Ahh the marvelous bounty of the sea.
There is nothing in food that mimics so closely a dip in the ocean as a big bowl of mussels. When you serve these fancy Green Lipped Mussels from New Zealand with Chorizo, you'll make a Surf & Turf that would make Forrest Gump himself hang up his Shrimp Boat Captains hat for good and go scraping bivalves off the docks.
With the American League and the National League Championships coming up this weekend and then the granddaddy of all sports events, The Super Bowl, this is a great party dish. Moule et Chorizo has all the air of a bourgeois snack but none of the dent in your wallet. I grew up on shrimp cocktail poured over a brick of cream cheese and served with crackers, which is delicious, but lacks any wow-factor.
We picked these up from Whole Foods and they weren't any more expensive than the normal mussels they always have, $4.99/pound. They are much larger, sweeter, and a heck of a lot prettier than the black ones. With their emerald lips, the spattering of parsley, and the bright orange glow of the paprika-filled Chorizo, these are a rainbow of delight.
The whole transformation from bag to table took about 20 minutes and ended up something really worth writing home about. Even the fishmonger at Whole Foods gave us "Ohh, that sounds good..." when we told him what we were up to. And don't forget, those guys are spoiled rotten! Served with really good bread to soak up the juices.
Ingredients:
This week kicked off with my first taste of Potiza, more Mexican food, some amazing mussels, some fine beer, and a cioppino. I'm starting to eat breakfast, I did a ton of driving in the "Great California Storm of 2010," we picked up a bunch of snacks at Trader Joe's, and scored some tasty waves up and down the coast. All in all, a great week of food and there was a tornado in Long Beach, CA.
Santé
Potiza - Slovenian Nut Bread
My Slovenian grandmother was the queen of Potiza (pronounced Po-teet-sah).
Having made it hundreds of times, she had perfected her recipe and would make a batch at every holiday and family visit. My dad was probably the biggest fan of her swirled nut bread. While staying at my parents for a few months and being a trained chef, I knew I would have to earn my room and board by trying to re-create grandma's famous recipe.
My mother found an old newspaper clipping of a Potiza recipe she had kept from our days back in Cleveland. The recipe was from AMLA, the American Mutual Life Association which is a "Slovenian Fraternal Insurance Society." As a child I would attend their Christmas party each year.
The Potiza I made from the recipe wasn't exactly like grandma's, but we did come pretty close. It has only been a day since we made them and all 3 loaves are almost gone, so I must have done something right! With only a few minor changes to AMLA's "Clip a Cookbook" recipe by Mary Zimmerman, here is my adapted version:
This week had a two day meeting in a hotel which would have raised some strange questions if I started taking photos of the "Powdered Eggs over Servo." I didn't want to go there so I skipped taking snaps. We also had a great meal at some old friend's house with some great wine, looted a bunch of great citrus from Palm Desert, and holy crap I eat a lot of Mexican food.
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This week included a superb Cassoulet by our main-man Russ, a trip to the iconic Long Beach bar, Joe Jost's, and plenty of crudité to pack in the veggies after the holidays. There was also yet another Christmas dinner cooked up by my dad with Prime Rib, Yorkshire Pudding, Glazed Carrots and Creamed Spinach.
This week's song, Rocketship, is by my friend and San Francisco artist Chi McClean. He writes and performs his own music and is a wizard on the guitar. You can find more of his music and his upcoming shows on his own site ChiMcClean.com, his MySpace, his Facebook, his Twitter feed, and you can find him on iTunes by searching "Chi McClean".
Creamed Spinach? I know, I know. But seriously folks, Creamed Spinach is one of my favorite, most guiltiest pleasures. I've loved the stuff since I was a kid. It may have been because I was big fan of Popeye the cartoon, it may have been the fabulous rendition of Popeye by Robin Williams. In any case, I can hear the lyrics to the theme music now as I type.
I'm Popeye the Sailor Man,
I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.
I'm strong to the finich
Cause I eats me spinach.
I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.
I'm one tough Gazookus
Which hates all Palookas
Wot ain't on the up and square.
I biffs 'em and buffs 'em
And always out roughs 'em
But none of 'em gets nowhere.
If anyone dares to risk my "Fisk",
It's "Boff" an' it's "Wham" un'erstan'?
So keep "Good Be-hav-or"
That's your one life saver
With Popeye the Sailor Man.
I'm Popeye the Sailor Man,
I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.
I'm strong to the finich
Cause I eats me spinach.
I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.
So, I love spinach, I always have, and I think I love it most, in "creamed" form. My pops found this and developed the recipe for our latest mock Christmas dinner, I have tweaked only a little bit.
Ingredients:
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Another week, another slide show. "What we've been eating" (WWBE) has been a lot of work, mentally, simply in having the tenacity to remember to photograph everything. Although the documentation of WWBE isn't complete (there were a few meals that were missed) I'm having fun trying.
This week included some holiday feasts and a 400 mile move. That's right, we relocated from San Francisco to 'The OC' and ate plenty of bagels and way too much fast food. We haven't seen any sunshine yet but they tell us that there is some around here. I guess we'll have to wait and see...
