Turn the page...

Two thousand eleven?

Or twenty eleven?

A new year, a new decade, a blank slate with infinite possibility.

Honestly I'm less concerned about what we're going to call it; I'm still trying to figure out how the heck we got here... so quickly. As I flip the calendar forward I find myself reflecting on the moments that in many ways define the lens through which I see the world today. Some represent key ingredients in the recipe that is my life. Others seemed insignificant in the moment, but provide the salt, seasonings and structural elements critical to a balanced dish.

1978 brought us Saturday Night Fever, Space Invaders and the very first cell phone. My parents balked at spending 70c a gallon on gasoline as they sat in blocks-long lines waiting to fill the tank in the Nova. We celebrated my tenth birthday in Lake Tahoe where I learned that for the rest of the world "ethnic" wasn't synonymous with Italian. We dined at a Greek restaurant whose name I've long forgotten, but I can still taste the beautifully balanced complexity of the moussaka and the strange lasagna the waiter called pastizio, the brightness that lemon and a sprinkle of salt brought to the fried potatoes. My horizons expanded 100% in that experience.

1983 gave birth to both the internets and Microsoft Word, while 125 million television viewers watched the 4077 fold up the M*A*S*H tents for the final time. For this high school freshman, the adventure lay in Paris, France with seven other teenage girls and a social studies teacher with a sense of adventure, a touch of insanity or perhaps a bit of both. My parents' goal in providing this opportunity was likely to expand my horizons. Perhaps on some level they succeeded: my strongest memories include a pillow war launched over the Atlantic with a rowdy college soccer team from Spain and my first exposure to French wine and steak tartarre.

Mark Wills reminds us that a space shuttle fell out of the sky in 1986, the year that ushered us one step closer to email and offered me closure on twelve years of Catholic education. I won a scholarship that spring with an essay on a topic I'd have to dig through boxes of memorabilia to remember. I left for college that year with no clear idea of what direction my career path would take, but I knowing that ultimately I would write. For myself, if no one else was interested.

Technologically 1989 introduced us to Microsoft Office, the 486 PC, Nintendo's Game Boy and the first GPS satellites. Personally I embarked on a brand new journey in 1989. While I would have told you I was fat in high school (and alongside some of my size 2-4 friends I certainly felt that way), after three years of dorm and cafeteria food I could no longer ignore the freshman fifteen not-quite-forty and with two of my sorority sisters joined Weight Watchers, beginning a twenty year love/hate relationship with the bathroom scale.

While Windows 95 and the introduction of java script were the hot topics in technology, in the spring of 1995 some combination of chance/fate/circumstance put me at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Concord, across the table from the man I would later love like no other. Half a year later, across from the same man at a different table I glanced at his chicken ceasar salad and quipped 'dude, I can taste that pepper from here.' And thus began fifteen years of food and life adventures.

In 1997 the world bids farewell to two iconic ladies of the 20th century: Princess Diana and Mother Theresa of Calcutta, and we're introduced Dolly the genetically engineered lamb and Harry Potter. Personally, Kyle's birth in June creates another branch on the family tree -- and over time an opportunity to pass on heirloom family recipes to the next generation.

While the rest of the world fretted over the consequences of the Y2K bug, my family came face-to-face with the "C" word for the first time in late 1999 when my father -- a lifetime smoker -- was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. In the six months that followed I saw the healing power of food at a new level as he taught me his holiday recipe secrets, I spent six hours in December looking for fresh cherries for turnovers, we found an excellent source of take-out chiles rellenos and twelve new ways to serve chicken livers to quiet the chemo cravings and bring peace and comfort.

A $415 million, eight-year federal study completed in 2006 finds that a low-fat diet does not decrease the risk of heart disease, cancer, or stroke and high fructose corn syrup begins its ascent as the latest ugly red-headed stepchild of the food world. And on February 5, 2006 I tiptoed softly onto the food blog scene. Some 1790-days, 28 daring baker challenges, 33 Tuesdays with Dorie, hundreds of dinners out and a handful of holidays later I'm still here. Sometimes vocal, sometimes more silent, but ready to see where the next five, ten, fifteen years will take us...

Remembering Mo...

My father would have been 81 years old today.

And while I didn't learn nearly as much about cooking and baking as I could have or should have from him, he remains one of my primary inspirations in the kitchen.

Those of you who've been here a while know that John and I host a gala open house the Saturday before Thanksgiving every year. What started as our housewarming party in 2000 has evolved into an annual tradition we're proud to say is a must-attend event on many of our friends' calendars. What most people don't realize is that the whole open house concept wasn't mine but my father's.

Mo hosted his annual open house on December 26 -- though only a handful of his guests knew the significance behind the date. Like we do, he invited friends from all aspects of his life, and did nothing to coordinate introductions. And like our open house, it worked. People mingled, discovered surprise connections with other guests, and often in the process we learned new things about our friends. The only place we stray from Mo's model is that our menu is built on appetizers and finger food -- because growing up that's what *I* wanted to contribute to his menu and he insisted appetizers were a waste of everyone's appetite for the "real food."

