The Dinner Files

I’ve never been much of a church-goer. Sitting in a room with people who believed as I did and listening to someone tell us to do what it is we’re already up to… well, it’s not for me. I understand the appeal. Or, at least, I understand than many find it appealing. But I’ve never even found support groups useful. The idea that there are a mess of other people in my same predicament? Well that just bums me out more.

So when a fellow food writer (don’t worry, you’ll remain nameless) sort of peer pressured me into going to part of Slow Food Nation, which has set up camp this weekend in little ole San Fran, I thought long and hard. (Note: He did so by offering me free tickets and inviting me to dinner. Obviously I cave easily.)

So when the crowd went wild for the assertion at the panel discussion last night that slavery is bad, I wanted to pull out my hair, strand by strand, before leaping over the balcony railing. The choir was there and they were being preached to. I agreed with almost every single thing uttered on stage to one degree or another, and yet found myself antsy and annoyed. I, too, am very much against slavery of any kind (hey, wait, didn’t I write an entire dissertation on just that subject? I think I did…), and yet feel that stand is so completely obvious and unremarkable that clapping for it would have made me sad. So I sat. Gripping my pen. Wondering when the revival meeting would end and I could get a good stiff drink.

Granted, I have heard all of the panelists speak before. And enjoyed them all immensely. It was a group of intelligent, brilliant, engaging people. (Vandana Shiva, in particular, blows my mind with her insight and consistent habit of speaking plain truth about ugly facts.) But you know what? I want someone on the panel who disagrees. I want competing opinions and options and plans. I want events where I don’t (and couldn’t) agree with everything that is said. That would be one way to fight the elitist accusations so commonly thrown at any call for better food / better agriculture.

Caveat: I did not agree with several things said, but they were small, throw-away bits and provided me with no comfort.

Dissenting opinions welcome (see above). That’s what comments are for.

Dinner? At Essencia in Hayes Valley who graciously dealt with a HUGE group of food and ag writers. The ceviche was particularly tasty. I’m a fan of Peruvian ceviche, with big pieces of corn or hominy in it.

We just ate Vietnamese take-out last night, so I thought I’d tell you about this little interaction Ernie and I had one morning when I was driving him to “kids camp” in Minnesota:

Ernie: [long soliloquy on the many wondrous features of cotton candy ice cream in a transparent attempt to get a cone at the end of the day]

Me: uh-huh

Ernie: Mama, do you love cotton candy ice cream?

Me: Sweetie, not really. It’s just too sweet for me.

Ernie: No, Mama. I know you don’t like how it tastes. But do you like how beautiful it is?

I hadn’t made this is ages. There was a year when I lived in Paris and got the idea for this dish from my pall Judith when I made it constantly. It is the ultimate pantry dish–you can have it all sitting around the house, waiting to be made, for ages. I was driven–driven I say!–to make this last night. I used homemade marinated baby artichokes, which upped the yummers factor by a fair amount, but it’s good with just regular canned (not marinated, my homemade marinated are more like the canned ones in many ways) artichoke hearts, too.

One of my favorite things about this dish–besides its essential pantry nature–is how good it is lukewarm and even cold leftover. Just as good! Seriously. It just sort of morphs into a pasta salad.

3/4 lb. fusilli

2 or 3 Tbsp. olive oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 to 2 Tbsp. capers, rinsed and minced

1/2 to 1 tsp. pickled green peppercorns (optional), extremely minced

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)

1/2 cup white wine

about 1/2 cup brine from canned artichoke hearts

1 can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

parmesan cheese, parsley (optional), black pepper

Cook pasta in boiling salted water until al dente. Reserve about a cup of the cooking liquid, drain, and set aside. Return pot to heat. Heat olive oil. Cook garlic, capers, pepper flakes, and peppercorns until fragrant, about a minute. Add wine and brine and cook until almost completely evaporated. Add reserved pasta water, artichokes, and pasta. Cook until heated through. Toss in a bunch of parmesan cheese, chopped parsley if you have it (I didn’t last night), and pepper to taste. Serve topped with cheese. Feel very clever for not having had to go to the store.

