Chocolate Bar

Well, for those of you who know me, I usually swim somewhere between 3,000 and 4,500 yards at least three nights a week. That's a lot of time in the pool, and spending so much time swimming makes me generally ravenous.

Don't worry, faithful readers, I won't eat just anything as a result of my intense hunger and need to fuel the body. I only eat good food, and this is the story of the discovery a new good, and essential, food:

Tonight, after finishing off the leftover chili from Sunday, I was overcome by an intense craving for chocolate. Unlike some people I know, I do not horde chocolate for such occasions, so there was no chocolate in the house. I was forced to walk down the street to Bi-Rite to find some chocolate to satisfy the craving. Well, I found some chocolate made by a local chocolatier: Charles Chocolates of San Francisco . I had heard of Charles, but I had never before tasted any of their chocolates. After looking over the selection, I bought the bar with mocha java pieces in bittersweet chocolate. In the interest of full disclosure, there was little debate in my head about what flavor to choose--I am a fanatic about the combination of coffee and chocolate. Actually, almost any combination of those two flavors would qualify as dream dessert for me (for example, I am obsessed with the profiteroles with espresso gelato, chocolate sauce and candied almonds at Delfina (next to Bi-rite)). Anyway, this chocolate bar jumped out at me:



It was good--dark, bitter chocolate with the chopped coffee beans blended into the bar. The chocolate and coffee combination was well balanced, and I liked the crunch of the coffee bean.



All in all, Charles was a good find, and I can assure you that I'll buy another one some time soon. Try one yourself--you'll like it.

Lemons?

I pulled about fifty lemons off the tree in our back yard last week, and I've been stumped trying to figure out what to do with all of them. I've been putting lemon juice in and on everything I cook - vinaigrette, the Chicken Stew for Jackie and Beth and on vegetables - but I can't find a recipe that calls for using a lot of lemons. They look pretty in the bowl, but there must be something more I can do with them other than make lots of lemonade.



Anyone have any ideas? Please write with suggestions.

Leftover Cornbread

So, what do you do when Superbowl Sunday comes along and you just so happen to have some leftover cornbread from the day before?

Why, you make chili, of course!

Yes, I succumbed to a timeless tradition of making chili on Superbowl Sunday, even though I didn't watch the game and could have cared less how it turned out.

A few years ago someone - I think it may have been my roommate - gave me some chili mix that I stashed away for the right time. Well, that time was yesterday.

The recipe was really easy: 2 lbs of lean ground beef, one 28 oz. can of tomato sauce, 1 can each of black beans, kidney beans and pinto beans, and that's it; brown the beef, add the sauce and the powder from the packet (it's made up of chili pepper, salt, garlic, onion, paprika, cumin, oregano and "spices") and let it simmer for a half an hour, stirring occasionally; then add the beans and let it simmer for another half hour, stirring from time to time. That's it.

I couldn't believe it - the chili was delicious. It was both thick and surprisingly spicy. The paprika was the key ingredient in the mix.

I contemplated adding onions, but I decided against it, mostly because I didn't have any and I didn't want to walk down to Bi-Rite to buy some. It would have been great with some chopped green onion and some cheese on top, but the chili tasted fine by itself, especially when combined with the leftover cornbread.

So, faithful Foodphiles readers, you might be wondering why I'm not posting a picture of this surprisingly good chili. Well, the honest truth is that even though the chili tasted great, it looked horrible, and I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea about what I cook.

Baby...ur, family food!

My friends, Jackie and Beth, had their baby last week. Caroline Freeman-Cherry was born on Friday, January 27th at 9:04 pm. She's beautiful, and she has a full head of black hair. I don't have a picture of her yet, but I'll try to post one soon.

In order to try to help them get settled in back at home, a number of their friends, mostly friends from St. John's, have been taking them meals every night. Last night was my turn, and so that's what today's posting is all about.

For some time now I've been wanting to make some kind of chicken stew. I often times get these ideas in my head and mull them over for weeks or months before every getting around to making them. What I'd actually had in my head for some time was Brunswick Stew, which is a Southern mish-mash of meats and potatoes, corn and other vegetables. In the old days, good Brunswick Stew was often made chicken and squirrel, but most of the recipes I found called for a combination of chicken and beef (I suppose squirrel does not fit into the urban palate)). I've looked at a couple of recipes for Brunswick Stew over the last few months, but none them spoke to me. So, last week when I was asked to prepare foor for Jackie and Beth, my mind immediately settled on the idea of some kind of chicken stew. I gave up on the idea of Brunswick Stew and looked around for ideas for a simple chicken stew. No squirrel for me, thank you.

