Random Ramblings

I've had a few people mention lately that I haven't been posting, mostly due to the fact that I haven't been cooking very much.  I haven't even been keeping up with my Food & Wine or Wine Spectator subscriptions.  They've just been piling up.  None of this is good.  My life is certainly fuller when I have food, friends and writing in it.  I have a feeling that the coming of winter will have me back to my usual cooking and entertaining ways.

In the meantime, I couldn't sleep tonight, so I thought I'd post a random smattering of food-related thoughts.  They shall be numbered, in true engineering fashion...

1)  I discovered tonight that Dante loves popcorn.  "Loves" is probably an inappropriate description.  He's obsessed with it.  Most people have a default craving for sweets.  I, on the other hand, invariably crave salty, crunchy snacks.  Apparently my cat has similar cravings.  Tonight, while scouring my bare pantry (bare, as in, full of stuff I didn't feel like eating), I found some packets of "lite" microwave popcorn that had expired in August.  Clearly popcorn has a decent safety factor for the expiration date, considering it's simply dried corn and salt.  Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure such a combination would last nearly indefinitely, but I probably won't try to test that theory.  At any rate, I doctored up the horribly bland popcorn with some fake butter and seasoned salt and headed back to my bedroom to read up on 3 months of Food & Wine.  Dante immediately turned into Stealth Kitty, came sneaking up to the bowl and quickly swiped a few kernels.  He scarfed them down before I could grab them from him.  I'm guessing popcorn is not a cat-safe food, but he did everything in his little four-pawed power to get more popcorn.  I had to go dump the rest so he'd leave me alone.  I grabbed this photo while he was still celebrating his little victory.  It's pretty low quality, even for an iPhone shot, but it will do for tonight...

2)  I had a brunch date today.  It was relatively awkward and unenjoyable.  The highlight was when this poor fellow asked me what saffron could be used for.  I'm pretty enthusiastic about saffron, as can be seen by previous posts.  I leapt at the opportunity to fill the void in the conversation with a rambling monologue about this precious spice.  I'd like to say that he was impressed, but I think he probably just felt a bit overwhelmed.  When I told him I usually make paella when I need to use up a lot of saffron, he said, "ah, I've heard of that before..."  *Sigh*  This might need to be a weed-out question for future dates.  "Do you know what paella is and can you spell/pronounce it?  How about tomatillos?"  I then suggested Risotto Milanese and got a blank stare, at which point I diverted the majority of my attention to the Cowboys/Texans game on the nearby TV.  I realize how elitist this sounds, but I just don't see how I could connect with someone that doesn't have at least a curiosity about food.  I mentioned to him that I was going to try to make saffron ice cream at some point soon and he replied, "Ah, that sounds interesting..."  Ironically, when I opened my September issue of Food & Wine tonight, there was an entire article on spices, centered around a spice trader called the Saffron King.  One of the recipes was for a coconut cake with saffron cream.  Now I know what I'll be using for the base of the saffron ice cream.  I almost considered emailing this poor date guy with some of the saffron recipes in the issue, but decided that would send unnecessary mixed messages.

3)  I bought a grill a few weeks ago.  It's a dual gas/charcoal grill.  I'm pretty excited about all the possibilities, especially since it opens up the opportunity to cook all this fish I have in my freezer.  I never want to bake fish because that generally makes it unsuitable for human consumption.  Pan-frying it makes the house smell like a cat food can.  Grilling it is pretty much my only acceptable method.  I blame my previous lack of grill as the main reason for my continuing accumulation of frozen fish.  I baptized it with a Labor Day cookout, feeding about 25 people.  It was a great time.  When I bought it, people commented about it being the end of the summer and that I wouldn't get much use out of it.  I'm not entirely sure why the winter would keep me from using the grill, I don't think the charcoal or gas really cares what temperature it is, but I guess we'll see how motivated I am come the single digit temperatures.

And that shall conclude my insomnia-inspired ramblings.

More to follow in the near future...