So the BIG open house in my childhood home happened at Christmas time. But my father opened his home and his kitchen to his friends on a smaller scale on a weekly basis. Over the years Maude and Dick, Lou and Maria, Carol and Ken, Neal, John and Ruth, Henri, Lorraine, Donna, Julie, Bob and Joanne had standing invitations to dinner on Friday and Saturday nights. And most of them occupied a regular spot at the dining room table.

While John's and my weekend social life tends to be more outwardly focused (with three weekends in four often dedicated to dance events), we're looking at 2009 as an opportunity to entertain on a smaller scale.

And what better date to launch a new tradition than Mo's birthday???

So we put together a simple but satisfying menu and celebrated a belated Christmas with some of our dance friends. We built the menu around a main course I found over at Closet Cooking: Maple and Chipotle Roasted Turkey Breast. Our protein was pork tenderloin because I couldn't find a whole turkey breast at any of my regular marts of trade. On the side we served Warm Leek Salad with bounty from the CSA box, a simple spinach salad sprinkled with dried cranberries and walnuts, and Cooking Light's Colonial Corn Pudding. For dessert we offered a tray of Dorie Christmas Cookies.

We ate. We drank. We enjoyed each other's company.

I like to think Mo would have been proud.

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The last of that leftover turkey breast?

A child of the late seventies and early eighties, many of my "traditional American" holiday memories revolve around convenience foods.

My not-so-traditional memories involve a heaping tray of meat lasagna next to the turkey platter, but I digress...

Who remembers pistachio fluff, courtesy of the friendly folks at Jello and Cool Whip? Green bean casserole with three different kind of Campbells canned soup? Sweet potatoes smothered in Stay Puff marshmallows?

My favorite of these convenience food concoctions actually never appeared at the Thanksgiving table, but was a regular feature on black Friday. Hot turkey salad topped with crushed potato chips. If my dad had a recipe, he never wrote it down. The base was shredded leftover turkey, often mixed in equal parts with leftover stuffing and/or mashed potatoes. To that he added random handfuls of diced onion and celery and enough mayonnaise to bind the mixture before topping it with the aforementioned crushed potato chips and a random sprinkling of grated cheese.

Since we didn't host the big event this year, I didn't have all the fixings to work with. I started with the turkey breast, added onion, red bell pepper and a bit of leftover mushrooms, used equal parts mayonnaise and ale-based mustard as the binder, and topped the casserole with the end of a bag of Kettle chips and the last hunk of chipotle cheddar.

It's not terribly photogenic, but it tastes good!

Bookmark this on Delicious

From the archives...
In 2006 I explained my affinity for avocados.
In 2007 I made mini maple pies for Peabody's virtual housewarming party.

Celebrating summer's sun

Okay, I'm probably revealing my age here, but who remembers Sun In?

In 1970-something, you sprayed it in damp hair, slathered the rest of your body in coconut-scented Coppertone and headed out onto the back porch with your BFFs, knowing you'd emerge an hour later tan and blonde.

Unless you were me and Charity, in which case you emerged pink, with odd orange streaks running through your auburn hair...

The summer sun showed far more kindness to my father's tomato garden than it ever did to me.

Fast forward thirty-0dd years to 2008...

Sun-sweetened early girl tomatoes from John's parents' garden...

A handful of rapidly growing basil from my aerogarden (more on that soon)...

A hunk of leftover puff pastry in the freezer...

And this eye-catching recipe in my blog reader...

I may have outgrown my fascination with daylight savings time, running through the sprinklers and the searing sensation of bare feet on hot pavement and Sun In (which a Google search indicates is still widely available), but tomatoes will *always* remain the hallmark of late summer sunshine in my world.

Others who've experimented with this recipe:
Carmen of Carmen Cooks employed garden tomatoes and made from-scratch puff pastry in her adaptation.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy (somewhat belated) Mother's Day! Stay tuned for John's dad's recipe for Belgian Waffles... and some fun stories related to it.

04.09.1968...

...while the country mourned Martin Luther King Jr., at 6:06 PM Mo and Jo gave birth to a 3 pound 15.5 ounce baby girl.

And the rest, as they say, is history...

From the archives...
In 2006 we opted for the Atkins special.
In 2007 someone else baked the cake.

Check out all of Dawn's sensational cakes.

Okay folks...

...what do I do with these?!?

For the first time in my 3 year history with my CSA, I got something in my box that I'm not sure what to do with.

Pea greens.

I tried Google. Not much there there.

Wikipedia's never heard of them.

And while there are a handful of recipes out there, nothing looks like what I have here.

So I'm counting on you.

Someone out there's surely got some experience working with these. Or a recipe bookmarked somewhere. My pea greens await your inspiration.

From the archives...
In 2006 we found Pho in Fremont.

Technorati Tags: Food

The incredible, edible egg

For as long as I live, every time I make deviled eggs, I'm going to think of Neal.

Neal was another in my father's merry band of eccentric friends. Neal cooked for the county jail, and his class in culinary skills for the inmates was one of the things that convinced me that my parents would balk if I announced I wanted to skip college and head to the CCA. He was at least partially responsible for Mo's decade-long obsession with orchids. And he and his catering business taught me a bit about managing food costs and presenting a pretty plate. And over the course of one afternoon, he changed forever the way I approach a deviled egg.

