You may have noticed that I have taken a bit of a sabbatical from my blog. I guess that the crushing pressure of putting words to the page (so to speak) once or twice a month finally got to me. Either that, or I just no longer wanted to contribute to the cesspool that is cyberspace in 2009. Either that, or I'm a sloth. Whatever the reason, I think I am ready to start putting myself out there online again. Hopefully what I have to say will drop more into Helpful rather than Garbage. Most of my entries forthwith (my Ed Norton word of the day, its a good one) will describe food items/equipment/cookbooks/websites that I find helpful to me in my work. I will mostly stay away from bashing - too much negativity in the world already. Still, once in a while I'm sure I am gonna feel the need to flame away. As long as I can do it with some restraint and class, I don't think that should be a problem.

For my first entry post-sabbatical, I thought I would post a recipe for a dessert I just made. I don't create desserts too often; I'm creative with sugar, but not proficient. I like this one quite a bit. I call it a pie, but it's really a thick-crusted cobbler. Cobblers are really just top-crusted fruit pies anyway. I adapted the Sour Cream Cobbler Biscuit Dough from The Joy of Cooking and put all mishmash of stuff I like into the filling. Summer has not yet arrived, so I used frozen peaches here. Once July hits, however, I know I will make this again with the fresh stuff. Try to make the effort to hunt down the rose water to use in this dish - you'll be glad you did. You can find rose water at Amazon or at ChefShop.

Don't just sit there, get into the kitchen "forthwith" and make yourself some Scooter Pie.


                                                                       

                     SCOOTER PIE

Ingredients

5 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1 3/4 lbs. frozen peach slices (about 3 - 3 1/2 cups), thawed (reserve juices)
2/3 cup candied ginger diced into 1/4" (about 1/3 lb.)
1 1/2 tsp. rose water

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/3 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. fine-grain salt, such as table salt
1 tbsp. cornmeal
6 1/2 tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
10 tbsp. sour cream
5 tbsp. heavy cream

All-purpose flour for rolling out the dough

2 tbsp. heavy cream
1 tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom

Baking pan: one 2-quart 11"x7"x1 1/2" casserole or cobbler pan, or something closely equivalent in size

• Whisk together the 5 tbsp. sugar with the cornstarch and 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom in a large bowl. Toss with peach slices and candied ginger. Toss again with reserved peach juices and rose water. Set aside.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the flour, 3 tbsp. sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cornmeal in the workbowl of a food processor. Process for 30 seconds to combine. Add the cold butter. Pulse the butter into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles sand, approximately 20 one-second pulses. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream and the heavy cream. Using a rubber spatula, gently mix the sour cream mixture into butter-flour mixture. Don't overwork the dough. Knead the dough just a few times in the bowl. Generously flour a work area, such as a counter, to roll out the dough. Flour your hands and the rolling pin also. Transfer the dough to the work area and shape into a rectangle (or whatever shape your pan is). Dust a little flour on top of the dough. Roll out the dough to a 13"x9" size, or roll it out to a size that is 1" bigger on each side of the pan that you will be using. This is a fairly wet dough, so the hard part will be transferring it to the pan. First, take a long flat knife, or a long thin metal spatula, and separate the dough from the work surface. Next, transfer the peach mixture to the pan. (No need to butter the bottom) There's a couple of ways you can transfer the dough: you can lift it using 2 or 3 long knives or spatulas, or you can roll it up on to the rolling pin and then unroll it on to the top of the pan. Fit the dough into the pan on top of the peaches. The dough will be thick and you may have to bunch it up in spots along the edges. If there are any holes in the dough, tear some dough from another spot and patch the hole.
• Brush the heavy cream all over the top of the dough. Mix together the 1 tbsp. sugar and 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom and sprinkle it over the top of the cream. Bake the pie on the middle rack of the oven at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, rotating the pie from front to back after 25 minutes. The crust should be golden and cooked through. Let rest for 20-30 minutes before serving. Serve warm. Garnish with whipped cream flavored with a splash of rose water.

Serves 6-8.

    

              

December 27, 2007: I guess it started right after Christmas. Knowing I would be travelling to New Orleans in March, one of my post-holiday purchases was a Frommer’s New Orleans 2008 Guide. It turned out to be helpful in many ways, but I used it most as an aid for picking out the restaurants I wanted to visit. Sure, there are a number of great sites and attractions to see in New Orleans, but, for me, this was to be a food pilgrimage.
    The most important food decision I needed to make was: Where to eat my birthday dinner. My birthday fell a few days before we started off for the Big Easy, and I was able to easily persuade David into putting off my celebratory dinner until we arrived. I perused my Guide, I dog-earred, I obsessed a little, and I was finally able to narrow my choices to two: Bayona and Galatoire's. Both restaurants have national renown, Bayona for the repute of its chef, Susan Spicer, and Galatoire’s because it is one of the legendary symbols of old-time, old-school New Orleans dining. I ended up choosing Bayona as my birthday destination, mostly because of Galatoire’s requirement for a jacket at dinner. (I discovered when we arrived in the city that Galatoire’s will provide a loaner jacket.) I do own a jacket, but it is old and ugly; not one I would want to be seen in public wearing. I wanted to look my best for Galatoire’s - Galatoire’s deserved the respect that I looked good, not cheap.
    The choice of Bayona for dinner was sublime; the room was quietly elegant, the service was friendly and informative, and the food was spot-on perfect, a foodie’s dream. The Crispy Quail Salad was the most singularly amazing dish I have eaten in my entire life. Nevertheless, despite the tasteful perfection of Bayona, my choice to eat lunch the next day, Good Friday, at Galatoire’s was dead-on faultless as well.

