The Dinner Files

“Do you have any secrets for making potato pancakes?” I innocently asked my friend.

“I have many, ” she said. “First, you need to be Jewish.”

Hmmm… my master plan for dinner was, I now saw, ill-considered. My dashing husband had requested fish for dinner. Ernest had expressed a perennial desire for dumplings or noodles. But both of those plans required a trip to the store and our kitchen was full of food. Potatoes and eggs, in particular, were in great quantity. My thoughts turned, as always, to a Spanish tortilla. But I sensed that both ignoring the dinner requests I had pointedly solicited the night before and serving yet another tortilla might be legitimately viewed as an aggressive act by my family.

So I did a quick brainstorming, including a brief stop to think about making Ernest’s dream meal: the bacon, eggs sunny-side-up, and patties of hash browns featured on the box of the electric griddle that we store in the basement for when I make pancakes. Alas, we had no bacon. I could hear his wails of protest and decided to move along to other potato-and-egg dinner ideas.

Potato pancakes! Latkes! Of course. Shredded potato and egg and a bit of flour. Perfect. We had some various dairy elements hanging around to top them with, as well as other random condiments that could possibly be put to use. Plus, they would be good with the red cabbage slaw I was planning to make in order to use one of the two heads of red cabbage camping out in the hydrator.

So I grated a pound of potatoes and put them in a large bowl of cold water so they wouldn’t turn brown. I went to grab an onion and… no onion. I could have sworn there was a spring onion hanging around the fridge, but it was gone. Hmmm… potato pancakes with no onion. Oh well. I noticed the two very small sweet potatoes that came in our CSA box last week sitting on the counter. I peeled them and grated them and threw them in with their not-sweet brethren.

At that point I realized I 1) had never made potato pancakes before and 2) was working without a recipe or guidance beyond that I gleaned from working at Sunset while a latke story was in development.

My friend’s derision of said story when it was published made me think I probably did not know what I was doing. So, despite the fact that it was probably the worst time of the day to call someone with two small children, I dialed her number.

That’s when I found out I was doomed before I began. I am not, you see, Jewish. Despite my love of the All-of-a-Kind Family series, reading them obsessively in grade school did not, no matter how much I wished it, magically transport my Norwegian-Scottish self into the teeming Lower East Side food markets that sounded like such fun – with their pickles and lox skin and pretzel women and hot chickpeas – in the books (although it did teach me a whole hell of a lot about Jewish holidays, a shocking amount of which I’ve retained).

After breaking my heart with her hard truth about latkes, my dear friend kindly moved onto her second point: the importance of wringing out the water from the shredded vegetables. “You cannot get them dry enough,” she proclaimed, “a man is very useful for this. Really, you cannot wring them enough.”

Strike two: I was home alone and very much not a man. One of the ways in which I am not like a man is my incredible lack of upper-body strength.

“I like to add some celery root,” she said. I explained that I didn’t have any and didn’t have time to run to the store.

“That’s too bad,” she said, “it really adds a nice flavor.”

“I did add some sweet potato,” I offered.

“I am not a fan,” she said.

And… strike three. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was out of onion. I thanked her and went on my now not-at-all merry way with my dinner plans.

I wrung out the shredded potatoes with two separate kitchen towels while Ernest cracked six small eggs into a huge bowl and whisked them smooth. We stirred in the pretty-darn dry shreds, added salt and pepper and a few tablespoons of flour.

Then I did something just horrible. I asked Ernest to get the griddle. I just couldn’t deal with frying. It would be messy and smelly and I already sensed that these were not going to be great, so damning them to a mediocre fate for my own convenience seemed like the reasonable thing to do.

So I cooked them into child-hand sized fritters on the griddle – using the peanut oil my friend recommended but not at all in the way she intended. If a person put the whole idea of latkes and their lacy crispy addictiveness out of their mind, the fritters were pretty good. They were tender and eggy and a delightful vehicle for horseradish cream.

But when my dashing husband had walked in the door and saw me making something and asked what it was, I knew they were not latkes. They did not even deserve the moniker of “potato pancake.”

“Potato fritters,” I said, a bit sad, a bit dejected, but hungry for dinner.

I recently went to TWO in the space formerly known as Hawthorne Lane. We were there for happy hour, trying to grab a dinner between various hectic schedules. We needed a place within a pretty small radius downtown that served food and cocktails at 5. TWO fit the bill. Bonus prize was their “5 for $5″ menu on offer this month. It’s pretty self-explanatory (or, really, just very well named): each week they feature five of their regular dishes sort of pared-down (I imagine fancy garnishes are removed, for example) for $5. We didn’t end up ordering any of them simply because there were things on the bar menu – warm pretzels, house-made lamb sausage in flakey pastry, various pizzettas – that sounded better to our crew, but the very possibility of such a deal excited the whole table. Correction: it excited the whole table except for Ernest. He was excited by 1) the aforementioned warm pretzels and 2) the root beer we let him order. “Mama,” he said, “this root beer is almost as good as in Minnesota.”

