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Monday, May 30, 2005 -- Back Fence Relationships

Remember Shirley & Frank? They are our quite extraordinary neighbors who are getting on in their years. Shirley is mending well from her broken hip, although she is still supposed to be using her walker to get around. (She confesses that she does not always use it, however.) Shirley worked in the banking industry throughout her life. She was married for, I believe, a relatively short period, and did have one son from the marriage. But she divorced as a young woman and raised her son alone while living with her parents next door. Her dad worked at the same bank with her. Her father died first. Then, her mother died in the fall of 1998 – (we moved to this house in the spring of 1999). Since her mom died, she has added one dog ("Shotzy") and, in the last couple of years, one housemate, Frank, to the household. (Shotzy is considerably more energetic than Frank.) And we share, mostly, a back fence relationship with them all – discussing weather, family, and whose tomato plants look the best. At least once a year, usually around Christmas, we get together for a martini and hors-deuvres. In recent years, it’s usually at their house as they don’t get around like they used to. Shirley and I banter about who is going to bring what. She insists I don’t bring anything and I insist I will. We are a good match for each other in terms of "will."

Shirley, as best I can tell, was a bit out of the norm for her time. She was one fiercely independent woman. Her nickname is "Babe" which, I would think, was an unusual nickname at the time. (Her little convertible sports car now sits in her garage with her "Babe" designer license plates. She no longer drives.) She hunted; loved guns; and saw, I would guess, her share of partying. She never remarried nor have I ever heard of any romantic interests throughout the rest of her life. Politically, she probably sits pretty far right of me – we steer clear of these discussions. But, in terms of her spirit – I just admire the heck out of her. She, in fact, reminds me a lot of Mom.

So, when I was inquiring about how she was feeling and getting around over the back fence the other day, and when she told me that they were mostly eating "take-out" and other purchased food – (No wait, what she actually said was that she was "milking" the fact that she broke her hip to her advantage so that she could be lazy and not cook.) – Well, I thought I would cook them something.

Is there a better "comfort food" than Macaroni & Cheese? Well, maybe, but we had the stuff to make it and we are slowly trying out the two new cookbooks we have recently purchased by Thomas Keller of California’s French Laundry restaurant. Steve recently made the Cauliflower gratin from his Bouchon cookbook and I have been eyeing his Macaroni Gratin recipe. One thing you can say about Thomas Keller is he’s a guy that can definitely go through a lot of pans for what seems to be a simple dish. Another thing that can be said is that you will unquestionably end up with something remarkable.

So I spent a few hours assembling two little casseroles of Macaroni & Cheese yesterday morning (one for them and one for us), and Steve gathered a medley of lettuces from our garden (some for them and some for us.) And we meandered around the back fence early in the afternoon to deliver our goods. Shirley was gracious and grateful and we sat and chatted for awhile – her housecleaner was coming over to take them to Costco and I had some sewing projects I was working on. Then we meandered back to finish our separate days.

Along about 4 p.m., we get a phone call from Shirley saying "Can you come to the back fence?" "Of course," we respond, and meandered back on the familiar path. There she was, proffering a plate with two absolutely gorgeously-red well-marbled beef steaks that she, of course, had purchased from Costco in their typically large packages. (That woman just CAN’T accept a gift without giving something back!) Their little barbecue was fired up (the unmistakable aroma of lighter fluid hanging heavy in the air.) They were going to add steak to their dinner of Macaroni & Cheese with fresh salad greens and vinaigrette.

So we did too. Two houses, side by side. Two different couples, about 30 years apart in age. Each enjoying beautifully done steaks (at least, ours was); succulently rich Macaroni & Cheese (recipe below); and lovely dressed greens. After we got done, Steve and I danced in the living room for awhile - because we are still of an age that we can do that and we realize that you better appreciate it while you can.

