sybarites

On Sunday, it rained.   Ergo:  ginger-lemongrass martinis with candied kumquats.

Syrup Ingredients
Makes 1.5 cups

• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 lemongrass stalk
• 1 inch piece of ginger peeled, sliced and smashed
• 4 kumquats sliced and seeded (optional)

Martini Ingredients
Makes 2

• 6 ice cubes
• 4 ounces vodka
• 2 ounces lemongrass-ginger syrup (or to taste)

Instructions
Cut and reserve a few lemongrass slivers to use as toothpicks later. Slice the remaining lemongrass.

Place the sliced lemongrass, ginger, sugar, water and kumquat slices in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Strain into a bowl and reserve the kumquat slices if used. Discard the lemongrass and ginger. Cool the syrup.

To make the martinis, place ice, syrup and vodka in a martini shaker and shake for 15 seconds. Pour into two glasses, discarding the ice. To make the garnish, pierce the kumquats with a toothpick or skewer to form a hole for the lemongrass. Place two kumquat slices on lemongrass toothpick and add to the glass.

Alternate: If kumquats aren’t available, try boiling sliced oranges or mandarins with the syrup, then float them in the martini glass.

“It would be impossible to describe in detail the lavish variety, the orderly complexity, the gleaming cleanliness of that great room, but the effect it wrought upon his sense was instant and overwhelming.  It was one of the most beautiful, spacious, thrilling and magnificently serviceable rooms that he had ever seen: everything in it was designed for use and edged with instant readiness; there was not a single thing in the room that was not needed, and yet its total effect was to give one a feeling of power, space, comfort, rightness and abundant joy.”  Thomas Wolfe, Of Time and the River (1935).     This exactly describes what the Microsoft Kitchen of the Future is NOT.

I’m reading American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic Recipes; it was from this anthology that I pulled the above quote.    Like a Rorschach test, the manifestation of this perfect kitchen could be imagined so differently by different readers- what, exactly, would be thrilling about one’s own ‘perfect kitchen’?    a Wolf range?  two sinks?  a moving sidewalk?  Without a dishwasher, our present kitchen, while serviceable, will never attain perfection.  But today, while out shopping, we obtained four items that soon will be cleaned and “edged with instant readiness”:   a  wide wire spoon for fishing fried things from molten oil, a 9-inch tamis (which was made in Japan and, from the label, appears to be something used to strain beaten eggs ??), and two long-lusted-after large, aluminum sheet pans.    What I won’t be able to do with those sheet pans!  There is a space in the kitchen that has been waiting for them, a place that I can reach them, half a step from the sink,  so they may assist in all the prepping, dry-rubbing, drying, marinating, resting, proofing, cooling and draining for which I have [long had!] need.

From the library, I also picked up The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook; complete with recipes, musings and terrible, terrible illustrations.   Originally published in 1954, I am amused by the recipes in which the tools, techniques and/or ingredients are out of date:

Suprême of Pike A La Dijonaise

Cut the fillets from a pike, see that no bones adhere and then skin them.  Interlard them as one does fillet of beef.  Put them in a deep dish with 1/4 cup brandy, 1/2 cup sherry, and 1 cup good, dry red wine, salt and pepper and 4 shallots chopped fine and 4 bouquets each containing 1 stalk of celery, 1 small twig of thyme and 1/4 laurel leaf, each bouquet tied in a muslin bag.  Baste with liquid and put aside.  In winter keep for 48 hours, in summer for 24 hours, basting twice a day.   When the fillets are ready to be cooked place in a deep earthenware dish which has been heavily coated with soft butter, the fillets, the four little bags and the strained marinade.  Put into preheated oven 400º for about 20 minutes, basting frequently.  When the fillets are well browned, remove from oven, add 2 tablespoons cream and 3 tablespoons soft butter. Baste and serve at once.

“I’ll be working from home today;  I must be here to interlard and then baste my pike.”

Weeks ago, we watched a corny Food Network special on “Kitchens of the Future”.   There was plenty of nonsense gadgetry and expensive ideas, but by far the silliest was the Microsoft Kitchen of the future.   Demo-ed by a Microsoft exec (she was female of course), the kitchen had the voice-response lighting and music controls, the baseline automation that comes with any futuristic home.   And then there were the add-ons, like the canned computer voice-response system, the recipe projection and the inventory management.   All of these “aids” were really annoying, even to watch, but by FAR,  the most aggravating feature was the real-life equivalent to that wretched paper clip;  as the woman started removing flour and yeast from the cupboards, the computer voice screeched “Looks like you are baking bread.  Do you want to see a bread recipe?”    Argh! Even typing that makes me cringe.    So the woman shouts. “YES.” and the computer projects a list of bread recipes onto the kitchen counter, through which she scrolls and then selects “Focaccia”.    “Hal” read the recipe aloud, at a pace too fast for the woman actually baking the bread, and then interrupted part of her on-camera interview as well.   She rolled her eyes and paused to shout at the computer voice to shut up stop.

The only thing that I might possibly concede as useful – though it is far outweighed by the amplification of annoyances in the kitchen – was the projected diameter for the focaccia she was rolling out.   This might make it marginally easier to roll out dough to the required diameter, if one’s head didn’t block the projection.    At any rate, MS has a looooong way to go before being welcome in my kitchen.