Along with the pizzas and sausages and cocktails we asked to be brought to our table, I ordered a salad that I couldn’t quite imagine how it would taste:

Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad
Pecorino Cheese and Marcona Almonds
Garlic and Chili Vinaigrette

I figured if it was good it would be really good. It was. The tender shaved sprouts were completley coated with chili and parmesan and the crunchy almonds were their perfect foil. So I made it last night. A little less cheese and dressing than the restaurant version, natch. And I remembered there being mint in the salad, which there was not at the restaurant but which there was in mine and it was fabulous. A fresh, bright note against the rich almonds and spicy chile flakes. Accomplished cooks out there can probably use what I’ve said about it so far to go forth and make their own versions. If you’d rather follow a recipe, I’ve posted the one I made last night over at Local Foods, where I’ve called it Spicy Brussels Sprouts Salad With Almonds and Mint.

A month ago I was whining on Facebook about not knowing what new to do with beets. I got some ideas from well-meaning folks, but in the end I think I just needed a little beet-break. Having had just such a hiatus, the rich earthy sweetness of red beets called to me anew. The dull dirt-red ords and their dramatic red-slashed greens stood out at the market, begging to be eaten. So I grabbed a bunch and did something I’d been thinking about for awhile: I cooked them together. Starting with the beets, then adding the stems, and finally the dark leafy greens that I cooked just long enough to wilt.

The resulting warm beet salad, as I’ve decided to call it, was a big hit at my house last night. We just grated a bit of meyer lemon zest on top and called it a day, but some hazelnuts or a bit of goat cheese – globs of fresh chevre or gratings of an aged version – would be a lovely addition if you’re feeling fancy.

My recent adventures in New Mexico and West Texas left me with a great many happy memories, including those of some fabulous meals. Yes, most of them involved chiles and plenty of cheese and meat, and I’ll be working on re-creating those soon. For now, however, I need some salads. And fattoush salad is on my mind. Why? Well, we had two excellent, if completely different, versions of it in Marfa, Texas.

Yes, two excellent if different versions of fattoush in Marfa, Texas. It’s a crazy place, Marfa.

The first one was at Cochineal, an amazing little place with a charming dining room and an even more compelling courtyard serving food I would happily pay to eat in San Francisco. The fattoush there was spare and, unlike any other version of the salad I’ve ever had, contained cauliflower.

The second was at Food Shark. Food Shark is a food truck that operates out of the old train station in Marfa, where there is also a farmers market on Saturdays.

Their fattoush was a bit more, um, Texan. Big, bold, filling. It had a crunchy, fresh falafel on top, a ton of well-oiled pita chips, and was drizzled within an inch of its life with tahini and yogurt sacues. It was the perfect lunch to re-vivify during the mid-day break of the Chinati Foundation tour.

My own version was inspired by both. I tossed romaine, peeled and seeded cucumber slices, chopped tomato, sliced red onion, plenty of chopped mint, and toasted pita pieces with a lemon garlic vinaigrette. I then topped it with feta, olives, and crushed toasted cumin seeds. I drizzled tahini on my dashing husband’s portion and garlicky yogurt on mine (Ernest perferred just lettuce and pita). We were out of pepperoncini, or I would have put a few on the side for good measure. Need more of a recipe? I’ve posted one at Local Foods.

I’ve made these before, I made them again. Abalone po’ boys. Inspired, obviously, by shrimp and/or oyster po’ boys that are huge sandwiches filled with fried seafood, lettuce, tomato, and, for us last night anyway, a bit of red cabbage slaw and whatever else people thought to throw in them. They are an excellent way to stretch abalone to feed a crowd and we had a wee bit of a crowd last night.

Luckily, Very Tall Cousin Sam had caught his limit of 3 abalone. But we had 7 people to feed, including Sam and his brother, Awfully Tall Cousin Elliot, who was visiting for the weekend, Cousin Katie and her girlfriend Nilka, and the regular threesome that usually shows up for dinner at our house.

It may have been Easter and we may be family, but it was not an Easter dinner, a fact made clear by the lack of candy and the confusion expressed by several members of the party as to what, exactly, Easter celebrates.

So we stood around and drank beer and laughed and the guys took a 2-by-4 to the abalone wrapped in a towels in order to tenderize it whole (result: a bit mangled, not as thoroughly tender as when pounded by the slice, but much quicker) before I floured and fried the abalone for the sandwiches. We then put large sandwich rolls, every condiment in the fridge, a platter of thinly sliced tomato and red onion, some lettuce, and a mixing bowl of red cabbage slaw (very thinly sliced red cabbage splashed with sherry vinegar and sprinkled with salt and pepper and allowed to sit until just a bit wilted) on the table along with the paper-towel-lined cutting board covered with overlapping pieces of golden, pretty-much tender, rich and meaty abalone.

And then, activity-based-bonding family that we are, we hit the streets, kicked the soccer ball around, walked Katie and Nilka’s dog, and played Pickle-in-the-Middle with Ernest as the perpetual laugh-filled pickle.

