At Long Last: Filets Mignon

My last post was in 2013. Good grief, am I prolific, or what? But, life happens, and then, like a thunder bolt, food happens. The other night I was enraptured by coring and cutting a cauliflower and wrote a sort of poem about the dance steps that involved. I realized that, since my kitchen adjoins the music room, my most romantic and scintillating cooking experiences are those accompanied by the classical guitar. To say some of these are nearly orgasmic would not be an exaggeration. I love food: meat, fish, herbs, vegetables, fungi, nuts, oils, and all the rest.
So, today was 10% off day at our local market and I splurged on some filets de boef. I salted them and set them aside to rest and then the real fun began. I had purchased some butter leaf lettuce that had some red butter leaf mixed in. The stuff was so fresh and young, it snapped in my hands to perfect bite sized pieces. It was beautiful, pale green and ribbed with light crimson and sat in my humble steel bowl, like a princess. I slivered some red onion and grated a bit of carrot and tossed all with copious amounts of blue cheese dressing: Toby's Blue Cheese, to be exact-- always refrigerated, always fresh and deeply flavorful.
I always use my cast iron pan for steaks. I learned this from Lidia Bastianich and I think, Michael  Chiarello (I know, he is on the bad list) as well.
So, you heat a heavy pan until it is very hot, nearly white hot and then you throw in your steaks. For medium rare, about seven-eight minutes until you turn. After turning, salt and pepper profusely. Another seven minutes until--oh my God!
Enough said. Now, I am going to watch The Blacklist.

Another Summer Night in Mendocino

The view out to the ocean is full of golden light this evening. Dinner was memorable for the golden squash. I can still taste them and they do indeed have a golden taste. The preparation was not intricate,as usual. The Patty Pan squash were incredibly fresh and were sliced in half, coated with copious amounts of extra virgin olive oil, sprinkled with organic curry blend and sea salt and roasted for about 15 minutes. I almost seared my mouth taking a bite before they were cooled sufficiently. The aroma was too enticing to wait for long. The flesh was sweet and the the light dusting of curry provided the perfect foil for the sweetness. My brother Mike introduced me to the squash and curry thing in one of our most memorable meals. We stuffed and grilled tri-tip roasts and when he decided to grill the zucchini, as well, he tossed the halves in olive oil and curry. Oh my, a 20 year tradition was born that evening, of curried squashes and stuffed tri-tips. He used a sharp knife to make a slit in through the middle of the meat and stuffed in Jarlsberg cheese and Shitake mushrooms that had been lightly sauteed with garlic. Mike is the man for grilling and I am the "grilling girl". I pulled the second raised bed of garlic tonight and it had the biggest heads I have ever grown. Gigantic! So, even though the damn gophers ransacked my first bed, I still have a respectable crop. And big. Tomorrow, i will roast some garlic and use it in a Caesar salad. Maybe I will make it a composed Caesar with the garlic spread on the croutons of sliced Cafe Beaujolais baguette. I left the garlic outside on the deck next to my little sage seedlings. Tomorrow the sage and parsley go in the ground (no, not in the gopher-vulnerable bed). I think I will leave the chives in the big flowerpot for now as they will be pretty and also convenient to the kitchen. visions of food cooked with fresh sage and parsley are dancing in my head. Roast chicken or maybe a great bowl of Tabouli, with that fresh garlic and parsley and some farmer's market tomatoes. Boy, summer really gets my food hormones raging.

The Pleasures of the Dance

Events and people sometime converge to create a dramatic or convivial time. Occasionally, a truly memorable time is the result of a gathering of friends of friends, old dear friends and some who we might not term friends at all. Such a gathering occurred on the Mendocino Coast in November. Events were planned and yet completely unexpected. They came from Eugene, Oregon, Southern California, Point Arena and Marin. Some were living through times that would test them more than the usual trials. We shared walks on the beach under a crystal clear sky. We caught up on the doings of kids, grand kids and rehashed times past. We talked about and enjoyed music and vented a bit about politics. We did a lot of things, but mostly we partied.We cooked and ate and enjoyed good wine and good beer and excellent companionship. We cooked and ate and drank and sparred about and found common ground on a myriad of things.What a dance we did. And the best dance we did was in the kitchen.I have cooked with several of the guests before and knew their moves. But some were completely new to me.
Guacamole,cambozola,piquant olives,cha cha cha:lox and capers,foxtrot;eggplant parmesan-ma ma mia;pork in some mysterious sauce-spicy and sweet-caramelized bits- tango;spice rubbed tri-tip pas de deux;some special gluten-free and specially enhanced brownies-tarantella;salad brought to lofty heights by focused preparation,minuet.