March 21, 2008, 10:15am: The hostess had warned me a day earlier that people often lined up at 10am for Friday lunch at Galatoire’s. Even on busy Fridays, reservations are not taken for lunch – it’s a weekly ritual of egalitarian access. (Egalitarian if you can afford to hand out $40 for lunch, that is.) I arrive at 10:15am and the line is already fairly long. The maitre d’ , who seems to know most everyone’s name, works his way down the line soon afterwards and (yes!) I make it on to the list for the 11:30am seating. As a party of one, apparently it will be easy to get me seated. David is not joining me for this meal; he is in his technology conference for the better part of the day, thus missing out on this authentic experience.
    Galatoire’s is on Bourbon Street – yes, that Bourbon Street. At night it is a decadent carnival offering up a smorgasboard of sins for your choosing. At mid-morning, however, the pleasures of the night give way to hoses washing down everything and delivery trucks replenishing beer, food, condoms, and who knows what else. The location of a restaurant like Galatoire’s on Bourbon Street initially strikes me as odd, until I remember that it has operated there for more than 100 years, much longer than the current atmosphere of excess.
    We are a motley group here, waiting in line for the doors to the lobby and upstairs bar to open at 11am. Certainly, I am hardly the only tourist, and some are decidedly under-dressed for the occasion. In fact, the maitre d’ turns away the ones who are in shorts. Mostly, however, I am aware that I stand in line with New Orleans gentility, men and women whose families have come to Galatoire’s for Good Friday lunch for decades. There is the gentleman in the light blue and white striped linen suit. There are the women, many of them, wearing hats and dresses in bright Easter pastels. There are a few teenagers, awkward in their braces and ill-fitting suits. I’m glad that there’s no favoritism here; despite the fact that these men and women are regulars, frequenting the place for years and years, they still have to stand on their feet in the sun for over an hour, just as I do.

11am: The doors open and everyone heads up the stairs for the upstairs bar, eager for the day’s first Sazerac or Gin-and-Tonic. I go up as well, but quickly descend to the lobby – too crowded. I hate crowds. Waiting for a half hour for my table, boredom should set in, but a silent and overpowering sense of awe and tradition sets my mind racing. I think about the scene in the lobby fifty years earlier; I think what Katrina had wrought upon the place; I think about how the drama of the lunchtime scene might unfold. Funny, but I don’t think that much about the food. The menu had rarely changed in all the previous decades, so I have a good idea of how my food will taste, regardless of what I order.

11:30am: Seating begins. I am one of the first parties seated, having waited in the lobby. I am seated in the very first table by the entrance to the dinning room. I’m not sure how I feel about this; on the one hand, everyone is going to walk by my table, but on then other hand, everyone is going to walk by my table. At least I get to easily witness the parade of humanity on their way to the start of this venerable tradition.


11:45am: My waiter, who somehow doesn’t know my name initially, brings my first course quickly. Turtle Soup. Before it even hits the table, I am struck by an olfactory recognition of sherry. Not a problem – I love sherry. As I sit covertly enjoying my soup, a table of eight Southern belles is seated next to me. They quickly proceed to shatter all my naïve notions of what a Southern belle might be. They are not petite, reserved and refined. No, it becomes apparent that they are raucous, possibly a little drunk, and have been joyously celebrating the pleasure of each others’ company for many years. They carry with them bagfuls of Easter regalia. Their hats are decked out, not just with flowers, but also with plastic eggs and birds. They exchange boxes of Peeps and other candies. Their table centerpiece is a memorable Easter bunny, replete with a battery-charged cigar that lights up.
    Watching the belles, in what can only be termed their ‘home turf’, I am suddenly conscious of the white elephants in the room: Katrina, New Orleans’ extreme poverty, class division. What a difference a day makes. 24 hours earlier, I had ventured off to find Willie Mae’s Scotch House, a renowned down-home fried chicken parlor in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. I think it might have been the poorest neighborhood I have ever seen, and I used to walk all around the city when I lived in Oakland. Willie Mae’s turned out to be closed, yet I’m glad I made the trek – it was a healthy and needed reminder of the many destitute that still live just minutes from a quickly-recovering downtown. Having witnessed this so recently, the scene in Galatoire’s has the potential to make me angry and frustrated: how could such poverty exist in the same city as my belles next door? I am not angry though – I do not know the personal history of these women, or of any of my fellow diners today. Everyone suffered in Katrina, rich or poor, Garden District or Lower 9th Ward. It could very well be that these women are heading relief efforts in the city. I think it’s right to be angry about poverty, to keep it near the front of your everyday consciousness. Still, until you know someone’s personal story, the whole story if you will, it’s also not right to play the blame game.


12:00pm: My entrée arrives. Chicken Clemenceau. This is an old-school dish, a pan-fried chicken breast smothered in peas, mushrooms, and potatoes. To paraphrase a local reviewer, the peas are unabashedly and proudly overcooked. Normally I am not a big fan of peas, but as the saying goes, butter makes everything better.
    Before I dig in, I ask the nearest of the belles to snap my picture. She graciously obliges, not without first forcing a pair of bunny ears on to me, though. Who can resist a Southern belle? Her charm oozes like the butter in my Clemenceau. And that accent……I think I am a little bit in love.
    As I slowly eat my chicken, I frequently gaze around the room. I am acutely conscious of the fact that I am an observer here, not a participant. I am here to absorb, and, eating alone and a somewhat obvious tourist, that is probably apparent to everyone else in the room, staff or client. Still, I don’t feel awkward; the gentle communal roar of the tables in the room warms me. I am happy, and that is even before I indulge in the sugar rush of my dessert.


12:30 pm: My dessert arrives. Sweet Potato Cheesecake. I am not a cheesecake aficionado, and I think about ordering the more obvious slice of Chocolate-Pecan Pie, but this somehow appeals to me. I am not disappointed. It is rich and decadent, probably the highlight of the meal, at least food-wise. I devour it quickly. I want to linger, to bathe in the light of the room indefinitely. This is, after all, a scene quite unlike one I had ever experienced before. I know I should really give up my table so someone else can start their Good Friday tradition. Rather than allow any guilt to shipwreck this dream of a voyage, I pay the check and leave my table for another. Turning back at the entrance, I wistfully survey the room, with one last glance and a willing smile for the belles.
    After the one belle had taken my picture, I thanked her and gave her my wishes for a happy lunch. She grinned and said, “Honey, we alwaaays do.” Leaving the room, it is easy to believe that this cheerful communal gathering ground of New Orleans’ gentle privileged had alwaaays existed and alwaaays would. Long live New Orleans!

