San Francisco Goodies

Recently, I went to San Francisco for the weekend with my dog Brody and dear friend Antonia. We left at noon and 6 hours of hot, dusty highway 5, 2 pee brakes and a roadside fruit stand later we were paying our toll and pushing through cars to get the green light on the Bay Bridge. It seems no matter how I plan my travel to SF I always end up delayed or rushed until I'm in perfect sync with the setting of the sun as I roll across that bridge. The deep shadows of the skyline and the haze and the fog and the silver gold sunlight on the water always make me doubt my reasons for leaving my old city.

I should have a post card or photo for that nostalgic hiccup but I don't so I'll share this Still Life With Produce moment from Niki and Tony's house where we arrived moments later.


My sister and Tony's home was cozy and inviting. More than ever their little abode was busting at the seems with life, beauty and many projects. The little guys production station....only my sister can make such a pretty mess.

Tony's strawberries. Check out the awesome container garden in the back of the house.

Saturday night we (they) had a dinner party made especially sweet by the effortless pairing of lovely people and good food. Smartly organized as a potluck Tony made mashed yams and potatoes then baked with parmesan and bread crumbs, a garden salad from his actual garden and rubarb juice for mixed drinks. He also made, more delicious bread, of course, and peppered the table with pickled condiments from his summer stock. His sister (my sister, we are family) Bridget, my cancer cohort, made collard greens (yes also from the gard... you get it) stewed with onions. I made nothing. Niki made the place warm with candles and set things right. Dusty and Brody made things hairy and extremely charming.

The table was expanded all evening by the chef's and foodies that attendended, every bite a starchy delight thankfully, and we completed the feast with Mission Pies and ice cream around a pit fire in the garden.

****

And oh, you don't even know the heaven I'm in. Tony has been canning~!
I have bread and butter pickles, white vinegar pickles, cherries, strawberry lemon jam (yes, sooooo good), strawberry rubarb jam, pickled onions and more and more. You wish you you knew. Really.

The bread and butter pickles have a flavor like cornichons and they are excellent chopped up into an egg salad.

Tony lamented that he's not sure what one does with pickled onions and I'll admit right here mostly I just eat them out of the jar with my fingers but I also topped my carrot soup with them, layered them into a quesadilla with smoked tomato salsa and added them to my beet and corn salad last night.

getting edumakated...

I spend a lot of these grey mornings meandering on the web. It's amazing where you can go in a couple hours with tea and a bowl of fruit and yogurt in your lap. I've been to goose farm in Spain, a sustainable organic farm in Connecticut and I fell in love with the rural east coast again, watching lambs and cows and pigs happy in grass fields surrounded by woods. I hung out with renowned chef Dan Barber at TED and he took me to a goose farm in Spain where the goose whisperer has his flock call wild geese to their utopia for the winter. I actually considered trying froi gras for the first time in my life (something I have found so deeply offensive that it detoured me from taking being a chef seriously - the disgusting practices that chef's celebrate and support - don't even get me started) but you'll have to watch the whole 20 minute TED lecture to understand why . I took a trip down memory lane to my favorite secret Northern California cherry find off highway 1 and revisited my young lover's dream to restore an old stage coach stop and turn it into our own Whistle Stop Cafe. We lingered around this one shop town for hours walking up and down old roads imagining planting a kitchen garden and serving prefixed dinners to the folks around the area (Neil Young most notable among them)....

Anyway, one of my favorite new discoveries today is Blue Hill Farm. Please go explore their site. Go to the know thy farmer farms map and click on the video interviews of the farmer's this restaurant buys from. It's a weekend away in a morning. It made me want to drive all the way there from here just to visit a mushroom farmer while he inoculates tree trunks with psyllium (I didn't know those terms before this morning)

Have you seen Food Inc. yet? You must. If you haven't read Omnivore's Dilemma or Fast Food Nation or seen Super Size Me you must. Really, nothing is more important. Everything stems from good health and good food is the obvious first step. It's astonishing how far away from common sense we've gotten.

Tell me what you find....

mastering perspective or a latte break

I am noticing patterns in my life lately and like any pattern if you stare at one long enough it starts to invert. The pattern you thought you were looking at becomes it's own opposite and then it's meaning changes. And then it flips back. It can be entertaining or frightening depending on how serious you are about it but either way it offers perspective. It's the very definition of perspective actually. When you realize there is another way to look at something you must by default recognize that your original way of seeing things was simply the other way of seeing the thing. Your present point of view will never change but your perspective on the matter might shift, usually in hind sight. And this is what makes being human so extraordinary. And this is what makes being human so difficult. Master your perspective and, I suspect, you'll be the master of your own life.

