Drum roll...

After spending October with "A16 Food + Wine," it's a keeper, although for reasons I hadn't anticipated going in.
And, granted, 60 of its 278 pages were about wine, and went unplumbed by me. Someday, I may want to make a perfect pairing, so I know that info is there. Oddly enough, I'm not bothered that about 20 percent of Nate Appleman's cookbook goes unthumbed.
Here's why: The best dishes often are all about taking time to build layers and layers of flavor: the sauteed onions, the roasted tomatos, the toasted nuts. The chapter about what to have in a well-stocked pantry provided a firm foundation for recipes that will go beyond this book. Making a broth with saved cheese rinds, preserving lemons, preppring capers, even how to turn leftover ricotta cheese into recotta salata was, simply, a lot of cool information that will make me a better, and more confident cook.
The month is over, but there still are recipes I'm anxious to tackle. I'm now in search of chestnut flour for the chestnut polenta, as well as the chestnut shortbread. I'll let you know how they turn out.
This book stays in the kitchen. It's been a good October.
Now, on to November.

Of bacon and prehistory

The test (OK, my test) of a decent cookbook is if you can browse through it looking for a dinner idea and come up with something for which you have most of the ingredients.
That’s the premise behind this exercise/slash/blog (which I need to spell it out every so often): Does a cookbook have that go-to durability, or is it just serving to insulate my walls against the coming winter?
So, I’m flipping through A-16 before the weekend, wanting to make something substantial, but also unfamiliar, which brought me to the spareribs. I never make spareribs, or ribs of most any description. But there they were, seemingly simple in their preparation and – key finding - I had the ingredients (all but the ribs, anyway) on hand. They’re patted with a spice rub of fennel seeds, cardamom seeds and red pepper ground together, then slathered with plain yogurt and left to marinate. Braise them in the oven, finish on the grill or broiler, then finish with a squeeze of lemon. I could do this.
And thanks be that I didn’t have the ribs, because then I got to Clancey’s Meat & Fish, the little butcher shop in the Linden Hills neighborhood, and that’s when I got to witness owner Kristin Tombers gently, oh so gently, lure a lost lamb back into the fold.
An earnest young man was placing his order – a pork roast and some bacon. Then he asked, how do you prepare your bacon? Tombers described the smoking, the wood used. Mmm-hmm, he said, but do you use nitrites? And informed that she did, he hesitated, as if fearing to appear rude, then said to never mind the bacon. Who cancels an order of bacon? “We’re trying to avoid nitrites.” He said it apologetically. After all, Clancey’s is one of the meat counters that dotes on organic and grass-fed and every other “love your body, love the Earth” way of raising flesh.
Tombers went about wrapping his roast and then, in the spirit of “I’m just sayin,’” told him in so many words that he’d have to eat a side of bacon the size of Balloon Boy Dad’s ego to have any ill effects. He thanked her, said he’d look into it, and vamoosed with his pork roast.
So I looked into it.
Folks at the University of Minnesota Extension Service, who look even deeper, have reported that people normally consume more nitrites from vegetables than from the cured meats they eat. And lending some science to my crack about Balloon Dad, for a regular size guy to get a lethal dose of sodium nitrite, he’d have to eat almost 19 pounds of bacon at one sitting. And even then, the researchers added, it’s the salt that would probably kill you.
So much for my defense of bacon, which has nothing to do with A-16, but more with the experiences you run across when you shop at places where customer and owner actually can have that sort of exchange.
You can tell how I feel about bacon because I digressed even while knowing it would keep from talking about one of the best sauces I’ve had in ages. It was a soffrito, more of a condiment, actually. This “concentrated flavor enhancer” infuses steamed vegetables with a slow-cooked flavor, as did the Tomato Anchovy Soffrito into which I stirred some braised kale.
The soffrito was deeply rust-colored – it does bear watching on the burner as it simmers – and was another piece of evidence in the case for how anchovies have this way of melting away in the midst of tomatoes, onions and olive oil into this flavor that goes right to the brain stem. It’s almost prehistoric in its depth.
I had never made one, and now, as with the cheese brodo, a soffrito will become a part of my kitchen work. Besides, eating all the kale made me feel really healthy. Bring on the bacon.

