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!

Crater Cake (aka Birthday Cake)

Last year's birthday cake masterpiece, sadly, went undocumented on Foodphiles, so I want to post something about this year's cake for Lou's birthday even though I have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, I loved the way the stenciling turned out. I bought stencils and cut out the lettering in parchment paper (thanks to Heather for the stencilling consult), which I then positioned over the cake (with Lou's help) and dusted with powdered sugar. Cute, huh? I love the way the lettering looks uneven, off-centered and like a stamp.

On the other hand, something went seriously wrong with the cake while baking, and it did not turn out perfectly. The middle of the cake did not bake through fully. When I pulled the cake out of the oven--ten minutes beyond what was called for in the recipe--and released the sides of the pan, the center collapsed. So sad. The cake looked like it had a crater in the middle.

Fortunately, the cake still tasted pretty good. The outer rim was more dry and cake-like, while the center was moist and dense like a chocolate brownie. I made this cake last New Year's Eve, and it turned out very well. I remembered it being moist with a smooth, even surface. The secret ingredient--olive oil--guarantees moisture, but I wonder if it also makes it fickle.

I can think of a few reasons why things went wrong. One, I made the cake in stages, mixing the cocoa, vanilla extract and almond extract several hours before combining the rest of the cake. Maybe the chocolate hardened too much. I carefully warmed up the chocolate before mixing it with the other ingredients, but I fear that combining those ingredients so early screwed things up. Second, I followed a baking tip I read somewhere to place a baking sheet on the floor of the oven to help moderate the heat throughout the oven. Another mistake (note to self: don't experiment with baking technique when you're baking your boyfriend's birthday cake). I wonder if the baking sheet hindered, rather than helped, the even baking of the whole cake by throwing off the temperature in the oven. Lastly, rather than use a 8 and 1/2" springboard pan as called for in the recipe, I used a 9" pan instead. You'd think that the increased area would cause the cake to bake more thoroughly, but I guess not. Thoughts?

By the way, here's the recipe from this Fine Cooking publication.

Despite the imperfection of the baking, we finished off the entire cake in about twenty-four hours.

Moroccan Chicken for the Boys

I made a Morrocan Lemon Confit Chicken dish with preserved lemons and Calamata olives for our friends who came over for bridge last Wednesday night.

I came across this recipe in Food+Wine three years ago, and it immediately jumped out at me as something I wanted to try. I've made it three or four times since then, and I love the smell of the lemon and cinnamon in particular. I also like the way the sauce thickens up, and for that reason, it makes for wonderful leftovers.

Unfortunately, Lou doesn't care for it. I think the problem has been that I have usually substituted boneless chicken breasts for on-the-bone breasts, and the chicken has almost always turned out a little dry. I made the same mistake on Wednesday. We had a couple of boneless breasts in the fridge, and I bought two more to serve the four of us. Bad move. The chicken turned out dry again, and Lou didn't like it. If you make this recipe, be sure to brine the boneless chicken breasts or use either chicken on-the-bone with skin or chicken thighs.

I was most pleased with another Food +Wine recipe from 2004 for Fragrant Basmati Rice. I made the rice by cooking it along with two bay leaves, a cinnamon stick and four smashed cardamom pods. Delicious!

On Wood-burning Ovens

Olivia Wu has a story on personal wood-burning ovens in the food section of today's Chronicle.

I have my own fascination--obsession perhaps--with wood burning ovens. I love the flavors these ovens create, along with the look of food that has been baked or roasted in them. I suppose you could get the same crispy crust on pizza by baking it on a pizza stone in a gas oven and then burning the rim of the crust under the broiler, but that's not as fun as lighting a fire in a small oven, stoking the coals until the heat surpasses 600 degrees, watching the smoke billow out the door and carefully eyeing the pizza as it cooks, all the while turning it frequently to make sure the dough cooks and burns evenly. Perhaps I'm as amused by playing with fire as I am with eating good food.

I know of several restaurants in and around San Francisco that make regular use of their wood-burning ovens--Nopa, Chez Spencer, Zuni, A16, Pizzaiolo and Chez Panisse--and I know of at least one other personal wood-burning oven in San Francisco. The personal wood-burning ovens seem like a rarity and real luxury in the Bay Area, so it was a pleasure to read about cooks who have made good use of them. One of these days, I'll figure out a way to have one of my own.