I have no recollection of what the event was, but it was mid-way through my senior year of high school. My parents were officers of the parent board and active in many of the school's fund raisers. Whatever the event was, it involved feeding people, and they enlisted Neal. It was springtime, and one of the focal points on the appetizer buffet would be stuffed eggs.

Four hundred stuffed eggs.

I don't remember the boiling process (it must have been quite an event)... the first task to which my mother and I were assigned was peeling them. Neal was very particular about how to peel an egg (Neal was particular about a LOT of things... I learned that's how you succeed in the catering industry). It was critical that the delicate whites remain pristine, sans nicks or bruises. (Whatever method he employed to boil them, Neal's whites *were* delicate... none of the rubbery stuff of cafeteria egg salad here, no how, no way.)

But the peeling, we soon learned, was the easy part of the job. Next, we sliced 400 eggs into 800 half-eggs with one of these. Which even with Google took me almost thirty minutes to locate. Then we carefully removed four hundred yolks. And wiped all traces of yolk out of the cavity and the serrated surface with a damp paper towel. Rinsing them, we were told, would tear them or make them tough.

The fun part (in my 18-year old head) Neal kept for himself: whipping up an egg yolk cream of mystery ingredients in a robot coupe and piping them through an 8B star tip into trays and trays (and trays and TRAYS) of egg whites.

The whole process took three hours.

My process is far less complicated and labor intensive. And my end product, far less visually appealing. For this batch, I boiled a dozen eggs, peeled them warm (and succeeded in not marring the egg whites in the process), split them with a paring knife, mixed the yolk with a bit of mayonnaise, mustard, and a handful of parsley and cilantro, and stuffed them with a teaspoon. Twenty five minutes, start to finish.

And they lasted almost that long on the buffet table...

But as I prepared them, and later as my audience enjoyed them, I thought of Neal and smiled.

From the archives...
In 2006 I made peace with my kitchen after several weeks on the road.

Technorati Tags: Food | Key Ingredient: Egg

Almost like shopping with Grandma...

Grocery shopping with my grandmother remains one of my fondest childhood memories. Those of you who've been reading for a while know that growing up, we spent summers visiting our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in Illinois. My paternal grandparents made the journey from Italy to America as small children. Both families settled in small mining towns southwest of Chicago. Summers in the villages of Ladd, Cherry, Chicago Heights and Steger Illinois taught me a lot about life, love and community in small town America. And one of the best things about small town America to me when I was growing up was time spent in what Grandpa called the marts of trade.

Unlike today's mega-marts and warehouse-style outlets, grocery shopping with my grandmother was only partially about stocking the pantry and the refrigerator. It was also a chance to greet neighbors, relatives, friends. And to get advice from food purveyors on what was good today, what was fresh, and how to prepare it. Grandma Kate knew Dominic the butcher, his wife, his son and daughter, his new baby grandson. And Dominic knew how much my grandfather loved a tender pork roast, a rare beefsteak. And he always had a scrap slice of mortadella or salami to delight my brother and me. Similar scenarios played out in the bakery, the green grocer, the fish counter and even the four check-out counters at the front of the store. Grocery shopping with my grandmother was part financial transaction, part social interaction, part educational experience, and a great adventure.

The only thing that came close to this in my 21st century adult life was the farmer's markets -- at least until Lunardi's opened in Danville. It's taken the space of Andronicos, an upscale grocery chain from Berkeley. And with artisan meats and cheeses, and in-store bakery and a Peet's Coffee, it hasn't abandoned the upscale market.

But what makes Lundardi's special for me is the people. The fact that during precious days before Christmas, when he's got a line of people a mile long, Joe behind the butcher counter asks me what I'm doing with three pounds of pork tenderloin. And when I tell him we're serving it stuffed for dinner on Christmas Eve, he takes the time to butterfly it for me. And tosses in a length of butcher's twine to hold it together. That Ann and Arnold at the registers do more than make occasional eye contact with their customers... they converse with us. They remember names, and where customers' kids go to school.

It's almost like shopping with Grandma...

Lunardi's Market| 345 Railroad Ave., Danville, CA | 925.855.8920

Technorati Tags: Food

Like father, like daughter...

A month or so ago ago, Meryl at My Bit of Earth posed a question that's been haunting me (in a good way) ever since. She asks What is a good habit that you have that's like your parents or grandparents? A bad one? A funny one? She opens up a fascinating discussion in the comments, but rather than write an essay there, I decided to discuss it in greater detail here...

As much as my father loved to entertain, he rather disliked cleaning up afterwards. After a party, you'd find spatulas, spoons and other utensils scattered around the kitchen counter, abandoned wherever he'd last used them. Dishes would pile in and around the sink. With two kids and a wife to pick up behind him, it wasn't often much of an issue. Since I have neither a wife nor kids to look after me, I need to get better about picking up behind me. Because it's a drag to have to spend thirty minutes locating that measuring spoon (and washing it) before I can get started with a new recipe...

Technorati Tags: Meme

One last look back...

I'm not sure I followed last year's advice to myself very well, but here we go again.

