I smell of cherries

Between headaches and general staring off into space, I’ve been working on my State Fair entries. It’s been a lot of work and there’s nothing that says “SMART” like choosing to stand over a boiling pot of fruit, stirring frequently for 40 minutes or more on a day when it is 8 billion degrees out.
First up, I made a batch of cherry chutney. It’s pretty good, but I’m just not feeling it with the chutney, I don’t know. I don’t think I flavored it very well. Oh well. I’d say it goes well with pork, turkey or spicy food.
I made a batch of cherry jam that turned into cherry jello or something. That shit SOLIDIFIED! No worries, I’m calling it a cherry ‘pastry filling’ and giving it away. It tastes really good, it’s just too thick to be a jam. I drained too much juice off the cherries and so there ended up being too little fruit to pectin in the end. The gel ended up trapping millions of tiny bubbles in it. Definitely can’t enter that in the competition.
Today I made another batch of cherry jam and I think that turned out better. Definitely softer, more spreadable. I will have to manipulate the jars to help with fruit distribution (part of what yu get judged on is appearance).
Next up, Def Strawberry Jam for the “not otherwise specified” jam category and my salsa verde.
Wednesday I was on a mission for litmus paper. You see, if a recipe has a pH of 4.6 or lower, then it is acidic enough to kill any botulism bacteria that might be hiding in there. The boiling, heating and sealing will take care of the other bacteria, as well as any airborne yeasts or molds that might get in there. If the pH is higher than 4.6 then it must be pressure canned so that the temperature gets high enough to assure the death of the botulism.
If you are following a tried and true recipe, you need not worry about these things, they’ve been tested. But, if you are like me, you chafe under the constraints of order and instruction. My salsa verde recipe rocks ass but I am not sure it is acidic enough to be safe to waterbath process and I really don’t want to pressure can it because I don’t have the new gasket for my canner yet. So, I decided to get some litmus paper and find out.
Where does one buy litmus paper? Good question! I called pharmacies, I called industrial art supply warehouses, I called Target, I called a garden shop, I called a pool shop, I called a bead shop for fuck’s sake! Finally I found an elementary school supply store that was open! they had it (also, they had all of the other amazing things I wanted to buy).
The real sadness is the sheer number of people who were asked and did not know what litmus paper was for or what pH is. Dang.
Of course, I can’t really talk. I was filling 8 ounce jars with a 1 cup measuring cup and tried to pour in a heaping cupful. mmmm spillage.

Birthday dinner

I’ve been super busy with work and the fiscal year switchover and also with the birthday so I will post bits and pieces. This is the thing I wrote elsewhere about my birthday dinner at Al Vento:
David took me to Al Vento for dinner. Very lovely Italian food. First we debated the wines. David likes very dry cabs and I prefer something less dry and more fruit forward (without being too sweet). The Sommelier recommended something, the name of which completely escapes me. I was skeptical on first try, but he assured me that as it sat, it would open up and it did.
Question, you know when they open the bottle and pour a little and you try it? What’s the protocol for saying “actually, I do not want this. It tastes bad!” That didn’t happen last night but it happened once before. The wine wasn’t recommended, we picked it out so I figured I couldn’t tell them we didn’t want it, they’d already opened it and yet they had me try a little to see if I liked it. I’m not a ‘wine person’ per se, i know the stuff I like (sangiovese, tempranillo) but I’m not like “oh the 97 Spongebob Estates Parnouti varietal is really coming into its own this year!”
Anyway, back to the food.
We started with an appetizer of white nectarines wrapped in prosciutto rustica and drizzled with a balsamic reduction. What impressed me the most was that they didn’t go all overboard with the drizzling, making stupid designs on the plate and using too much balsamic. The dish was perfectly balanced. The nectarines were sweet and a little tart, and the pieces were rather large. At first I thought they were too large, but it was the right size to counterpoint the saltiness of the prosciutto. Prosciutto rustica is a little more ‘meaty’ than regular prosciutto, it has more texture. Every few bites you would get a little balsamic reduction, syrupy and sweet with a not over powering tang to it. It was almost cleansing.
For entrees David got the spaghetti with garlic and something something. They used whole cloves of garlic in the sauce. He seemed to enjoy it but I think he wished there was more.
I ordered the lambchops which I had grilled to medium rare. They came on a bed of sauteed mustard greens which were absolutely divine. On first bite yuo picked up the smokiness from the lamb, then garlic, a touch of vinegar, a little mint and finally the bitter green. I cannot put to words how much I adored those greens. David was trying to steal them from me. The plate also came with parmesan crisps and lightly herbed goat cheese.
Whenever the waitress came over she apologized profusely for abandoning us, but we didn’t feel abandoned. It’s nice to have a meal without someone stopping by every few minutes to bug you. Besides, there were no less than 3 other people who were constantly and silently whisking in the clear plates, fill water and wine glasses and at one point, replace silverware (???). She apologized and offered up free dessert. Awesome!
I ordered the creme brulee sampler, vanilla bean, chocolate espresso and pistachio. David swear the vanilla was excellent, full of vanilla flavor but I started with the pistachio and worked my way around and after 2 very strongly flavored custards, my mouth just couldn’t pick up subtlety. Either way, they were velvety smooth and light and they didn’t use a metric buttload of sugar to make the crust. I hate a super thick crust on creme brulee, I’m a fan of subtlety. Obviously.
Then we went home and watched Sarah Silverman “Jesus is Magic” and that sucked donkey balls. I mean maybe it would be good to someone who had never heard a shocking thing in their life but you know… oh, I don’t know, it sucked balls.

