This Weekend!

Nick and I have been busy driving around the desert and eating crackers and cheese.  Of course we broke our camera but there will be food pictures soon!  In the mean time join us for yet another Shop Party!  We will have baked mac n' cheese and roast carrot and citrus salad to fill your happy bellies!

Stuffed and Stacked

I suppose we are moving into Autumn, but this 90 degree weather certainly is no indication of that.  I can tell that the seasons are shifting- I am all of a sudden waking up before the sun, and the plants are starting to shed.  The plants seem a bit confused.  We are still getting tomatoes and summer squash, even though the plants look like they are ready to be composted.  We are still getting basil too.  I want to make the most of this strange growing season, but I really want to be eating soup and starch and fungi.
For now we are combining the two, and embracing our summerfall limbo.
Stuffed mushrooms.  Or, rather: Stacked mushrooms.
I started by caramelizing red and yellow onions with a little olive oil and a little maple syrup.
When the onions looked beautiful I piled them on the upturned underbellies of portobello mushrooms. On top of that a thick slice of tomato, and some fresh local goat cheese. I drizzled a little balsamic and and olive oil over all of it, and of course, salt and pepper.

In the oven they go at 375º-ish, for 30-ish minutes, until the cheese browns a bit.

We ate our mushroom with fresh greens and some garlic bread.

Nick gave dinner two thumbs up. Success.

We Drink What We Like

I think it is a shame to sit down to a meal without a glass of wine. Wine is a condiment, the same way a twist of lemon is. The right pairing of wine and food can make once-subtle flavors and nuances sparkle, refresh and balance a spicy or rich meal, or be the perfect accompaniment to a great meal.

There are two rules to pairing wine with food.  The first rule is don’t choose a wine that overpowers your meal, and don’t choose a meal that overpowers your wine.  The second rule is drink what you like.

If you are in my house, you drink your wine from a jar (most likely an old Hector's Honey jar), just as my grandfather and John Steinbeck did.  Some may consider it tacky.  They may even say it depreciates the aroma or is an insult to the wine.  It is true that there is a purpose to the elegant body of a proper wine glass, but we eat most of our meals outside, we move around the kitchen while we cook, we are clumsy, and we break glasses so we use multi-use durable jars.  The wine tastes fine in a Ball jar.

I like to have a glass of rosé on a hot day as I start to prepare dinner.  Sweet rosés are usually covering up some undesirable flavors, and are generally why people are afraid to drink pink wine.  I like dry rosé, a lively, bright, refreshing summer drink.

 
For dinner Saturday night we were lucky enough to have a surprise visit from Chelsea. We really wanted to re-invoke the summer, as we has reluctantly said goodbye to it only the weekend before, so we decided to barbecue. Nick went to the farmers market for pork ribs, but as it is nearing slaughter season there was none to be had from the previous season (yes, meat has a season too). Instead he brought home riblets and leg of lamb. He also picked up some of our favorite bread, Costeaux Multigrain, a few peaches, and some greens and garlic.
Nick made a simple and beautiful rub for the meat, and we grilled 'em up along with thickly sliced peaches and squash from the garden brushed with olive oil and salt and pepper. In the house I quickly rolled three small disks of goat cheese in coarsely chopped walnuts and roasted them for a few minuets in the oven on high heat. I laid the cheese over a bed of fresh, undressed greens, we laid the grilled peaches and squash over that, and when the meat was ready we nuzzled them all together on our plate.

It was amazing, the meat was sweet and tender, the flavors of squash, peach, cheese, nuts, and greens created an unbelievable synergy.

With dinner we drank a nice red wine, a local Syrah.

You cannot see from this picture (we are still using a ancient camera that only works with a glaring flash, or not at all), but the wine was a beautiful dark plum color.  Syrahs tend to be more purple than red as the grapes are dark purple.  They tend to be fuller bodied, so they are a good choice for the bold flavors of grilled meat. This particular wine had a jam flavor, also a earthy leather flavor which was especially lovely with the lamb.

S T R E T C H summer! Don't even bother clearing off the table!
Skal! Sante!

End of Summer

My birthday celebration came to an end on Sunday in the most amazing way.
We threw a brunch at our house and invited a few friends.
Chelsea made this delicious raspberry-blackberry crumble from berries she'd picked the same day.


I went to the farmers market Saturday for eggs and spinach, and I came across the most beautiful peppers.


I sauteed the peppers with onions and squash from the garden.