Finding an ally, a technique and a meal

A-16 came very close, very close to being put in the “nice but not a keeper” pile. It was facing its classic test: Being thumbed through as I’m finishing my second cup of coffee, looking for what to make that night for dinner. Ideally, I find a meal that won’t require a trip to the store; next best case, a quick stop on the way home.
So, thumb, thumb, thumb, and all I see are the recipes for a Rabbit Mixed Grill: Loins, Ribs, Legs and Belly Marinated with Black Olives, Preserved Lemon, Parsley and Chilies. For Braised Goat with Tomatoes, Rosemary, Cinnamon and White Wine. For Short Ribs all Genovese.
It’s a Friday. I want a good meal, indeed have been fantasizing about unwinding by making a great meal, but time is time and short ribs aren’t going to make it. Nor rabbit belly.
Mmm-hmm – A-16 was turning into one of those cookbooks, after all. A few recipes, but ultimately impractical on a daily basis.
But I said I’d give the book a month, and I’m a cook of my word, even if it’s to an inanimate object.
I kept coming back to a recipe that had a great photo – Braised Halibut with Pistachios, Preserved Meyer Lemon and Capers. Then there was the gnocchi dish, Ricotta Gnocchi in Brodo with Peas and Spicy Pork Meatballs. This recipe especially intrigued me because the Brodo was a broth made by simmering leftover ends of hard cheese – the parmesans, romanos or pecorinos – that you keep stashed in the freezer. Long ago, I learned that a cheese rind thrown into a soup was subtly transformational, if that’s not a contradiction. The flavor gets deeper. It’s really good.
I’d also vowed to try making ricotta gnocchi ever since I had them at Lucia’s restaurant in Uptown. One of my top 10 dishes, seriously.
So things were shaping up: A quick pass through the store would get me the fish and ricotta. I remembered I had a bag of those little sweet multicolored papers from Costco that were on the verge of going south, so why not make a batch of pepperonata to have on bread? I had everything but the fennel. Add that to the list.
And then things changed.
What ended up on the table later that night was not quite the meal I’d imagined making. But the experience of what started in the book and landed on the plates actually ended up making A-16 seem like more of an ally in the kitchen. Here’s why:
I wanted the gnocchi, but not the peas or pork meatballs, and I had some leftover fresh tomato sauce from the garden, so sauced gnocchi would be fine. Except, I couldn’t let go of that brodo idea. So I ended up dropping a cheese rind into the water in which the gnocchi cooked and, while perhaps not Lucia-like transformational, it lent these little bits of ricotta, flour and eggs a cheesy undertone. Delicious. Adding a cheese rind to cooking liquid is a terrific technique. So noted.
Grocery lists also are a terrific technique. Had I made one, I would have known I had no capers on hand, which ended up being needed for both the halibut and the pepperonata. So I exchanged briny for spicy in the pepper dish, adding a squirt from that tube of Italian chilies (see previous post.) I opted out of the capers for the fish, combining toasted chopped pistachios with chopped parsley and grating in fresh lemon rind instead of buying preserved lemons. Maybe added a pinch more salt.
In his head notes for the recipe, Nate Appleman says that one of his favorite simple ways to prepare firm-fleshed fish is with a mixture of nuts and herbs. To which I say, one of my favorite simple ways to prepare firm-fleshed fish is with a mixture of nuts and herbs. Or, ditto. Seriously, the salmon/almond/basil and now the halibut/pistachio/parsley. Two for two. Great stuff.
Anyway, here’s the deal. I didn’t follow the recipes religiously, but still felt led by them. Appleman didn’t so much inspire, as fall in step with me as I marched through his ideas. I got to spend a Friday night unwinding by cooking, and ended up eating food I’d never made before, and will again.
Oh, and I roasted some Brussels sprouts, just because one can never walk past really good looking Brussels sprouts in October without buying some.
If you hate them, that’s more for me.