I also noticed this story in a recent NYT Friday Escapes section about Mario Batali's vacation home on the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, which mentions his wood-burning oven. Batali said that he'll make up to 30 pizzas in an evening when friends come for dinner. Wow! I was reminded of my own experience frantically baking about that number of pizzas in my friend's oven.

Frank Bruni also wrote a great review of Franny's in Brooklyn a few weeks ago, making mention their wood-burning oven. On a future trip to New York City, I hope to sample the pizzas from their oven.

Strawberry, Kimchi and Granola? A Pre-Concert Meal In Three Parts

We cooked an exquisite dinner last night, if I do say so myself.

Amy and Heather came over for an early dinner before a concert at Davies Symphony Hall. We had tickets for the first of eight concerts Andras Schiff is giving in which he’ll play the full cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas. I have been very excited about the series, and I was able to convince the two of them to join us for the opening concert (it was fabulous).

Actually, my original plan had been to meet them for dinner at Zuni. I haven’t been there in a while, and I wanted to try it out again, but they could not guarantee us a table before the concert. I also tried to reserve a table at Absinthe, but that was also a no-go. So, I decided to cook at home. Or, rather, I decided to grill.

I marinated a little over two pounds of flank steak with olive oil and salt and pepper for about an hour. In the meantime, I thinly sliced five medium sized zucchini on a mandolin and then briefly marinated them with olive oil, salt and pepper as well. After grilling the zucchini for about eight minutes—they were very soft—I threw the steak on the grill. I cooked the steak for about four minutes per side, pulled it off to check on how cooked it was and put it back on the fire for about another two minutes. In all, the steak cooked for no more than ten minutes. It came off perfectly rare in some parts and medium rare throughout the rest.

While we chatted with the girls, Lou made his special sauce of Kimchi, crème fraiche and grated horseradish. He makes it by combining about a half a cup of crème fraiche with three or four spoonfuls of Kimchi and a healthy portion of freshly grated horseradish. It’s delicious, and it makes a wonderfully tangy, spicy, and creamy sauce, which is a perfect compliment for grilled steak. He is, by the way, the innovator in our kitchen. I’m much more inclined to follow a recipe, and I guess that’s what generally makes me a good baker. Lou is much more of a natural cook, willing to test—and trust—his taste buds to combine foods and flavors. Often times, he comes up with some amazingly good combinations, and the Kimchi, crème fraiche, horseradish sauce is a good example of his innovation (this was actually a reprise of this concoction for Amy!).

For wine, I opened a bottle of 2005 Vincent Dancer Pommard “Les Perriers.” The Pommard is a delicious Burgundian red from the biodynamic producer I discovered last March at Alinea. We were all struck by how light the initial taste of wine was, and we agreed that it tasted strongly of strawberries, with hints of raspberries, pepper, tobacco, vanilla and traces of violet or flowers. The color was also light strawberry red. It was a lovely wine, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Lou said he prefers the grassy boldness of the Oregon Pinot Noirs, especially Patty Green, but he agreed that it was a pleasingly complex wine.

Finally, for dessert, I made vanilla ice cream. I usually use the Ben and Jerry’s recipe that calls for 2 cups of heavy cream, 1 cup of milk, two eggs, 3/4 cup of sugar (I used the sugar we have flavored with the shell of a vanilla bean), 2 tablespoons of vanilla extract and the seeds of one vanilla bean. In this recipe, you beat the eggs for about a minute, whisk in the sugar, add the cream, milk, vanilla extract and vanilla bean and chill in the ice cream maker for 25 minutes. It could not be easier, and it comes out soft and perfect. We crumbled my friend Nick’s granola—-Cocoa Bliss—-on top. Nick has recently started his own raw foods company, Kaia Foods, and he’s come out with a small introductory line of raw granola snacks which he sells online as well as in several stores in San Francisco. Cocoa bliss tastes of cocoa and coconut, and it provided chewy counter textures and chocolatey sweetness that helped the vanilla ice cream stand out.