1. Wishing all my blog friends best wishes for a happy, healthy and tasty 2007!.
2. -
3. I haven't fallen off the face of the earth -- February just got crazy.
4. Here it is, the moment you have all been waiting for... the unveiling of March's best dressed blogs.
5. I couldn't resist Sam's recent invitation to a bit of culinary exhibitionism...
6. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones...
7. First, I want to thank David for offering me the privilege of hosting episode 6 of Leftover Tuesdays, his event celebrating the underdog in all of our kitchens.
8. I don't think it's any secret that sweet and sassy Ivonne over at Cream Puffs in Venice is someone I look to for inspiration.
9. The package arrived at my doorstep during the height of "Battle Bug" (a war we're still waging against a few hearty stragglers).
10. Remember when I mentioned I portioned part of my bun dough off for another project?
11. Last November was so much fun, I'm doing it again.
12. Last week's teaser probably gave it away, but I have a confession to make...

That's it, ladies and gentlemen. The first sentences of the first posts for each month of 2007. And last year's summary holds true: it's been quite a journey through the magical, mystical world of food. I thank each and every one of you for taking it along with me. However you choose to celebrate tonight's turning of the page, please raise a virtual glass with John and me, join our toast to wonderful New Year. We hope 2008 brings you health and happiness, laughter and love, good food and great friends.

One holiday; five days of preparation

As I return from the grocery store with the makings of this year's holiday feast and find room for stuff in the 'fridge, I find myself pondering the amount of effort that goes into the food for these special holiday celebrations. On my side there's the menu planning, shopping and a couple of days of preparation. Then there's the grocers and the farmers and the transportation industry that traverses them. Most of my meal didn't travel cross country or even across the state... but it's a large menu, and it probably touched hundreds of hands -- and lives -- on it's journey... I hope all of *them* have a joyous holiday!

Enough with the deep thoughts. What are we having this year? Well Christmas Eve's going to be one big celebration of Magazine Monday; 90% of the menu hails from Eating Well:

Roasted Pear-Butternut Soup with Crumbled Stilton
Endive and Watercress Salad with Pomegranate Dressing
Parmesan Bread
Spinaci con Pignoli e Passerini
Bulgur with Ginger and Orange
Pork Tenderloin Rosa di Parma
and the super-surprise December Daring Baker challenge for dessert!

Check back in a couple of days to learn how it all turned out.

From the archives: a year ago today, I reminisced about restaurants visited in 2006.

Technorati Tags: Food | Recipe

Cibo di benessere i celebrazione

Holiday foods.

They're the flavors, scents and memories without which it wouldn't much feel like Christmas. Or Chanukah. Or Kwanzaa. Or Solstice. Or whatever it is you celebrate this time of year.

They're a delightful delectable combination of flavors that provide both a sense of comfort and an aura of celebration. They're comfortable and familiar, warm and inviting and yet they never fail to deliver that sense of "this is special". They're the culinary equivalent of coming home.

For some of you the quintessential holiday food is the main course: the turkey, the ham, the roast beast around which you gather your loved ones to celebrate. Others lean toward the sweet side: pumpkin pie, holiday cookies,or a buche de noel. Or perhaps it's the vegetables of the season, whether they appear on your table as latkes, beet salad, roasted brussels sprouts, or green bean casserole.

For me, it's lasagna.

Growing up, I took lasagna for granted; my dad made it all the time. Sometimes he'd add mushrooms, onions, and zucchini for a vegetarian. Others he used the same secret combination of ground beef, veal and pork that made his meatballs magnificent. But always there was ricotta. Always there was marinara. And always there was besciamella.

So when I spied "vegetarian lasagna" on the menu at the dorm early in my freshman year of college, I thought I was in for a real treat and I loaded up my plate.

'What?' I choked down my first bite. 'This isn't lasagna. It's an impostor -- a melange of mushy leftover vegetables, smothered in canned tomato sauce and covered with cardboard disguised as pasta.'

I chucked the rest and disgusted, headed to the salad bar. And when I talked to dad that night, I made him promise me that next to the Thanksgiving turkey there'd be a lasagna with my name on it.

And thus began a holiday tradition. For the next 15 years, if we were celebrating something -- anything -- as a family, there was a lasagna in attendance. Lasagna became food-code for home, for happy, and for love.

Over the last several years, I've reproduced many of my family's traditional dishes in my "adult kitchen."

But not the lasagna.

Until now.

In September I discovered Maryann's Ricotta e Besciamella Lasagna and I knew instantly it was going to be the perfect canvas on which to experiment. So this weekend I took a deep breath, gathered the ingredients and took the dive. I prepared it as published, adding a layer of sauteed Italian sausage tossed with toasted pine nuts and shredded Parmesan. I was surprised at how easy it was to prepare... the hardest part was the waiting.

My dinner guests loved it. And I'll enjoy the leftovers for lunch all week.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mo would have been proud. Thank you Maryann, for giving me the tools, the technique and the confidence to live up to his legend and share his love.

In the archives: A year ago today, I was sniffling & sneezing.

More praise for Maryann's luscious lasagna from Kimberly Ann of Nostalgic Homemaking.

Technorati Tags: Food | Recipe | Italian | Key Ingredients: Tomato, Ricotta

Reflections...