Celebrate

Last night David taught his last class for the semester (he teaches English to Latino immigrants) and when he got home he wanted to celebrate. We trundled ourselves into the car car and headed out. He wanted to go to the Town Talk since we had not had a chance to go there since it opened. I had him scope it out, all was well and I headed in.
My feelings are mixed.
The layout is lovely with the bar sectioned off from the dining room allowing the dining room to be calmer and the bar to be rowdier. The menu had a wide range of offerings from mid-priced to unconscionably priced. Seriously, there is not a risotto on the planet worth $18 unless it has gold plated moon scallops on it and naked ladies spoon feed it to you. I know overhead has to be high in a place like that, but that was absurd. on the other hand the wine list was all reasonably priced, nothing toity, a few selections that I buy regularly at home.
They misspelled “protocolo” in two places on the wine list, but I ordered it anyway.
We started with the Frickles, fried pickles. Wonderful, light, crispy fried pickles. So vinegary! They appealed to everything I love in food! Vinegar! Fried! Something to dip in! I could have eaten two baskets on my own and wept for more.
David ordered the grains and greens salad and I got the chopped salad. The menu on the site is not current and my salad was different than the one described. I give the kitchen high marks for well thought out and balanced food. Every ingredient in my salad worked together in flavor and texture, some things working in concert, others as counterpoints. I would very much like to try some of the other bits on the menu.
The service was outstanding, everyone was pleasant and attentive. The bill was brought with a couple of chocolates, a nice way to end.
On the whole if I were to create my perfect restaurant it would be this place, only quieter, and just slightly less pricey. I really did love the food, but I think we will not go regularly.

