Rookie Cookery

A Perfectly Composed Autumn Lunch by chef Raul Salinas

Creating and serving an individual dish, whether it be an appetizer, salad, a main course, side or dessert, takes a certain amount of knowledge and skill.  Putting all these different elements into a well balanced and harmonious meal takes real experience, and at times, reveals the touch of an artist.  Recently I enjoyed such a meal prepared by personal chef Raul Salinas.

I first met Raul as a fellow diner, over a meal we shared at the Hidden Kitchen here in Sacramento last summer.  He was at the other end of the table, so I didn't have much chance to interact with him.  I was intrigued to learn that he was a professional  chef and wondered what sort of fare he would have delivered to accompany the great wines he had  brought to share. Little did I know I would soon have the chance to find out for myself when visiting the Quixote Winery in Napa a couple of weeks ago.

Raul himself is a quiet man,  somewhat reserved on first impression. Even if I had sat next to him, rather than several seats away at that Hidden Kitchen dinner where we met, I suspect he would have let me do most of the talking while he observed, listened, poured a little wine and  let his good taste do the talking.

It is axiomatic that the food of a chef will, like any other art form, reflect something of his or her character and personality.   The lunch I enjoyed at Quixote was the beginning of my learning that on a new and experiential level.  Raul's meal was perfectly composed of fresh, seasonal and local ingredients, with an amazing depth of flavor and understated elegance.

And, If the meal reflects the man,  there is a certain humility revealed when a chef has the wisdom to  refrain from culinary razzle dazzle,  and rely instead on simple good ingredients,  perfectly prepared.  Here was our menu that day:

A starter of farm fresh eggs,  from the neighbor of our host who has been raising the eggs organically for thirty years.  The eggs were simply boiled and sliced, garnished with a few grains of kosher salt, and were the best I have ever eaten in my life.   A lesser chef would have felt compelled to dress them in some superfluous way.  Raul had the good taste to let them speak for themselves.

The salad woke up our taste buds, very lightly dressed, waltzing with persimmons and walnuts.  Now he really had our attention.

The main course consisted of beef short ribs that had been marinated in a reduction of (what else?)  the host's wine. It was meltingly tender,  deep ebony in color, rich in flavor, and spectacularly delicious.   

The  beef was accompanied by a warm pilaf of barley and winter squash.  It was the perfect foil to the intensely flavored meat,  with it's own earthy textures and rustic flavors.

There were also braised brussels sprouts, one of my personal favorites.    They were perfect, without a trace of bitterness.

The dessert featured was a warm apple cobbler topped with a dollop of freshly whipped cream. It was just the right note to conclude a very satisfying meal.

I am not one who has dined out much, nor tasted widely of the world. However I know a great meal when I have one, and Raul's lunch hovers near the top of my list.  A meal to remember, from a young and talented  chef. I don't know what his professional ambitions are, but I suspect Raul has got the chops to set his course and make it happen.  I feel blessed to have been at the table for a taste.

Thanksgiving Post-Op: What I Wish I Knew Last Thursday!

I know what I am having for dinner tonight: The Barley 'Risotto' with Turkey and Mushrooms that Mark Bittman profiled on Nov. 21!

And oh, how I wish I had read Mark Bittman's article on making gravy the week before.  It would have saved me (and my family) from yet another experience of "just OK" gravy that did not deliver the flavor I wanted, despite my frantic efforts to Make It So. 

Only once have I made Really Good Gravy.  This has been my Gravy Grail to seek annually ever since. It was several years ago, and even though I think I'm doing the same thing, it has eluded me.  I even used the giblets to create a little stock, with onions and carrots, to flavor the gravy.

No dice. It was bland and even (horrors!) lumpy! 

Mark Bittman makes the brilliant suggestion to make the gravy in the days *before* Thanksgiving--it will keep-- using the standard process of making a roux with stock and seasoning.  Heresy? I don't care! I'm going to try it, instead of the usual desperate attempt to make golden sauce in the  already very busy minutes before we sit down to eat.  In addition Bittman shares several  other tasty sauce recipes that provide an alternative to the standard gravy. 