I got this from Liz over at Bits & Bites. She got it from Julius. I enjoyed reading their answers, and getting to know them better in the process. I know I've got some new readers here (thanks to NaBloPoMo and Holidailies), some of whom are probably wondering who I am. This won't tell you that, but it'll give you some insight into where I come from in terms of food.

What were you cooking/baking ten years ago?

Ten years ago I was just beginning to discover that pretty much anything you can order out, you can make at home. Often better and cheaper. But not always without significant effort. I was probably most obsessed with fresh seafood and Asian flavors. Some things haven't changed much.

Ten years ago I'd never kneaded bread by hand. Made caramel. Or mousse. Other things have changed quite a bit.

What were you cooking/baking one year ago?

Lots of fun and interesting things. My foray into the food blogging world has exposed me to many new recipes from all over the world. The Daring Baker experience has expanded my boundaries with flour, sugar, eggs and butter. And I've learned a bit about the politics of food -- how the choices I make affect not only my cardiac health, but my spiritual well-being as well. It feels GOOD to know the farmer that grows my greens, the fisherman, the rancher, the baker, the sausage maker who bring their bounty to my table.

The snack you enjoy the most:

Sungold and sweet 100 tomatoes in the summer. Grapes when the leaves begin to fall. More Halloween, Valentines and Easter candy than I should. Christmas cookies. And popcorn and edamame, all year long.

A culinary luxury you would indulge in if you were a millionaire:

A world tour, using Anthony Bourdain's books as a guide.

A couple of million and I'd quit my day job and go volunteer to intern with Thomas Keller. Or Michael Symon. Or Kelly Degala. Or all of them. Learn from them. Soak their lessons up like a sponge. Then open my own restaurant.

What do you bake the most?

Bread, and cookies.

Five recipes you know by heart:

Coffee. Spinaci con Pignoli e Passerine. Grandma Cramer's Egg Salad. Guacamole. Aunt Bev's Cole Slaw.

One thing you cannot/will not eat:

I'm still learning to appreciate offal. Some of the stuff on the fringe is still substantially outside of my comfort zone.

I've been told I have ueber-sensitive taste buds. That if something is full-flavored to you, it's over the top for me. as a consequence, I struggle with even mild liver, and anything remotely gamey.

Favorite culinary toy:

No contest. This.

A must on your “last meal” menu:

Sushi. Lots and lots of sushi.

Happy food memories:

Way too many to count. Thank you for indulging me, and allowing me to share them.

A year ago today, I shared my Christmas wish list.

Technorati Tags: Meme

Thirteen Reasons to be Thankful...

Thirteen things for which I give thanks today...

1. He can dance. He's at home in the kitchen. Twelve years later, I find new reasons to love him with each passing day. I'm thankful for the man in my life.
2. Easily accessible year-round farmers' markets... I know who is growing my food. And how.
3. A home I can share with my friends.
4. Our restaurant family.
5. Those who've come before me.
6. Nephews and nieces with whom to share the legacy.
7. The truly international flavor of the bay area.
8. The ability to travel, experiencing new flavors and cultures.
9. Strawberries in sprintime, sun sweetened summer peaches, autumn apples, Christmastime clementines.
10. Rainy Sunday afternoons, fresh baked bread, a wool blanket, a fireplace and a good book.
11. Sunsets.
12. Chocolate. Cheese. and wine. Not necessarily in that order.
13. Turkey with all the trimmings... and loved ones with whom to share it.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens:
1. (leave your link in comments and I'll add you here)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here.

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted.

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A year ago we explored Larkspur's Melting Pot.

Technorati Tags: Thursday 13 NaBloPoMo 2007

Thursday Thirteen in love

John and I celebrate twelve years together today. Twelve years of good and bad, happy and sad. We've made some amazing 'food memories' along the way. In celebration of us, I offer you today's Thursday 13...

Twelve Memorable Menus in the last Twelve Years (and the recipe that started it all)
1. I find the memories I've retained from our first interactions amazing. We're at a restaurant (I don't remember the venue or even the part of the bay we were in). I'm sitting with the people I came with, and he's across the table with the people he came with. I have no idea what I ordered. He had a ceasar salad, onto which he was shaking copious amounts of pepper. My first words: "Dude... I can taste that pepper from here!"

2. I introduced John to eggplant and mangoes. He introduced me to sushi. First Koji and the 'hotdog' roll. Then Komatsu and crunchy-sweet tempura. And Yuki. And scores of others along the way. Sensational saba. Buttery hamachi. Warm and comforting unagi. In exchange for a fruit and a vegetable. I got the better end of the deal. Forget pork fat Emeril...we've decided FISH fat rocks.

3. He thought I'd lost my mind. A hundred-some people from all over both of our lives. Many of whom had never met. What would they have in common? How could this possibly work?!? I couldn't tell him. But history told me it did. Hovering over the buffet table for another ravioli, another slice of ham, another bite of spinach dip, people would find their own connections, beyond their connections to us. Seven years later, our open house has become a bit of a legend.