More Mendocino Sunsets

 
 
 
 

A Small Respite

Tonight's meal was truly a brief respite from a whole lotta troubles-not mine so much as those of the people I love and care for. We all have moments of utter deflation of spirit:friends who die young, who don't get to see their grand kids through much life;who never get to enjoy their retirement;who don't get to savor that one last dish they love, that one last kiss from the one they love.Well,I was just very melancholy thinking of some very bad things happening to some very good people and would probably have punted as far as food was concerned, but then there was serendipity.Food does not cure problems, but when it is a creative outlet, it has the ability to distract.I was the grateful recipient of some fresh locally picked chanterelles and decided, of course, to create a meal around them. I procured a small piece of that Eel River sirloin tip steak and, after cutting it in strips marinated it in Bogle Old vine Zinfandel, lots of my own garlic, salt and freshly ground pepper and just a dash of the balsamico. Diced the mushrooms, and although there were only two of them, had about two cups of mushrooms! The mushrooms waited on the cutting board, posing like a foodie center-fold while the meat was tucked in the fridge to rest for a while. A beautiful acorn squash was halved and seeded and rubbed with canola oil and placed face-down in a baking pan with a little water to bake. I heated olive oil and a bit of butter in my Emeril sautee pan and, when it was hot, tossed in the steak-marinade and all. I did not intend to do that, but I had a glass or two of the Zin and, after adding the mushrooms and sauteeing and reducing that marinade a bit, I was rewarded with a rich garlic-infused sauce lapping tender pieces of steak and mushrooms. Those mushrooms had a slight peppery taste, followed by a sweet earthiness. Never have I had a more interesting or delicious mushroom. Oh, I almost forgot the squash. The halves became slightly caramelized around the edges and sweet and tender of flesh. They just needed a little bit of butter and salt and they sang their own song.

Just One Simple Dish

Tonight's dinner was a simple affair. Some artisan sausages browned in a little olive oil made a light sandwich on flax seed bread. The starring role, however, as in many delicious dishes was a simple one.This walk-on was played by a bunch of young turnips with their fresh greens intact. My dad loved turnips and I recalled his favorite way of preparing them. I recreated, as well as I could, my mom's technique. I washed the prickly green leaves and scrubbed and peeled the turnips. Baby turnips, these were not-but they were young and sweet and about one to two inches in diameter. These were sliced into quarter inch thick coins and sauteed in canola oil with a gigantic clove of garlic that had been minced. My garlic this year ranged from tiny to huge bulbs. The small stuff had all grown seed heads, but I did not pop them this year and have found this makes for a very long-keeping garlic. Some of last season's garlic that ripened in 2008 is still very hard and oily and is of excellent flavor, although it is a test of patience to peel. Ah, it is so easy to digress when talking about garlic. The turnips were joined by the greens and tossed around a bit with a liberal splash of tamari. I covered the dish and let it steam a little and the pot liquor from the garlic-infused greens and turnips was savory from the tamari and had a natural sweetness from the turnips themselves.

Hot Dogs My Way

Hot dogs are real culinary conjurers. The aroma speaks of a crisp November night at the football stadium or a day at the ball park in summer. Of course, we are now able to enjoy hot dogs at a whole new level. Tonight's dinner was partly planned and partly improvised to take of advantage of some produce that was begging to be eaten. Local organic beets were peeled,sliced into thick coins, tossed in olive oil, salt and freshly ground pepper and roasted. After cooling, those rubies topped a bed of arugula and a fresh balsamic vinaigrette topped all. Now, don't turn away. If you have never eaten well-prepared fresh beets, don't say you don't like beets. They are one of those vegetables much maligned because of botched preparation and the ease of procuring them from a can. I found some sweet golden, locally grown "Siskyou" onions at Harvest Market today. Never heard of them, but they were grown by a great coastal farmer with a great name-"Flowers by the Sea". I've sampled their wares at the farmer's market in Mendocino and have found their produce to be of excellent quality. Well, there was nothing for it except to sautee those rings in olive oil with just a bit of butter and caramelize them just so slightly. And the dogs were my favorite, Neiman Ranch Fearless Franks without nitrates and from sustainably raised beef. I split the dogs not quite all the way through and fried them in the onion-caramelized dregs and topped them with the onions and served with a drizzle of barbeque sauce and a dollop of mustard.