What does this have to do with food? It has everything to do with food. It's at exactly this juncture that things like this show up around me:

decaf soy latte & chocolate cherry scone from Fix

sweet corn, cheddar & green chile tamale from
(you guessed it) the Hollywood Farmer's Market

breakfast at the office

My camera walked into the room this morning while I was staring at my tea steeping demanding that I play with her. I can't I said, I have tea to drink, the room to stare at, news and facebook to read, my journal to write, sleepy dog to walk, I have to work out and I have to make breakfast. My camera heard, blah blah blah BREAKFAST! She stomped her little lens and batted her aperture at me. How could I resist? I was helpless. I am at her beck and call. So, here is how my little camera saw breakfast this morning. Looks tasty no?

The office. Tea steeping while sun moves across the room....it's lovely.

Baked eggs with goat cheese and Japanese tomatoes
aka
breakfast at the office

I like to keep breakfast simple. I like to keep everything simple actually (at least where food is concerned). Start with these ingredients. Trader Joe's baby. Love them. Although, this cheese is not organic and I will probably have to find an alternative soon it worked well for this dish. Forgive me. I won't let it happen again. This dish is single summer friendly, meaning, it's calorie lite. Healthy, tasty and quick. 15 minutes to make, swear.

• Spray some olive oil into a ramakin.

Have we talked about Japanese tomatoes? I may be repeating myself here but these are the best things at the farmer's market. I've never seen them at the grocery store. They are a little less vibrant in color than we expect from a robust tomato but the flavor is always light, sweet and wonderful. They are much lower in acid than normal tomatoes. Also more watery.

• Slice one into 4 1/2" rounds. Put one round in the bottom of the ramekin.

• Sprinkle some goat cheese onto the tomato.

• Pour in egg white. Repeat ....until the ramekin is full.

• Finish with cheese on top.
  
• Add ground pepper to taste but wait on salt. The cheese is salty and you can always add more after the first bite.

• Pop the ramekin into the toaster oven at 350 for 10 minutes.
  
• Take it out once to drain some of the water that the tomato will release.
  
• I always toast a piece of rye bread along side the eggs. Flipping the toast once.

• Eh... Voila! Yum.

A perfect way to start the day. Good call camera.

zucchini spinach basil soup w/ corn

I came across this soups beginnings at a little bistro in Silver Lake called Blair's. Dependable for lunch, really really decent for dinner. It's a charming place and the dinner menu is my kind of eating. Homey, farm to table centric, creative. Understated but elegant.

I have no idea what Blair's actual recipe is but I found myself craving it one day and noticed I had the key ingredients in my fridge and freezer so I set out to make it as closely as I could. This one is pretty close actually. So, here it is, loaded with vitamins, iron, fiber and really tasty. Excellent paired with a salad of red oak lettuce, currents and blue cheese dressing. Make it in large batches. It freezes well. Add corn to each dish never to the whole pot.



Ideally we pick our own squash, corn, basil, leeks and perhaps even our spinach straight out of our own kitchen gardens, those beautiful landscapes we look out at every morning as we sip our tea and plan our day. But maybe you, like me, get most of your goods at a local farmers market and make up the difference at your local Trader Joe's or if you can afford it, Whole Foods. Or Maybe you get all your goods from Ralphs or the corner bodega's freezer section or maybe you pull your fresh veggies out of your neighbors garden! No matter, this is a soup worth the jail time.

If you do have a Trader Joe's near by I want to point out a few quick tricks that will make quick work of this dish. See the cheat sheet photo below....

Leeks are good but any onion will work.... but leeks are good.

Zucchini Spinach Basil Soup w/ Corn

5 large zucchini, washed, sliced and salted
2 quarts fresh chopped or 2 bags frozen spinach
2 large bunch basil or 1/2 package of Dorot's frozen
2 large leeks, washed, halved and sliced
2 quarts vegetable broth or water
2 ears of fresh corn, sliced off the cob
salt & pepper
very fruity extra virgin olive oil

• Toss sliced leeks into a large pot with a couple tablespoons of olive oil.
  
• Sautée until soft.
  
• Pat excess liquid from sliced/salted zucchini and add to pot.
  
• Stir over med heat until zucchini is soft and changes texture, about 10 minutes.
  
