19 Apr 2013
by scolgin
in Food, Humor, Pork, Recipes
Tags: Alsace cooking, choucroute, Dar Maghreb, French food, Pierre Dupar, Pork, saffron, sauerkraut, spices, star anise
A few weeks ago, I was making choucroute, a German-influenced French specialty of the Alsace region, when I realized I didn’t have any juniper berries. (After all, who has juniper berries?) I emailed pal Ernie, who would be joining us for dinner that night to see if he might have some, in addition to caraway seeds and whole clove.
“I have caraway seeds,” he replied, “But I have no idea how old they are. They’ve been in here a long time.”
Old spices from my spice drawer (l to r): Chinese powdered ginger, herbes de Provence, something so old I don’t even know what it is, some Jamaican curry a friend brought me back from Jamaica when we were in our 20s, and ancient saffron from my dad’s friend Pierre
I then queried neighbors Chris and Glennis to see if they had any juniper berries, and was pleased when Chris responded that they did. More
05 Apr 2013
by scolgin
in Food, Recipes
Tags: bisque, Carlsbad Aquafarm, frisee aux lardons, fruits de mer, La Grande Motte, Marseille, oysters, pastis, Santa Monica farmer's market, shrimp
Like I’ve said before — when it comes to dinner, we’re a theme family. And often a theme evolves around random happenings on my shopping route.
Reading all the various comments to my recent post on oyster bars got me in the mood, of course, for oysters. So at my Wednesday farmer’s market, I picked up a dozen oysters from the (somewhat) local aquaculture guys as well as, among other things, a head of frisee lettuce, two duck eggs and a fennel bulb. I remembered that I had a nice chunk of stinky cheese in the fridge, and thought perhaps I had the makings of a French night, some night soon.
Frisee
I eyed some beautiful fresh sardines at the Japanese market later in the day. But there was rain in the forecast, and sardines are a food best eaten fresh off the grill. So I passed. More
29 Mar 2013
by scolgin
in Food, Recipes
Tags: bagels, breakfast, cowboys, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, Raley's, shmear, smoked salmon, steelhead, trout
I was wondering what kinds of things I might cook while in Tahoe. My friend Curtis, as I said, is a cowboy, so certainly there would be lots of beef. But when I’m traveling, I also enjoy cooking local-style food, or use local ingredients I might not find at home. In Hawaii I like to cook with macadamias, pineapple and fresh fish, for example; in the Northwest, I use salmon and hazelnuts. Would there be any equivalent for Lake Tahoe?
Browsing the Raley’s market just over the Nevada border one early afternoon after skiing, things looked pretty much the usual. I could’ve been at a grocery store in Santa Monica or Malibu. But then at the fish counter, something caught my eye — a red-fleshed Sierra lake trout. More
22 Mar 2013
by scolgin
in Food, Humor, Recipes
Tags: confit, cracklings, duck, Paul Prudhomme, pizza, Priscilla Presley, Spago, Wolfgang Puck
I remember when Wolfgang Puck was cooking at Spago, the original one above Tower Records on the Sunset Strip. I went there a few times as a kid, always glancing about for a Warren Beatty or Jack Nicholson sighting. Years later, I would find myself sandwiched between Priscilla Presley and Paul Prudhomme at a private Chinese New Year dinner at his second restaurant, Chinois on Main. But that’s another story. Back to Spago… it was here that in addition to star spotting, you could sample such radical and then unimaginable pizzas as goat cheese and sun-dried tomato (wow!), smoked salmon with caviar and Thai chicken.
John Huston’s table, Spago Oscars party, 1986
I’ve made a few strange pizzas in my day. Never one to extol novelty for novelty’s sake, I mostly hew near to the Neopolitan standard, sometimes getting a little creative with my toppings — fresh eggs and caramelized fennel, for example, or Kurobata pork belly and pickled red onion — or exploring different cheeses. Occasionally I’ll build a pizza around a single unique ingredient — a particular wild mushroom I’ve found highlighted in a cream reduction. But every so often, I throw convention out completely to the whim of inspiration. More
15 Mar 2013
by scolgin
in Food, Humor, Pork, Recipes
Tags: Asturian beans, chorizo, Fabada, fabes, fagioli, La Tienda, morcilla, paella, Spain, Spanish cooking
Our friends, Dan and Nonie, spent part of last summer in Spain. (Or was it the summer before? Time flies…) Good friends that they are, they were thinking of us as they browsed that wonderful country’s grocery stores and open markets. And they brought us back a large shrink-wrapped plastic package containing dried white beans and several pork products — fabada Asturiana.
Beans, salt pork & blood sausage on the stove
They bought one for themselves as well, and invited us over to sample it. They threw everything into a pot of water, covered it, and let it simmer for a few hours until the beans had assumed the orange of pimentón from the chorizo and general porkiness from that and the morcilla blood sausage and salt pork also included in the package. More
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