I found a excellent recipe on Epicurious.com for chicken and corn stew, flavored with thyme. It was perfect--thick, creamy, rich and delicious! Here's the recipe from Gourmet:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/108728

And, here's a picture of the stew while it was still on the stove:



The best thing I could think of to accompany the stew was cornbread, so I dug out one of my favorite cornbread recipes from Edna Lewis's and Scott Peacock's The Gift of Southern Cooking. There's no sugar in this recipe, so it's not sweet. It's an old-fashioned southern cornbread, and the recipe calls for using sour milk (I used buttermilk as a substitute for the soured milk). As with all good cornbread, this recipe suggests using a cast iron pan or skillet, so I used Lou's cast iron pan.

Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 cup fine-ground cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 3/4 cup soured milk or buttermilk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Preheat Oven to 450 degrees

Mix the cornmeal, salt and baking powder together in a bowl. Stir the milk into beaten eggs, and pour over the dry ingredients in batches, stirring vigorously to make a smooth glossy batter.

Cut the butter into pieces and put it in a 10-inch cast iron skillet or baking pan. Put the skillet in the preheated oven, and heat until the butter is melted and foaming. Remove from the oven, and swirl the butter all around the skillet to coat the bottom and sides thoroughly. Pour remaining melted butter into the cornbread batter, and stir well until the butter is absorbed into the batter. Turn the batter into the heated skillet, and put it in the oven to bake for 30-40 minutes, until cornbread is golden brown and crusty on top and pulls away from the sides of the skillet.

Remove the skillet from the oven, and turn out the cornbread onto a plate. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before cutting into wedges. Serve cornbread while it is hot.

The cornbread turned out perfectly, and it was a hit with Jackie and Beth. Here's a picture of the cornbread shortly after I took it out of the oven (I had to taste a piece!):



And, to finish off the dinner, I made a simple salad with sweet gorgonzola cheese, toasted wlnuts and homemade thyme and fresh lemon juice vinaigrette (I pulled about 50 lemons of the tree in our back yard last weekend). And for dessert, I make brownies (pictures of me stirring the batter below) which I took to Jackie and Beth to eat with Dolce de Leche ice cream.






Babies sure a good reason to cook! I'm glad you're here Caroline.

Galettes, Bagels, Steak and more!

Well, it's been quite a while since I lasted posted, but for whatever reason I haven't been in the mood to write. I been adjusting to being back in the swing of regular life after time off at the end of December and early in January.

I certainly haven't taken a break from food. I've been doing plenty of cooking and eating.

Actually, before my time off, Lou and I did some baking. We baked a savory galette with tomatoes and basil, and he made bagels using the recipe from Baking with Julia. Both turned out great, and here are some pictures:




And, the night before I left town to go back to Virginia, I cooked a meal for him as part of our Christmas celebration. I made two steaks on the stove, heavily spiced with paprika, and I served some more broccoli rabe and a salad. Here are the pictures:




Since I returned, we've made a number of things together: split pea soup, poached eggs, some great salads, fingerling potatoes with Parmesan cheese, green onions, soft boiled quail eggs and salmon roe. Here are pictures of the potatoes and eggs:




And, lastly, Lou and I cured some eggplant, using his grandmother's recipe. Here's a pic of the happy eggplant curer:



I'm determined to get back into the habit of writing, so look out for more soon.

Fried Chicken, Risotto and Gingerbread

Well, it was another weekend full of cooking.

Actually, I packed in most of my cooking last Thursday night when I hosted the boys--Lou, Jesse and Joey--for dinner and for bridge. I finally made the celery root soup I was supposed to make on Thanksgiving Day (they loved it). I also served a simple salad of arugala, toasted walnuts and pears. For the main dish, I made porcini mushroom risotto, from an excellent recipe I got out of Bon Appetit a few years ago:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/108603

I made it without using the pressure cooker, so it took about twenty minutes to reach that perfect state of moist creaminess. The only problem was that I failed to put in the full amount of salt, so we each had to add some salt at the table. I forgot to take pictures.

For dessert, I served gingerbread men and boys (close up of the men above), using the recipe from my Aunt Nancy's cookbook, Emory Seasons.

Here's the recipe:

1 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup molasses
2/3 cup light corn syrup
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon each baking soda and salt
1 teaspoon each ground ginger and cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
red cinnamon candies and raisins for decoration

• Cream butter and sugars until light.
• Add molasses and corn syrup. Mix well.
• Stir in dry ingridients with heavy spoon. Work until smooth. Use hands to knead if necessary.
• Cover dough and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.
• Remove portion of dough and roll on lightly floured board. Cut with desired cutters.
• Bake until lightly browned at edge. Cool 30 seconds before tranferring to rack.