We also crammed a whole lot of this tomato mozzarella basil platter down our gullets. Yes, we had just had a similar dish the night before, but it’s that time of year when nothing tastes as good. Especially in this oppressive heat after painting walls all day (yes, I’m still at it).

While eating a weird combination of out-of-season dishes at our still-piled-with-all-our-possessions dining room table was super-duper fun the other night, it was a bit of a relief to escape the house (with paint drying on the walls) and eat some supremely edible ultra-seasonal fare at someone else’s house last night. Grilled steak with roasted peppers, blanched green beans, tomato and mozzarella and basil, chilled sliced potatoes with creme fraiche. It’s H.O.T. in San Francisco this week and this dinner was perfect. Made all the more so because while we were standing around our hosts’ kitchen they casually handed us “magic eggs”– lightly poached in-the-shell concoctions served with creme fraiche and chives and balsamic vinegar (also in the shell), handed to us with napkins and tiny spoons. We ate the eggs and sipped rosé and my day of just trying to cover all the god damn walls with paint in unbearable heat (and our upstairs gets sauna-like when that Western sun starts baring down through the windows) slipped away.

Then Ernie was introduced to the magical world of jumping off the top of bunk beds. In case you ever want to try it he recommends “a cushion, a bean bag, and a thousand pillows” to help break the fall. It’s only fun until someone breaks an arm!

No, not a secret garden cocktail (drat!). Last night we ate a weird combination of dishes that I was developing for Sunset. I can’t tell you what they were. Even if I could, I wouldn’t because they would sound so amazing you would want to make them, and then you’d only find yourself in the same position I was in yesterday: feeling like an asshole at the grocery store buying tangerines and other winter produce on a beautiful August day.

I made a salad that would taste great on a dreary December or January evening as part of a meal that included a rich meaty stew, but was oddly bracing/cleansing/forcibly bright for a summer day. In summer you don’t need bright. The warmth and sun allow for luscious foods. There is so much great produce around you don’t even crave it. Come winter? Well, then you start to really need something fresh!, you know? Something to cheer you up. Things like lemons and tangerines and frisée and maybe a cozy pilaf (“Mama,” said Ernie, “did you take a picture? It is so beautiful.”) to take the edge off the cold and/or rain.

You don’t need to read me complain about my lot as a food writer–Jess over at Hogwash does it so much better. Here we are, dedicated to helping others cook with the seasons, roasting turkeys in July and baking Christmas cookies in August. I wish you felt sorry for us, but I can tell you don’t, not really.

Okay, fair enough, we were at the Four Seasons. And I’m no rube. I’ve had a $14 (and more!) cocktail before. And my cocktail was delic. That’s it, over there–it’s called “Secret Garden” and it had gin and grapefruit juice and cilantro simple syrup and, of course, that slice of cucumber. I’ll be terribly clear: I had no complaints about my drink.

My various companions’ drinks, however, made me laugh out loud. Yep, I laughed out loud as the server placed them on the table. I don’t know that I’ve ever witnessed a more ridiculous presentation. Well, here, see for yourself:

Then, to top it off, flatware arrived. This was odd, because we had declined food menus with the comment “we’re just having drinks,” so flatware seemed really unnecessary (unless it was to beat the lemongrass stalks into edibility?). But then the amuse bouche arrived. The spicy almonds and wasabi peas were, apparently, insufficiently grand for the Four Seasons, where even during cocktails one’s mouth must be offered additional amusement (hasn’t anyone shown them a picture of the drinks? I mean, come on, surely that is enough entertainment for one evening). A “polenta cake with sausage and summer tomatoes,” was placed in front of each of us. It tasted just like that sounds it would. Except the sausage was mixed into the polenta before all being made into a slightly gummy cake which gave me the notion that this whole amuse-bouche-with-cocktails thing was just a way for the kitchen to relieve itself of leftovers.

Can you see how it looks gummy and not polenta-like? Can you see the random mush?

Luckily, we had reservations at Camino. So dinner was delicious and fun, not funny. Despite others’ online complaints of small portions and short menu, I love the place. The portions are small, I guess, which just means I can eat my whole dinner. I’m into it, quite frankly. Everything we had was great. The roasted squid with potatoes and chiles was awesome. The wine list is easy and reasonable. And the lighting? It is so flattering.