    Back in the 19th century, young English aristocrats would take a Grand Tour of continental
Europe as a means of furthering their education. Only the wealthy could do this of course,
as tourism for the common man was still beyond the means of most. A common itinerary might
include the cities of Paris, Rome, Venice, Naples, and Vienna. The experience of meeting new
people and different customs was a rite of passage and an initiation into the cosmopolitan
world of the English gentleman. As the Industrial Revolution created wealth for the middle
classes, the alluring nature of the Grand Tour attracted more and more young English men and
women. This was, in part, the birth of modern tourism.

    In today's world, food tourism is quickly becoming the equivalent of the Victorian Grand
Tour. This is an industry that has really exploded in the past decade, creating big bucks
for entrepreneurs with the initiative and capital to dive in and create memorable food
experiences for foodies and chefs alike. Somehow, American cuisine no longer has the cache
of the cuisines from other countries. It has become as sign of reverence and respect for
American chefs who have war stories to relate about their time in Italy or France. If you
know anything about Mario Batali, you know all about the time he spent honing his craft in
Italy.

    If I were to take a culinary Grand Tour, I would skip Italy and France. 6 months in the
Italian countryside? A tour of a dark French prep basement spent as a semi-slave? Not so
much - I recognize the importance and even appeal of a culinary education based on these
paramount cuisines, but my thirst lies for the knowledge of ports less acknowledged and more
exotic. I did my time in cooking school endlessly hammering out the classic five mother
sauces of Escoffier, yet the seven classic moles of Mexico hardly received five minutes
mention. And that's a mistake that I want to rectify.

If I ever have the money to take a Fantasy Food Grand Tour, here's where I would go:

1) Tunisia. My Tour would start in North Africa. David and I spent a year at home eating
nothing but North African food (the Maghreb plus Egypt). This was probably the best year of
eating I have spent in my whole life. If I had I had single out one region's cuisine I
revere above all others, it would be North Africa. The highlight of the year was probably
the Moroccan dishes I made. But Morocco is familiar - in 2008, every city of any size now
has at least one Moroccan restaurant you can frequent. Try finding a Tunisian restaurant in
the U.S. though. Tunisian cuisine is in some ways similar to Moroccan, but often spicier.
Harissa, a fiery red pepper condiment, permeates almost everything edible. Tunisians eat couscous,
like Moroccans, but theirs is different. Tunisians eat tagines, like Moroccans, but theirs
are very different. One of the fun but often perplexing things about eating North African is
that terms often have more than one meaning. Moroccan tagine - stew. Tunisian tagine - baked
egg dish. Some of the Tunisian dishes I made during our year were casse-croute, brik,
t'fina, chakchouka, and mechouia; trying these dishes in their native land would be a great
experiment to see how my versions differed. Tunisia is one the world's great producers of
couscous and olive oil. I definitely think an olive oil tasting would be in order, as well
as an excursion to the fascinating island of Djerba. For an introduction to Tunisian
cuisine, read Claudia Roden, The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.

2) Argentina. 2nd stop, South America. David and I also spent a year eating nothing but
Arentine food at home as well. Argentine cuisine gets a bad rap. I think there's a
perception that it has nothing to offer except grilled beef and empanadas. But what grilled
beef and what empanadas! If that perception were true, I would still be content to travel
the country to see how the empanadas of Cordoba differ from the empanadas of Mendoza from
the empanadas of Buenos Aires from the empanadas of Patagonia from the empanadas of Salta
from the empanadas......Our year of Argentine food, of course, did include much more than
grilled beef and empanadas. Argentine cuisine is highly influenced by Italian and Spanish
cuisines, modified of course by the local bounty. So we also ate pasta and pizza, but pasta
and pizza that portenos might eat. My ham and blue cheese fugazzetta (stuffed pizza) might be
one of the crowning culinary achievements of my lifetime - I wonder if I would find the same one
in the back streets of Buenos Aires. Argentine cuisine is woefully underdocumented in English, but
one place you can start is Maria Baez Kijac, The South American Table.

3) Mexico. My vote for the world's most underappreciated cuisine. 99 % of Americans have no clue
what Mexican cuisine is really like. It is not cheesy enchiladas slathered in canned red sauce. It is
not mildly spiced chicken chili. Think instead Jan Brady - masa, masa, masa! (Wow, that was cheesy.)
Do you know what huitloacoche is? Wonderful earthy corn fungus. Have you ever had squash flowers?
Rarely served in American Mexican restaurants. Do dried shrimp sound disgusting to you? Try them in
pozole. Want to read more? Diana Kennedy's My Mexico is not really introductory material,
but it is a mouth-watering read. And though a good read is important, but I would much rather spend
several months down there. Bonus: I hear you can get a tan in Mexico.

4) American South. No, it is not foreign or even an exotic port of call, but if any American
region has a distinct and identifiable cuisine, it has to be the South. Yes, I am going to
New Orleans next month, which puts never-ending ants in my pants, but the Creole and Cajun
influences in New Orleans seems somewhat distinct  from Memphis barbecue or the slow-cooked
collards of Alabama. Hmmmmm, barbecue - I'm tired of only reading about the differences between
Carolina barbecue and Memphis barbecue. Reading is not visceral, reading cannot fill your
stomach to the point of orgasmic explosion. Not that I think all Southern cooking is
gut-busting and coronary-inducing. I suspect there is a subtlety to Southern cooking that is
a well-hidden secret from most of America. It is a shame that Paula Deen has become the face
of Southern cooking. I'm sure she is a nice woman and well-intentioned, but Food Network has
transformed her into a two-dimensional cartoon character. I doubt that Memphis barbecue is a
cartoon - time to find out if it is rather Dostoyevsky. I recommend David Martin Taylor's The New
Southern Cook.