Exploring "A16 Food + Wine"

As I was saying…
It’s taken me a while to pull myself from the pages of October’s chosen cookbook, A16 Food + Wine, and remember to write. This comes as some surprise because A16 is one of those restaurant books, which made me first flip through its pages with the same attitude I bring to perusing Shape magazine in the grocery checkout: Mmm-hmm, impressive -- commendable, even. Must be nice to have four hours a day to dilly-dally about the gym.
Jerks.
A16 is a San Francisco restaurant – it’s no doubt been called an eatery by one critic or another – that supposed to be very good and very famous. Chef Nate Appleman is a protein guy, curing his own salumi and slow-cooking his meats. The book’s co-author is the wine director, Shelley Lindgren, whom, I’m sure, has all sort of valuable advice to pass along about pairings and varietals and terroir. But so do those little tags that hang off the shelves at the wine store, so…
Anyway, my point is that I didn’t expect to get sucked into this book, but, well, Roasted Butternut Squash with Pancetta and Chiles, Ricotta Gnocchi in Brodo with Peas and Spicy Pork Meatballs, Rib Roast of Beef with Rosemary and Mosto – this is my kind of cooking.
Granted, I’m fresh out of mosto, wouldn’t you know, but I’ll bet it’s available locally.
So I dove in, making the butternut squash dish and Roasted Asparagus with Walnut Crema and Pecorino Tartufo. In the squash recipe, Appleman raves about Calabrian chilies, even as he adds that they’re not readily available. I’ll check the specialty stores here someday, and there’s always – sigh -- ordering online. But he also said I could substitute ¼ to ½ tsp, dried chile flakes. I like a chef who acknowledges the need to make substitutions.
As it was, I happened on a tube of pureed chiles in the store, next to the tubes of garlic and pesto. I’ve always shied away from them, thinking they’re leftovers from NASA getting out ahead of itself and envisioning what to serve in first-class moon flight. But the tube read “Made in Italy,” and they were chiles, so in the cart it went. And – not bad. I could have used more in the finished dish, but the resulting flavor had more warmth than heat, in a good way. I’ll keep experimenting with it.
At any rate, the combo of bacony, chile-ey roasted squash was terrific – and came together in the half –hour it took to peel, slice and roast the squash.
The asparagus recipe caught my eye because I’d bought a stalk of Brussels sprouts at the farmers market and was trying to finish it up. There are more sprouts than you might think on a two-foot bludgeon. So I thought sprouts could stand in for asparagus. I’d always wanted to try a walnut cream sauce – OK, not always, but ever since I’d heard of one.
Again, a quick dish to assemble – the sauce is blanched walnuts thrown in the blender with some sautéed red onions and olive oil. Very rich and earthy-tasting, which was great with the sweetly bitter (you know what I mean) roasted sprouts. I’d even sought out the recommended pecorino tartufo – pecorino with bits of black truffle – to shave over each serving. I’d bought the smallest wedge I could, and glad I did because I just am not a truffle person. Its aroma always seems to be written up as erotic, but it smells to me, like a farm. And I know farms. Hog farms.
So I wrapped the remaining wedge in aluminum foil, sealed it in a freezer bag, so as to have it handy for … well, I couldn’t just throw it out.
Oh! Almost forgot the Braised Salmon with Basil, Almonds and Lemon. Again, a simple preparation, but the dish was unexpectedly elevated by the sprinkling of correctly-toasted almonds. Appleman actually spends a few paragraphs talking about toasting nuts, the goal being to achieve an even caramel color throughout the almond. The key is a low temp, 300 degrees, and plenty of time, 15-20 minutes.
So, was this book opener’s luck? More meals ahead.

In conclusion...

