discover?

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Reviews|Los Angeles|Mexican