5) Indonesia. Last stop on my Tour. Not that I can't think of other uncelebrated countries
or regions I want to Tour, but I have to stop the Tour somewhere. David and I also ate
Indonesian food at home, but circumstances prevented us from lasting a whole year on that
adventure, ending it after two months instead. What a wonderful and educational two months
that was. Indonesia, like other Asian countries, uses a whole different set of ingredients
than what Western cooks normally use. I found that you can't just start in using these
ingredients and expect instant success every time. I was just starting to familarize myself
with my new pantry when our experiment ended, but I have a whole new list of ingredients I
want to play with: palm sugar, tauco, blachen, candlenuts. Kecap manis (sweet soy sauce)was one
of my favorite discoveries from cooking school, and I was more than happy to get re-acquainted
with it. I suspect my stabs at Indonesian-style creations would have been laughable to a
native. I suspect I would need several years there to even begin to gain a mastery of the
cuisine. But even a few weeks as a food tourist would help sate my curiosity. James Oseland's
Cradle of Flavor is one of the best-written cookbooks ever. Check it out from your
library or go buy it.

I am now accepting financial contributions to my Grand Tour. Contact me through this site.

Dear Ms. Ray,

    We have known each other for quite a while now. Years ago, when you first appeared on Food Network with your show $40 a Day, you were a fresh, engaging new face. A fresh engaging new face that probably saved Food Network from oblivion. I loved the natural candidness you brought to the camera. Whether you were really natural and candid, or well-rehearsed and well-scripted, didn’t really matter. Millions loved you. You turned to new shows and authored new cookbooks. Millions tuned in and bought the books. If the number of people you influenced is a guidepost, you became the number #1 cooking authority in the country. Sure, Thomas Keller’s cookbooks are more beautiful, more authoritative, and more fun, but I would estimate that 30 times the number of people use your recipes more than his. No, you aren’t a chef, which you willingly acknowledge. You say you can’t make bread or coffee – well, I am a trained chef, and I’m pretty bad at those things as well. You may be a flawed culinary diva, but a culinary diva you still are.
   
    A year ago you jumped to the big time with your own daytime TV talk show. You host that show almost daily, you continue to appear on Food Network with 30-Minute Meals, and you also pump out more 30-Minute cookbooks – do you ever get to sleep? You have also, naturally, leaped into food endorsements. I see you everywhere in grocery store aisles, staring out at me with your PhotoShop-enhanced neck. Are you trying to become as rich as your sponsor Oprah? While you probably have a long way to go to catch her, I’m sure your wealth must now be in the 9-figure range. Which I have no problem with. I once went to a career counselor who provided me with several bromides and a few instructive pieces of advice, but the one I remember most: Never be afraid of, or feel guilty, about making money. If you were to relinquish your wealth and your status as a culinary diva, there are thousands out there who would jump at the chance to take away your reign. No, I don’t begrudge you your wealth and your fame.
    HOWEVER: last week I caught your daytime talk show for the first time. I don’t ever work too much during Thanksgiving week, and last week was no exception. I was feeling lethargic one day, so I committed myself to an afternoon of couch time. Guiding Light came on – I endured an hour of the antics of the Lewises and the Spauldings. You came on. You had some guests – must have been irrelevant B-listers, I don’t recall who they were. Then you provided a Thanksgiving week recipe – Apple-Cranberry Walnut Sauce. It was a DIFFICULT-with-a-D recipe:

1)    Put some walnuts in a bowl.
2)    Put some applesauce in a bowl.
3)    Put some canned cranberry sauce in a bowl.
4)    Stir.

Seriously, that was the recipe. Open some cans and stir it all together. Rachael, is this what you have sunk to? Sure, the audience applauded – must be a condition of their admittance. (Maybe you steal audiences from Emeril?) But is this the culinary face you want to present to the world?
    Rachael, I know you are busy and spread too thin. I know you have no assertions to being a chef. I know you are cooking for the masses, and not even such masses who might be Top Chef devotees. But I have one thing I want to say to you: you have lost your dignity. At least on 30-Minute Meals you still cook. Maybe not meals I would want to cook very often (although there are a couple that I cook for clients on occasion), but you are still teaching people how to cook. You know – use a stove and an oven, not a can opener. There is something I beg you to remember: like it or not, you are a culinary role model. You have more influence than Charlie Trotter, Thomas Keller, and Mario Batali put together. What happened to you when you moved to daytime??
    You have lost your dignity. Worse, you have become Sandra Lee. Please reconsider your career path.

Sincerely, I-Still-Want-To-Be-Your-Fan Jay Williamson

              I was raised outside of a small town in Northern California. Not born there, but my family moved there when I was 12. I only lived there from ages 12 to 18, and for a couple very brief periods as an adult, but I think Grass Valley is the place I will always think of as home. We lived on a small farm, complete with a country-sized garden and livestock. Did we eat well? Does a Duroc spend its days rooting in the mud? To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever managed to eat such pristine food. We had two freezers stocked with the meat we raised. We had a few fruit trees, as well as a huge 1/4-acre patch of wild blackberries. Blackberry pie was my first misadventure in the kitchen, but I can also recall one particular height-of-summer dinner I prepared when I was 17 or 18. Some aunts, uncles, and cousins were visiting, mostly from Iowa. The dinner included grilled pork chops, zucchini fritters, and fresh corn on the cob, among other things. I’m sure if I were to prepare the same meal today it would be a far-cry better, but the simple purity of the food must have gone a long way towards masking my mistakes. Everyone said the meal was great, but what else would you say to a teenager just starting out in the kitchen? On that farm, I lost my culinary virginity. On that farm, I was infected with a cooking itch that I never really started to scratch until 15 years later.