Salted Lavender Caramel Chocolates

Yes, I know it's been a VERY long time since I last posted. Several of you readers have gently reminded me that I do in fact own this blog and that I should get back to posting right away. Well, here goes. I have no good excuse for not writing for nearly two months. I took a break. I went on vacation. I made a couple of work trips. I happily ate my way up the East Coast and then around San Francisco. I will tell you about some of those meals soon.

In the meantime, I want to say a word about a surprise treat my friend, Wes, gave me last Saturday. He came to our swim team practice armed with a tupperware container of homemade salted lavender caramel chocolates. They were exquisite. The caramel tasted faintly of lavender. Actually, the caramel finished like a fine wine with hints of lavender lingering in my mouth long after I had swallowed. Dark chocolate wrapped the caramel, enriching it with cocoa bitterness, and large grains of salt delivered a savory counter note to the sweetness of the caramel and the bitterness of the chocolate. Each piece was beautifully styled as well.



I only learned after the fact that Wes used to be a pastry chef. I should not have been surprised--his confections rivaled in taste and beauty any of the best I've tried.

More, Wes, More!

A Weekend in Michigan

Lou and I spent a long weekend in Michigan the last weekend in July (I know, I've been bad about posting). It was a nice trip to see Lou's family. We Spent a few days alone with his parents in Caseville, a small town on the shore of Saganaw Bay at the mouth Lake Huron, and then we stayed at their home for the last two days.

We saw some beautiful scenery on the way up to Caseville (actually we were in the heart of the Thumb of Michigan, which is pretty much all farmland). Here's a shot from our drive north.



While we were up there, we bought some walleye and whitefish at a fish market and brought them back with us to Lou's parents house to prepare as a feast for his family on Sunday afternoon. Here's a picture of the walleye before Lou put it on the grill (he brushed the fish with oil olive and covered the fish with basil and thyme from his dad's garden).



We also grilled some corn and some asparagus.



Here we all are after our meal.



So, what do you do in Michigan after a big family summer feast? You jump up and down on the trampoline with your boyfriend's niece! It was more fun than I imagined.



There were also a few triumphant moments on the badminton court.



Lastly, we stopped by Lou's grandmother's house to say goodbye and see her garden.



She showed us her lovely squash and tomatoes.





She also showed us one of her pickling cucumbers.



I should also mention that we ate our share of Erma's Frozen Custard while we were there. We stopped there four times, in fact. Frozen custard is a midwestern specialty. It's richer than ice cream, and delicious. When I lived in Illinois, I used to love to visit the Jarling's Custard Cup in Champaign. Erma's was a nice treat, and it helped make our trip even more tasty.

Pie Contest

What is it about pies?

Last week, I found myself being pressured to make some pies. First, Lou brought home several stalks of rhubarb with hopes I'd make him a rhubarb pie. They had been happily standing in a pitcher of water on our counter for a few days when Heather forwarded me a link from Daily Candy about a pie contest at Southern Exposure, near Mission Pie, on Mission and 25th Streets. She demanded that I enter the competition. Sheesh. Pushy Italians!

Thus, uh, encouraged, I decided to bake a couple of strawberry-rhubarb pies and enter the best one of them in the competition.

We had plans on Friday night, so I didn't get started making the pie dough until about 10:30 pm. I immediately ran into a couple of potential problems. First, I realized that I did not have enough chilled shortening in the fridge. Second, I realized that I did not have enough all-purpose flour to make the dough. I immediately threw the shortening in the fridge to attempt to chill it quickly, and I decided to use whole wheat pastry flour instead of all-purpose flour.

Last fall I had tried making pie dough with the whole wheat pastry flour, but the dough was a complete disaster. It was a crumbly mess. I know that I did not use enough water, but I also wondered if the whole wheat flour itself was part of the problem. Lou was convinced that it was, in fact, the whole wheat flour ruined the dough.

I have been using Julia Childs's recipe for perfect, flakey pie dough, and she says that you can use either all-purpose flour or pastry flour, though she doesn't weigh in on whether you can use whole wheat pastry flour. The few times I've looked for pastry flour at Bi-Rite or Rainbow, the only pastry flour I could find, was whole wheat pastry flour, so I figured that's just how it's made.

