September 2005 Archives

It is so very fulfilling to make stock. First off, it gives you an excuse to feel all wise and thrifty and safe chicken bits in your freezer rather than wastefully throwing them away. Then it gives you an excuse to use up all the chicken bits that are clogging up your freezer, thus cleaning out the freezer itself and basically making something from nothing.

Not to mention the fact that since it takes literally all day to make stock, you have a fantastic excuse to sit on your arse all day without feeling lazy. You aren't lazy, you're very busy making stock.

Then the fact that your house smells just luscious the whole time. Five hours in, you have to restrain yourself from dipping your face into the stock pot and coming up with a chicken wing in some kind of dangerous, meaty version of bobbing for apples. Although I should note that it can sometimes be a little depressing, when, at the end of the day, the house has smelled good for seven hours and there isn't anything to eat. I recommend throwing another chicken in the oven (remembering to save the bones when you're done!) so that you don't starve to death as a result of your stock-making.

And finally, when all those hours pass, you end up with a freezer full of liquid gold. You save money (not to mention sodium; even the best stuff tends to be crazy salty) over buying the canned stuff. Plus it tastes so good. It has richness and body from the gelatin in the bones, a color somewhere between amber and very good German hefewiezen and heaps of chicken-y flavor. And, perhaps best of all, making stock gives you a great reason to make delicious dishes that require it. For me, that almost always means risotto, something I plan to do this week. Stay tuned!

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I was sitting at the computer, answering some e-mails, when I caught the sweet licorice smell of fennel seeds. I forgot they were there: three little clusters Glyn picked on a bike ride a few days ago. Native to Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, fennel is really well established in Northern California. It feels at home here, near the ocean, by the roadside, in vacant plots, and all over the hills above Highway 1. It's considered a pest. A tasty pest, but a pest nonetheless.

I love the crunch of fennel raw in salads, the sweetness it lends when it's baked till golden, and I like it as a layer of taste in vegetable stocks. I like a handful of sugar coated fennel seeds after a spicy meal, and any candies and drinks that remind me of it. But tonight, I'm making a giant salad for dinner, and I'll grind the seeds with other spices for the dressing.

(Schug Winery, Sonoma California)

My Dear Boy's parents left yesterday after a number of days of utterly gratuitious eating and drinking. We ate in Sonoma at The Girl and the Fig, in Napa at Terra and the Culinary Institute of America at Graystone, in San Francisco at the Ferry Building (crabcake sandwiches, Cowgirl Creamery cheese, Acme bread, Ciao Bella gelato, Scharffen Berger chocolate. . . bliss), Chez Marthe (a.k.a. my house) and Plouf.

And we went to numerous wineries and tasted and tasted and tasted. Swirl, sniff, sip. . . however, I personally never spit. I don't care if the wine tastes like bat urine, I drink it. The pleasant buzz that lasts all day is part of the appeal of tasting, an activity I very much enjoy. It's such a perfectly useless way to pass the time; it exists only for its own sake and is thus very relaxing. We've decided we like Sonoma better than Napa. Everything is more easy-going, less self-important and 15% cheaper. Plus, there's just more wineries making more interesting wine there. Napa sometimes seem like Disneyland Wine Country, big, flashier, but not necessarily better.

I was very excited to have Stephen's parents for dinner here. I cooked for them loads of times, but never in my home, so it wasn't quite official. I planned pretty well, so most of what I cooked was done all or partially in advance. This let me be relaxed, chat and actually enjoy the act of entertaining instead of running around sauteeing and sweating, a somewhat novel concept. My menu:

With apertifs,
White Bean Puree with Basil with bread and crudite
Sugar and Spiced Nuts

For dinner,
Curried Butternut Squash Soup with Shrimp and Goat Cheese Ravioli
Proscuitto-Wrapped Snaper with Braised Fennel and Heirloom Tomato Sauce
Creme Fraiche Panna Cotta with Roasted Nectarines and Figs

Everything worked quite well, but the panna cotta was the real homerun of the evening. It was based on a recipe from a recent issue of Bon Appetit. Super easy and just unusual enough to be really impressive. It looks to become a part of my repetoire.

I think Stephen is a little bummed that he won't see his parents for a while, but they had a really good time, so I suspect they'll be back sooner rather than later. My mom is coming October 6th to for futher eating and drinking to celebrate the day of my birth. So more love and more full tummies coming up.

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Almost every time I really enjoy cheese I think back to a series of lectures with Thomas Badcock-real name. I wish I could get in touch with him again--the tall Englishman with a spotted bow tie who managed to highlight the history of cheese in such an intelligent and hilarious way that even the most doodle prone students were writing things down: luxury vs. survival, or Brillat-Savarin, a feeder? He encouraged enthusiasm for the cheese course, suggested thoughtful pairings, and dreamed of restaurants filled again with the aggressive stench of the cheese cart.

The Cheese Man first told me about the Family of Decay: cheese, wine, miso, cured meats, olives. Basically, things we've learned to ferment, treat, and preserve out of necessity, but which continue to evolve and change because we still eat them. Why? Because at the right moment, before ripeness turns to rot, before the Brie tastes like a bottle of ammonia, there's a window of perfectly delicious.

My family has just left after a wonderful visit here full of eating and drinking together in Napa. We ate at the French Laundry, in whose beautiful gardens my mother asked Thomas Keller, in his whites, "are you the chef? Do you know how long it took me to get a reservation here?" Oh yes. I don't know where to start with dinner at the French Laundry, I've wanted to eat there for so many years and flipped through the cookbook when I couldn't sleep. Classics from those pages suddenly appearing in front of me: Oysters and Pearls, Coffee and Doughnuts. It was surreal.

We also had dinner at Domaine Chandon, which was O.K. And we had a dinner at home. We couldn't fit eight people around our dining table, so some on the sofa, some on the floor; it really felt like home. Our menu:

mushroom foam
tiny Yukon baked with quail egg
lamb shank ravioli with spicy butternut broth

tomato granita, tomato and mozzarella creamwich, tomato water
seared scallops, fennel salad, blood orange olive oil
duck rillette, torchon of foie gras, smoked duck breast with blueberry gastrique, sauternes jelly
beetroot tarte tatin with Humbolt Fog

white chocolate, sherry, and plum trifle
rose turkish delight parfait on milk chocolate rice krispy cake

Apart from overcooking the quail eggs in the oven (should have poached them first then dropped them in the indent of potatoe), everything went really well. My dad went booze shopping with Glyn and Nishant, and had gathered a few bottles from our trip to Napa. We hadn't all been together since January and then it was only for a few days. So this was a really special meal. I'm so glad Martha and Stephen came too. And now?

Now my family's all gone, the fog is nuzzling up to the windows and I feel like drinking tea all the time. Tonight what began as tea--my mum brought me a golden bag of Kenyan--turned into an indoor picnic of various cheeses, crusty bread, saucisson sec, and some sweet sherry. I bought a Bucheron and aged Gouda at our wine and cheese store on main street, and had some leftovers from Cowgirl Creamery. Cashel Blue, Red Hawk, Humboldt Fog. They're my family now...