pomegranate

Emeril

Emeril is my new TV guy. I realize he's probably been on TV for umpteen years now, but I've just discovered him, because I've just started noticing the Food Network, because I hang out with some people who like it and so I started watching it with them, and then got hooked.  Emeril is my favorite.  He might be the reason why I eventually get Tivo.  I like his casualness and reverence towards food.  I like his approach to cooking.  He makes it seem fun and easy and not that big a deal.  I like what he cooks.  I like his band.  I feel like I learn a lot when I watch his show, and I enjoy it, because I like his energy. 

And I think it's a good way to learn to cook.  To actually see it happening before you rather tha njust reading it on a page.  I didn't grow up in a cooking household.  I never would have known that you would just take chard and stuff it in a pan, and that it would cook down the way it does.  If I had read the recipe and tried it, I would have questioned it.  But seeing Emeril do it with such panache and ease, I think, "All right.  This might be something I want to try."

Dinner Out

It's been the kind of week that was supposed to be light on work, but I'm swimming in jobs.  So, this is just a quick post, and will probably be the only one here this week, unless something inspires me tomorrow, but I have been writing about music and films and dvds in my other blogs lately.  So, that's mostly where to find me this week.

But I did have some friends to see and places to go Tuesday night, two exact with a two hour window between them.  And so I went to a family restaurant.  That's the only way I can put it.  Everyone there knew each other.  They all talked table to table.  The waitress had evident pride in her work.  She had wonderful manners.  She just enjoyed talking to people and doing her job well.  I had a patty melt and fries.  It was a decent meal, but why I would return is because I felt I was treated well there, that the service was prompt and kind and efficient and friendly and people enjoyed each other, and that is the type of place where I would like to spend my free time.

Back to the Fifth Floor

My father was in town last week, and we met for dinner.  We returned to the Fifth Floor, a restaurant we had visited two years ago, and had liked a lot.

This time around, there was a new chef, but we liked it for the same reasons.  An imaginative menu, excellent food, and--the tipping point for us at this restaurant--wonderful service.  The first time, we went, the chef surprised us with something before our ordered food. My father and stepmother, old hands at this fancy restaurant, said that this gesture, known as an "amuse bouche," is standard practice in this type of place.  At the end of the meal, with our check, we were served a tiny plate of chocolates--a nod to my birthday.   All in all, they treated us well.

This second time, we were again told that the chef wanted to surprise us with something and were given pre-order tastes of delicious food.  But then after those plates were cleared, the waiter said that the chef wanted to surprise us again, and brought out another round of amuse bouches.  And with our desserts, the chef whipped up a little caramel milkshake to accompany my father's apple tart and a small cup of hot drinking chocolate to go with my chocolate cake.  And then there were little pastries that went with the check, and then before we were leaving, the waiter who I remembered from last time, although I couldn't tell you what he looked like because I generally had to avoid eye contact.  When people ask me how I like the flavors, I have a hard time saying anything without making some sort of inappropriate face.  So, I tend to keep my head down low to this fellow, although he was very kind.  He just posssessed a vocabulary that could easily make my face contort. 

This time around, he came by with a small box of chocolates, a gift from the chef, he said.  I took it and even dared to look into his face.  It was the least I could do for chocolate.  I offered the box to my father, although I did tell him that it was a hard thing for me to do, and he graciously allowed me to take the box home.  I ate some the next morning for breakfast while I drank coffee and watched "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."  I figure in syndication, during the week, she saves the world at least twice a day.  It was a cheery thought while eating chocolate from the Fifth Floor.

Breakfast Out

This weekend, we were up near Tahoe.  Before we came back to the Bay Area, we went out for breakfast.  There were several options from where we were:  1) a diner situated in a train car where we had eaten two days before, and I would have gone back again in a heartbeat.  I had my eye on their milkshakes.  Is it shallow to have as one of my life goals the idea of returning there and actually having one?  It could be.  2) a coffee shop where we had eaten the day before, which was okay, but tacitly understood that we wouldn't return, 3) another coffee shop that looked like a pinball alley.  That one I rejected outright, 4) a place with a big sign out front that said "Voted by Locals Best Breakfast in Town."  There was a wait and a sample menu that showed they had something like 63 omelettes.  We looked at that and realized fairly quickly that it was the kind of menu where you wanted to order by numbers.  Who would want to say that their choice was the Hot, Sweaty Busboy or the Dirty Dick?  No, numbers were the way to express yourself here. 

I also realized soon that when the hostess saw me looking at the list and asked if I wanted to know how long it would take and she told me "10 minutes," that she was operating in a different time dimension than those of us on earth. 

Before we had gone to breakfast, we had watched a show on the Food Network.  The cook's angle was that he made healthy alternatives to carb laden foods.  So, instead of making hash browns, he carmelized cauliflower and parsnips and sprinkled in red pepper flakes.  It was the sort of dish that would make me grab a brownie afterwards in protest, but I thought of it here when we were served, as the omelettes came with potatoes, but they were "good potatoes," not greasy or burnt.  In other words, they weren't cooked the way I liked them at all.