Last Friday night, off to a somewhat uncertain start, I began to assemble the dough. I mixed the flour and the salt, first added the cold butter, then the slightly chilled shortening, and I mixed them all together with a full cup of very cold, nearly frozen water. The dough was extremely moist and sticky, and about as well formed as the dough I made in March. I put the dough in the fridge to chill over night.

I woke up early on Saturday morning to roll out the dough and bake the pies before my swim practice at 11:30. When I took the dough out of the fridge, it was very hard, and even after I allowed it to warm up slightly, it was difficult to roll out. Slowly, gently, I rolled out four crusts. Two of them turned out very well, one of them was ok and the final one (actually the first one I rolled out) was a disaster. Slightly worried, I put them back in the fridge to rest.

Meanwhile, I headed out to Rainbow to buy some more strawberries and some quick cooking tapioca. I got home, cut the strawberries and rhubarb, sweated them in sugar, added the tapioca, some orange zest and salt and let the mixture rest for 15 minutes. Then I divided the mixture between the two pies, placed dollops of butter on the filling, covered them with the top crusts, brushed the tops with cream and dusted them with sugar before sliding them in the oven for about and hour and ten minutes.

I didn't cut deep enough vents in the better looking pie, but it came out looking fine. The filling in the other pie spilled out on the crust and over the side of the dish. Unfortunately, the crusts did not look very flakey.

After allowing the pies to cool, I texted Heather and invited her over to taste the pies before heading out to Southern Exposure to enter the contest. I opened a bottle of Sauternes and Lou used our new pressure device to "foam" some of the leftover vanilla ice cream in the freezer from the fourth of july. The pie tasted delicious. I was disappointed in the crust, however. Rather than turning out flakey, the crust was more crumbly. It tasted good--slightly like graham crackers--but it was not as flaky or as pretty as the crust I'd made in March.







After tasting, we headed over to Southern Exposure to deliver the pie. The scene was bustling and not at all what I expected. Quite honestly, I feared I'd be the only person to show up, but I was wrong. Eleven others beat us there, and there were about two dozen people milling around tasting pies, talking and enjoying the pie-making revelry.

I "registered," giving them my name and telling them what kind of pie I'd made. They explained the process: get photographed with your pie, cut a slice of pie for the judges, and go put your pie on the tasting table for others to try. I got my picture taken, and then went over to the judges. As I cut a slice, the piece kind of fell apart as I served it up (Heather said she saw me cringe). I thanked them and walked away. Lou immediately chastized me for not talking up my pie. He told me I should have "sold it." He refused to buy my argument that I couldn't sell a pie when I knew the crust was bad. He replied that George W. Bush didn't get elected President because he was the best candidate, but rather because he could sell it. I'm sure he was right; I could have sold it, but I didn't feel right about it knowing I can make really good crust.





I put the pie on the tasting table and admired some of the other pies. There were several interesting pies, including a pumpkin chocolate mole pie with sesame seeds and a beautiful blueberry pie with an elaborate lattace top. There was also a coconut cream pie with caramel, a la Tartine. It was a fun, festive atmosphere, but we left early before they announced the winners because I had a hair cut.

I didn't win, but I had fun, and we had two pies. I'm still not quite sure what went wrong with the crust. In the meantime, I think I'll stick with all-purpose flour, or I might try mixing all-purpose and whole wheat pastry flour half and half.

Belated Birthday Dinner: Chez Panisse

A French provincial summer dinner. That's how our server described the meal she served us at Chez Panisse on Saturday night. How perfect!

Several months ago, for my 35th birthday, Lou's parents kindly gave me a gift certificate for Chez Panisse. Lou's mom remembered how much I like the restaurant after we took them there for dinner when they visited us last November.

I was thrilled about the gift certificate, since it would mean that a trip to Chez Panisse would soon be in order. Sadly, Lou and I ended up canceling two planned trips because one or the other of us did not feel well.