            As much as I loved the food at home growing up, I loved our infrequent excursions out to dinner even more. I don’t remember too many of the restaurants where we dined, but I know there was a lot of pizza, some Mexican, and even some occasional Chinese. I wonder what I would think if I could go back to 1978, packing with me the years of culinary experience I now have, and eat at those same restaurants - I suspect I would be sorely disappointed. For one thing, my parents probably didn’t waste their money taking me and my sisters to nicer restaurants that we couldn’t appreciate. For another, I honestly believe food, in general, has come a long way since the late 70’s. It’s not my intent here to diss Grass Valley and its food, though. My younger sister moved back there a few years ago, and she regales me with tales of some remarkable meals she’s had there. It has also become home to something of an artisanal food movement. When I went back for a visit last summer, I was stunned at the price and quality of the produce at a farmers’ market that I roamed. Garden-fresh tomatoes for $1.25 per pound! You can bet some fantastic gazpacho was made that day. But I left Grass Valley when I was 18 to go off to college in the city, and I never really left the Big City ever again.

            I thought about my rural past the other day when David and I went for a drive out in the countryside. Nominally, it was to be a day to meander along the Mountain Loop Highway, which re-opened after a 4-year closure, but it turned to be a day to re-connect with uncitified grub. We started with a visit to a pumpkin patch. Hey, why not, it was coming up on Halloween, which everyone knows is not just for kids anymore. Incredibly, this was my first visit to a pumpkin patch. We trudged through the muddy field and David picked out a pumpkin to carve. (We’ll see if he follows through.) It may eventually end up as pumpkin pie or pumpkin bisque. After we finished in the fields, we headed to Glacier Falls for lunch. Not too many options for dining in Glacier Falls, at least along the main road, so we settled on a Mexican restaurant. It was the kind of place, viewed from the outside, that you knew exactly what you would get. Or so I thought. A lot of the details of our lunch were standard Mexican fare – Mexican rice and beans, plates finished under a broiler, chips and salsa to start. And then there was the machaca. Only the best machaca I had eaten in my life - and I used to eat a lot of machaca back in my college days. Really simple and flavorful, without any extraneous additions to muck it up. Besides the machaca, we also had some delicious house-made salsas for our chips. David’s chipotle chicken burritos were outstanding as well. Score one for Mexican food in Glacier Falls.

            Then, after our afternoon loop through the mountains, we hit Darrington. Or, rather, Darrington hit us. This was not our first time in Darrington. A few years ago, on our way back to Seattle from Mt. Baker, we also trekked through Darrington. As it was dinnertime, we found our way to a roadside dinner. My dinner wasn’t memorable; I think it was a Reuben sandwich with a sad little salad. I got the better deal. David, however, ordered chicken-fried steak. It arrived tough, with a pasty gravy that obviously derived from a packet. The kicker, though, was an insipid small bowl of previously-frozen, microwaved, graying peas and carrots. My dinner wasn’t memorable, but that bowl of vegetables was. I have never sustained a held-in burst of laughter as long as I have for the 20 minutes it took David to pick through his meal. I could barely keep it in, finally releasing in the car before we even escaped the parking lot. I wanted so badly to capture his meal on film, but I feared getting my city-ass kicked by a bunch of out-of-work foresters. To match the worst side of vegetables ever, on Sunday we were served, in a different Darrington establishment, the worst hot chocolate ever. It wasn’t hot, it was lukewarm, it was way too sweet, and David only took one sip. We were cold, and some hot chocolate would have really satisfied and warmed us. It was not to be though.

            So, what’s my verdict on small-town food? Is small-town food my $1.25 fresh-out-of-the-garden tomatoes, or is it a humorously evil side of frozen vegetables? What strikes me is that here, in the Big City, you probably wouldn’t find either the tomatoes or the peas and carrots. Sure, we have delightful weekend farmers’ markets, but we pay Big City prices at our farmers’ markets, nothing like the fantastic bargains I saw in Grass Valley last summer. You also don’t find the Americana of small-town diner food in Seattle. Even in our small neighborhood joints, the food is still influenced to some extent by the sophistication of venerable downtown institutions. I have a friend who runs a neighborhood comfort food place in the Ravenna neighborhood, and I know Dan would sooner die than serve a side of pruny and cadaverous peas and carrots.

            I guess the (painfully obvious) answer is that small-town food is as good and as bad as anything you can find in the Big City, just different. I go out to great restaurants here all the time; I am also frequently disappointed here as well. I think the major difference between Seattle and Grass Valley or Darrington is the breadth of variety that you find in the Big City. I know you can’t choose between eight different Ethiopian places in Grass Valley, or hundreds (thousands??) of Thai places in Darrington. And maybe that’s a good thing. Small towns should stick to what they do best; so should big cities. And even in Darrington, I believe there is hope. Along with our awful hot chocolate on Sunday, I also ordered a slice of apple pie. If I had been in Twin Peaks instead of Darrington, I might have written an epic poem about that gorgeous slice of pie. With that slice of pie, Darrington redeemed itself to me. With that slice of apple pie, I remembered what it felt like to be an utterly small-town American.

            I went to the symphony the other night. I have a symphony buddy, my friend S. We go about once a year, and the other night we watched opening night of Mozart’s Requiem. It was the second time we had seen it (he says first, but he has a lousy memory). Every time I go to the symphony, I get started thinking about food. Any time the music slows, and I snap out of my otherworldly reverie, I want to conjure comparisons of what I am hearing with food. Why at the symphony? Must be something to do with the complexity of the music. One of the few things in the world that can match the complexity and transcendence of a great work of classical music is a well-thought-out and well-prepared meal. Sometimes I get these flashes of analogy for a single dish: Beethoven’s Ode to Joy simply screamed at me that I was at that very moment eating bastilla. Sometimes the inspirations come as impressions of an entire meal: Bach’s Eroica took me back to the simple strong flavors of a particular brunch my gifted friend A made for me once.