So this is how it’s going to be – we’re four days into October and I haven’t started a new cookbook, because I haven’t closed the loop on the last cookbook because – and I do have a reason – because I was trying to give “A Platter of Figs” one more time to shine before moving on.
Surely, I thought, this will be the night I’ll make grilled halibut with Indian spices or even the soufflé-y spinach cake. But no. I was always trying to use the last of the garden's vegetables and David Tanis wasn’t giving me much help there. I could give him a pass and chalk to up to bad timing. But here’s the deal: Scanning the index for potential entrees, I kept running up against the fact that I did not have, waiting in my freezer – or even readily available – quail, rabbit, pigs’ ears, shoulder of spring lamb, or veal loin.
Great recipes, I’m sure, and worth trying for a special dinner. But in the end, the book didn’t meet the day-in, day-out standard I’d set for this exercise.
Having said that, it also ended up providing some corroborating evidence for how I cook right now. His Parsnips, Epiphany-Style, are my spears of parsnips roasted in olive oil. One of the side dishes if I end up on Death Row, for sure. Same with roasted beets, roasted eggplant, spiced olives, salted tomatoes. In many ways, David Tanis and I think along the same lines, which is cool. We all need a vote of confidence. But I'm not looking for my own routines in a new cookbook.
I’m making it sound like "A Platter of Figs" held no insights, and that's not so. I will remain forever grateful for its humble tip about garlic. Tanis wrote that he never understands why people think peeling garlic is such a big deal. “It’s so easy to do it right. Hold a firm, fresh garlic clove top to bottom between your thumb and forefinger and quickly squeeze the clove until the skin pops. Then the clove is easily peeled.”
Honest to Pete, I had never heard of this technique. And it works, better than smashing the clove with a knife. And it’s rather satisfying to feel, and sometimes even hear, that soft “snap” that means a clove’s surprisingly sturdy back has been broken. Call it Garlic, Epiphany-Style.
So thank you, Chef Tanis, for the tip, and the encouragement, and that recipe for jalapeno butter with the vegetables.
But bottom line: This book is destined for the bottom shelf. If the economy doesn’t pick up, it may end up at Half-Price Books. For now, though, I’ll keep it under my roof -- as a vote of confidence.

The last night of summer

We were at a friend’s house last Saturday night, where dinner was a fabulous boeuf bourguignon. This Saturday, I am dining with friends where the main course already has been announced to be … boeuf bourguignon. This may well be the autumn of Julia Child’s signature dish, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But it makes me wonder whether this tender, fragrant and disconcertingly hip beef stew will become 2009’s version of the 1960s’ impossibly hip shrimp cocktail.
All of which brought me with a fresh state of mind to the pages of “A Platter of Figs.” It’s been one of those months, days spent at the Minnesota State Fair, as both reporter and food demonstrator, then a week of vacation. So it’s been awhile since I went to the book, which is more a reflection on my life than its worth.
Finally, I was going to get at a recipe I’d eyed for weeks: Corn, Squash and Beans with Jalapeno Butter. It’s basically really good mixed vegetables, even prepared in the Birds Eye dice of my frozen childhood, with a great butter.
Actually, I ended up preparing David Tanis’ whole “slightly all-american” (I’m still hating the all lowercase) menu: sliced tomatoes with sea salt, grilled chicken breasts (although mine were pan-seared), and the vegetable dish, stopping only at the blueberry-blackberry crumble. I will have to try one of his desserts before September ends, but not now.
Quick verdict: The vegetables were terrific – of the “make this again” spousal request. I was not surprised. It was one of those recipes that you can taste as you read it. I just knew it would be good, with the right combo of veg – although he promotes playing with the mix – and a butter of hot peppers, lime zest and juice, snipped chives, salt and pepper that will definitely be slathered on the corn on the cob I have in mind for tomorrow night.
It was, I’m learning, exactly the sort of menu that epitomizes Tanis’ approach. I could almost have made it without ever cracking the book. Ironically enough, eh? Slice tomatoes and sprinkle with sea salt. There actually are several paragraphs of recipe/philosophy here, mostly about never refrigerating, mixing heirloom varieties, slicing a half-inch thick. Intuitive, instinctive…but for some people, this may be the first time they grasp how to stay out of a tomato’s way.
Same with the chicken: season with rosemary, heat until done.
The vegetables were the “recipe” of the day, and yet I prepped most of it from memory. The cookbook was open, sure, but did I really need to look at it for directions on the length at which to snap the green beans?
And this – I think – is Tanis’ point. In other words, I think he would nod in approval at my gentle freelancing of snapping at will instead of slicing at a half-inch. He inspires, I get dinner on the table. I did very much pay attention to the proportions for the jalapeno butter, even as he then was saying how it could be adjusted for heat with more pepper (or, I suppose, more butter, which brings us back to Julia………..)
In any case, a true hit, and what proved the perfectly perfect meal for the last day of summer. As I’m writing this, it’s starting to rain. The zucchini plants and broccoli were given last rites yesterday, and most of the tomatoes are in. It’s the turn of the season. Nice to have the hot shimmer of jalapeno still on my tongue.