When we finally arrived on Saturday, I was immediately reminded why I love this restaurant so much. Chez Panisse does not strive for elaborate food and nor does it deliver feats of molecular gastronomy like Alinea or the French Laundry. Rather, the restaurant delivers reliably elegant culinary pleasures and gracious service, along with a mindfulness of the chain connecting the farm and the table.

I must admit that I fell in love with the restaurant from my earliest days in California. I lived in Berkeley directly behind the restaurant for several months when I first moved to California, before moving across the bay to San Francisco. Each morning, I was awakened by the clinking of wine bottles in the recycling bins in back of the restaurant. That summer, I made a point to walk by the front gate of Chez Panisse on the way to the post office to check the menu for the week. I have yet to break the habit of reading the weekly menus.

The only exception is when I have a reservation. I like to be surprised by what I'm going to be served, so I refrain from looking at the menu before I pay a visit. On Saturday, we told the server that we did not want to see the menu (they lay out beautifully printed menus at each place setting) and she obliged us in keeping the courses a secret after making sure we did not have any dietary restrictions.

The first course was an apertif of mulberry juice and prosecco, followed by an exquisite plate of summer vegetables--grilled squash, zucchini, shallots, carrots, a few light greens, an egg, an anchovy fillet and house-made aioli. The vegetables were fresh and tender, and the combination of the aioli, the egg and the anchovy added wonderful flavors of salt, garlic and, well, egg. A very nice beginning.

I brought along one of the three bottles of 2002 Vincent Dancer Chassagne-Montracht ler Cru "Tete du Clos" I was able to get from Josh at Bi-Rite. You may remember that I first discovered Dancer's wines on my visit to Alinea in March. The 2002 was marvelous. It is a soaring, ethereal wine, with strong notes of lime along with very subtle hints of hay. I absolutely love Dancer's wines, and because he is a biodynamic producer, I thought this would be a great wine to bring to Chez Panisse. It paired pretty well with all the courses, especially the first two.

The second course was probably my favorite. We were served a provencal fish and shellfish soup with a rouille crouton. The soup--really a bouillabaisse--was made with clams, shrimp, monkfish, sea bass and a broth made of fish stock, garlic, parsley, minced tomatoes, shallots and saffron. It was amazingly delicious. Even though I did not grow up on the sea, the lightness and tenderness of the fish, the shellfish and the broth touched me deeply. The soup had soul, and it demonstrated why Chez Panisse is such an outstanding restaurant.

The main course was rack, loin, and leg of lamb served with rosemary and olive sauce and shell and wax beans on the side. It seems like we've been served lamb the last few times we've eaten in the restaurant at Chez Panisse, but I am never disappointed with their lamb (all raised on small, organic farms, by the way). Each piece of lamb was tender and moist, and the rosemary especially gave the dish a lovely summer flavor.

For dessert, we were served an apricot puff pastry tartlet, with a sabayon on the side. Our server kindly placed a candle in a small strawberry and presented my plate as though it was my birthday. She was very sweet. A delicious end to a wonderful meal.

Thanks Louie and Rae!

Bastille Day Luncheon at Michel-Schlumberger

Last Sunday, Heather, Lou and I made the trip up to Healdsburg to celebrate Bastille Day at the Michel-Schlumberger winery in the Dry Creek Valley. I had been to the celebration several years ago, and I had fond memories of an afternoon spent tasting French wines, eating well-prepared French provincial fare and enjoying the warm weather of Western Sonoma County, California (I first discovered Michel-Schlumberger not long after I moved to San Francisco when my friend Amy, from business school, came to visit and we made a stop at the winery during a weekend tasting tour of the Dry Creek Valley).

A few years later and shortly after Lou and I started dating, I asked him to accompany me for another Bastille Day celebration at Michel-Schlumberger, but he refused me, saying he wasn't ready for a day trip with me yet. Three years later, when I asked again he gladly accepted. I asked Heather to come along.

We got a very late start last Sunday, leaving well after 10:30 for a lunch that was set to begin at 11:30. It takes about an hour to drive to the winery, so we arrived shortly before noon. We were the last to arrive, and they gave us three seats at the end of a long table that was set up in the wine storage area of the winery. The room was dark and cool, a different set up from my first experience when the table was set up under an archway in the central courtyard of the winery.