4. I'm told that the saurbraten recipe is an adaptation of a Betty Crocker recipe with a little bit of Frugal Gourmet thrown in for good measure. No one's quite sure where the cabbage recipe came from (or they're not telling me if they are). The mashed potato pancakes are 100% Grandma F. And while I'm not normally fond of stews and slow-cooked meats, this menu is the exception that proves the rule... it's become a critical part of the ritual of summer sliding through fall into winter.

5. The first Thanksgiving we hosted, we turned to Alton Brown for advice. AB offered this. We procured a turkey-brining bucket and a separate ice chest just for this purpose. Some fourteen hours, one 15 pound turkey, a quarter box of kosher salt and a dozen or so other ingredients later, two families gathered for one tasty tender bird. The rest of the world can do the deep fry thing... we'll stick to brining.

6. Flash back to 2004. N & K have announced they're goin' to the chapel and they're gonna get maaaaried. But first they'd like to break bread together with both halves of the family and some close friends. Would we be willing to 'cater' their engagement party? Well... sure. We did what we do best: finger food. Most of the experience has been washed from memory by a steady flow of imported Belgian beer. But memory indicates that a good time was had by all most.

7. No matter how I write #7, I think it's going to suffer a bit from 'you really had to be there'. We'd decided to check out Berkeley's legendary Fondue Fred's (for the first time as an adult for me). The challenge: to get the most out of the experience you really need to go in a large group. So someone in our party got the bright idea to invite a bunch of socially-stunted math geeks. Whose first language appeared to be Klingon. And discovered that melted cheese and chocolate made interesting body art. We weren't sure if we'd crashed a freshman fraternity party or a kindergarten arts project... we just knew we didn't belong -- and breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

8. If the potato pancakes featured in #4 are John's paternal grandmother's contribution to our culinary arsenal, his mother's Belgian Frites round out his history with solanum tuberosum. Add my grandmother F's gnocchi and my great grandmother C's potato bread, and we'll have Dr. Atkins doing post-mortem cartwheels, but I digress...

9. AB had already taught us turkey...we were eager students of Roast Beast. While we nixed the flower pot in favor of a roasting pan, we followed his instructions for choosing and aging the beef before roasting it low and slow. The result: a carnivorous Christmas Eve dinner our guests are still raving about nearly a decade later.

10. Menu browsing is one of our favorite activities. It's the food version of window shopping. We pick a neighborhood with a high concentration of restaurants. Stroll up and down the streets constructing the perfect dinner the way other people would put together the perfect outfit or design a beautiful bedroom. In this case, I'd recently moved out to the suburbs. It was time to see what our dinner options were going to be in nearby Walnut Creek. And after a half mile of Italian establishments peppered with the occasional burger joint or brew pub, we found Ono Maze. We found great food in the miso-mirin marinated black cod, the tempura "spider" roll and the molten chocolate cakes. We found good friends in Kelly & Kai, Randy, Mandy, Ryan and Lisa. We rediscovered our love for each other as we fell in love with the restaurant and its people.

11. It all started with a flu bug that left us couch-bound and four or five episodes of David Rosengarten's Taste. Followed by Two Hot Tamales kvetching over how to construct the perfect guacamole. And Robin Young Sissy Biggers Ainsley Harriott pairing two audience members with two professional chefs, a bag of groceries and a thirty minute time clock: Ready, Set, Cook. Sure, the furry little troll is still there and we still tune in to watch some of our favorites... but the Food Network's balance between education and entertainment has shifted significantly through the years...

12. Seven courses of seafood. And a chicken breast, because one of our six guests isn't a fish fan. Can you see where this is going? We were hosting Christmas Eve again this year. And decided to pay homage to my Italian heritage with the feast of the seven fishes. Most normal people accomplish this with a big bowl of cioppino... tossing in seven varieties of shellfish. Amateurs! We planned shrimp cocktail (Alton Brown again). Crab cakes. Bacalau salad. Cioppino. Fish sticks for the kids. And three other seafood courses I've forgotten now. Then the guest list erupted. My brother had to work, so his family wasn't joining us. Scrap the fish sticks. "Um... didn't we tell you K doesn't eat seafood?" Well, no you didn't. But we'll work around it. In the end we had a great meal... and John and I rang in 2004 with three courses of seafood.

and 13... the recipe that started it all:

Garlic Pasta

Cook 1 pound pasta as directed on package.

While pasta cooks, pulse 1/4 cup pignoli, 5 large cloves of garlic, and 1/2 cup fresh basil in a small food processor until finely ground. Add garlic mixture to 1 softened cube of butter. Blend well with a fork. Add 1/2 to 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, blending well.

Drain pasta and toss with garlic butter sauce.

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T-Minus Four: Prepping for the Future; Surrounded by the Past

First on this evening's agenda: meatballs. Followed by coconut and chai-scented bostini chiffon cakes. And pumpkin puree to be incorporated into cheesecake later this week.

The emotions evoked by my recent Apples & Thyme reflections are still with me...

I can sense Henri's approval with my onion dice... I'd have had no problem out pacing her at that quickfire challenge.

I can feel Mo hovering to ensure that my meatballs were uniform.

And Maria is almost certainly with me as I whip up the egg whites for the chiffon.