Trying to like saffron

The garden, so slow to emerge this spring....and this summer...finally is kicking in. If it stays nice until Halloween, I may even harvest an eggplant.
As it is, the broccoli suddenly has attained hedgelike proportions, sporting heads on foot-long stalks. One of them has even burst into a lovely bouquet of butter-yellow blossoms, which of course means that its food value now has morphed into a floral motif.
Why did I plant six broccoli? Because they all sprouted, that's why, and I find it difficult to do the Sophie's choice thing, figuring that Nature or her four (and counting) rabbits of the Apocalypse will winnow the field.
But no. The rabbits went after the green beans - three replantings' worth - and left the broccoli be, which was why I found myself flipping to the recipe index of "A Platter of Figs," hoping that David had an inspiring take on broccoli. Alas, it went from "Bowles, Paul" to "butter, jalapeno."
Sigh.
I don't fault the book. No particular reason it should have a broccoli recipe. (Although what could it hurt?) The Barefoot Contessa came to the rescue, and I WILL be making Roasted Broccoli with garlic again, finished with pine nuts, grated Parmesan and lemon juice and rind.
OK, so what are my other options? Starch always eases a thwarted mind, and I hadn’t even begun to dig into the potatoes yet, so I flipped to “P” to see “Potato(oes) mashed with carrots and saffron.”
By coincidence…or fate, karma, serendipity or dumb luck…I had been exploring the world of saffron for a demo this week at the Minnesota State Fair. “Baking with Saffron” was my topic, a suggestion from the demo host, Klecko, a master baker and founder of the St. Paul Bread Club, which we’ll get to someday.
Saffron had been mildly intriguing over the years, partly because it couples this hyper-exotic image – world’s most expensive spice – with an aroma that I’ve always found, charitably, rank. My research turned up more pejorative terms: bitter, iodine, pungent. It’s the signature ingredient of St. Lucia Rolls, but that’s the Swedes for you, always putting on the dog.
Still, I had some on hand, from past forays in paella and such, and so this seemed an opportune time to harvest some root vegetables, delve into saffron, and put something of sustenance on the table.
Again, I was struck by the utter simplicity of Tanis’s recipe. The method is a paragraph: Boil potatoes and carrots in salted water until tender. Drain and add a little crumbled saffron, butter and grated lemon zest. Mash and thin with milk.
Clearly he has faith in his book being purchased by experienced cooks. And perhaps anyone who owns saffron knows the disaster that lurks within a mere thread too many being crumbled. In my homework for the demo, I’d run across a rule of thumb, that if you can clearly smell saffron in the finished product, you’ve used too much. And so “a little crumbled saffron” seems fraught with peril. Here’s an spice that is sold by the gram – by the 0.04 ounce. A little? Is that a smidge or a skosch? A pinch or one-quarter teaspoon?
I erred on the timid side, rubbing a half-dozen threads into the potatoes and carrots. It was just right for me, perhaps a bit much for my husband, who gamely tasted, considered and concluded: Eh.
To which I responded, “Eh.”
The dish wasn’t bad; it just had saffron in it, which I have now placed in that pantheon of culinary love/hate relationships – a list notably headed by cilantro.
I love cilantro. So the columns are now officially even.