            Mozart’s Requiem is my favorite work of classical music in the entire world. I have it on CD of course. I watch the movie Amadeus a couple of times a year. And now, I have seen it performed twice in person. That night, when I wasn’t flung into the depths of rapture, I started to think of what food the Requiem could be. (Wouldn’t it be a blast to return to the 18^th century and ask: Mr. Mozart, if you could be a food, what would it be?) I’ve never had a seven-course tasting menu before; otherwise I would have been tempted to make that comparison. A meal that long could only be compared to a lengthy work of music. Actually, the Requiem doesn’t last as long as a seven-course tasting menu probably would. Still, I remembered a five-course meal that I prepared that might parallel the Requiem. Yeah, it’s a bit of hubris to compare my work to that of one of the world’s all-time geniuses. I doubt my food has ever brought anyone to tears. This one meal, however, a Moroccan feast, was elaborate and memorable. My flavors were spot-on, there were a wondrous grab-bag of textures, and the meal built, crescendoed, and subsided. David and I still talk about it. If your happy places include hauntingly indelible meals, you know what I’m talking about. And, if your happy places are hauntingly indelible meals and performances of the Requiem, well, then I barely need to write the words in this post – the language of memory doesn’t need a blog.

            Going to the symphony gets me thinking about another subject as well: the inadequacy of words. More to the point, the inadequacy of my words. Music is a language – you don’t need to be a musician to understand that. Besides the music itself, there is a whole vocabulary you need to even talk about music intelligently. I impressed myself that I was able to use the word “crescendoed” in a sentence. I don’t understand that vocabulary; I’m content being a music lover, rather than a music aficionado. The fact that my vocabulary regarding food seems insufficient is more troubling to me. How do you write about food and make the words fresh every time? I think that is the big thing for food writers. I don’t mind using music as a reference in this blog post – that’s what this post is all about. But if I were to continually use it s an analogy, not only would my writing become tired,  it would also be a little pretentious.

            There’s a whole different vocabulary surrounding the cooking of food than there is surrounding the description of food. If I were to write about 9-pans and kicking some ass on my mis, well, nonprofessionals reading my writing would be lost and turned off. To describe food, to describe it in a vibrant and original manner, you really need a large miscellanea of adjectives and adverbs. A thesaurus helps; a vivid imagination is a better tool. I tend to describe food as “rockin’ good”. After the tenth repetition, the phrase becomes trite, and frankly, embarrassing for a 43 year-old to be using it at all. If you aren’t practiced and adept at the description of food, your words can become pretty tired pretty quickly.

            I wish I was better at describing food. Nevertheless, you have read down to the end of my post. Maybe you have read my other posts. I’m not good yet, but hopefully I have made a good start.

    I don't want to write restaurant reviews with my blog. David and I go out to eat once every week or two, and we generally go to some terrific places. If I wanted to, I'm sure I could turn other Seattleites on to some wonderful out-of-the-way places they have never been to. If I did that, though, I wouldn't have the energy or time to blog about more interesting food topics. Besides, after my griping about Yelp and Chowhound in my original post, I think I'd be a hypocrite to start devoting this space to doing such a thing. So, I must declare: this is not a restaurant review. No, it is a lament.  
    About a week ago, on a Sunday evening after I had spent the day cooking for a bridal shower brunch, I suggested that we go out to dinner. We had not dined out on Moroccan in a while, so I suggested the place near our house. I won't name this place; I'm not quite mean-spirited enough to maliciously damage their business. Let's just say, David and I live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle, and this establishment is within walking distance from our condo. We had dined there twice before. The first time was on David's birthday, two or three years ago. The food on that occasion was decent, at least I thought so - I had a Chicken with Olives dish that I remember being tasty. David says he wasn't thrilled with the food on that occasion, but I don't really recall that. The second visit was about a year and a half ago. The first visit had a female belly dancer as the entertainment, as Moroccan places are wont to do, but I wanted to return to watch their male belly dancer. I remember three things about that second visit: 1) The male belly dancer was good, with a very different energy from the female belly dancer, and David hated the performance - he hates the forced cultural accoutrements that you often get in ethnic restaurants; 2) My accountant was there, sitting next to us, also there to watch the male belly dancer; 3) My dinner was awful. I had Couscous with Seven Vegetables, which is one of the quintessential Moroccan dishes. The couscous was steamed, as it should be, not the instant variety that most Americans are accustomed to eating. But the couscous had no flavor, the vegetables were overcooked and bland, and the rarest of rare happened - I left half my dinner on my plate. That, in itself, should have been a good reason not to go back.
    Yet, I often get a craving for Moroccan food, and when I found myself with this craving last weekend, without the energy to spend cooking some for myself, I found myself willing to give this place another chance. For me, a second chance; for David, a third chance. Mediocrity is such a downer. I had Zahlouk, which is a Moroccan eggplant dish, and a Chicken with Oranges dish. I also asked for some iced mint tea. The Zahlouk had decent flavor, but it was served hot, cooked to order, which is not how I am accustomed to eating it. My Zahlouk is more like a dip to be eaten with bread, served room temperature or cold. I could wrong about Zahlouk being served hot, but I've just never heard of it that way. My mint tea was hot with a few iced cubes thrown in, resulting in a tea that was neither hot and warming nor cold and refreshing - it was tepid and watered down. The most serious crime, however, from my order was the Chicken with Oranges. This was a 2 or 3 ounce piece of chicken served with canned mandarin segments and a lifeless sauce. Seriously? Canned manadarin segments? It wasn't an expensive entree, about $12 I think, but I think I was entitled to more than a couple of bites of meat with some processed food.
    David's items represented the more serious offense. His first course was a trio of salads - carrot, beet, and cucumber. Carrot and beet salads, at least, are classic Moroccan dishes, but these were thoroughly uninteresting. No flavor, no bite. Forgettable. His next course was chicken bastilla. It was ok, not bad, but not particularly great either. And that was the biggest sin of the evening. Mediocre chicken bastilla? It pains me to even write the words. Bastilla is one of the true glories of the culinary world. Bastilla is Beethoven's Ode to Joy. Bastilla is Kirk Gibson's hobbled pinch-hit home run against the A's. Bastilla is the Mona Lisa. I feel as though I have some cred in criticizing this bastilla, as I've made bastilla several times: Chicken Bastilla, Seafood Bastilla, and a version of Pigeon Bastilla that I proudly created myself. I know bastilla, and you - Mr. Chef of the Capitol Hill Moroccan restaurant - are no Bastilla-maker.
    A few good items, a few bad items, and mostly second-rate fare. We didn't spend a fortune in our three trips to this establishment, but I feel like I was raped and robbed anyway. I think it has something to do with my feelings about Moroccan cuisine in general. You see, I firmly believe Morocco has one of the world's great and underrated cuisines, so when I find a Moroccan cook bearing no passion or care in the preparation of this food, I feel personally insulted. I'm trying to bring the grandeur of a (relatively) unknown cuisine to the attention of the world at large, and you, sir, serve me canned manadarin segments. I know there are greater, more significant, crimes being committed in the world at large, but as the Moroccan Food Prosecutor of Capitol Hill, I condemn you sir.
    As we walked out of the restaurant, I turned to David and apologized for taking him there a third time, assuring him we would not be returning. He gave me one of those looks, the one that tells me I said something ridiculously apparent. I turned around as we walked away, giving the restaurant one last glance. I sighed and I missed a step.