That's it. Here are some pictures of me and the boys with the cookies:

On Saturday night, I reached back to my Southern roots and made friend chicken for the San Francisco Tsunami Swim Team holiday party. I love this recipe both because it's so simple and easy and because I love the cinnamon flavoring.

I got it out of The New York Times a few years ago, and it's unbeatable:

Lard and butter combined, or vegetable oil (I used the oil)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon coarse salt
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 good chicken, cut into serving pieces, or use 8 to 10 leg pieces (drumsticks and thighs), trimmed of excess fat.

• Choose a skillet or casserole at least 12 inches in diameter that can be covered. Add enough fat to come to a depth of about 1/2 inch, and turn heat to medium-high. If you are using butter, skim any foam as it rises to the surface.
• While fat heats, mix together the flour and seasonings in a plastic bag. Toss chicken in bag, 2 or 3 pieces at a time, until well coated. Put pieces on a rack as you finish.
• When oil is hot (a pinch of flour will sizzle) raise heat to high. Slowly add chicken pieces to skillet (if you add them all at once, temperature will plummet). Cover skillet, reduce heat to medium-high, and cook for 7 minutes.
• Uncover skillet, turn chicken and continue to cook, uncovered for another 7 minutes. Turn chicken again and cook for about 5 minutes more, testing as necessary to ensure that both sides are golden brown.
• Remove chicken from skillet and drain on paper towels. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.

Yield: 4 servings

I actually made 24 thighs, and I had plenty of the cinnamon and flour mixture left over. I cooked the tighs in three skillets on top of the stove at once.

Here's a picture of the resulting mountain of chicken:

St. Nicholas Day Cookies

My friend, Liz, gave me my first St. Nicholas Day cookie on Sunday.

St. Nicholas Day is actually today--Tuesday--but she had baked a batch of cookies over the weekend for her grandchildren, one of whom is named Nicholas, and for a few special friends like me. When she saw that I've recently launched Foodphiles, she wrote me to tell me about the cookies. Then she brought me a cookie at church on Sunday.

Liz said that she first baked the cookies twenty five years ago when her daughter was in high school. She explained that you make St. Nicholas cookies, which closely resemble soft gingerbread cookies, by pressing the dough into a mold of St. Nicholas. She told me that her first mold was made of wood and did not give enough shape to the cookies to make it through baking in the oven. She said they used to come out looking like a warped St. Nick.

Then she got a glass mold that allowed her to pack in more dough to hold their shape in the oven. The cookie Liz gave me was beautiful.



St. Nicholas is the patron saint of children, sailors and unmarried women (hmmm, what do those things have in common?), so I was going to give the cookie to two of Lou's friend who have just had a baby, but because he's been sick and we weren't able to see them tonight, I'll probably eat the cookie myself. I'll do so, however, in honor of some of the important little kids in my life: Gretchen Riffe, Nicholas Brouwer, and Emma and Kate Spencer.

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Patty Green

One quick wine recommendation from my wine tasting trip to Oregon this past July:

http://www.patriciagreencellars.com/

After tasting almost all the 2005 Pinot Noirs from the barrel, I'd definitely recommend the Notorious and the Goldschmidt.

Her 2004 Sauvignon Blanc was excellent too, but it's sold out.

Thanksgiving Recipes

My new work friend, Rhian (pronounced like LeAnne), who happens to be a food maniac (a blogiac?), has encouraged me to post my recipes from the Thanksgiving Dinner I made for Lou.

As I have told her many times now, this blog is not intended to be about the things I cook, but since I'm just starting I will--just this once--post my recipes:

Turkey Breast

Straight from the Joy of Cooking (page 617):

I patted the breast dry, covered it with salt and pepper and generously buttered the whole thing before cooking it. My only variation was to add some celery stalks and pearl onions (at Lou's request) to the roasting pan. I learned to add celery and onions from following Julia Child's directions for roasting a chicken, and I have to admit that I love the smell of celery and onion roasting in the oven. I cooked the breast for about an hour and twenty minutes, and that was it. I couldn't have dreamed for a more moist turkey.

Easy as can be.

Cranberry Sauce

I also used the basic recipe for "Whole Cranberry Relish" from the Joy of Cooking (page 64), but I spiced it up by adding two tablespoons or so of Triple Sec instead of orange juice (I would have used Grand Marnier and orange zest instead, but I didn't have any). Consider it a poor man's cranberry sauce. It was delicious, and easy. I can't believe people buy cranberry sauce.

