The Dinner Files

You see these a lot in Spain. For me, they took some getting used to. Slices of potato omelet as a sandwich filling? I’m all for carbs, but doesn’t that seem a bit nuts? And then I tried one and it was good. Of course, I was in a place at that exact moment, personally, that made a heavy, carb-laden, eggy concoction really hit the spot, if you know what I mean. But then I had one while waiting for a flight at the Madrid airport. I was not hung over, it wasn’t the best possible version of a tortilla sandwich (airport food is airport food the world over from what I can tell), and it was still a pretty impressive food item.

So our leftover goose egg tortilla was cut into slices, layered in lengths of baguette, and called dinner (along with a salad, as is our way).  How can room temperature potato and egg and bread be so satisfying?

My dashing husband dashed this off for dinner last night. Broccoli, red cabbage, tofu, plenty of ginger and soy sauce, and “chow mein” noodles. Was a bunch of green garlic included but indetectable due to all the stronger flavors? Sure. Would I have ever thought to put red cabbage in a stir-fry with tofu that might get dyed a bit, um, blue? No. Was there, perhaps, just a smidgen too much soy sauce included in the dish? Yes, yes there was. Was it  delightful to have a piping hot dinner placed in front of me without ever having stepped into the kitchen last night? Absolutely.

And the red cabbage? Not a bad addition to a stir-fry. Not bad at all. As long, that is, that you don’t mind slightly blue tofu.

I managed to nab a half dozen of the goose eegs up for grabs from the meat csa to which I belong. They are the ones on the right. Chicken eggs are on the left. The goose eggs, you may notice, are quite a bit larger. By my measurement they are about 2 1/2 times larger than a large chicken egg. They also have about 2 1/2 times the flavor (this measurement is even less formal, not to say reliable, than the volume measurement for which at least I used standard measuring devices). The yolks are beyond golden, more than orange, I couldn’t even capture the glow with my camera. They sort of shimmered in the bowl.

When I picked the eggs up I asked our meat club czarina, I asked “What do I do with them?” “Why,” she wondered out loud, “did everyone who ordered them ask that?” She said she was going to make a creme brulee. Good idea. Me? I used three of them to make a tortilla espagnol last night, which I served with a simple green salad and a dollop of yogurt because we had no sour cream, an item I always find goes swimmingly with a nice Spanish tortilla.

The yogurt worked just fine. The tortilla was extra rich, extra eggy tasting, and just a bit more filling than usual. But not mean. If you have any experience with them you know that geese? They’re mean. But their eggs? They’re just big and rich and amazing. I have three left. I’m taking suggestions.

I had the great pleasure of dining with Kent and Kevin Young and their families last night. We all headed to Thai House Express, where some plate sharing and some plate hogging occurred (I did not feel like sharing; I just wanted my silver noodle salad). Very Tall Cousin Sam joined us and ordered some crazy double noodle creation in a yellow curry sauce. Note to self: next time you go to Thai House Express order crazy double noodle creation in yellow curry sauce.

p.s. My mom was at dinner last night too. We both ordered the exact same thing we did one year and one day ago.

The city of Denver completely freaked out. Everything shut down. I guess, from what I heard and have seen in pictures, some areas really were slammed with snow, but in the city itself things didn’t seem so very bad. After my talk was postponed (I head back on Tuesday – that powerpoint presentation will be shown!), a friend and I decided to enjoy our Snow Day and go to the movies. That plan came to naught since the theaters – even the multiplex at the giant fancy mall – were closed. Luckily Domo, where I sipped hot brown rice tea

and chowed down on a tofu and vegetable soupy casserole dish called nabemono

was open for lunch. And Marco’s Coal-Fired Pizza was open for dinner. Marco is a madman, turning out the kind of delicious Napoletana pizza that makes me angry with its deliciousness and then having the gall to take that same mind-numbingly good dough and stuff it with nutella for a dessert pizza.