This was a restaurant founded in the 70's and you could see it all around you--the surfboard hanging from the ceiling and the fact that sprouts still figured predominantly in the culinary creations, and the note placed on the menu that if there was any complaints to contact--and then they named names--and then they said that if these individuals weren't there, you could call them and they listed a phone number.  This was another moment where I thought these people must live in another time dimension.  I was also impressed by the fact that many of the staff had apparently worked there for over a decade or more. 

I had, I think it was a 52, I can't remember the name, but it was an omelet that featured salsa, cheese, guacamole, sour cream, and olives.  They were really generous with everything.  I don't think I've ever seen so many olives on a plate before.  The funny was that they didn't fold ingredients into their omelets.  The fillings were on the bottom and the eggs lay on top.  The other thing was when the hostess took my plate, she peered at what I had left, quoted the number, and then said, "I've always wanted them to put some sausage in this one."  I had to admit that was a good idea.

Go, TJ's!

On a very full work day where a nap was mandatory, and the exhaustion was so profound, it was much too fierce for a nap--there must be another word for bone tired sleep, but I don't know it.  Perhaps it's something that you can just feel.  On a day where the team you follow seems edgey and tight wheh just a week ago, they seemed confident and loose, on that sort of a day, the only thing to write aboutt, it seems, is  Trader Joe's.

It's a place I adore.  Cheap and convenient and really good food.  A lot of times I don't really cook--see: lots of work and bone tired napping--so, TJ's works for me.

Here's things I found there lately that I really like:

Very very Teriyaki sauce (which apparently can be found elsewhere like Albertson's, but since I'm never at Albertson's, I was happy to find it here.)
the goat chese empanada (but I don't like the chicken ones)
the beef flautas                 ( " )
the red peppers stuffed with ground turkey
Cobb salad
Italian country salad  (salami and chick peas and cheese)
English muffin bread--slices of bread that taste like English muffin.  Who knew?
chicken and mango salad
Italian lemon soda
cocoa hazelnut spread -- this was basically great.

The Template

Last week, I had lunch out with friends.  It was a place I put it to the test.  I ordered a Philadelphia cheeseststeak sandwich.

To me, a Philly cheesesteak is a template for quality.  I grew up back East on these sandwiches.  They seem like they would be simple to make, but they rarely are made well out here.  It shouldn't be just a slice of meat.  The sandwich should be full ot shredded beef.  And no mayonnaise.  That should go wtihout saying.  No lettuce and tomato.  Grilled onions and sweet peppers and a roll that is substantial enough to handle these fillings, but not overwhelming them either. 

I've only gone to one place here that has really gotten it, and that's the Cheesesteak Shop.  There's a few of them around.  I go to the one in Castro Valley.  I make a pilgrimage there every six weeks.  It's close to where I get my hair cut.  I go and eat my sandwich and during that time, I am in reverie, imagining childhood days at the beach, spending most of my time in the ocean, just taking a break to eat a cheesesteak sandwich before going out there again.  Do I love this sandwich because I find it delicoius or because I associate it with such good memories?

The sandwich I had last week was delicious, but it wasn't a Philadelphia cheesesteak.  It had the lettuce and tomato, good beef, but sliced, no peppers, no onions.  But it was a good sandwich, if I didn't think about the name.  Sometimes I wonder, "Do most Californians even know what a Philadelphia cheesteak is?"  It's a term that's losing its meaning.  When Pizza Hut can make a cheesesteak pizza (something I'm smart to know I will never try), that's a sign that your childhood food is fading fast.

On Magnificent Meals

On cruise ships, I'm told, the average weight gain is 10 pounds.

I don't know if that happened to me, because I threw out my scale long ago, but I can tell you that the food on the ship was abundant, and for dinner, I had a starter and a salad and a main course and chocolate every day. And that first felt novel and luxorious, but by the end of the time, I felt remarkably blase about the size and structure of my meals.

We also went to the gym religiously, and I fell in love with the treadmill, an interest that has continued since leaving the ship, although the treadmill at my gym doesn't look out on the water, and it doesn't show me my calorie expenditure and distance as regularly as my dear machine on the ship did.

So, I don't think I gained 10 pounds, but I had this thought that once I left the ship, I would start eating the way  I did before I ever took the cruise, and that hasn't happened yet.  Chocolate still appears to be a daily staple, and today I went out for a serious dinner with my parents at a place that my dentist had recommended to me, Michael Mina's in San Francisco.

It was a great place with an awful piano player, a musician who my parents complained was too loud, although he was parked in the lower lobby downstairs from the restaurant, but my theory is that it wasn't really the volume, but the fact that he butchered the classics he selected.