Last time I was there, Michel-Schlumberger was featuring tastings for its French wine club--I think they used to import a few wines from France--but this time all the wines were Michel-Schlumberger's own wines. We missed the pouring of the Pinot Blanc, but arrived in time for the pouring of a 2005 La Brume Chardonnay and the serving of the first course. The Chardonnay was deplete of the Napa-like oakiness and butteriness of so many California wines, and instead I noted minor hints of lemon or citrus. The food was a salad of chard, pea shoots, sunflower sprouts and asparagus, served with grilled shrimp and a "gateau de mer," which was something like a seafood cake. The flavors were very nice.



The second course, also the main course, was beef and lamb shishkebabs, served with harissa pistou (more or less French pesto), with fingerling potatoes, wilted frisee lentils and grilled peaches. They poured a 2004 Maison Rouge. I thought the shishkebabs were a little weird, but the food was delicious, especially the lentils and the wilted frisee (I'm going to try that!) and the grilled peaches (I'm also going to grill some more peaches before the summer ends!).

The third course was a cheese course--a soft cow's milk cheese, a blue and a soft goat's cheese--served with a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon. The Cab was the best of the wines--it tasted of tobacco, plums and cherries. We bought four bottles!



And, for dessert, they served a strawberry and lemon verbena "Paris Brest" with candied pistachios (the dish was a soft pastry filled with lemon verbena cream, served on a strawberry gelee). Sadly, they did not serve a dessert wine.





It was a lovely afternoon, though the traffic getting back to San Francisco was horrendous. Thanks for driving Heather!

Lemon Sabayon Tart, from the French Laundry Cookbook

Well, I still have not yet written up the story of my experiences over the last couple of months at The French Laundry. Perhaps now that I've brought it up on Foodphiles, my readership will demand that I tell the full story. Until then, you'll have to make due with a short story--along with a few photos--about making the easiest recipe in the French Laundry cookbook .

Flipping through the cookbook, which Lou gave me about a month ago, I was immediately drawn to the recipe Lemon Sabayon-Pine Nut Tart with Honeyed Mascarpone Cream. Not only is it easy relative to many of the other recipes, but the combination of flavors stood out as light, fresh and endlessly pleasing. Keller's recipe calls for a making a pine nut crust, filled with lemon sabayon (kind of a lemon curd) and topped off with a scoop of honey mascarpone whipped cream. How could you possibly go wrong with such a combination of flavors?

Here are a few photos:

Amy and me before browning the tart under the broiler.



A perfect match!



At last! The tart with whipped cream and a gardenia from the garden.

Fourth of July Malt Ball Cake

I made the malt ball cake again for the Fourth of July. You can read the story of this cake here, but I was inspired to make it again because we had our friends Stephanie and Jen and their three daughters over for a celebratory lunch. Here's Breckin with the cake.



Lou and I toyed with the idea of arranging the malt balls in the shape of a star, but then I came up with the idea of just making a rough American flag design. It worked out perfectly, and I think the cake looks even better than the Easter cake. Pretty cute, isn't it? The shape of the cake vaguely reminds me of a red, white and blue styrofoam hat my dad used to wear on the Fourth of July when I was a kid.




As expected, the cake was a hit--colorful, moist, tasty--but I wouldn't dare post the pictures of Breckin's face covered in cake!

Farm Bill: Mixed Reports on Committee Action

According to National Journal, the House Agriculture Committee voted yesterday to reduce agricultural subsidies to farmers along the lines of what I wrote about here. There seems to be some doubt about how this is going to play out--read postings from Ken Cook and Scott Faber--but I tend to think that some movement towards reform is better than no movement. It's not clear to me that more money has been directed towards healthy eating programs or other sustainable food programs. More soon.

House Mark-up on Farm Bill Begins Today

Here's a great article from Saturday's Washington Post that reports on the divide among House Democrats about whether and how to reform the Farm Bill. The reporter focuses in on my fellow Kenyon College alumnus, Ohio Congressman Zack Space, who has come out against reform.

The mark-up begins this afternoon (now) in D.C., and you can listen or watch here. Scott Faber previews today's mark-up and gives his take on what members of the committee would see their districts benefit from reform.