Here's another post-Thanksgiving discovery that I found very helpful: Third generation butcher Ray Vanezia shows very clearly how to carve a turkey so as to reap the greatest amount of meat, and arrange it attractively on a platter for your guests to enjoy. My husband has done a very good job on the turkey lo these many years, but even he could stand to learn a thing or two from this video. Hie thee hither and see for yourself.

See what happens when I get too busy to read my favorite food writers? 

Next up: More Thanksgiving highlights.

Book Review: "Cheese and Wine; A Guide To Selecting, Pairing and Enjoying" by Janet Fletcher

The photograph above was not taken from my visit to the Quixote Winery in Napa last Sunday, but it is because of that day that I made sure to stop by the abundant cheese department at Whole Foods on Wednesday and make a selection.   And while my initial pairing of wine and cheese was not perfect,  it made a delightful interlude for my husband and I to enjoy while the Thanksgiving turkey finished roasting and before we began the traditional feast with our family.

Janet Fletcher, the author of Cheese and Wine; A Guide To Selecting, Pairing. and Enjoying  has converted me.  I will no longer walk wistfully past the cheese department,  waiting for a special occasion to prompt a purchase.  Much of the European world (France, Italy, Spain, Greece)  where milk and grapes are abundant, enjoy a daily ritual of wine and cheese, and it is my pleasure to join them--with Janet's blessing and guidance.

I had the good fortune, along with a group of other food bloggers, to meet Janet at the Quixote Winery and to enjoy her intelligent pairing of  three distinctive cheeses to accompany the Petite Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon we were tasting.  She chose a Zamorano, a Pecorino di Grotta, and an Erhaki (which sounds like "air hockey", making it easy for me to remember!)

Each cheese was delicious, a festival of textures and flavors, creating a kind of dance on the palate as I nibbled and sipped back and forth between the cheeses and wines. 

It was pretty much Nirvanna for the taste buds, and I privately vowed to stop neglecting these powerful opportunities for pleasure in the future. Life is too short to drink crappy wine and dull, uninspired cheeses, I thought. Not when these affordable luxuries are so close at hand. 

At the Quixote Wine tasting, we were also gifted with a signed copy of Janet's latest book (named in the title of this post), which delivers on its promise to guide and educate the reader who, like me, can be overwhelmed and bewildered by the array of offerings at a well stocked cheese counter.

Janet Fletcher can be your guide too not only through her books, but through her weekly column on cheese published through the San Francisco Chronicle. (Here is the url for her Cheese Course article archive. You won't want to miss her current article on Splurgeworthy Selections for the Cheeseboard). Her advice and writing has been awarded two James Beard Awards, and has been featured in magazines such as Food and Wine, Bon Apetite, Fine Cooking and Metropolitan Home. 

What I appreciate about Janet's book is her very straight forward,  informative style of writing that is precise and helpful in its descriptions of the character of the various cheeses,  as well as pertinent information on why a cheese would work better with some types of wine and not so well with others.  Her introductory chapter is richly  inspirational but quickly moves on to instruct on how to store, serve and enjoy cheese in a variety of settings.   Cheeses are categorized in terms of milk source (cow, sheep, goat, or mixed), how they are made (fresh, aged, pastuerized  or not, and other such considerations) and other relevant details to quickly orient the consumer.  The book is well indexed, and each cheese profile is accompanied by a simple icon to indicate milk source (cow, sheep, goat, etc.)  as well as a pronunciation guide for foreign words which I find enormously helpful.  Finally,  Cheese and Wine is gorgeously illustrated with photographs by Victoria Pearson of cheeses, wines and serving pieces and makes it an absolute delight to turn the pages. In short, it makes me want to eat the book. (Memo to holiday gift givers: this book or others by Janet would be welcome under the tree).