Yep, you read correctly. The last day of our New Mexico – Texas full-tilt chile, art, and UFO spring break road trip (about which I promise to write more in the very near future) fell on Ernest’s birthday. He is now 6. And we all know that the very least one can offer someone on their birthday is to decide what to have for dinner. Despite hints about succulent chicken tacos (“Mama, I eat tacos all of the time” was his response, which, as regular readers know, is true both in his daily home life and was most definitely a fact of meals on this road trip), the Birthday Boy wanted dim sum.

Of course he did. Dim sum is his favorite food. By a large margin, from what I can tell. And then he was such a good sport when we told him that it might not work out that I did what I could to track down dim sum in Albuquerque. There are, based on the limited research I could do as we drove in the rain and hail between art galleries (hey, do we know how to show a 6 year-old a good birthday time or what?) while I also tried to book a room at a hotel near the airport (6:51 am flight!) that had an indoor pool (birthday + rain = the least I could do), two places in Albuquerque to get dim sum: Amerasian Sumosushi and Ming Dynasty. Ming Dynasty had a definite edge in the online reviews, a more focused Chinese menu, and, let’s be honest, a much more appealing name.

You know what? Ming Dynasty is putting out some very serviceable dumplings. Some were a bit heavy, but the barbeque pork buns were light as a feather with an excellent filling-to-bun ratio and the sesame balls were crispy and fresh. The vegetable mu shu my dashing husband and I ordered to supplement our dinner (all the better to leave the lion’s share of dumplings for the Birthday Boy to inhale), was deftly assembled table-side with supremely tender house-made pancakes.

They were as good as any mu shu I’ve ever had. In fact, I can’t recall any better.

And I’d like to add that the service was delightful. Charming and kind and efficient. And very quick with that second order of har gow that they never saw coming… no one, not even dim sum resturant workers, can ever believe how much dim sum my boy can eat.

I’ve now had green chile at every meal for two days straight. I’ve had it on a chile relleno (doubling up my green chile intake since it was a stuffed green chile covered with green chile) with eggs for breakfast at the just-as-good-as-promised Cafe Pasqual’s, cooked into whole grain flatbread from the Santa Fe farmers market, on another two chile rellenos at Tomasita’s, over huevos rancheros at Tesuque Village Market, and in a bowl and also drizzled into tacos at The Adobe Bar. I also used it as an answer as my dashing husband, my boisterous son, and I played 20 Questions while while hiking through beautiful, painfully arid Northern New Mexico mountains.

Isn’t that a great name for a restaurant? It lets you know you do not need a tie, for example. We waited a lllooonnnnnngggg time last night to eat our dinner there. While we waited I downed one of the best margaritas I’ve had in a long time along with bright and spicy salsa and smooth and flavorful guacamole, which all really hit the spot after a day of travel – first flying to Denver for the third time in 8 days (hello Concourse B!), then on to Albuquerque, then the drive up to Santa Fe. Why are we here? It’s spring break. We’ve never been. And we’re eventually going to make our way down to Marfa, Texas to see art and and lots of space and sky. Carlsbad Caverns, Roswell, and plenty of more space will occupy us on the way. And, of course, I’m hoping to eat plenty of chile-laced delights.

The Shed. It came highly recommended by locals. It did not disappoint. The best thing was some green chile stew, a cup of which my dashing husband and I shared to start. My red chile smothered enchiladas with a side of posole were pleasantly bitter from the chiles, which made the bits of onion taste sweet, and I ate the whole plate full of them, which is something I don’t usually do at restaurants.

I created this cocktail in honor of the indomitable, super smart, fun-loving Lisa Ann Taggart. The recipe first ran in Sunset, but I prefer the slightly tarter proportions below. Lisa came over last night and I ended up having a few of these and a couple stuffed grape leaves I pulled out of the freezer (note: they freeze beautifully) for dinner.

Marmalade bourbon sours

1/4 cup bourbon

1 Tbsp. orange marmalade

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

lots and lots of ice

Stir bourbon, marmalade, and lemon juice until marmalade dissolves. Pour over ice in a large glass (or two glasses if you’re being reasonable) and garnish with a slice of lemon.

I feel surprisingly chipper today. Perhaps it was all the salty snacks that go so very well (one may say perfectly?) with these sweet yet bitter yet boozy concoctions. Spooning out the bits of bourbon-soaked orange peel at the end is an extra treat – sort of a cocktail dessert, if you will.

The honoree seemed to enjoy them too:

I ate pizza at The Lab last night. The Lab is a museum, a public space, a place that puts together some thought-provoking discussion panels, and a place that, for reasons only it can divine, invited me to talk about the history of pizza and Mark Dym to demonstrate the making of the pizza last night. Mark, of Marco’s Coal-Fired Pizzeria (the pizzas are actually wood-fired, everything else if coal-fired, which goes to show you a name is often just a name) in Denver, also brought a whole slew of pizzas for everyone to tuck into while he demoed the shaping of the crust. So as soon as I was done with my talk (“The Cheese Stands Alone, An Autobiographical History of Pizza”), I got to sit down with a cold one and a hot slice. Perfection.

Word on the street is that The Lab will post an edited video of the talk online. I’ll let you know when/if that happens. I don’t want to ruin anything, but did your mother, father, or other nutrient-provider ever serve you an English muffin pizza? Did you know they date from the 1940s? The 1940s!