I was inspired after picking up some fresh Hachiya persimmon cheap at a farmers market. They were just so freaking orange, I couldn't resist. Unlike the apple-shaped Fuyu persimmon, the acorn-shaped Hachiya need to be completely squishy-ripe before you eat them, otherwise, they are too astringent to be palatable.
Now, a year after my first experiments with persimmon, I found myself looking around on the internet to find something new to do with the them when I came across Hoshigaki - a Japanese technique for drying out the fruit on a string for several weeks. They give persimmon a little massage every few days to draw out the sugars and the result is shriveled and white because it is covered in natural sugar crystals.
I have not had the opportunity to try Hoshigaki yet, unfortunately, but if I ever see some I will be sure to snatch some up. I still may end up ordering a box this winter from another orchard, Penryn Orchards. They look delicious.
Hoshigaki has been added to Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste; a list that is being
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As a new segment, I thought of snapping a photo of everything we eat for the week, making a slideshow about it, and posting it every Wednesday. This may become a lot more work than I'm willing to take on right now but we'll see how it goes. Here is week number 1:
Happy holidays everyone!
Good bye, Droste chocolate cake with bittersweet chocolate ganche frosting. Bon voyage, Himalayan honey drizzled over hot, freshly baked cream biscuits slathered with rich European butter. So long buttery coconut brittle mixed into Leatherwood tree honey ice cream. Farewell, honey chili chicken from Chef Jia’s. Au revoir delicately tender lemon macarons with lemon curd filling. I must bid you all good bye. It has been fun these past two months of sugary excess, gluttony of all things sweet. I enjoyed making you all and consuming you all, but now I must don my vestal robes and re-enter the Life. A Life Without: sugar.
A life without simple carbs and refined sugar is what awaits me now. I tried to keep the glorious abuse going until the New Year, but my will could not scale the Wall. I hit the Wall, smashing into its hard crack stage surface, my face plastered against its mocha fudge mousse mortar. I had planned to end this salacious affair by making a pecan pie made with Lyle’s golden syrup and Maker’s Mark whiskey coated candied pecans. I had plans to concoct an Italian meringue frosted lemon curd cake, and the thought of crunchy, warm cinnamon sugar dusted churros dipped into a cup of thick, rich Valrhona hot chocolate was burning a hole in my mind.
No, I can not think of making any of those things any more. I must relinquish and release myself from those thoughts. I must become pure again. I must look with disdain upon that drug: Sugar. I must steel my will and shun all places where the demon Sugar resides and lurks, waiting for unsuspecting fools like me to walk into its sticky sweet trap, its prison bars made of carbs. I will seek not those flakey alleyways and dark coco corridors where that stripper of wills, defiler of good intentions lies. I will forgo the crusty sweet baguettes from the Acme baking company. I will not buy those golden
- Bagels - check
- Cream Cheese - check
- Toaster or Toaster Oven - check
- Capers - check
- Onion - check
- Heaps of Black Pepper - check
What do we need to make this go completely over the top? Hmm,
- Leftover Salmon? - check
Bagels and cream cheese are pretty much staples in our house, as are onions; and well, capers never go bad - do they? These are things that we literally always have on hand. On occasion, there is some salmon from the night before and with very little coaxing this can become more delicious than it ever was in a dimly lit restaurant du jour.
Seriously, do capers go bad?
Everyone should have onions on hand. Amy: "Why are you buying onions? We have onions." Me: "What is this? Sour Cream? No, it's an onion. If we keep it long enough, it'll grow another one." I stockpile onions like it were
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We are moving from San Francisco and had to clean out the cupboard. What we aren't taking with us we are going to have to toss, donate, or give to friends.
We will donate the non-perishable, canned, sealed, jarred, etc. That which was un-donate-able (opened) but otherwise still quite delicious will be passed on to friends in the neighborhood. Here is a collection of what we will miss.
Oh, contrary to popular belief, chocolate does go bad. Especially white chocolate in this house.
I'm no vegetarian, in fact I firmly believe that if God didn't want us to eat animals, He would not have made them so darn delicious. To compound that, have you seen my canine teeth? They're like razors; and furthermore, I do love me some good-good In-N-Out, crisp bacon wrapped around a tender Fillet Mignon, and some Panko encrusted Veal Parmigiana.
The fact remains, that much of the US meat industry is riddled with problems. Government subsidized corn and soy artificially drive down the price of meat in this country to the point where a double cheeseburger costs less than a large tomato. I love double cheese burgers, but still, that shouldn't be so.
Hormones, antibiotics, animal rights. Cardiovascular disease, cholesterol, obesity. Hinduism, Zen Buddhism - even Catholics abstaining from "meat" on Fridays. Mass production, pollution; there's a new pun in "pork-barrel" corruption. Your own health, the overall health of the animals. The reasons to eat less meat are many, why do we consume so much of it?
It is practically "Un-American" not to have meat at every meal. A wonderful Spanish professor of mine, the late Tim McGovern, told me a story about