In my foray into the cheese department at Whole Foods, not having yet read Janet's book, I chose a sheep pecorino stagionato, which was a safe choice because I already knew I enjoyed pecorino.  Then I went to the wine section and, at the advice of the head of the wine department, chose a Loosen Brothers 2006 Riesling from Salem Oregon to enjoy at Thanksgiving dinner. 

At home, I turned to the page in Janet's book on "Pecorino Toscano" and learned that this is an Italian  sheep's milk cheese that has been produced for  2,000 years.  The kind I bought, "Stagianato",  is a type of pecorino that is aged for at least four months in a cellar.  I found it to be buttery, chewy, dense and salty, and very delicious. 

The wine I chose was also very good, although a bit sweeter than I prefer,  and perhaps too sweet for the pecorino.  The wine was juicy and tasted brightly of the grapes, exploding in the mouth. The finish was brief and added to the sense of surprise, as the sweetness and acidity of the wine both spoke at the same time with each swallow.  This is a low alcohol wine, slightly over 8 percent, a very light straw yellow in color.  In the future I would probably prefer to pair it with a fruit dessert after the meal.

I served the pecorino with a rather unremarkable brie.  Incidentally, Janet's book suggests that instead of  chopping off the tip of  a brie as it is consumed,  (as I did with the one pictured above), one should slice off thin wedges along the edge in order to preserve the triangular shape of the brie.  That's just one of many helpful suggestions that Janet makes in order to enhance to pleasure of  eating cheese, even though it doesn't affect the taste per se. 

Sitting next to Janet at the cheese and wine tasting, I told her I am the grand daughter of  dairy farmers on both my mother and father's sides of the family.  I was born in Cuba, New York, home of the locally famous Cuba Cheese Shoppe,  and I have always wondered if my grandparents' dairy products provided the source of milk that the cheese makers used.  On many occasions Cuba Cheese has been a coveted Christmas gift, mailed out to we in the family who migrated west.  Now I want to taste it all over again and learn more about it.  (My favorite is the white cheddar). 

Tasting the cheese and wine last Sunday, and in the days since then, has felt like coming home to me. Coming home to my heritage in a new way, and to a recovery of pleasures lost and rediscovered.

Not a bad way to celebrate Thanksgiving. Not bad at all.

Happy Thanksgiving, People!

Thanks to each of you that swing by my blog regularly, or even for the first time.  I appreciate your interest, comments and support for this crazy blog hobby. It's brought me a lot of new friends and opened up the world to me in ways I never would have dreamed. 

Best wishes;

Andrea

Quixote Winery in Napa California: A Quest Made Real

One glance at the golden onion dome of the Quixote Winery in Napa California lets the visitor know:  You are about to encounter a taste of serendipity, beauty and the magic of dreams made real.

My visit to Quixote last Sunday was a deeply satisfying aesthetic experience on many levels, and that is precisely because the proprietors, Carl Doumani and Pamela Hunter, spent over three decades planning it that way.  Quixote is not just about the wines, which are magnificent.  It is about the way these people inhabit the local environment and express their philosophy of life through cultivating grapes, through organic farming practices, through architecture, art, and winemaking. The wines of Quixote taste of this all encompassing vision brought to fruition in a glass, and it tastes sublime. 

The first impossible dream was manifested when the Doumani's seduced the famously eccentric artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser into taking on their building project, which was often interupted by his projects in Europe.  Hundertwasser's design philosophy is everywhere evident at Quixote: color is vibrant, buildings are planted with trees, no straight lines and, oh yes, there must be a golden turret somewhere in the plan to acknowledge the crowning achievements that human creativity can accomplish when unleashed. Done!

Yet this is human activity that is organically related to the environment, not superimposed.  The vintners at Quixote have made a continuing study of the various micro climates and soil compositions on their own plot of land, and farm it accordingly, using organic practices they have researched from friends and learned through trial and error, often expensively.