Pairing It Up

So I'm always looking for a good excuse to experiment with pairing food and wine.  Usually we get to choose the wine based on the food.  Sometimes I like to change it up a bit though and pair the food to the wine.  It's like designing a room based off of an accent piece.  I think that sometimes it helps to have something to anchor all the creativity.

For this Ladies' Night, I decided on a few varietals and worked from there.

I wanted to start off with a Pinot Gris, (instead of a typical Sauvignon Blanc, my least favorite type of wine).  I decided to pair it with little bite-sized hors d'oeuvres of strawberry, avocado, goat cheese and toasted pecans, all skewered together with a little toothpick.

I was a bit nervous about it as I'd gotten a few strange looks when I'd described the idea to folks, but I think it came out beautifully.  I have to admit that I came up with the idea and owe the entirety of the execution to Alisa, Maria and Liz.  The fruitiness of the Acrobat Pinot Gris went really well with the little bit sized treats.  The avocado and goat cheese balanced the mild citrus character of the wine really nicely.  This was probably my favorite pairing of the night.

After the light start, I decided to move one step heavier to a Viognier.  I served it with shrimp and mango skewers, basted with a saffron, cilantro and agave syrup mixture.  The peach tones of the Viognier went well with the summery skewers and it was smooth enough to support the freshness of the dish.

After the two whites, we decided to break into the reds.  I had a bottle of Sobon Zinfandel that I paired with chicken skewers marinated in an ancho, cocoa and raspberry paste.  The flavors worked really well together, but I definitely let them cook a bit too long.  If I were to do it again, I'd probably marinate them overnight and then cook them briefly on high heat.  A grill would be ideal, but alas, I've decided to adhere to my home-owners' association rules and not put one on my porch.  Perhaps my grill pan would do the job nicely though...

Lastly, I served little mushrooms stuffed with rendered bacon and cambozola.  This was served with a La Posta Malbec.  It was definitely a bit rich.  I think that in retrospect, it would have been better paired with a Merlot, and with something to cut the richness a bit.  Maybe portobellos with a small smear of cambozola and a small sprinkle of bacon.  I didn't manage to snap any photos of the mushrooms.

Ironically, I had made a salad with field greens, nasturtium, romano cheese, sunflower seeds and blueberries, to be served with a Pinot Noir, but I don't think we ever managed to get around to eating the salad.  I'm pretty sure we drank the Pinot Noir though...

Needless to say, it was a successful little Ladies' Night.  We wrapped it up with some Pecan Pie and ice cream that Liz brought along, and then headed out on the town to enjoy some of the late-night sunshine.

Next time I might need to work on minimizing my pours until the end of the night...

Ravioli Revelry

If I remember correctly, the topic of ravioli came up during our traumatic Romano's experience.  Something about, "we could do this better, and without the attitude..."  

This, by the way, is the curse of the foodie.  We scoff far too easily and often at meals served to us in restaurants because of our overly optimistic outlook on food preparation.  "Really?  They're going to charge me how much for this?  Have they never learned how to make _insert outrageously complicated dish_?"  This usually leads to some sort of burst of inspiration, followed by a moderately humbling experience in the kitchen, and subsequently, by an inflation of ego because we did, in fact, pull it off somehow, after a great deal of time and effort and a good dose of foul language.

I digress.  Somewhat.

We did successfully make better ravioli than Romano's.  I'm stating this as fact because no one reading this was there to argue otherwise.  Plus, our ravioli had love and attention and Romano's probably just had some hair in it.

First and foremost, we started out with wine.  House rules:  all Italian food prep (well, let's be real, any food prep) must be preceded by the consumption of red wine.  We accomplished this task with little difficulty.

I made the dough in the food processor because I wasn't up for the little egg-volcano adventure that I usually take on when making pasta.  I do consider this to be a mild form of cheating, but frankly, I'm ready to lower my own standards after cleaning up enough raw egg from my counters and floors.  Maybe one of these days I'll take the time to master the ancient art of pasta-sans-processor.  Or not.