     In the name of Jupiter, I swear it is one of the twelve tasks of Hercules for me to get a fresh-cooked meal on the table at dinnertime at home. If you read my last post, you know that David rarely cooks for me, although he did recently pull off a very generous kitchen stint. But that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about coming home, after a long day of cooking, several hours on my impeccably damaged feet, facing the question taunting me out of the pantry: what to do about dinner? I'm obviously not of those unfortunates who hate to cook, but sometimes when there's no energy, there's just no inspiration to pour my heart and soul into yet one more dish to finish my cooking day.
    So, what do David and I do? Recently, we have been on a several-weeks-long streak of knocking out a salad every night. Normally I get bored pretty quickly of the same food for dinner every night, but salad seems to be somehow different. We get our veggies, it doesn't take a lot of brain power to put one together, and summer brings mercifully cheap produce. But, that's just our veggies. What to do about carbs and protein? I strongly believe in batch cooking. It isn't befitting in the summer, but for the rest of the year, I make big batches of soup and store pint-size servings in the freezer. What to do about dinner in the fall and winter - grab a couple of containers of soup out of the freezer. Even in Seattle summers, however, soup is not really a captivating choice. Gazpacho - perhaps, and I do make several different varieties, but it just doesn't freeze well. There's always casseroles, which, unfortunately, require turning on the oven. Seattle summers may not be very hot (despite the insipid conversations I hear to the contrary on occasion), but when you live on the sixth floor with poor ventilation, an evening sun, and no air conditioning, turning on the oven is a fugly option.
    There's always various options from the grocery store - not. I'm continually disappointed by any ready-to-eat meals I bring home from the store. Microwave dinners are improving, especially the ethinc options, but mostly, I eat these meals and feel a pang of guilt, knowing I could have done much better. My food is good and I'm not shy about trumpeting that to the world.
     Of course, I am occasionally surprised by an item from the store. I hate my local grocery store - it is a soulless blood-sucking national chain, but that's a subject for another post. I shop there because there's a lot to be said for proximity. Recently, I bought some Baba Ghanouj from this store, although it was not a store brand. I brought it home, cut up some veggies, and was struck by Revelation. Now, I make some pretty good Baba - smoky, chunky, slightly bitter, perfectly in balance. This was different from mine - even smokier, but smooth as silk. I might make a baby's butt reference here, but I shy away from language that the Washington Morals Police might construe as child molestation. This Baba was fine, fine, fine. But I digress......the point is, sometimes, even a cursed chain grocery store can get something right on occasion. Even a backwards-running clock is right twice a day.
    What to do for dinner in summer? Besides our salads, I'm afraid I'm stumped. Yes, the lack of energy is still a problem the rest of the year, but when you combine that with an unwillingness to turn on the oven, I'm screwed. Add on top of that a somewhat limited budget for dining out, and you get to what the core theme of what this post is really about - I am asking you, my readers, what should I do about dinner in the summertime? What do you do about dinner in the summertime? If you are my client - well, I know what you do for dinner. Everyone else? Restaurant chefs - they have the benefit of Family Meal. What about other personal/private chefs - what do you do for dinner in the summertime/or any other season of the year, after you've spent a long day on your feet cooking? Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, I guess this is a cry for help. Help me put some sweet home cooking on the table tonight.
    Sometimes, I think I need to hire a personal chef.
   

    Why do people cook? I mean, besides the obvious, day-to-day, nutritional reasons. I think the people who eat to live, cooking anything to put food in their stomachs, are in the minority in this country. At least, I want to believe that. And I think the rising grocery costs from the increase in organic and designer foods bears that out.
    So, what about the live-to-eat people? Why do they cook? One of the old chestnuts you often hear is that cooking for someone is an act of love. The argument runs that you are giving your time, your focus, and your energy when you cook for another person. Time, focus, and energy are valuable commodities in the 21st century, and you only give these to people who are important to you.
    I'm not sure I buy this whole argument. Why do I cook? Good Lord, the reasons for that probably number in the dozens. The way my mind works in God's own private mystery, and frankly, I'm not sure I want to burrow too deeply into all the reasons why I cook. Pop psychology is a fun game, until you play it solitaire. But, some of the reasons why I cook are pretty clear:

    One - I like to please people. Why? I don't know, but I take great pleasure in the praise from people who eat my food. It was probably the primary reason why I got into the cooking game.
    Two - I am pretty good at it. No one wants to work at a job at which they suck, and anyone with any self-awareness knows whether or not they are good at their job. (Which leads to the logical corollary - no one wants to work at a job at which they suck, unless they are the President of the U.S.).
    Three - I need an income. Self-explanatory.
    Four - It is cool. Pro sports were never gonna be in my future. Neither was American Idol. Chefs have been cool for the past ten or fifteen years now, and cooking was something I knew I could do when I was mapping out potential career paths ten years ago. I'm a somewhat shy and private person (yeah, that's why I've started a blog!), and I'm uncomfortable in many social situations, but I can always start conversations with strangers by telling them what I do for a living. 'Yeah, you're right, personal chef is a pretty cool occupation. So, what do you do?'
   
