Pizzaiolo

A quick note about Pizzaiolo.

Lou, Peter and I ate there a couple of Fridays ago, and I must say that it was a mixed experience.

Despite showing up early in the evening, they made us wait nearly two hours for a table. We spent most of that time looking around some galleries in downtown Oakland, but it was somewhat annoying to have to wait so long, especially after the hostess told me that the wait would not be longer than about an hour.

Once seated, I realized that the acoustics in the restaurant are terrible. They seated us in a back room with a group of at least twenty people who were celebrating a birthday. When we first sat down they were still eating and they were reasonably quiet, but as soon as they finished eating and continued drinking their noise level rose dramatically. It made our conversation difficult.

The pizzas, however, were tasty. We ordered one pizza with nettles and cheese and another one with grilled squid and aioli. Both combinations were fantastic, though the squid and aioli was my favorite.

Despite my love of pizzas cooked in a wood-burning ovens, I couldn't help think that the restaurant came off like a loud, chaotic college town pizza joint. Perhaps that should come as no surprise. After all, Pizzaiolo is not far from the campus of UC Berkeley.

Coq Au Vin

We gave a little dinner party for our friends Amy and Jesse before a night of playing bridge not long ago, and I made coq au vin using Julia Childs's fantastic recipe. I'd had the urge to use up some of the accumulated red wine in our refrigerator, and the idea of recreating coq au vin got stuck in my head.

The last time I made the recipe, I cut a few corners by using de-boned, skinless chicken thighs and skipping Julia's instructions for sauteeing mushrooms and braising pearl onions. I think I also served the chicken over rice. The chicken and the sauce turned out pretty well then, but it wasn't amazing and Lou was not overwhelmed.

This time around, I followed her directions more closely, and the recipe was incredible. I used chicken legs and thighs on the bone with skin, and I browned the skin by searing the chicken, first skin side down, on very high heat. Then I browned the onions, carrots and herbs before adding the wine and chicken stock to braise in the oven for about a half hour. While the chicken was in the oven, I sauteed the mushrooms in butter and set the pearl onions in a mixture of chicken broth and butter to braise over low heat for about 30 minutes.

When the chicken was done, I strained the cooking liquid and then reduced it down from several cups to about 3/4 cup. Then, I stirred in buerre manie--butter and flour--to make a rich, thick red sauce. I poured the sauce over the chicken and plated the mushrooms and onions with the chicken and sauce on top.

It was, in a word, manifique!

Joey's Birthday

While my parents were visiting in October, we missed Joey's big birthday party up in Healdsburg. Actually, we ran into Joey, Brad and his mother and sister in Oakville Grocery after a day of wine tasting in the Dry Creek Valley with my parents, but we couldn't join them for the birthday party Brad and his mom planned for him. Instead, we offered to have Joey and Brad over for dinner a couple of weeks later.

We planned a menu made up of a few dishes neither one of us had made before, along with a couple of easy, tried and true dishes that would not take as much time to make.

To start, we served hand packed Spanish sardines with thinly sliced celery, salt and pepper and freshly squeezed lime juice.

As a second course, Lou improvised on a recipe from the El Bulli cookbook. Instead of making asparagus lollipops with truffle cream, he made brussel sprout lollipops with truffle cream. Lou changed from asparagus to brussels at my request, since I claimed that there would be no way to find fresh, local asparagus at this time of year, even though it would be easy enough to find asparagus at Whole Foods. He gave in to my locavore leanings and switched the recipe. It was a fairly complicated recipe, which he executed flawlessly. I don't remember every step, but he cooked and then liquified the brussels, made whipped cream infused with truffle water (hand made) and then piped the whipped cream onto baking sheets and carefully filled the piping with the liquified brussel sprouts. He then froze them until we served them. We can see the lollipops in front of Joey in the picture above. All in all they turned out pretty well. The sensation of eating the frozen brussel sprouts and cream together was a little strange, and later on we added some truffle salt to the lollipops and they tasted much better. Brad joked that we should start a savory lollipop stand.

For the main course, I pan friend trout with juniper berries, salt and pepper, and laid them on a bed of hot potato foam, which Lou had made by cooking the potatoes and liquifying them with milk and cream. The trout is always a winner, and the potato foam was a wonderful compliment to the salty, piney flavor of the trout.

For Joey's birthday cake, I made a Sachertorte. Honestly, I had no idea of the significance of the cake. Lou nearly chose is for his own birthday cake, and that was the first time I had ever seen a Sachertorte recipe. Joey, on the other hand, immediately grasped the significance of the cake and he seemed delighted about it. He told us about tasting various Sachertortes while in Vienna a few years ago.