• Add spinach, basil and broth. If broth doesn't cover vegetables by 1/2" add more water. I'd add a couple generous shakes of salt here. Always coarse sea salt never that iodized table salt (just break up with that tiresome "the sun 'll come out tomorrow" girl already....).
• Bring soup to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
  
• Cool for 10 minutes and portion soup into a blender. Blend each batch on high for 2 minutes at least. Soup should be smooth and velvety. Don't worry if it seems frothy the soup will settle and lose the air.
  
• Complete puree and return batch to the pot to simmer a bit longer.
  
• Add more water, salt and pepper to attain your desired consistency and taste.
• Corn can be flash sauteed over a high heat or steamed or even served raw if it's high summer and the corn is sweet.
  

This soup serves well poured hot with a mound of corn in the center, a garnish of fresh basil and a generous drizzle of your best olive oil. You could even add a dash of paprika or fresh ground pepper over the top.

Eat up!

the hatfields have no fued here...

I hear Karen and Quinn Hatfield are taking over the new Red Pearl Restaurant space just a few blocks east and one block north of their endearing but oddly shaped cubby on Beverly Dr. What is it about those two always with their eye on the habitats of Asian cuisine. Wasn't their current abode previously the home of many a steamy pork stuffed orb and tamari sodden green beans? Now they're moving into the ridiculously red pan Asian now defunct last ditch effort of the Goodell's who also opened the late Mason G. I waited for almost 2 hours at that place for a plate with the tiniest piece of sea bass I've ever seen and a virtual sea of (get this) parmesan foam.... yeah. Luckily they sent us over to unrecognizable and totally forgetable cocktails that knocked us way past tuesday so who's crying here. Not me. Anyway, I love that the Hatfields are getting a bigger and more glamorous place to hang their shingle because well, I love that their the Hatfields. And Their food is really spot on. And I spent the sweetest evening there with my mother last year oohing and ahhing over everything. There was a carrot gnocchi amuse-bouche that brought both me and my mom to silence - momentarily. A feat none the less. I'm looking forward to more, bigger, better but hopefully just as homey as before.

pickles, eggs & rye

My dear and much admired brother (ICL) Tony Cross sent me home from last weeks trip to San Francisco rested, loved and baring the fruits of his recent labors. Fresh kitchen pickles and a newly baked loaf of rye bread. He is a fascinating man, Tony is an extraordinary musician, a naturalist-hiker-leaf-presser, a published writer, an uncanny photographer and perhaps best of all a connoisseur of artisan green teas, handmade pickles and homemade breads. Yay for me and mom and sis (especially sis since she lives with him).

Beckoning back to a time when sharing canned goods, fresh bakery and items from one’s own kitchen garden was simply the neighborly thing to do I have to say I relished waking up in their sunny guest room, padding into the kitchen and seeing on the counter two loaves of bread wrapped in cheese cloth, one marked Rye for Romy and one marked White for Joan (my mom who I was to see later that day). Tony had left these for us before heading off to NY. He had already turned me on to their new dinner of choice pickle cheese sandwiches the night before so I knew about the crisp, vibrant pickles in the fridge, slightly sweet and not too vinegary. This morning I stumbled on to my own perfect American breakfast…

Pickles, eggs and rye toast.


Now this easy little meal is simple and yummy but lets be honest what makes it exceptional is that the ingredients are special. You can’t do this with goods from your last trip to Trader Joe’s or even Whole Foods. This breakfast has to be prepared from fine ingredients, ideally organic of course, made with love and care preferably by someone else who loves you.

Pickles Eggs & Rye

Ingredients:

Rye bread
Two eggs
5 or more sliced homemade pickles
15 small sugar plum tomatoes
butter
olive oil
maldon salt
cracked pepper

• Slice into a freshly baked loaf of rye bread and toast two pieces
• Using an iron pan, turn flame to medium, add a spray of olive oil and a pat of rich Plugra butter.
  
• Toss halved sugar tomatoes (one thing that you can get at TJ’s – organic always so good) into the butter and fry (pardon sauté) for 2 -3 minutes.
• Throw bread in a toaster oven or under the broiler until golden brown and crisp on both sides.
  
• Push tomatoes to one side of pan.
  
• Crack two farm fresh organic eggs into the butter.
  
• Sprinkle with salt.
• Cover loosely so the tops of the eggs cook or flip the eggs in about 2 minutes.
• Butter toast, plate eggs and tomatoes along side of the eggs and toast.
  
• Place pickles on plate or directly on top of eggs.
  
• Salt.
  
• Pepper grinder.
• Eat.
• Yeah!