The gals helped with the rolling of the pasta dough while I made the filling.  I chopped up some rehydrated porcini and sauteed it with some garlic and olive oil.  I mixed that with some fresh herbs, ricotta, pecorino romano, and some truffle oil.  Super tasty.  I'm going to keep that mixture in mind for the future.  I could see it being good on some crusty Italian bread, thrown under the broiler for a bit, or as a filling for stuffed bell peppers/portobellos/whatever.

On the dough side of things, Amanda and Maria rolled all the sheets to the exact thickness.  Well, except for one.  Apparently if you let the sheet dry a little bit and then you try to put it through a thinner gauge on the roller, it gets a little funky.  The ladies did a great job of fixing things up.  I'll admit, I'm not entirely sure how.  By the time we'd filled most of the ravioli, it was getting late, and the wine had been flowing.  I think the last few ravioli resembled small boiled calzones more than "ravioli" per se, but they sure tasted good...

I served the adorable little ravioli with a chanterelle marinara sauce that I had made previously and had in the freezer.  I topped it all with grated cheese and some crispy fried sage.  The result was a nice light pasta dish that was hearty enough to leave us all very satisfied.  I was a bit worried about the porcini/truffle/chanterelle combination.  That's a lot of mushroom going on.  Thankfully the individual flavors were distinctive enough that they maintained their identities.

If I make the ravioli again, I'll probably try to make the dough the day before and let the sheets rest before stuffing with filling.  I'm wondering if this would change the consistency at all.

I might also try to experiment with adding different things to the dough, like spinach, turmeric or even cocoa powder.  I think it'd be fun to change up the colors a bit and play with the sauce/pasta/filling combinations.

The evening was certainly an enjoyable one with lots of pasta shenanigans, girl talk, good wine and perhaps even a glass or two of Franzia thrown in for character.

Vindication

This is not really a blog post.  It's an unabashed dissemination of my salt agenda propaganda:

For Supertasters, A Desire For Salt Is Genetic

I loved this article.  It's sciency and nerdy and foodie all at once.

I Scream.

Considering my last post was so negative, I thought I should try to maintain decent food karma with a more positive entry this time...

A few weeks (months?) ago I bought my ice cream maker and it has given me endless frozen creamy joyousness.  The initial experiment with tahini ice cream came out wonderfully, as previously noted, and the continuing results have been just as pleasant.

My sophomore ice cream creation was a batch of Earl Grey with a touch of vanilla bean.  It was, in my not-so-humble opinion, quite fabulous.  It had a nutty flavor reminiscent of coffee ice cream, but lighter, and with that refreshing hint of bergamot.  I simply simmered the tea bags in the sugar-milk mixture for the base custard.  It was very straightforward and very, very yummy.

After that experiment, I made a batch of strawberry jalapeño ice cream at the request of one of my friends.  I sliced up some fresh strawberries and a couple jalapeños and cooked them down with a bit of my vanilla bean simple syrup until they were reduced to a fairly thick consistency.  I made the sweet cream base and added the syrupy mixture approximately halfway through the freezing process.  The results were wonderful.  There was no spicy heat left from the jalapeño, but the distinctive flavor was definitely there and it played off the sticky sweet strawberry quite nicely.  I've had a few people wrinkle their nose at the thought of the combination, but I'm not sure why.  It was somewhat akin to one of my favorite pre-party snacks:  crackers with cream cheese and red pepper jelly.  Both combinations pair the "capsicum" flavor in a sweet syrupy mixture with a heavy, creamy base.  I will, without a doubt, be making that flavor again, although next time, I'll probably up the jalapeño a bit and maybe get a bit more bite from it.