Then I filled a few buttered casserole dishes with fresh basil, spinach and goat cheese, added the sauteed veggies and eggs (about 18, which I had beat with a little heavy cream). Then I baked the dish for about 30 minuets (until the eggs were set) at 425˚.
When they came out of the oven they were fluffy and beautiful.
I also tossed some potatoes in olive oil and rosemary, salt, and pepper and roasted them until golden.


We made some sausages, some friends brought fresh tomatoes from their garden, pastries, melon, orange juice, champagne, and iced tea. Nick prepared a Bloody Mary bar with all kinds of fixins, and we had a giant thermos of New Orleans style coffee with chicory.
We had no leftovers.


We ate and talked and laughed and I opened a few presents, most notably a chair Chelsea made with deer and moose antlers and leather. It is incredible, a museum piece. Pictures to come. My friend Danica, a poet, wrote a beautiful poem for me that when she read it aloud I was moved to tears.
It seems Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer. It feels that way for us. We are slowing down, getting back to work/school/life, and the days are noticeably shorter. We had a wonderful summer with a wonderful end. We are dubbing this summer the "Summer of Love and Adventure". It was magic, and I am looking forward to a magic autumn with plenty of warm bread and hearty soup.

Tawanda!

I love the South. At least I think I love the South, I have spent very little time there, but I would like to spend a lot more. Last summer my dear friend Chelsea and I went to Tennessee for a week, we realized the sweet Southern summer on a drive to Chattanooga, and a swim in the river. Later on our way to a cabin in the beautiful Smoky Mountains we stopped at a farmers market for green tomatoes, honey, and Amish butter for frying.
Chelsea and I had made fried green tomatoes before, we made it up as we went along, they were wonderful, and we were looking forward to making them again, in the South, like Jessica Tandy. Traditionally, to make fried green tomatoes you are supposed to bread your tomatoes with cornmeal, which we did, however apparently we used the wrong kind of cornmeal, because we were nearly breaking our teeth with each bite. Our tomatoes were awful, but we were enjoying them on the porch with thousands of fireflies, so it wasn't that bad.
I always fantasize about the South in the summer, maybe because I've only been to the South in the summer, and because that is the way I romanticize it.
I made fried green tomatoes this weekend, my way, and they were amazing.
I was thinking a lot about the movie Fried Green Tomatoes so I really wanted to incorporate honey into the dinner. I decided I would caramelize some onions in honey. We always get honey from Hector the Honey Man (and we go through it very fast), although someday I hope to be a bee charmer myself.

I made mashed potatoes with truffle butter, to accompany the caramelized onions. I use truffle butter on everything, but I really love the flavors of honey and truffle together.

Rather than cornmeal, I used bread crumbs. I sliced the tomatoes, salt them, coat in flour, then an egg/milk mixture, and then breadcrumbs.
Fry until golden.
I've only had corn a few times this summer, and nothing makes a meal seem like a summertime meal, like sweet corn on the cob.
I threw some broccoli rabe on to the plate as well, because I have a guilty conscience if I serve a dinner without any green on the plate.
Success! Dinner was amazing, although it tasted decidedly Northern California rather than Whistle Stop, Alabama, and that's OK. After dinner we got cozy and watched Fried Green Tomatoes.

Tawanda!

What Looks Good

In Santa Rosa we are blessed to have two Farmers Markets a week, year round, rain or shine. During the summer we have three a week. We try to go for produce and/or meat at least once a week. There is something immensely satisfying about buying from the Farmers Market rather than the supermarket. I love to walk through, look at what everyone has, then walk through again shopping, talking to farmers, asking them about each of the dozens of different kinds of tomatoes they have or how to cook the cactus they have.
My favorite thing about the Farmers Market, and my favorite way to shop there, is to go with no list and no idea of what's for dinner and to get inspired by what looks good. Yesterday there was a pile of beautiful Italian sweet peppers that immediately caught our eye and it was settled, stuffed peppers for dinner.

I mixed some fresh ricotta with spinach, differend kinds of basil from the garden, onion, garlic, and a little bit of grated cheddar we had in the icebox.
We have been waiting all winter for good tomatoes so we always have to buy them when they trickle into the Farmers Market as our tomato plants only have flowers on them.
I cut these little guys in half and drizzled them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a few sprigs of thyme.

I popped it all in the oven for 45 minutes or so, I made a simple polenta on the stove top, and voila!
The fresh beautiful food available at the farmers market allows one to cook a beautiful dinner without really doing anything.

Bon Appetit!