MACARONI GRATIN

(The following is adopted from Bouchon, Thomas Keller, 2004. I doubled his recipe, but only used four cups Mornay Sauce, instead of what would have been six cups if I had followed his recipe exactly. And I used Penne pasta rather than elbow macaroni; used half and half instead of milk and cream in the Mornay sauce; and used gruyere cheese on the top instead of Comte cheese as I didn’t have enough Comte. He also optionally adds either wild mushrooms or julienned Bayonne ham to his dish – neither of which were on hand at our house, so omitted.)

FOR THE GRATIN

• 16 oz. Penne pasta
• 4 cups Mornay sauce (see below)
• salt & pepper
• freshly grated nutmeg
• chicken broth (optional)
• Maybe about two cups fresh bread crumbs (Keller uses panko. We stick our leftover bread in the freezer so we always have a source of bread crumbs to use. And I added considerably more than amount of panko he called for as we like a crunchy top.)
• 5 tsps. minced fresh thyme
• 1 cup Gruyere cheese

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the pasta and cook until just al dente. Drain and lay out to dry on a big towel.

Make or rewarm the Mornay sauce. (See notes below regarding storing if made ahead of time. If you have made it ahead of time and are re-warming here, preheat the oven to 400 degrees at this point.)

Add the pasta to the sauce – the mixture will look loose (even with the lessened amount of Mornay that I used in doubling this recipe) – but the pasta will continue to absorb sauce and it will thicken as it bakes. I added some chicken broth at this point, maybe half to 2/3 of a cup to loosen the pasta up even more. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Pour into two about 8X8 inch casserole dishes. Sprinkle the top with thyme, bread crumbs, then grated cheese. Place in oven and turn oven down to 375 degrees. Bake for 15-20 minutes until hot, bubbling, and browned on top. If it does not brown, then use the broiler to brown the top. (If the dishes look like they might overflow in the cooking, place them on a baking sheet when you put them in the oven.)

MORNAY SAUCE

• 6 Tbs unsalted butter
• 1 cup diced onion
• salt
• 6 Tbs all-purpose flour
• 6 cups half & half
• 2 bay leaves
• 6 black peppercorns
• 6 whole cloves
• freshly grated nutmeg
• ground pepper
• 2/3 cup Comte cheese (or Keller uses Emmentaler as an alternative)

Melt the butter in a heavy sauce pan over medium-low heat. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook slowly, stirring occasionally, for 3-4 minutes or until the onion is translucent. Sprinkle in the flour and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly so that the roux doesn’t burn or color. Whisking constantly, add the half & half and whisk until fully incorporated. Bring to a slow simmer, whisking, then add the bay leaves, peppercorns, and cloves. Move the pan off the heat to avoid scorching and lower the heat. (I went almost as low as I could on our gas burners.) Move the pan back on to the heat and maintain a bare simmer, whisking not infrequently, reaching into the corners of the pan, for about 30 minutes. (You want to avoid scorching. Keller says that, if the sauce does begin to scorch, pour it into a clean pan – don’t scrape the bottom of the pan – and continue.) The sauce will reduce to about 4 cups as it thickens.

Remove the sauce from the heat and season to taste with salt, a grating of nutmeg and some pepper. Strain the sauce, using a wire strainer, into a clean pan (I used the cleaned pasta cooking dish) and add the cheese. Whisk to melt the cheese, add low heat if needed. (I used the sauce immediately. If you want, you can place in a storage container and press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface to keep a skin from forming, and refrigerate for up to a week. Before using, you may want to thin it with a little cream or whatever.)

So share a little Mac & Cheese over your back fence!

Eat well, and enjoy the small things.

Wednesday, June 8, 2005 -- Pairings While Unpaired

Last week, Steve was in Kansas ferrying two blind people and their guide dogs around. Now, that’s an experience most of us will never have! Brief background: as you know, Steve volunteers for Golden Hours Radio, connected somehow with our local Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) station. It’s a radio “network” (not sure if that is the right word) generally oriented to the blind and disabled; and the Director of the whole shebang is a guy named Jerry. Jerry’s blind, and has a German shepherd guide dog; and his wife is blind and has her own large guide dog. They were planning on attending a conference in Lawrence, Kansas about broadcasting and radio issues (sorry, I can’t be more specific than that) and the OPB person who was to accompany them was, as it turned out, unable to go. So, Jerry asked Steve instead and off they went to Kansas at OPB’s expense (or maybe Golden Hour’s expense, I’m not sure.) As you can see, I am not the best source of information on this whole thing and I’m hoping Steve will write something about it and post it to you (cuz it was all pretty interesting); BUT, in the meantime, I was on my own with my own food adventures awaiting me.