My latest ice cream adventure was a nice traditional pistachio.  This was the most labor-intensive of the flavors, but certainly worthwhile.  First, a word of warning to anyone attempting such an endeavor:  ignore the fact that all recipes call for roasted, UNsalted pistachios.  Apparently, these do not exist.  At least in Alaska.  And if they do, apparently you need to relinquish a kidney as currency.  After much searching and hair-pulling and angsting, I decided to just use the roasted and salted pistachios that you can get in bulk from almost every natural food store in Anchorage.  They worked just fine.  In fact, the touch of additional salt probably helped.  (Anyone that knows me knows that I am addicted to salt and I'm past my stage of denial).  My friend Tony, (the strawberry-jalapeño requester) helped me with the shelling of the pistachios and then I went about trying to remove that papery outer layer so I didn't end up with gritty little flakes in the custard.  The interesting part about this ice cream is that you grind up most of the pistachios into a paste and cook that paste into the custard, simmering then straining it out before freezing it.  The paste manages to impart the pistachio flavor, and then, once the ice cream is mostly frozen, freshly chopped pistachios are added for that cruncy texture.  The resulting color was a bit dreary looking; greenish, but barely, so I cheated and added one drop of green food coloring.  The resulting hue was a perfect cheerful but subtle green and I had a beautifully traditional pistachio ice cream at the end.

Side Note: I was able to use the leftover pistachio/custard paste as a filling for puff pastry.  I added a little dollop of mascarpone cheese for some savoriness and created little turnovers.  If I do it again, I'll probably go the extra step and make a real pastry cheese for it, similar to what you'd find in a cheese danish.

So far I've been really pleased with all of the fruits of my ice cream labors.  There are still a few more combinations I'd like to try out:

Peanut, apricot and sweet red chili (Thai influence, perhaps?)
Black cherry with black pepper
Blueberry and pine nut
Vanilla and basil

Oh!  Speaking of basil... I have a little planter full of fresh herbs hanging on my front porch.  So far, they've survived a full two weeks.  They actually seem to be flourishing (except for the purple basil which I maintain was doomed from the start).  I also have a hanging basket full of nasturtiums which are also surviving, despite a rocky start.  I can't wait to throw together a nice summer salad with herbs and flowers.  Yum.  The Nikon D60 will have fun with that colorful little endeavor.

This week I'll be having a few folks over for a pre-race pasta party.  I'm aiming for quantity with a secondary goal of quality, but it should be relatively easy.  I have quite a bit of meat sauce and pesto that I had previously frozen, and I'm planning to make a marinara with wild mushrooms for an additional meat-free option, as well as a white sauce with parsley, clams and garlic.  There should be about 12 people in all, so I'm hoping to have enough variety for everyone to be happy.  I'll be pairing the dishes with a nice vintage of SmartWater so that we're all properly hydrated for Saturday's race.  Should be fun times!

Infuriating Instances of Incompetency and Severely Saddening Service

Aaaaaaannnnnnnd: I'm back!  It's been a while.  I appreciate all the prodding from people asking why I haven't been posting.  It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know people actually check for updates...

Unfortunately, this post will not be dedicated to any kitchen fiascos, nor creative culinary adventures.  Instead, it's a "venting post" into which I plan to pour some of my frustration with living in Alaska.

Before delving into the particulars, I should preface this vent with the fact that I have had the opportunity to dine in a multitude of countries and experience a fairly wide variety of cultures and cuisines.  I've had good service, impeccably pristine and artful service.  And I've had bad service.  Really really bad service.  Best service I've had was probably at Al Mahara, at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, the only 7 star hotel in the world.  That was good service.  Mark's in Houston, also spectacular service.  I've also had bad service.  Really, really bad service.  Surprisingly, I had consistently bad service in Israel, possibly because I was one of those obnoxious American tourists.  France is known for their snarky service and the Parisian wait staff do an excellent job of maintaining that reputation.  Just about everywhere in the Former Soviet has pretty terrible service.  There's that general attitude of "you're going to get what we give you, and you're not going to dare complain."  Anything goes.  I thought I'd leave that behind upon repatriating to the US.  Alas, such was not the case.  I could write a book about the cultural and economic similarities between Alaska and the Former Soviet, but tonight I'll focus on the restaurant service.  The really really bad restaurant service.  I attribute it to the lack of competition here.  There seems to be this secretive conspiratorial collusion amongst the restaurants in this town to maintain an astonishingly, painfully low level of service.  They also seem to be very good at maintaining the ridiculously high prices that only "good" restaurants elsewhere would be able to charge.  I feel like many Alaskans don't even realize just how criminal this combination is, and if they do, they're powerless to escape it without boarding a flight for Seattle.