When asked what he does to farm organically, Carl replied "It isn't so much as what you do, it's what you don't do."  That's a humble answer from a man who used a cup of worm casings for every root stock he planted,  tilled out zillions of tiny rocks from the land, and experiments regularly with the latest wisdom in organic pest control and other arcane methods to ensure an abundant and healthy crop.

Later at the wine tasting,  the lively and vivacious Petite Syrah and the complex, velvety and mature Cabernet Sauvignon said it all without words.  Relishing the wine, the impossible dream suddenly isn't so elusive after all.

If ever there was a wine that is more than the sum of it's components, it is that being created at Quixote. Choose among their Panza or Quixote label Petite Syrah or Cabernet Sauvignon. You may purchase Quixote wines and learn more about them here, or at select retailers such as Corti Brothers here in the Sacramento area. (Note: They are currently sold out, but I am told that Corti Brothers does regularly stock Quixote wines).

Next up: Tantalizing cheeses to accompany a great wine.

Cayenne Pepper Sore Throat Cure

My standard treatment to relieve a sore throat used to be a gargle with water and apple cider vinegar. It tasted icky but took most of the soreness out. Usually.

But I have found something WAY better and 100 percent effective. I think it tastes good too.  It's called Tomato Tea,  or Cayenne Pepper Tea.  This concoction uses a HUGE amount of cayenne pepper to, essentially, "nuke" and numb out the inflamed tissues of your throat.  It absolutely works, and FAST. 

Does the cayenne pepper burn your mouth? Well, kind of. Your lips will buzz for awhile, and as you drink it you will think to yourself, "Am I drinking a soup of very angry bees that are stinging my mouth?"  I won't lie to you, it does feel that way, but I kid you not, the buzzing lips go away and so does the sore throat pain. Sweet relief!  I think the tea (which is really more of a soup) has other curative powers and speeds recovery from the illness by killing off the virus. 

I am one of those who actually enjoys the taste of this beverage. I find it quite soothing. It includes a healthy dose of garlic which is also known to have anti-viral effects.  Oh and anti-vampire as well. 

Here's the recipe:

CAYENNE PEPPER TOMATO TEA SORE THROAT CURE RECIPE

one can tomato sauce*  (or tomato juice, or soup, or whatever)
one can water or thin to preferred consistency
two large cloves garlic, minced fine
one teaspoon ground cayenne pepper 
optional: a splash of lemon juice (fresh)

DIRECTIONS:
Place all ingredients in a saucepan and heat through to hot soup drinkable temperature.

SIP the concoction, inhaling the fragrance of the garlic.  Enjoy the  feeling of the pepper as it "burns away" the pain, numbing it out and killing the virus! 

This will likely clear you sinuses too.

ALTERNATE GARGLE METHOD:
If you only have  cayenne pepper on hand, you can make a simple gargle of a cup of water and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or as much as you can stand). Stir the water to keep the pepper afloat while you gargle with it a few times.  Not nearly as pleasnat or tasty, but effective in removing the pain.

The first time I used this cure was last spring, when I had the worst sore throat I had experienced in years. The Vinegar and water gargle didn't touch it.  In desperation I searched the net and ran across this recipe. I tried it and it worked so well,  it is now my treatment of choice.  The cayenne pepper soup may cure it in one dose,  possibly another one a few hours later if the sore throat is severe,  but in my experience this is a miracle cure and even tasty once you get used to it.      

Food as Decoration

There's something that feels vaguely decadent to me about using food for merely decorative purposes. Food is beautiful, yes, but there ought to be a word--foodism?-- to describe the objectivism of food, as if it were an object to be ogled instead of consumed. But then again, the Creator did make it beautiful, so why not celebrate that fact? If we can enjoy a still life of fruit in a painting, why not in a glass bowl?

I think these squash are lovely to behold. They herald the crisp days of autumn. These won't be eaten, but I draw the line at plastic or "wax" fruit.

I have my standards.

So far, anyway.