I love going out to lunch at good restaurants – it’s less expensive, less crowded, more casual, and just feels decadent. This isn’t about just getting some calories into you so you can push through the rest of the day. (I do that at work where I wolf down a thing of yogurt while I am, often, frantically charting.) This is about sitting back; slowly perusing the menu; asking questions and advice: trying new things or old favorites; usually, reading a book while you slowly dine; having a glass of wine; and, if you are lucky, seeing the workings and going-ons of the actual restaurant kitchen. But, if you can’t actually see into the kitchen itself, you can at least get a good idea of what the kitchen can produce during their lunchtime fare

So, on Friday, I went to Carafe, a French Bistro-style café that Steve and I had been to once before. This place looks like it was plucked out of a small town in France or, Paris for that matter, and plopped down in downtown Portland. It just has that oh-so-French-café look. The chef is French – Pascal Sauton – and he was part of an earlier “to-do” here in Portland this year when certain animal rights activists started protesting against another local restaurant that regularly served fois gras as part of its menu. (Now, I could write about my own cognitive dissonance about not being vegetarian, which, is a whole story in itself, but I just couldn’t, in this case, get behind the whole issue of foie Gras being “not okay” while eating, say, baby lamb, is. Nor, did we appreciate the approach these activists took in expressing their beliefs.) These activists were NOT jus picketing the restaurant and harassing all the customers entering the restaurant. They were ALSO calling in false reservations to the restaurant that, of course, failed to show and, therefore left tables empty. So, because of these various methods, the restaurant that was being picketed took fois Gras off its menu, at least publicly. (We visited there soon after and, after expressing our disagreement with this whole approach against fois Gras, were told quietly by our waiter that we could STILL get fois Gras if we asked for it.) But, after this restaurant at least publicly announced the removal of foie Gras from its menu, thereby calling off the personal “war” against their restaurant, Pascal came out in the newspaper calling the whole thing WRONG and that local restaurateurs should STAND UP against this kind of approach and BAND TOGETHER in not letting such a thing happen.

Well, when this appeared in the newspaper, we went to lunch there on that same day announcing, as we came in, “We support fois Gras”. As it turned out, Pascal was standing there conferring with his hostess at the time, beamed and welcomed us in. Unfortunately, fois Gras was NOT on their menu that day, to our disappointment; and we learned that sometimes it is there and sometimes it is not. But we ate well anyway and we determined that Carafe definitely deserved a re-visit.

To my great pleasure, it WAS on the menu when I went last Friday – as a starter in the form of a foie Gras terrine to be served with toasted walnut bread and topped with a rhubarb sauce. Here, I get to the point of this missive. There is only one food, that I can think of, that I would say I dislike - and that is cooked oatmeal. I just can’t get past the smell. But there are a small number of foods that I would say I am not really fond of - and one was rhubarb. It’s not raw rhubarb I object to – I remember with fondness the pungent, acrid smell and taste of crunchy raw rhubarb growing up in Michigan as a child. It’s just that every cooked rhubarb dish I’ve ever tasted was part of, in my opinion, an overly sweet and non-descript dessert of one sort or another. And, I’m just not a person big on pure sweet as a single taste. I am a person who is willing to try things though so, when I spooned some of this lovely-looking rosy puree over this creamy fois Gras pate spread on the crispy dark bread, I was especially observant of the taste. To my surprise, it was divine! You could really taste the essence of rhubarb contrasting with the livery fois Gras and it just seemed inspired. This was not overcooked sweet sauce – it was it’s own unique flavor and it was a great pairing.