Yes, it sounds horribly horribly wrong. And yet it tastes so very very right. Insider tip: the man also concocts his own not-sweet limoncello. Ask for a glass if you get a chance.

Sadly, I did not make it out to the Grizzly Rose.

Are you in Denver? Guess what? You can come to The Lab at Belmar tonight and hear me talk about pizza. Mark Dym of Marco’s Pizza will be there with commentary and pizza. I just hope the audience doesn’t turn against me because I didn’t make them any pizza.  Of course, once I show them some of the pizzas I have made, they may just be relieved:

I toured a 100-year-old coffee plantation while in Oaxaca and was served what just may have been the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had. It came from beans grown under the jungle canopy, hand harvested, and roasted that morning in a small red roaster.

Full disclosure: the owner had plied me with his home brewed mezcal before lunch, after which we had the coffee. My judgment may have been slightly impaired. Not so impaired as to think bad coffee was good, but altered enough by the moonshine and delicious home-cooked lunch of amarillo de pollo and tamarind pork and company which was charming enough to be charming despite a lack of common language beyond food vocabulary and a mutual love of coffee to think an excellent cup of coffee was the best ever cup of coffee.

I also had cafe de olla. It is made cowboy-coffee style, by adding the grounds to hot water and letting them sink to the bottom of the pot. It is brewed with cinnamon sticks and sometimes other spices, and sweetened with piloncillo, those dark cones of relatively unrefined sugar that have a decidely molasses flavor hanging about them. I can imagine over-sweetened versions out there that may be not be so tempting, but the few cups I drank had just a touch of piloncillo, adding a deep, dark, rich flavor to the coffee that wasn’t syrupy or cloying at all.

I’ve returned from the Oaxacan Coast. My, is it lovely there. Hot and lovely. After this cold cold winter and so far freezing spring, the hot sun and warm ocean felt mighty good.

You know what was just as good? I ate chilaquiles every morning. Every morning. I ate tortilla chips cooked in chile sauce for breakfast every morning. Saying it now, it sounds sort of wrong. It did not, however, seem at all wrong at the time. I have a theory: Even bad chilaquiles are good. I’ve proved it true in the past. I was happily unable to prove it true again; all the chilaquiles I had were delicious. Some had the green chile and tomatillo sauce:

Some had two sauces and came with a black bean filled pastry bull with dried chile horns:

Some were ordered, some were glopped out of a hotel breakfast buffet, some were purchased at an airport lunch counter. What they all had in common was a generous drizzle of crema (slightly thin and ever-so-drizzle-able Mexican sour cream), some grated salty Oaxacan cheese, and plenty of thinly sliced raw onions on top. Duly noted.

I may be offline until March 23, I don’t know. Connections may be tricky. Time will certainly be limited. I’ll do what I can. In any case, I’ll tell you all about my travels when I get back.

Last night I snacked through dinner at a bar while waiting to play Edible Pursuit, the brain child of the tireless people at Edible San Francisco. People bought tickets, gathered at Acme Chophouse, formed teams, and competed for a stunning array of prizes by answering food trivia questions.

I’m going to be honest. I wanted to win. Not for the prizes either (although the 20-pound box of endive would have been nice); I wanted to win for the glory. I put together what I thought would be a team of ringers. A super smarty-pants and highly competitive Ph.D. now editor and food writer who loves trivia and two plugged-in smarty-pants writers from the San Francisco Chronicle food section.

And then we picked up another team member who showed up without a team or had a friend cancel on her – I can’t remember – and it was Jen Maiser of Life Begins at 30 (who, by the way, is a delight! and so reasonable about eating locally! we bonded over not making our own salt – that’s what the food world has come to people!). Total ringer! Filling in on the tough food politics category! How, I ask, could we lose?