But the food was great.  Everything was in trios.  Everything was dollhouse-sized and beautiful.  You could order a 3 or a 7 course meal.  We, being generally pragmatic folk, went for the 3.  A lobster trio was our amuse bouche, with one of them being a lobster corn dog about the size of my pinkie.   We all had three types of scallops as our starter, and then my stepmother had duckling, I had beef, and my father had fish.  On the cruise ship, I had rediscovered Bernaise sauce, something that I remembered from my youth when French cooking was a la mode.  I ate steak with Bernaise sauce twice in two different venues, each time a revelation.  Each time, I thought I would not experience this again for a long time, if ever.  Then less then a week goes by, and here it is again.  For dessert, I had chocolate.  It was really good chocolate, and i finished it and felt like I had reached the end of a chocolate chapter, and I would seriously have to close the book now for a while.

On the Joys of Water

If anyone ever asked me how to lost weight, I would say that one of the most important things is to drink a lot of water.

That's really one big duh.  I mean, everyone says it, and then forgets about it.  But lately I've been drinking a lot of water, and I've realized a couple of things:

1) The first is very obvious.  You do have to go to the bathroom a hell of a lot more.  But that's not so bad, especially if you have a sedentary job, like I do.  It forces you to take more breaks, to step away from the keyboard and move around.  So, the bathroom is not that great of a field trip, but it's still getting you away from the computer sometimes.

2)  Cravings go away.  I've also stopped drinking sodas, coffee, and eating sweets.  These all were main components of my pie chart.  Now I don't even think about them.

3)  Your skin does look better.

4)  You do feel more full.

5)  Water is delicoius.  It's like the more you drink it, the more you want it.  I never thought I would crave water, but there are times now when I think, "I would love a big glass of water."

6)  It's a big moneysaver.  We get bottled water at work.  I used to bring in sodas or go buy them and get at least one coffee, probably some kind of espresso each day.  So, that's probably all together three dollars a day, fifteen dollars a week, that will be saved through just drinking water.

6)  I think you become more aware of thirst and dehydration.   And emotions change.  I feel calmer since I've started drinking so much water.  I feel like I found a really good tool for my toolkit, and it sets a foundation of health and well being for me.  It seems like such a simple thing, but I think if you drink a lot of water each day, profound things happen.

On Coffee and Tea

It's getting late, it's raining, I'm not feeling well, I'm cranky. 

So, this will probably be a short post.

But last week, when I first started not feeling well, I stopped drinking coffee.  It's something that I've wanted to do for a long time, something that I've done before, and returned to, and that might happen again.  In fact, it easily could, because there's so much that I love about coffee.  I love its bitterness, even though now as an adult wimp, I drink it with cream.  I love the "fancy drinks"--the lattes, my personal favorite--the cappucino--efficient and powerful.  I love feeling efiicient and powerful when I drink my coffee.  When I think about coffee, I think about rolling up my sleeves and diving into a pile of work.  I love those actions.

But it's hard on the system.  It stains your teeth and gives you coffee breath.  If you talk to any holistic practitioner--and in Northern California, just walk down a block, and you'll probably run into one--they'll tell you to knock off the coffee.  I've wanted to for a long while, but I needed a good flu for motivation.

So, now, I'm drinking tea.  I'm not ready to give up caffeine and perhaps never will be.  So, I have my black tea, and I enjoy it, although it's different.  Coffee gives you a certain lift.  It's a definite jolt, whereas tea, it seems to me, is the type of energy when someone pats you on the shoulder as if to say, "Good show!" and then they're gone.  It feels like more a level energy shift--I don't have the ups and downs.  I definitely don't miss the downs, but I am nostalgic for the ups.

I feel more emotional when I don't drink coffee.  I feel more spontaneous and vulnerable.  I could do without that, it seems to me.  So, we'll see how it goes.  We'll see if I can become a bonafide tea drinker.

Fettucini Alfredo Recipe

Recently, I wrote about making fettucini alfredo--and it's one of those piece that's gotten a lot of hits, and I thought, "Dang, I should have written down the recipe as well."  That's what Ruth Reichl did in her fabulous memoirs and Nora Ephron did as well in Heartburn.  It's like if you're going to talk about tools, you might as well bring a hammer and nails.  Or something like that.

So, here's the recipe.  It's a great one.  My friend who gave it to me told me the secret was the egg.  It's simple, cheap, and delicious, and quick to make.  It fits all my criteria of what a recipe should be.

Fettucini Alfredo Sauce

2 tbsp. butter
3 large cloves garlic, minced
1 c. heavy cream
1 egg yolk
1-2 c. freshly grated Parmesan
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

1.  Melt butter in large skillet.  Add garlic and cook on low for five minutes, stirring often.

2.  Pour 1/2 cup cream into a bowl and mix with egg yolk; set aside.  Pour remaining cream into pain and increase heat to medium high.  As cream boils, mix with a whisk.  Add the egg mixture slowly and continue to whisk.

3.  Add Parmesan gradually, whisking until smooth.  Add salt and pepper.  Serve immediately over cooked fettucini.

There you have it.  A voila moment.  Enjoy.