Now, if only they has pink polka dotted martini glasses….

I really did! I have so much to tell you.

But first things first. My dashing husband had the exceedingly filthy nasty carpeting pulled up from our bedrooms while Ernie and I were gone. In their place are beautiful wood floors.

Sounds good, right? Oh, it is sweet, I assure you. And yet… without the disgusting carpeting to distract one’s attention, the rooms’ desperate need of a paint job became overwhelming. Plus, all the furniture and other crap usually filling up the bedrooms and getting in the way of a decent paint job is downstairs in the living room. (See photo at left.)

So I’m painting. A lot. Non-stop, really. So last night my dashing husband made this lovely “vegetable stew but it’s sort of a succotash” for dinner. You want to make it? I have no idea what he did. All I know is he found it disappointing and I found it delicious.

The Dinner Files will return August 25.

It’s really only Minnesotan because I made it in Minnesota. And because I added chopped leftover brats at the last minute. Yes, it was a serious clean-out-the-fridge sort of dinner. But it was also pretty damn good. All the more so because I located the soy sauce. My mom keeps it in the fridge. I was all, “she’s crazy, who keeps soy sauce in the fridge?” until I read the side of the bottle: Keep refrigerated once open.

Oops. Have I been risking life and limb (or at least stomach) for years by not refrigerating soy sauce? Seriously, it never even occured to me to do so. All that salt, how could it go bad? What could grow in that environment?

[Addendum for the Lovely Luisa:  Honestly, it never occurred to me that someone would want to make this. Start with leftover cooked rice. The leftover part is key since you want the rice a bit dried out--the better to get it to brown up. If I know I'm going to use leftover rice for fried rice I even spread it out on a pan and let it air-dry for a few hours (in the fridge can get too dry if spread out, making the whole thing crunchy in the uncooked-rice way).

Beat an egg or two with a pinch of salt and a few pinches of sugar. Heat some oil in a frying pan, add the egg, and use a spatula to pull the cooked parts in towards the center of the pan, letting the uncooked egg flow onto the now-exposed pan. Continue doing that until the egg is almost completely cooked (the top will still be a bit wet). You can flip it to cook the top or not, depends on how you like your eggs. Turn this omelet onto a cutting board and chop.

Put the pan back on the heat, add more oil and saute plenty of minced garlic, finely shredded fresh ginger, and chopped green onion. I also throw in a chopped serrano chile or some red pepper flakes. After that mess it all awesome smelling, add any vegetables or chopped meat you want in the rice (if these are already cooked let them get hot before adding the rice; if they aren't cooked, cook them until they aren't letting off any liquid before adding the rice). Then stir in the rice. let it sit and brown a bit, then stir it up good. Repeat until it's hot and as browned as you like. Stir in soy sauce to taste and then stir in the chopped egg.

Chopped cilantro makes a nice garnish, if you have some.

Note: unless you use a lot of oil and have a very hot stove, it will not look like restaurant fried rice. It's a much lighter, cleaner tasting version--unless, that is, you use leftover bratwurst....]

Remember when blue and pink swirled cotton candy flavored ice cream would have sounded awesome? Yeah, me too.

I went for a classic chocolate chip cone instead. Ernie insisted I try his because, and I quote: “Mama, it is so delicious.” I couldn’t even fake it. I had to tell him it just wasn’t for me but I was happy he liked his ice cream choice so very much.

Later on, for actual dinner, we had an even simpler version of the zucchini-tofu stir-fry he flipped for last week (or whenever that was). No fermented black beans, no rice vinegar, not even any soy sauce. It was amazingly good, if I do say so myself. Just garlic, ginger, green onions, and a few red pepper flakes sautéed, add zucchini and a bit of broth and cook until the zucchini is the way you like it, add silken tofu and more broth and cook until hot. Scoop onto rice. If I’d had some I would have sprinkled it with soy sauce when I served it.

The best part? We ate dinner still wearing our swimsuits. That? That’s summer.