For you "outsiders" reading this, I know what you're thinking.  "You could get good service if you're just willing to pay for it.  There must be at least a few outrageously expensive, elite restaurants that you could get some good service at."  Well, there are a few outrageously expensive, elite restaurants here, but even those with generally decent service are fairly inconsistent.  The bar here is just so low...

This rant was brought on by my dinner experience last night.  A group of 7 of us decided to get a little dolled up and go out for a nice Saturday evening dinner.  We ate at an Anchorage restaurant called Romano's.  I'd heard mixed reviews.  It's supposed to be one of the nicer Italian restaurants in town, so I had been planning on trying it out for some time now.

There were so many issues with the service that it would be too emotionally draining for me to relive/recount them all right here.  I will say that we'd have to continuously ask for refills of water, we waited ages to have our orders taken, both for appetizers and for the main course, and we had the good fortune of being able to all sit around and listen to the waitress chit chat for a good 15 minutes with the table next to us while we were trying to get her attention.  When we finally managed to pry her away from her engaging conversation, much to her annoyance, we asked to order the stuffed mushrooms, inquiring, of course, how many mushrooms came in an order.  Six.  Six mushrooms per order.  Well, we clearly had 7 of us eating dinner, one of which had gotten up to wash his hands prior to eating.  We asked if we could get 7 mushrooms.  Much confusion and consternation ensued.  We offered to pay for the 7th mushroom.  Continuation of consternation.  "Well, you only have six people sitting here right now." "Yes, but there are seven of us, the other guy is coming back."  "Well he's not here right now."  "Ok... Can we get 7 mushrooms?" "He's late, he doesn't deserve a mushroom."  "Ummm... We like to encourage hand-washing.  Can we get 7 mushrooms?  We are willing to pay for it..."  "I'll ask."

Whew!  We did, in fact, get 7 mushrooms.  One of which was the size of a nickel.  They were moderately tasty.  About a half hour later, we were able to order our main courses.

When the main dishes finally came out, I had the added good fortune of finding a nice curly black hair nestled in the cream sauce of my fusilli.  Yum!  I tried to discretely let the waitress know, but she seemed extremely confused by the whole situation.  By the time she finally clued in to the reason for my outreached-cream-sauce-covered-hair-displaying finger, the entire table had figured it out.  So she took the plate, and grumbled, "I'll go get you another one."  We all sat there for a bit, no one eating, everyone trying to be polite.  I finally convinced folks that I'd be more comfortable if they just started eating.  They gracefully put together a collection plate of food for me which held me over until my plate re-arrived, sans-hair this time.  When my plate finally arrived, everyone had pretty much finished their food.

Thankfully, throughout all of this, I was able to self-medicate with a really nice Beringer cab.  I'm guessing it was a 2007.  The rest of the gang managed to keep things light-hearted and the humor rarely managed to crawl out of the gutter.

The bills come out, again, after much confusion and consternation on the part of the waitress, and this is what my date and I received:

This check was for two of us.  Please note the $1.50 "MUSH" and the $22.95 filet, (which was my dish).  I'm shocked that they didn't charge us for the hair.  I asked the waitress about it all and she said, "well, they made me."  Ok.  So I talked to the manager about it, explained that this really was pretty lacking in class to charge full price for a meal that had hair in it, and, on top of that, charge us for the single additional nickel-sized mushroom when there was a table of 7 people all drinking wine and eating food.  She said, "Oh, you sent it back?  That should have been removed from the bill, let me check on that."  I smugly returned to the table, feeling satisfied in the resolution.  The manager returned and said, "I didn't realize they brought you a new plate.  The charge remains..."

Seriously?  Wait, so let me get this straight:  you brought me food with hair in it, which means someone back there wasn't wearing a hair net (or worse...) and thus violating food code, and then, you make me wait 20 minutes while the rest of my party eats their food or worse, allows it to get cold, and then you charge us for an additional mushroom on top of it all?!?  Usually a restaurant that wants you to come back, or at least not bad-mouth them will comp your dish if not the whole meal.  They'll usually offer you free dessert or a gift certificate or SOMETHING.  Nope.  We got charged.  It was such an incredibly uncomfortable situation that I'm pretty much determined to shout my disgust from every digital roof-top available.  Like this one.