    Is cooking for someone associated with love and generosity, or is it associated with power? That's another of these questions that can be answered with the whole glass-half-full-or-empty notion. I was in grad school in the mid-90s, back in the day when philosophical academics explained everything by power relationships, relativity, and symbol. (Is it still that way? I haven't kept up with academia at all since I left grad school.) When you cook for someone, are you demonstrating your power over them? When you cook for someone, do you do so because that person has power over you? I never particularly enjoyed grad school - I am a loving, glass-is-half-full kind-of-guy. And, no, I also don't think cooking for someone is a class or racial question either.

    Why have these thoughts about the nature of cooking entered my conscoius and sub-conscious mind this week? That's not difficult to answer, even for an reluctant pop pyschologist. I have been flat on my back for 12 days now. Broken foot, tendonitis. Can barely shuffle back and forth from the bedroom to the living room. Can barely keep from gouging my eyes out due to an critical mass of reality shows. I've been off work, naturally, so if I can't cook, I guess I can think about the nature of cooking.
    Oh yeah, one more small detail to add - David has been cooking for me for the last 12 days. First period of time since we've been together that he has performed this "chore", and I am so so grateful for it.  We've spent 7 years together next week, and I have done all the cooking in all that time. Does that mean I haven't felt any love from David in the past 7 years until now? Pfffft. It just means that I have felt the love a little stronger in the past 12 days.

    So, in response to one of my thematic question here: Do I believe cooking is an act of love? Yes, I do believe it is an act of love, when someone you love cooks for you, and vice versa. It is not always an act of love - I like my clients, I enjoy their company and conversation, but no, I don't love my clients, and I spend the vast majority of my work week cooking for them. No, I don't believe the underpaid, overworked, sweat-drenched line cook loves the clientele in the dining room. No, I don't believe Emeril loves his robotic studio audiences. (Who could love them?)

    I feel loved this week. Thank you sweetie.
   
   
   

My first blog entry - it shouldn't cause any trepidation, nervousness, or any of my typical symptoms of writers' block, but nevertheless it has. The point of this blog is that I don't want to be careful with my words, I don't want to push out a gallon of sweat with the birth of each new sentence, I don't want to think about it for a month ahead of time. No, the point of my blog is to be careless, to be blunt, to say things on the spur of the moment that I wouldn't say if I had any amount of time to deliberate. I want my blog to state what's really on my mind. Too much of the time, I'm a milquetoast nice guy - "Oh yes, your cookies do look good, oh yes, that's not too much horseradish in there, oh yes, a gallon of key lime juice in your ice cream would taste really good." I'm won't be such a nice guy when I just publish words without inhibition. Does that mean my blog is going to be just like good sex, uninhibited? Maybe, although I'm not sure my stamina for putting out words is really all that.

It's not really my first blog entry ever - I put up a few recipes on my MySpace page and called them blog entries. But I quickly grew bored with that, thus disappointing all 2 of the subscribers that I have on there. This blog will be a lot more than just recipe publication. I want to spew forth on the Seattle food scene. Give my thoughts about Food Network. Ramble on about my job, and not even drip with sarcasm on that point, since I really do love my job. I read a lot of food blogs and other online food writing, so I know some of the things I don't want to do with my blog. I don't want to give blow-by-blow accounts of what I made for dinner that night, complete with requisite photos. I cook something new everyday, whether it's for my job or at home, and publishing such a blog would turn into a second full-time job - not gonna happen. My goal is to publish here about once a week, more often when I am inspired, less often if I am feeling like I have to push something out.

I also don't want my blog to turn into a personal version of Yelp or Chowhound. Yes, I do eat out, and yes, I do feel like I have valid opinions on the establishments I visit, but after reading the often nasty reviews on the aforementioned sites, I've been soured on the whole idea of online restaurant reviews. It's no wonder Mario Batali and other chefs have complained so bitterly about the whole concept. Now, before I get a bunch of comments on this blog complaining that I have unfairly maligned these sites, let me qualify - they do have their uses. If reviewers would restrict their comments to "Yes - the food was excellent" or "No - the service was lacking", then I would be more apt to read and appreciate the reviews on these sites. Unfortunately, I see a lot of what amounts to negative vendettas passed off as impartial criticism, as well as reviewers who write above and beyond their knowledge level. What I do mean by this? I mean young and affluent non-food professionals with a subscription to Food and Wine and an annual pilgrimmage to Napa who fancy themselves as "foodies". IF ALL YOU EVER DO IN A KITCHEN IS TURN ON YOUR ESPRESSO MACHINE OR THE MICROWAVE, YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO TELL A CHEF HOW HE/SHE SHOULD HAVE CONSTRUCTED YOUR ENTREE INSTEAD. Fake Foodies - one of the worst aftereffects of the glamorization of food in the last ten years. So, Yelpers, tell us if the food was any good or not - just don't tell us that your Candied Ginger and Rhubarb Roulade was subpar because it wasn't how the picture looked in the April issue of your subscription.

Wow, I don't think I realized I had built such a tall soapbox on that issue.

More than anything, I want to read more food blogs and take inspiration from the good ones for what I will do on this one. Everyone knows that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I abide by that motto in my cooking, and I plan to guide this blog by that same principle. I have a few favorite blogs - once I put together a comprehensive list, I will provide some links.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, my initial effort. Feel free to comment - as long as you aren't abusive or profane, I'll take the time to read your thoughts and keep them posted.

Good night - eat well.