I’ll tell you how we could lose: One Miss Smarty-Pants decided not to drive over an hour in the rain while sick and pregnant in order to play a trivia game in a bar (!?!? go figure !?!?) and the rest of us sat around over-thinking everything. At one point in round two we had every answer right. In our infinite wisdom we changed three of the answers to make them wrong. Smooth move Ex-Lax! We tried zenning out and following our collective gut after that but some questions during the next round required thought, not gut. Gut wasn’t going to get us anywhere with those. In fact, gut completely screwed us over on one and if we’d thought about it for 2 seconds…. Oh, never mind.

So we came in third – or fourth if you count that two teams tied for first and had to sudden-death it for the grand prize. But we had fun. We had fun despite some embarrassingly incorrect answers we marked down on paper and handed in for others to see. We missed what “blanc de blancs” means on a wine label! That one we should have thought about for just the 1 second because we all knew the answer. I think we all also felt a bit sheepish about missing what famous bakery Boulange de Cole used to be (Tassajara, obviously). But we had some proud moments too: We geeked out by demanding a fact-check on one answer and were proven correct; we worked together to remember the name of the dude whose writings are the basis of bio-dynamic farming (teammate: “I can’t believe I can’t remember his name, I wrote a whole article about him.” me: “For some reason I keep thinking of a name, but it’s not the right name. Why am I thinking of this name? I have to say the name to get it out of my head, but ignore me. Ok, so I’ll tell you who it isn’t: Rudolph Steiner. Why am I thinking of him? He’s the Waldorf guy…” teammate: “No, that right. It’s Rudolph Steiner, it’s the same guy.” me: “That’s right – what a nut.”); and one member brilliantly answered a tough fill-in question before the question was over (answer: Mac MacDonald).

I then I came home, still hungry despite the rib, the sardine, the slice of flatbread, and the spoonful of asparagus and butter beans I’d eaten four hours before, and scarfed down a few slices of the Spanish tortilla my dashing husband had made with this recipe I’d given him:

Spanish Tortilla

Like the Mexican tortilla only in general shape (round and somewhat flat) and in its ubiquitous presence, Spanish tortillas are more like omelets (known as “French tortillas” in Spanish), and come with as many varieties. I add a bit of garlic instead of the traditional onion, but otherwise stick to the basics of egg and potatoes. As flexible at home as they are in Spain, where slices are available at almost every café or bar anytime of day, tortillas are delicious hot, warm, or cold for breakfast, brunch, lunch, cocktails, or dinner.

2 cups olive oil (most will be discarded)
4 to 5 Yukon Gold or other medium-sized potatoes
1 Tablespoon salt
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup chopped parsley, optional
4 whole eggs and 4 egg whites

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Add the sliced potatoes and salt.  Cook, stirring often to keep the potatoes from sticking, until edges of potatoes look cooked (they will be less opaque than the centers).  Add the chopped garlic and continue cooking and stirring often over medium heat until the potatoes are cooked through.  When potatoes are cooked, add chopped parsley, stir into the potatoes and remove from heat.  Drain the entire mixture in a colander or strainer and let sit for 5 minutes.  The potatoes may be a bit mushy and fall apart, this is okay.

Beat the eggs and the egg whites in a large bowl.  Add the potatoes-garlic mixture and mix well.

Heat a 10-inch skillet over medium heat (a non-stick skillet will work best when you need to turn it out at the end).  Spray or coat the pan with olive oil.  Add the potato-egg mixture and flatten into the pan with a spatula or spoon.  Turn heat down to low and let cook until the edges are firm and just the very top layer barely moves when the pan is gently shaken.

When just a top layer of uncooked egg remains, put skillet under the broiler to brown the top.

When the top is brown, remove from oven.  Run a spatula around the edges to loosen the tortilla.  Place a plate larger than the pan over the pan and turn the tortilla out onto the plate.

Serve warm, room temperature, or cold.  Serve plain or with almost any condiment you can think of (hot sauce, pesto, salsa, ketchup–anything that you like with your eggs). It really is the perfect midnight snack for a hard-working, trivial gal.