I will admit, I should know better than to expect anything different.

And on that note:  I'm going to go plan out my cooking for the next month, since I doubt I'll be eating out very much...

Wining and Dining, (with a touch of "whining" perhaps?)

Well my life lately has been full of wine.  Wine tastings.  Wine dinners.  Wine sauces.

The Chemistry of Wine event was a bit disappointing.  There was a component tasting table which we probably should have visited, but didn't.  It was tucked away back in a corner.  The catered food consisted of stuffed raw veggies (little tomatoes and celery) which ran out before we made it over to the food table.  That was also disappointing.  I had been under the impression that the food would be paired for the wines.  One of the vendors had a table of food to "cleanse your palate."  Ironically, it had garlicky hummus and artichoke dip with pieces of bread.  There was also an assortment of dark chocolate.  Not exactly what I'd choose to create a blank slate for tasting the next wine, (especially with the artichoke which is notoriously impossible to pair with wine).  After the tasting, we headed to Crush where we did a bit of supplementing in both the food and wine departments.

I had much better luck on Wednesday when I attended a Kenwood Winemaker's dinner at Kinley's.

We started out with a nice 2009 Pinot Gris to begin the evening.  It was fairly straightforward, but enjoyable, which says a lot since I'm generally not a huge fan of white wines.  It was followed by the first course, a white asparags salad with chevre, chopped egg, sauteed bread crumbs and lemon vinaigrette.  This was paired with a 2008 Sauvignon Blanc.  I wasn't a fan.  The wine was pretty lemony and the whole thing was a bit too intense for me.  The sulfur from the egg added to the abrasiveness of the dish and the texture combination of cold white asparagus and chopped egg was less than appealing.  Needless to say, I don't like Sauv Blanc and I don't like lemon, so I'm probably fairly biased here.  I will say that the goat cheese was very tasty.  I would have paired that wine with something to balance the acidity, maybe something buttery, like seared scallops.  The second course was fantastic.  It was a spicy black bean and shredded pork Napolean topped with a sugar snap pea and cabbage slaw, drizzled with chili syrup, paired with a 2007 Zinfandel.  The Zin was loaded with raspberries and it played well off the savory spiciness of the dish.  I'll have to remember that combination next time I make a pork and black bean chili.  The third course was a petite filet mignon on a caramelized apple demi glace, parsnip and potato puree and a slice of warmed Cambozola.  This was paired with a 2006 Merlot.  The combination was wonderful.  I loved the parsnip and potato puree.  The demi glace was pretty sweet, it reminded me of a caramel apple.  The cheese was pretty overpowering.  All of the flavors ended up balancing each other out.  I really enjoyed this dish and the pairing.  The fourth course was a grilled rack of lamb on a roasted shallot and mushroom risotto with bordelaise sauce and friend artichoke hearts.  It was paired with a 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon.  Unfortunately, this course was pretty disappointing.  The lamb was overpowered with pepper.  The artichoke heart (singular) was cold and no longer crispy.  The risotto also had a lot of black pepper in it, and the rice was undercooked.  The tanins in the Cab ended up amplifying the pepper and I found it all to be overwhelming.  Thankfully the last course was very pleasant.  They served mango white Stilton with freshly sliced papaya, topped with a ginger reduction.  I loved it!  The course was paired with a 2008 Gewurztraminer.  Normally I'm not very enthusiastic when it comes to Gewertz or Reisling, but I think they can be nice when paired properly.  This was paired properly.  The wine was sweet enough to hold it's own against the fruit, but not so sweet as to be candy-like.  The creaminess of the Stilton tied it all together nicely.  The table next to us apparently hated it though, exclaiming in horror that the gelato tasted "weird."  Shocked, I leaned over and told them it was a Stilton, (just like the menu said), and they just looked at me in silence.  It was an uncomfortable situation all around.  I'm still coping with the fact that people that were willing to pay $85 for a wine maker's dinner couldn't tell the difference between STILTON and GELATO.  *Sigh*