So, on Saturday, I bought rhubarb at the Farmer’s Market with the idea to re-create this sauce. Also purchased was some creamy chicken liver pate with pistachios at the vendor there who makes absolutely wonderful pates of various kinds; and, of course, some dark walnut bread.

As I wandered along, I saw some jewel-colored red and yellow chioggia beets resting in a vendor’s stall with their brilliant tops of dark beet greens. Now, beets are another thing that I re-try from time to time – thinking I should like them better than I do. And I have appreciated their subtle flavor – but, well, like rhubarb, they have just tasted too sweet for my taste in general. But, I know that my neighbor Shirley loves beets; and I have bought her beets from the market from time to time in the past; and I know she is not able to really cook right now; AND I did happen to take note of a recipe recently that was a goat cheese and beet tart (using alternating slices of red and yellow beets across the top making it look oh-so-pretty); AND Steve wasn’t in town (because he wouldn’t even try beets unless I insisted - having firmly come to his opinion of them); so into the basket they went.

Last Saturday, I made a rhubarb sauce and served it over creamy farmer’s market pate spread on toasted walnut points to friends that came over to watch movies – and I have now revised my opinion of rhubarb. (They already liked rhubarb sauce so did not need to be convinced.) On Sunday, I made a variation of the goat cheese and beet tart, and have come to a new opinion of beets as well. (One tart went to Shirley and one stayed here.) In both cases, it was the PAIRING of two tastes that made it for me. Alone, (and, probably, frequently over-cooked,) they are rather sweet and insipid on my palate. (Of course, every palate is different so each of our journeys in food tasting is different as well.) BUT, for me, when I pair the pate with the not-too-sweet rhubarb sauce and the beets with a good portion of tangy goat cheese – the results are elevated to a new horizon.

So I offer the recipes below and, if you are not-so-hot on either rhubarb or beets – you might just like these when paired as described (even Steve liked the left-over beet and goat cheese tart), and, if you liked beets and rhubarb already, you can add them to your repertoire.

RHUBARB SAUCE

• A couple of cups of rhubarb diced into ½ inch dice
• 2-3 Tbs. brown sugar. More to taste later
• A little bit, maybe ¼ - ½ cup chicken stock
• Salt, to taste

Mix the brown sugar with the diced rhubarb in a heavy sauce pan. Let it sit there for an hour – some liquid will leach out as it sits.

Splash some chicken stock in and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the rhubarb gets very soft and just disintegrates. Taste, add more sugar if needed, add salt to taste. (Don’t cook until grey – you want to keep the flavor.)

Pour into a wire strainer and push it through with a wooden spoon over a bowl. As you push, the remaining rhubarb in the strainer will become more macerated and, at some point, the rhubarb in the strainer will look smooth and thick and you can just dump it into the more liquidy rhubarb that has come through the strainer.

TART WITH GOAT CHEESE AND RED AND GOLDEN BEETS

• Frozen Puff Pastry (includes two squares to be rolled out)
• One egg, beaten
• A couple of pounds of red and yellow beets with greens, washed, trimmed and separated
• One of those oval round things of Montrachet goat cheese, about 5-6 inches long
• Ricotta cheese
• About three teaspoons chopped fresh thyme (or use dried but then don’t sprinkle it on top)
• Some grated cheese – I used gruyere, could be fontina or parmesan or swiss.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

Put out Puff Pastry to thaw on counter or let thaw in refrigerator overnight. (If so, check to make sure it is really thawed and do bring it to at least cool room temperature before proceeding with it.)

Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil. Transfer beets to the sheet and toss with a little olive oil and salt. Cover tightly with foil. Roast for 45-60 minutes until tender. Set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, remove large middle stems from beet greens either with a knife (cutting a vee) or just by pulling it up from the bottom while holding the leaf

Sauté greens in a little olive oil with salt until tender. Remove. Cool. Chop up.

Beat egg in a small bowl and set aside.