Come Saturday, I'll have an extra dry martini, a screwdriver and a glass of sherry set aside in the bar area to acknowledge their presence and in gratitude for their guidance. Several of our guests may think I'm a little off. But if Grandma Sylvia should make it (at 97 she's slowed down a bit), she will smile and nod in understanding.

Last year at this time, the kitchen looked about like it does today

Technorati Tags: NaBloPoMo 2007

Apples & Thyme, with a Twist of Lime...

I've been struggling with this post for a few days now. My thoughts on this subject are all over the map, so I'm not quite sure where the end result is going to take us.

Inge of Vanielje Kitchen and Jeni of A Passionate Palate are hosting a very special event in honor of our mothers and grandmothers and the culinary traditions they've passed along to us. They're calling their event Apples & Thyme.

I'm adding a twist of lime to the mix. Because the person at whose side I learned my family's recipes wasn't a woman. And the women who provided the most significant guidance to me in the kitchen weren't blood relatives.

Allow me to explain...

We've established that while my mother had many talents, cooking wasn't among them. I'm not complaining. Though it's out of the scope of this blog, my mother passed to me her passion for needle arts -- and a sampler created over four generations is one of my most treasured possessions. But for heirloom recipes, I turn primarily to my father and his ancestors.

It is from my father that I learned to make his grandmother's gnocchi. His mother's walnut 'refrigerator cookies'. A tomato sauce derived from the recipes of four generations of northern Italian women from three families united by marriage and based largely on ingredients available in the moment. And his Aunt Lena's recipe for "toothlach" (touvlach? I've googled a million different variations, and I've never found a match) - a chard and ricotta stuffed ravioli that graced every holiday table growing up.

The 'other women' in my culinary education? My parents' closest friends came from all walks of life and on the surface probably didn't have a lot in common. But they all treasured the camaraderie of gathering around the stove and then the kitchen table sharing meals together. Meals made by hand and with love. My father's kitchen was an open kitchen, and each of these women contributed something over the years. They were my 'adopted' mothers and grandmothers, and while most of them have never set foot in my 'adult kitchen', they've all made an indelible impact there.

First there was "Henri". Henriette Corrie entered our lives half way through my fourth grade year, when my brother came down with the chicken pox and needed a daytime companion. Henri had spent the 40's and 50's as a short-order cook in a diner in central California. She taught me a lot about food prep and mise en place (though she never used fancy French words). At her side I learned to peel potatoes and carrots with minimum waste, how to make a perfect gravy from pan drippings, and when you should (and when you shouldn't) substitute milk for cream. That I can slice vegetables without bleeding, I owe to Henri. Her "female spoon" occupies a place of honor among my most used utensils.

And Julie. Julie deserves a post all her own. And she'll likely get one, as I understand that Apples & Thyme is going to be a recurring event. In the context of this discussion, Juliet Rosemont Trissell was a woman with a vision. She was my very first exposure to local, organic, sustainable ingredients. Julie raised chickens (and lots of other animals as well). The eggs from Julie's chickens has a brilliant orange yellow yolk (and sometimes two)... not the pasty-pale color that came from the grocery store. These yolks stood at attention, at least a half an inch above the pool of white in which they sat. And they had F-L-A-V-O-R. Breakfast with Julie was a feast of scrambled eggs, fresh bacon, toast from homemade sourdough bread, fresh squeezed orange juice, and piping hot coffee. It left you warm and full, and ready to take on whatever the day threw your way.

Like the others, Grandma Sylvia isn't really my grandmother... but she is the woman who taught me the most about the cuisine of the Italian half of my heritage. Sylvia Zanaria Gates was born and raised in the bay area to immigrant parents. She taught me how to make pesto and torta di riso, how to shop efficiently and economically at the bakery and the deli, how to pick the freshest rosemary and basil and how to maximize the flavor they contribute. When I moved into my new kitchen seven years ago, Sylvia opened hers... contributing linens, glassware, pasta bowls I reach for every day. And when my pasta dough isn't coming together right, I know I can call her and she'll tell me exactly what I need to do to fix it. And while all of my culinary mentors contributed something to my kitchen's design, Grandma Sylvia is the one who saw it come together (providing advice on the height and surface of my "pasta island") and has watched it in action.

My parents met Maria and Lou early in their married lives, when they occupied neighboring apartments and celebrated weekends together. They resurfaced in my parents lives and entered mine at my first communion celebration -- and remained regulars at dinner on Saturday nights for the next three decades. In terms of technical skill, Maria Chavez Pacheco taught me to make tamales, chiles rellenos and refried beans. She taught me the difference between "stiff peaks" and "soft peaks", and the consequences from choosing the wrong one. She showed me that simple ingredients treated with respect turn out soul-satisfying meals.

As part of the contribution to Apples and Thyme, Jeni and Inge have requested a recipe. I've spent a long time thinking about this one, and I've decided it's time to share the 'touthlach/touvlach' recipe. It's been seven years since my father died. We've made the touvlach several times since then. But never for the open house. This year we're changing that.