en la edad del miedo le ofrezco los cacahuetes

Before I regale you with tales of my enormously delicious paella meal, I will tell you 2 things from this weekend that are totally retarded. It’s important that you don’t get the idea that I am some sort of super hero with only magic and smooth writing pens. I am just a regular person with a regular life. I want to guarantee balance. If there is no balance, there is no truth…
1) We decided to do our grocery shopping for easter dinner on saturday night at 10pm. This could end here as it is pretty retarded, but it was cool, we got our stuff and got home. I walked in the door with approximately 8000* bags of groceries on my arms. If you know anything about my dogs you will know that they are an excitable and yet entirely retarded pack of beasts with no concept of “other” or “cause and effect”. As I tried to get in the door quickly Maddie was trying to tell me important news like “My name is Maddie” and “OH MY GOD!!! You are now inside the house” or my personal favorite “when you were not in the house I farted and it kind of smelled like dog food and it was really weird so I barked a little.” My dogs never say things like “wow, that’s a lot of stuff, can I help you carry anything?” no, they can’t conceive of any notion other than, “TOUCH ME TOUCH ME ACKNOWLEDGE ME VALIDATE ME!”. In Maddie’s frenzy she managed to knock into my legs and send my flying onto my face.
Sprawled out in the living room, groceries everywhere, do you think Maddie would feel remorse? No, mostly she just saw it as an opportunity to say, “my nose is very wet and I want to leave nose wetness on your face as a gift.”
2) Sunday, after eating a delightful brunch at my dad’s house (ham….the king of the pink meats) I had to swing by my house and hurriedly gather up the food and equipment to make the amazing paella dinner at Owen’s place. With Anna’s help I hauled the bags and pans and whatnot out to the car. I dropped Anna off at home and popped over to Owen’s place. It was a beautifully sunny afternoon, the skies were so clear blue and I was belting out “The Decemberists” at the top of my lungs. When I got to Owen’s and started to unload the car, all my joy dissolved…
In the process of loading up the car I had put my lovely 12 in Calphalon paella pan on the trunk of the car. You know where this is going. No pan in my car, certainly no pan just sitting on the trunk of my car. I lost my pan. I drove home hoping it had fallen off my car as I was pulling out of my driveway and nobody noticed it. Sigh. It either shattered into 1 billion anodized pieces or someone not so unlike myself came upon it and said “a practically new calphalon pan with cover that retails for $168** just lying in the street? Happy easter to ME!”. My pan is gone. I would be sad or angry but really it was my own fault and all I can do is laugh at my own stupidity.
Okay, that was my “retard” portion of the weekend, now on to the food.
Owen is amazing to cook with. Anything I use gets snatched up and cleaned immediately, he takes orders well and makes me buttered english muffins when my energy gets low.
The first crostini we made was went from the planned “Mirableu blue cheese, roasted apricots and spiced pecans” to a combination of Point Reyes blue, roasted plums and spiced pecans due to the vagaries of the imported cheese and stone fruit situation in minnesota. This ended up being a balance of sweet, salty, sour and spicy all at once.
The next crostini was Brillat-Savarin brie, pears poached in ginger syrup and roasted curried yam slices. Same result, sweet, spicy and salty, but no sour. I loved it. The pears were amazingly spicy and sweet. The leftover ginger syrup went into martinis later in the evening.
A salad of mixed greens, flowers, herbs and mint and an orange mustard vinaigrette. The vinaigrette in its initial incarnation of orange juice, oil, homemade mustard and shallots was weak and without the proverbial balls I was looking for. I added about a teaspoon of mustard powder and threw it in the fridge for further flavor blossoming. The mustard powder did the trick, sweet and tangy and definitely not bland.
This is the paella recipe that I used as sort of a base. A jumping off point, so to speak. We got rid of the chorizo to satisfy the sensibilities of the fish but not meat eaters and replaced it with squid, halibut and bay scallops (along with the shrimp, mussels and clams). I wanted the flavor to be more “Spring” than “Summer” so I cut back on the tomatoes a bit and added a metric buttload of orange juice reduction and orange zest. I also used peppadews instead of piquillos.
Also, it took way way way longer for the rice to cook than I anticipated, so the fish got a bit overcooked, but no one minded.
Dessert was an orange cream tart with strawberries, mango and blueberries on the top, glazed with lemon ginger marmalade. I accidentally added too much sugar to the mascarpone cheese and it ended up being way way sweet. sigh. better luck next time I guess. Owen arranged the fruit on the tart as he has way more visual creativity than I do.
We ate, drank, gossiped and had a great time. David and I drove seperately and he won major points for finding and bringing the cocktail napkins that I forgot! I didn’t even have to ask him. He’s like magic.
I hope it was a happy Easter for you all! Oh! April, sorry babe, there were no leftovers. We were big big pigs.
* When you own two dogs it is important to always have a steady supply of plastic bags in the house. This means that when you bag your groceries you use plastic and you place 1 or 2 items only in each bag. a 2 bag shopping trip can easily yield 8-10 bags if you bag things up properly.
** I did not pay $168 for this pan. I got it on sale. I am not THAT retarded.

Beautiful

Met Owen at 10am outside Coastal Seafood. Already there were people waiting to get in. I had forgotten about Good Friday! Celebrate! Eat Fish! You could see the staff die a little in their souls as they saw us out there. I hadn’t even considered the parking lot would be full of nutty women, those fourty-somethings that live in 50’s blocks just south of Calhoun. Not the Edina-ites, they don’t go to the city for their fish, these are the eco-happy, liberal, would be liberal but the taxes are just too high kinds of ladies in their fair trade wool coats and Fendi bags. Hot.
Owen and I were in and out in a matter of minutes. Fuck, I love cooking without a budget. We got mussels, clams, shrimp, squid, tiny tiny bay scallops and some halibut, all for the paella. I’m playing with a paella recipe, I want to make it a little more spring like instead of summery, so I’m going to hit it with orange and cut back a bit on the tomato. We’ll see how that goes.
I’m making two appetizers, one is a crostini with sheep’s milk blue, spiced pecans, and roasted apricots. I love this one because i think it’s going to really balance the salty/sweet/spicy, if we need sour I’ll dash some vinaigrette on there. We also have some brie for the other appetizer and while another crostini would be nice, i’m thinking I’d like to show just a little more creativity than that.
There will also be a quick salad of mixed greens, orange mustard vinaigrette and probably some apricots and nuts, you know, because I have them.
Dessert is currently a tart filled with orange spiked mascarpone, covered in some sort of fruit and glazed with lemon ginger marmalade. This is still up in the air as I don’t know what fresh fruit is available and we’ll have to wing it. This is minnesota, it’s not easy to get fresh fruit in the winter than hasn’t been bred down to super stable but completely styrofoam flavored.
After the seafood store and some dallying here and there, David and I headed out to the Guyanese restaurant. It was okay. The food is an interesting cross between Indian and Carribean, unfortunately, everything at this place was too salty and too overcooked. The service was great and everyone was really helpful, I just had hoped for something….more.
I’m off to get some ice cream as it seems to be dinner time. later Chochachos