Meanwhile, once puff pastry has thawed, increase oven heat to 400 degrees. Bring out one square from the package, leaving other in the package thoroughly covered so it won’t dry out. Put it on a floured board and roll out with a floured rolling pin; rolling from the middle outwards; turning the square 45 degrees as you go to keep from sticking to the board. Add more flour as needed – this stuff is very forgivable and hard to go wrong with. Roll it out until you get it about a 13X13 inch square (or approximate equivalent if you end up with a rectangle instead. It doesn’t matter. You can even have a trapezoid. Looks more homemade.) Using a sharp knife, trim off at least ½ inch from each side making straight edges for the tart. (If your uncut edge of the cut-off pastry is really uneven, you may want to trim it up as well as this will be the border for the tart.) Brush edges of tart with beaten egg. Take trimmed edges, matching straight edge to straight edge, and place along sides of tart creating a border. Brush border with beaten egg. Place on baking sheet. Do the same with other square of pastry, reserving any leftover egg. Bake at 400 degrees until edges puff and pastry is golden brown about 15 minutes. Make sure it is loosened from the baking sheet. Let cool a little bit. Reduce oven to 350 degrees.

Meanwhile, peel roasted beets with a paring knife or peeler. Cut into thin rounds keeping red beets separate from yellow beets. Set aside.

Using a handheld mixer or food processor, blend together goat cheese and ricotta until smooth, easily spreadable, and to-taste (in terms of the goat cheese flavor.) I used about 12 ounces ricotta. Stir in chopped beet greens and about two thirds of chopped thyme. Make sure taste is right then mix in any remaining beaten egg.

Spread ricotta/goat cheese spread inside borders of cooled tart shells. Alternating red and yellow colors, arrange beets over cheese mixture overlapping slices and using all of them to cover both tarts. Season with pepper. Sprinkle remaining thyme over top then top with grated cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees until brown, appears to be set, about 20 minutes.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Eat well, Enjoy the Small Things, and remember that the right pairings can make all the difference in life, as well as food.

Sunday, June 19, 2005 -- A Weak Moment

I occasionally cater events for friends for special events. I like to cook. I like to plan the menus. Mostly, though, I like to be able to contribute a gift to a friend that is something special for them. I don’t get paid for this, but I do get reimbursed for product costs incurred so it is only the work I am giving. The biggest event I have ever done was my friend Joanne’s father’s second wedding. It was for about 150 people, and there was someone else barbecuing some kind of meat, so it was only the rest that I was responsible for. There’s some great stories about that event –including one about Steve excitedly offering Pat a taste of some really "smelly" cheese that he thought was absolutely terrific and Pat immediately ejecting it from her mouth as something totally not edible. And the one about learning JUST HOW NOISY a refrigerator truck is when parked running on a residential street and JUST HOW BOTHERED some neighbors are, understandably, by it and JUST HOW NOTHING can be done about it cuz what else are you going to do. YEEKS. Some memories are best forgotten.

Anyway, I tend to be thoughtful about offering to do these things because they can be, truthfully, a lot of work. But I’ve never regretted one before because there really is something rewarding, for me, about being able to do this for somebody I care about. But, I had a weak moment a few months ago. I’m not really sure how it actually evolved, but, somehow, I did agree to cook for an event for someone who I didn’t really know. She is the sister-in-law of a friend of mine and she and her husband recently moved to Portland to a beautiful house with a great view. And they wanted to do an open house to celebrate and get settled into their new neighborhood. And somehow I offered, in a weak moment, and, there you go.

So last night, Steve and I packed the car up and went off, dressed in white and black, looking like caterers, and did our thing. It went very well. I’ve listed the menu below. The challenge in preparing this menu was that it was going to be an evolving event going over several hours with people dropping in over time. I didn’t expect them to stay for huge long periods but assumed there would be a steady flow over at least some portion of it. The good thing was I was not the host so I only had to focus on putting food out. I decided to have a menu that included some "central core food" that would be out on her dining table throughout the event. Then have a "changing array" of hot and cold foods that we would put out over time and throughout the event. Her granddaughter was a great trooper and circulated with trays of newly prepared items offering them to guests as they were prepared.