I don't know as much as I should of the back story behind this recipe. My great aunt Lena was an Italian immigrant in a small coal mining town in Illinois. I don't know if this is her recipe one from her husband's Belgian ancestors. I do know that she prepared it by hand in celebration of the harvest in the fall, and then again at Easter. I know that she taught my father to form the little pasta pillows. And that from the time we were old enough to understand them, he taught us. That I've made the pasta since I was ten years old, but he kept the filling his secret and Lena's until the Christmas before he died, when our roles reversed and he watched and directed as I prepared the chard mixture and he returned to forming pasta pillows. I know that two of my cousins, Lena's grandchildren, have contacted me looking for the recipe their parents had lost track of. And today I share it with you.

Aunt Lena's Touvlach/Toothlach (Swiss Chard Ravioli)

For the pasta dough:
4 cups all purpose flour
5 eggs
a pinch of salt

Sift flour and salt into a large bowl or onto a pastry board. (I just use a clean counter... this is what we built the island for). Make a well in the center and break in an egg. Use fingers to incorporate egg and flour, maintaining well until 5 eggs are incorporated and you have dough. Knead thoroughly, adding a bit of water or olive oil if necessary to create a smooth, pliable dough. Roll dough into 2-3 balls, wrap in a towel or plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Remove dough from refrigerator 10 minutes before you intend to use it.

For the stuffing:

1 pound chard
salt
2 tablespoons butter
1 pound ricotta cheese
3-4 eggs
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
pinch saffron

Clean and wash chard, leaving it slightly damp. Saute with salt over medium heat until tender. Cool the chard, squeeze it dry and chop it finely. Melt the butter in a saute pan. Add chard and cook gently for 3-5 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine the ricotta, eggs, parmesan, spinach, saffron and a pinch of nutmeg. Mix thoroughly until well-blended.

To prepare ravioli:

Roll dough into thin sheets. (We use a pasta roller, working gradually to a setting of 5).

Line ravioli form with one sheet of pasta. Fill wells with stuffing, taking care not to over-fill. Top with a second sheet of pasta. use a rolling pin to create ravioli shapes. Remove from form and separate ravioli with a paring knife.

To cook ravioli immediately, bring a pot of moderately salted water to a boil. Drop in ravioli 12-18 at a time. When they float, remove, drain and serve.

To freeze for later, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and sprinkle with cornmeal. Place ravioli in a single layer on cornmeal. Freeze. Frozen ravioli can be re-packaged into single-serving freezer bags.

John and I are going to tackle these on Thursday night, so look for a photographic play-by-play late next week.

The photograph at the top is a celebration of your heroine's sixth birthday. To my knowledge, it's the first time I was encouraged to actively participate in the creation of the meal. I shelled spring peas and formed 'pasta pillows' for dinner, and cracked the eggs and measured the sugar for the cake.

A year ago we were headed home from the Caribbean.

Technorati Tags: Food Blog Event | Apples & Thyme

Part of the process

Most of us don't spend a lot of time dwelling on this part of the process.

But with somewhere between 75 and 100 guests due to arrive a week from tomorrow for our 7th annual open house -- a celebration of good friends and good food -- we're focused just as much on the cleanup as we are on the food prep.

If history is any indication, over the next seven days we'll go through 3-5 bottles of wine and a half a bottle of dish detergent. We'll marinate 6 pounds of pork, assemble 4 pounds of meatballs, and run the dishwasher 8 times. We'll use 4-6 pounds of flour and 3 rolls of paper towels. We'll go to bed late and tired this week, but with a strong sense of accomplishment... of dozens of to-dos crossed off the week's list.

It's a lot of work, but this is one of our favorite times of the year... as this year's invitation reads: we look forward to each party from the moment the last dishes are done the previous year.

Technorati Tags: NaBloPoMo 2007

Happy Birthday, G!

Baby G celebrates his first birthday today.

Rather than a bunch of toys and clothing he will outgrow in a couple of months, his parents have asked each of the party guests to contribute some article to a time capsule, which he'll open on his 18th birthday. Ideas included a photograph, a piece of advice, a piece of "today" that will some day be history.

My contribution?

After much thought, I'm contributing a piece of my past hoping it might be a small piece of his future. My father's mother's recipe for gnocchi. Served alongside the turkey at every Thanksgiving feast, the roast beast at Christmas, the ham at Easter. Simple but soul satisfying potato pasta, made by hand, with love.

Gnocchi (8 servings)

6 medium potatoes cooked and riced
1/2 cup grated Parmegiano-Regiano
4 egg yolks
salt and pepper to taste
pinch of nutmeg
1 cup flour (give or take)

Peel and rice potatoes while still hot. Mix all ingredients except the flour. then add in as much flour as needed to make a dough that will roll. Mix well, then roll on a floured board into a rope about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 1-inch pieces. Then take each piece of dough and roll it over the tines of a fork, mashing a slight indentation with your thumb as you start to roll the pieces. Each piece should have a shell-like impression from the fork tines.

Drop formed gnocchi into rapidly boiling salted water (1 teaspoon salt per quart) and cook for about 5-6 minutes. Gnocchi will float to the surface when cooked. Remove from water with strainer and place on serving dish. Top with browned butter and cheese, or rich meat sauce.

The recipe for rich meat sauce?

He'll get that on his second birthday...

Technorati Tags: Recipe | Gnocchi | Key Ingredient: Potato