Mashed Potatoes with Garlic, Mascarpone and Caramelized Leeks

I got the recipe from the 2005 Thanksgiving issue of Bon Appetit. Here (I hope) is a link to the recipe on epicurious.com (search for it yourself if the link doesn't work):

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/233164

Broccoli Rabe

I more or less made it up: heat some olive oil in a skillet, add the broccoli, add salt, pepper and red pepper flakes and toss until the broccoli turns bright green. Let the broccoli cook no longer than about a minute and a half, or two minutes tops.

Okay, long ago, I saw Giada de Laurentiis do something like this to Broccoli Rabe on the Food Network, and I think her suggestions stuck with me.

Here's her bio:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/giada_delaurentiis/0,1974,FOOD_10968,00.html .

She's fabulous.

Celery Root Soup with Spiced Maple Vinegar

I still haven't made the soup (it's on the menu for this weekend), but I'm planning to use a recipe I saw in The New York Times. You'll only be able to see this if you subscribe to TimesSelect, but here's a link: http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F50A1EFB3B5A0C758DDDA80994DD404482 .

Email me if you don't get the Times.

Oh, and for wine:

I drank a 2003 Tribach Riesling with the dinner, and I opened a S. Niccolo 1996 Vin Santo for the biscotti!

Actually, instead of Riesling, Lou drank from a bottle of Delas 2003 Cote-du-Rhone.

Here's to you, Rhian!

Bar Tartine

I recently met Lou, Russ and Matt for dinner at Bar Tartine, on Valencia Street at 17th Street. It had just been opened by the same owners of Tartine Bakery, and I have been hearing about its impending debut for some time now. As an admitted Tartine-addict, I have been eager to see what they'd do with an honest-to-God restaurant.

The first thing to say about it is that the space is beautiful. The walls are white and the lighting is soft (Lou hated the Antler chandelier). But the contrast of the walls is heightened by the black painted wood floors and striking "bar," which is made of bright white marble. It's like walking into a spacious, gussied up Tartine.

As with Tartine Bakery,the front part of the space is devoted to a large "open" table for walk-ins (this is the rage in San Francisco). They apparently plan to limit the number of tables available for reservations, and I suspect this will serve them well. I can imagine the hordes of people that will wait for tables inside and outside the door on the sidewalks (the same brilliant strategy they've used at Tartine where the line on Saturdays and Sundays regularly snakes out the door and down the block (as an aside, I will wait in the line as long as it's only at the door--it's worth it)). It's a brilliant way of rationing a good thing and making a table a highly coveted thing. And, as best I could tell, there is no real bar where there's any room for anyone to actually wait (there's only a high counter at which lucky diners can eat). This is also true at Delfina, Tartine's big sister.

We sat a four-top along the wall, giving me a view of the "bar" and the kitchen.

The second thing to say about Bar Tartine is that the menu was a bit of a surprise, a disappointment even. The list of starters and appetizers was much longer than the list of entrees--there were only four entrees. And I can't say that I was overly impressed by anything on the menu (except the recommended prosecco by the glass at the top of the menu--I love prosecco).

Russ and I order the celery root soup. Lou ordered the tuna tartare, and Matt skipped a starter. The soup was excellent. It was creamy and smooth and topped with small roasted chestnuts. Lou's tuna was actually prepared as both tartare and carpaccio, and it was good.

For entrees, Lou and I split both the beef tenderloin and slow cooked pork ribs and a beet and gorgonzola salad. The meat was delicate and tender, but we were given only two pieces of beef and two ribs. Russ ate the halibut, and Matt ate the duck. Both of them also complained of the small portion size.

The big let down, however, came when the waiter brought the dessert menu. Nothing appealed to any of us. I was shocked that the dessert menu wasn't better, given that they've made their names making pastries. No chocolate. No pastries. Big surprise, and big disappointment.

I'll go back and try it again. They had not even been open a week, and they need some time to work out the kinks and get feedback from folks. I am sure that in time they'll be sitting on another gold mine.

Go try it, and tell me what you think.

Baking Powder

My friend, Russ, after reading my comments about biscotti, pointed out that I should know a little more about baking powder, and he kindly forwarded on some information about what, exactly, baking powder does.

Here's what he sent me:

Baking powder is normally made of three different parts:

An acid
A base
A filler of some sort

All three need to be dry powders that can be mixed together. For example, baking soda (a base), cream of tartar (an acid) and corn starch (the filler) are three common ingredients.