I’m also offering the cookie recipes we used as well because, they were really darn good. Try them. And beware of weak moments.

WEAK MOMENT MENU

• Central Core Food
• Bowls of peppered pecans
• Crudite platter and dip (hostess prepared this)
• Artichoke & Kalamata Olive Spread served with Pita triangles (remember this from Eric?)
• Roasted Ham served with Orange Marmalade butter with Ciabatta rolls
• Sugar cookies with Lime zest
• Chocolate Sambuca Crinkle Cookies
• Changing Array Foods
• Chorizo sausage with Harissa paste in puff pastry
• Mini quiche lorraines with bacon, gruyere cheese, and topped with slivered tomatoes
• Canapés with smoked salmon mousse with slivered cucumber and dill
• Canapés with gorgonzola cheese spread, caramelized sweet onions, and toasted walnuts
• Canapés with bourbon chicken liver pate with rhubarb sauce
• Asian chicken salad with Da’atar spice mixture on Belgian endive leaves

CHOCOLATE SAMBUCA CRINKLE COOKIES
(from The Gourmet Cookbook, 2004)
Makes about 2 ½ dozen cookies

• 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbs. Baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 12 oz good bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped
• ½ stick unsalted butter
• 2 lg eggs
• ½ cp walnuts, chopped
• ½ cp sambuca or other anise flavored liqueur
• 2 Tbs granulated sugar
• 1 cp confectioners’ sugar

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.

Melt chocolate with butter in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat.

Lightly whisk together eggs, walnuts, sambuca, and granulated sugar in a large bowl. Stir in flour mixture and chocolate (dough will be loose). Refrigerate, covered, until firm, about 2 hours.

Put racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Lightly butter two baking sheets

Sift confectioners’ sugar onto a plate. One \by one, roll dough into balls, roll in confectioners’ sugar to coat generously, and arrange balls about 2 inches apart on buttered baking sheets. (The recipe calls for "heaping tablespoons of dough into balls"; but I made mine much smaller for the purposes of this event (and made more cookies than the amount listed above) and I think they looked quite elegant.)

Bake, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until cookies are puffed and cracked but centers are still a bit soft, 10 – 12 minutes. Transfer to racks to cool.

Cookies keep in an airtight container for up to 1 week. I made mine 3 days ahead of the event and stored them in the refrigerator – they were great. I should mention that the recipe says to store at room temperature.

SUGAR COOKIES WITH LIME ZEST
(from The Best Recipe, 1999)
Makes about 30 cookies.

• 2 cps all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar, plus ¼ cup for rolling cookies
• 2 tsp grated lime zest (I at least doubled this, maybe more. I mean, what the heck!)
• 1 large egg
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Adjust oven racks to upper and lower-middle positions and preheat oven to 375 degrees

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl. Set aside

Cream butter and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Add half of the lime zest, egg and vanilla extract and beat until combined, about 30 seconds.

Add dry ingredients and beat at low speed until just combined, about 30 seconds.

Place the ¼ cup of sugar for coating cookie in food processor and add the other half of the lime zest. Process until sugar is light green and zest evenly distributed. Transfer to shallow bowl. (Really, this does not make the final product look green.)

Make balls of the dough and roll in the sugar. (Recipe calls for 1 ½ Tbs for each ball. I again, made mine smaller.) Place balls on ungreased cookie sheets spacing balls 2 – 2 ½ inches apart.

Butter bottom of drinking glass with a flat bottom measuring about 2 inches across. Dip bottom of glass in remaining zested sugar and flatten balls of dough with bottom of glass until 3/8 – ½ inch thick. Dip bottom of glass into sugar after every two or three cookies.

Bake, reversing positions of cookie sheets halfway through baking time, until edges of cookies are golden, 10-11 minutes. Let cookies cool on cookie sheet 2-3 minutes before transferring to cooking rack with spatula.

Eat well, and enjoy the small things.......and beware of weak moments.

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© 2005, 2006 Deborah Young