The cake turned out pretty well, I'd say. The cake includes two delicious elements--citrus syrup, which I made in the same manner as simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water, boiled) with the zests of lemon and orange, and a layer of reduced apricot jam. Then, for the toping, I made a simple chocolate glaze, made of melted chocolate, sugar and water. I tempered the glaze for at least twenty minutes by repeatedly running portions of the glaze along our marble slab with a metal spatula while the glaze cooled. The tempering is suppose to allow the glaze to cool without developing any air bubbles, thereby keeping the glaze smooth and glass-like. The glaze turned out well, especially considering that it was the first time I'd ever made it. The cake itself ended up a little uneven. Perhaps I should have cut it down to make the sides of the two pieces flush, but I simply glazed the cake and let it be. I must say that it tasted deliciously rich, chocolaty and infused with citrus and fruit.

Bon Anniversaire, Joey!

Manresa: a Birthday Dinner

I finally made the trip down to Los Gatos, about an hour out of San Francisco, to eat at Manresa, David's Kinch's well-regarded and much written about restaurant. Now I'm finally getting around to writing about it. The occasion was Lou's birthday, and I was able to talk Amy and Frank into joining us for the evening.

The restaurant setting is nothing particularly spectacular. The space is elegant, but not striking. Even though our table was not ready when we arrived exactly on time for our 8 pm Saturday night reservation, none of us minded much having to wait.

Once seated we perused the menu and discussed how to order. Kinch has designed the menu so that diners can order either four courses from an a la carte menu or a spontaneous tasting menu which he requires the entire table to order. We debated ordering the tasting, but decided, instead, to order a la carte from the menu and order one of almost every dish so that we could try a bite of most of the dishes on the menu. The menu was divided into four sections, which roughly break down into starter courses, fish courses, meat courses and desserts.

After ordering, the chef sent out several amuse bouches--at least five--the best of which were a mango smoothie (above) and little crispy ravioli (below). All of them were delicious. The most memorable amuse bouche, however, was the oyster on the half shell still in its juices and sea water. The brilliant catch was that Kinch had added agar agar (gelatin) to the sea water and juices to set the oyster in its juices and sea water. The dish was topped with a crispy piece of nori. They called it a taste of the sea, and it was incredible and ingenious.

For starters, we tried Amberjack, prepared shashimi style with olive oil and chives, "In the Garden," a preparation of vegetables arranged on a plate like a mini garden, and Celery Root Veloute with Sunchoke ice cream. The assortment of vegetables was both cute and tasty, right down to the "dirt." I thought the soup was the real standout of the starters, however. The combination of hot soup and cold ice cream was a palate pleaser, especially from two strong root vegetables. We tried one other starter, a Monterey Bay spot prawn with exotic spices and citrus. The prawn was magnificent and rich, and surprisingly, it turned out to have been a pregnant prawn, so we all tried prawn roe for the first time.

For fish, we tried the John Dory, San Bream and Abalone with a slow egg. As best I can remember, the John Dory tasted good, though the baked abalone and egg was the stand out of the fish courses.

For meats, we ordered farm poularde (young hen) poached and then roasted with sunchokes and black trumpets, Suckling pig with blood sausage, braised kale, and potatoes and apples, and venison roasted with huckleberries. I had been most excited about the suckling pig, in part because I love roasted pork and because Kinch's blood sausage is well known, but the dish did not quite meet my expectations. It was not as rich and flavorful as I had expected, and the meat was not as tender and moist as I had hoped. Instead, the dish that had appealed to me the least ended up as my favorite--the venison. The meat itself was tender, delicate and roasted perfectly rare. With the spices and huckleberries, the dish perfectly fused together the gamey, wild flavors of the venison and the sweetness of the cooked huckleberries. It was a brilliant and pleasing dish.

For dessert, we ordered a selection of cheeses, a chocolate napoleon with tobacco ice cream and a goat cheese bavarois. The napoleon and the tobacco ice cream was the best dessert, and the tobacco ice cream in particular was amazing. The flavor was not so much like a cigarette or an ash tray, but more like the flavor of tobacco in red wine. Subtle notes of the sharpness of tobacco, which paired well with chocolate. It was a very innovative treat, on par with the Foi Gras ice cream at Coi.

We chose the premium wine pairings, and unfortunately I left without asking for a copy of all the wines they served us. I do remember that they served us nearly ten different wines, including several Spanish wines which were unfamiliar to me and at least one Santa Cruz Chardonnay (Manresa is located at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains, an up and coming wine producing region). Best of all, for dessert they served us a sherry from the 1960s to pair with the cheese, along with an equally old Madiera to pair with the napoleon and tobacco ice cream. Both of those wines were outstanding and memorable.