In school, you may have done the experiment where you mix baking soda (a base) and vinegar (an acid) and get a bubbling reaction. Baking powder works the same way. When you add water to baking powder, the dry acid and base go into solution and start reacting to produce carbon dioxide bubbles.

Single-acting baking powder produces all of its bubbles when it gets wet.
Double-acting baking powder produces bubbles again when it gets hot.

If you want to prove to yourself that this is how baking powder works, simply try mixing a teaspoon of baking powder into a cup of hot water. As long as the baking powder is fresh, you will definitely see the reaction!

Thanks, Russ.

Thanksgiving Dinner--At Last!

I cooked Thanksgiving dinner on Friday night, one day late. It turned out perfectly.

I roasted the turkey with pearl onions--at Lou's request--and celery. I pasted the top of the breast with melted butter, salt and pepper and cooked it for about an hour and fifteen minutes at 350 degrees. The top of the breast lightly browned and the meat turned out to be moist and juicy. Lou and I ate two slices each (probably no more than a half a pound, and it was a 5 pound turkey).

The sides also turned out well--mashed potatoes with garlic, mascarpone, covered in butter soaked leeks and broccoli rabe lightly sauteed in olive oil with a dash of salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. It was a hit. Lou liked the dinner, and he's no easy critic.

I was most pleased with the results of my biscotti, which I had made on Wednesday afternoon and evening before getting sick. Though not darkly browned, the biscotti were soft and crumbly both on Thursday when Lou first tried them (I was still too sick to eat them) and on Friday when we finished them off with the Vin Santo. I used the Zuni Cafe cookbook recipe, and my only displeasure with them was that I found the licorice flavor overpowering to the flavor of the pistachios. I would have preferred a better balance or an outright pistachio flavor. Lou disagreed and thought they were perfect. I was just happy that they didn't turn out hard as bricks.

What I think is funny about the whole process is that unlike with most everything else--turkey for example--the trick to cooking biscotti well is not to worry about overcooking them, but to worry instead about undercooking them. Judy Rogers instructs her readers not to undercook them, so I was sure to let them stay in the oven longer than called for--about 25 minutes in all, which was at least 5 minutes more than she recommended--and even then I was afraid to pull them out because of softness of the dough. It seems that cooking them properly requires cooking them long enough for the baking powder to do its job--whatever that is--and then allowing them to cool and harden outside the oven.

Given the speed with which Lou ate up the biscotti on Thursday and Friday, I think I'll be sure to try making another batch some time soon.

Thanksgiving Postponed

Welcome to Foodphiles.

I had planned to start blogging on Thanksgiving Day yesterday, but, in a cruel twist of irony, I came down with food poisoning from a piece of pizza I ate on Wednesday night. I spent all day yesterday curled up on my couch barely able to move. No turkey for me. All I was able to drink was some Vernor's Ginger Ale and little bit of chicken broth late in the day. It was not the Thanksgiving I had hoped for. My plan had been to cook a simple, but elegant, Thanksgiving Dinner for Lou. The menu was going to consist of roast turkey breast, mascarpone and garlic mashed potatoes covered in sauteed leeks, broccoli rabe and celery root soup. I was going to serve a light German Riesling with dinner, and for dessert I was going to serve homemade pistachio biscotti--I made the biscotti on Wednesday--and Vin Santo. I was going to do all the cooking, but instead Lou ended up making his mom's spicy pork sausage stuffing for himself. He carmelized shallots in butter, added some celery and pork and mixed it all together with some more butter and stove top stuffing and then topped it off with mozzarella cheese before baking it for about 25 minutes. He was very pleased with how it turned out, saying it was as good as he remembered his mom's being. I sat on the couched and watched him eat it. Even though my plans were foiled, Lou and I managed to celebrate Thanksgiving without a traditional meal. We entered into the spirit of Thanksgiving by giving thanks for the time together, for food--foodlessness in my case--and for love.

I'm feeling much better today. I may roast the turkey tonight if I don't feel too tired. Or, I'll roast it tomorrow, and we'll eat a belated Thanksgiving dinner then. I'll write more about how it turns out then.

A word about Foodphiles. This is a blog about people who are passionate about food. My intention is to talk to as many people as possible about why they cook, what they cook and how they cook and tell their stories. Eventually,I want incoporate video and photos into this site. I may also write about some of my own cooking and some of my own experiences in restaurants, but I mostly want this to be about others. I've got a great story to tell about a day I spent making pizzas in a homemade brick wood-buring oven.