Vietnamese Cucumbers, ala Instinct

So I know what you’re thinking: Who is Edesia and why is her kitchen being put to the test?
No? You’re wondering why the secretaries on “Mad Men” don’t tell those lechy ad guys to shove it? (I’m just getting started with the series, courtesy of Netflix, so don’t tell me anything good, OK?)
Back to Edesia, whether you were wondering or not. Edesia was (is?) the Roman goddess of food preparation, the benefactress of great banquets, and my muse. I happened upon her while developing what has become the Edesia Cookbook Review, a monthly gathering at a local Barnes & Noble. Each month, I choose a topic and invite local talents to review some relevant books or share where they find inspiration. It’s been a blast, and so it seemed right to call upon Edesia to bless this blog.
A muse may come in handy right now, for it’s becoming clear that “A Platter of Figs” is not written by a micromanager, but a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. Which is good, although frankly not what you expect to find in a cookbook.
I mean, several of my bread baking books would have me taking the temperature of my dough at specific intervals, which I’ve admittedly done at times because the mere directive makes me wonder: Am I there yet? Have I kneaded to 78 degrees? Only 76? Slam, slam. 77. Stretch and fold. 78.
How…curious.
So I had to look twice when deciding to make the Vietnamese Cucumbers – or, in the book’s typography – vietnamese cucumbers. OK, we’re going to get this out of the way right now. I work in newspapers, I live by a stylebook, I once was an English major and believe that there is a time and place for capital letters. Such as in book titles, proper names and recipes.
So anyway, I was looking over the recipe for Vietnamese Cucumbers, since the garden is spewing cukes like a Lucy episode, and it essentially is a list of ingredients, the only specificity being 4 large cucumbers and the length of the piece of ginger to be julienned: 1 inch.
Otherwise, it’s a process of tossing the sliced cukes with some fish sauce, salt and pepper, palm sugar, hot peppers, lime juice, sprigs of mint and basil, and some slices of scallions or sweet onion, depending on which way you swing.
I went the baby step route, starting with a few drops of fish sauce – easy to overdo and impossible to undo -- and half a jalapeno. Eh. Then I went back out to the garden to snap off another pepper. The rest was a case of squirting and tasting, tossing and tasting, and then letting it all sit and meld and marinate, which led to another round of dribbling and tasting.
It was a recipe, but far more reliant on instinct than teaspoons. The result was delicious. I will make this salad again
But it will be different, won’t it?

One month, one cookbook

I have a lot of cookbooks from which I’ve made only one recipe. They’re the culinary equivalents of one-night stands, which may be what a woman in her middle years is reduced to – no, wait (slap, slap) aspires to – as kale becomes more attractive and infinitely more forthright than some Dale.
I also have cookbooks I’ve never used. I page through them and read them in bed or on the porch. Intriguing recipes are duly noted, with every intention of cooking them someday, you know, when I have time.
Then there are the cookbooks, fewest in number, to which I turn again and again. Sometimes, the red ribbon is still marking the page from the last time I made clafouti. I can always find my lasagna recipe in Betty Crocker because it’s the rippliest from the way the noodles have dripped water onto the page.
Still, these other cookbooks lie waiting, and in that way we attach feelings to cars and washing machines and computers (mostly varying degrees of cranky), I wonder whether they feel some resentment at being merely reading material, if not wall insulation.
So I’ve decided to delve into them, one book at a time, one month at a time. I won’t cook from them exclusively; I want to make my favorite dishes when I wish, and besides, that’s been done, most famously, by one Julie channeling Julia.
Instead, a chosen book will be my default. On those days when I’m casting about for an idea, it will be my go-to resource. When I entertain, I’ll look here first. And when I try a new recipe, I’ll tell you what transpired.
By the end of the month, I should have a handle on whether this book has a place in my life. Is it in sync with what I keep in my refrigerator or cupboards? Maybe it will change what I consider staple stock. Maybe I’ll learn a new technique that I’ll take with me to the grave. Maybe, at month’s end, I’ll take a particular volume up to Half-Price Books and be done with it.
I’m starting with “A Platter of Figs and other recipes” by David Tanis, the head chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif. The title and author’s name are all in lower case, which has always struck me as precious and smirkingly humble.
But I’ve been thumbing through this book on and off for several months, and I want to like the idea that an outstanding dessert may be nothing more or less than a perfectly ripe platter of figs. Except I also know that there lurks a recipe for pig’s ear salad.
I’ve never cast about for dinner idea imagining that as a possible solution.
I grew up on a hog farm. I know where pig’s ears have been.
So we’ll see. It’s Sept. 1. Shall we dance?