Farm Bill Update: Michael Pollan's NYT Op-Ed

Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore's Dilemma, had an excellent piece, "Weed It and Reap," in yesterday's Week in Review section of The New York Times.

Pollan gives an thorough summary of the fate of this year's farm bill, and he explains why the bill the House passed this summer and the bill that Senator Harkin will take to the Senate floor this week is probably about as good as it's going to get this year for farm bill and federal food policy reform. The political pressure for reform came together too late and without enough political force to make much of a difference against the organized efforts of agri-business.

In no small part thanks to Pollan himself, however, real reform got a better hearing than before.

Also, based on Pollan's argument, my own research and a few emails and comments about my recent postings, I want to amend my view of the Grassley-Dorgan amendment. I now see that it is a well intentioned attempt at meaningful reform to reduce subsidies to big, corporate farmers. While not as far-reaching as the Lugar-Lautenberg measure, the Grassley-Dorgan measure might stand a chance of passing by a slim majority. Here's a posting from the Blog for Rural American about the Grassley-Dorgan amendment.

Please contact your senators and ask them to vote for the Grassley-Dorgan and Lugar-Lautenberg amendments.

Farm Bill Update: Links

For those of you who are interested, here's a Congressional Research Service report comparing the House version of the farm bill with the version Senator Harkin pushed through the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Also, here is information on the reform substitute amendment Senators Lugar and Lautenberg will offer next week.

I can't find the details on the Grassley-Dorgan amendment, though here's one other comparison chart from the Farm and Food Policy Project.

Farm Bill Update: Next Stop, Senate Floor

The SF Chronicle published a story, written by Carolyn Lochhead in the DC bureau, today on the status of the 2007 Farm Bill. Last week the Senate Agriculture Committee approved a bill Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) put together. His bill is similar to the one the U.S. House approved over the summer in that it places a few new restrictions on farm subsidies and adds some new spending on organic agriculture and school food programs, but doesn't constitute wholesale reform.

There will be two major attempts to amend the bill on the floor next week, one by farm state senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and the other by Dick Lugar (R-IN), himself a farmer, and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ). As best I can tell, the Grassley-Dorgan amendment would represent a step back. Their measure seems to try to limit farm subsidies to the largest farms, but purposely avoids substantial reform of the system. I think their approach is far worse than Senator Harkin's mediocre bill and the House bill. The Lugar-Lautenberg proposal, however, would scrap the whole subsidy system and replace it will a farm insurance program for which all farmers would be eligible. Without seeing the full details, the Lugar-Lautenberg proposal seems preferable to me as a way of ending the unfair and unequal farm subsidies while continuing some form of crop insurance for farmers who hit hard times.

My guess is that both proposals will fail and the Senate will adopt Senator Harkin's bill. So, despite some tweaking to reduce the amount of farm subsidies and the addition of modest federal support for organic agriculture and better school food programs, not much will change and the bill will become law.

What's interesting to me about Lochhead's article is that she points out that neither of California's senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, (full disclosure: I was a staffer in D.C. for Senator Feinstein in the early 1990s) have taken a public position on the bill. I'm not exactly sure why that is. Both senators have strong environmental records. Feinstein has been an effective advocate for public lands and for land preservation in general and she can claim credit for spearheading legislation to set aside major portions the California dessert as protected land. She also brokered the deal to preserve the salt flats in the southern portion of San Francisco Bay. Boxer is the Chairperson of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and has worked hard on several environmental measures and has also steadily voiced concerns about climate change issues.

Given that California is the nation's largest agricultural producer, it does seem strange that neither one of them has yet to advocate for (or against) the bill or any of the alternative proposals. In addition to constituent farmers, they also have to contend with a reasonably active food reform movement that is mostly based in the Bay Area, but also has a few voices and followers in Los Angeles. A further complicating factor is that the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is also a Californian (she's my congressperson in San Francisco) and she is the person who signed off on the deal in the House that made only minor changes and that has become the base for Harkin's bill.

My guess is that Feinstein and Boxer will both tow the moderate line here and oppose the Grassley-Dorgan amendment, vote for the Lugar-Lautenberg amendment even though it will fail, and then vote for the unamended Harkin bill, which is basically Nancy Pelosi's House bill. We'll see.

If you care about this, it's probably worth contacting your senators and encouraging them to vote for the Lugar-Lautenberg measure and against the Grassley-Dorgan amendment. Assuming both will fail, then urge them to vote for the final bill.

Welcome to congressional politics!