But after all this, I was tempted to make focaccia.  Never made it before, and bread is always a little daunting, but what’s the worst that could happen-  over-yeasting?   wasting bread flour?   I went straight for the recipe in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice;  the recipe was not read aloud by any annoying computer voice and no paper clips barged in on my baking.  Without a computer, I was miraculously able to turn out a rather spectacular focaccia, if I do say so myself.  Still warm from the oven, I cut wedges of the loaf in half, slathered them with fig jam, some hot coppa, a little asiago and grilled them melty on the Foreman.   Crisp, chewy perfection.

Before we left for Malaysia, I declared that the first thing I wanted to do when we arrived was have an Asian breakfast of hot and spicy soup.  Then I wanted to visit the iconic Petronas Towers of KL.

In reality, we arrived in the afternoon so the spicy soup craving translated into cold Asian beer, and the trip to the towers was less about the view from the 41st floor Skybridge between the towers, and all about our first taste of Malaysian food.   Geoff and Lucinda wisely determined that our introduction to the local cuisine should start with a visit to Little Penang Kafé in the KLCC shopping mall housed at the base of the towers.  Actually, to describe KLCC as a mall is not giving it enough credit;  it is more like The Mall.  Not only is it the base of the city’s most recognizable landmark, it is several floors of tiled, marbled, designer-labeled, brightly-lit haven of cleanliness and air conditioning.   Besides the air-conditioning, Little Penang was the best part.

Still in a bit of a jet-laggy haze, we wove our way through and around traffic (no sidewalks in KL) and found ourselves at a table at the back of the kafe, mouths watering at the welcome suggestions of what we should first eat.   Geoff recommended nasi lemak, which we were to learn is the national dish and can be found everywhere, whether you like it or not:   coconut and pandan flavoured rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Lucinda insisted on whatever it was that turned out to be chicken in sort of long, deep-fried egg rolls.  I’m sure one of us had beef rendang, and wasn’t there a penang rojak to be had?    Geoff shared his char kway teow, flat rice noodles fried over very hot PORK FAT with light and dark soy sauce, chilis, shrimp, sprouts, chives, and fish cake.  Wash this down with more beer and, for Lucinda, a tall glass of freshly-made green apple juice.   Oh Malaysia, no wonder you’re the [self-described] fattest Asian nation-   a country of people who love to eat and who generously lace everything with coconut milk, palm sugar or pork fat;  I will happily aim to fit in!

We had the worst luck in Singapore.   We arrived on a Sunday in Little India when, it turns out, the entire male Indian population of the city throngs to the area to just..   hang out.   Droves, hordes of people cramming the streets, blocking traffic, spilling over the sidewalks, shopping.   In hindsight, it was nothing to worry about, but arriving by bus to a new city late at night, it’s not exactly the calm, welcoming sight one might prefer.

The rooftop bar of our hotel was closed because it was Sunday (I know, the horror) and most restaurants were closed for the same reason.   At least we did find the basic necessities of cold beer and hot, spicy street food which somewhat made up for the “hardships”.

The next morning, as we walked out of the door of the hotel, rain like an open firehouse poured down onto the streets.  We walked 2 kilometers in the wrong direction for breakfast, and then when we gave up and took a taxi to a different place, the food was pretty… gross, actually.   Then we took another taxi to the Asian Civilization Museum only to find out that it was closed on Mondays until 2:00pm.   Thoroughly soaked, we walked through the rain further to find a mall, of which there is no shortage in Singapore.

And still it rained!  We wandered, we window-shopped, we ate fabulous Indonesian food.  We got lost, we found another breakfast place that closed down in front of us for maintenance work, we got splashed by passing cars in the street.   And yet, despite all these wrong turns and foul weather, this place proved to be someplace I could happily live.  It has all the things I love:  good food, a variety of good food, clean streets, wine, warm weather, ocean, and pork belly.  Pork BELLY.   Take this 3-inch think piece of pork, 2 inches of which are fat, sear it and then braise it and serve it with lobster and all of a sudden this is one of my favourite cities.

The simple loveliness of fresh, prepped ingredients can be irresistible.

A short distance from our flat, near the MUNI train stop on Cole Street, is a tiny lighted room with a CLOSED sign in the window that is flanked by giant, empty bottles of sake.  It is next to a large and busy creperie and there is no name; the door leading into this space does not directly face the sidewalk but is rather tucked back around a corner.  It is a sushi restaurant, but it took us several months to figure this out.   We only noticed it because it sits directly across the street from our table in the picture window at the wine bar, and our gaze often fell on this puzzling little operation.

With help from the interweb, we found the name of this boîte: Hama-Ko, and its business hours of 5-9pm.   (No wonder the CLOSED side of the sign is more sun-faded than the OPEN side.)   The customer reviews on Yelp described such an eclectic, fantastic, rule-laden treasure of a sushi joint, that we promised ourselves a visit.   With little expectation of trick-or-treaters last night, we decided it was time.    We arrived slightly before 6pm and were turned away:  they weren’t ready for customers yet.

A half hour later, we returned and were this time warmly welcomed by the wife of the husband-and-wife team that run Hama-ko, sat down at one of 6 tables and ordered a “large sake”.  These are the rules:   be polite, order all your sushi at one time (no fooling around ordering one or two pieces at a time), eat what is recommended, accept unavailability, don’t be loud, turn off your cell phone, don’t add wasabi to your soy sauce, and appreciate your food.  Breaking the rules, we understand, risks a venomous stink eye.  A man at the table next to us walked up to the sushi bar at which the husband-chef worked and asked if he could make a California roll with salmon and lemon on top, something called a “49er roll”.  The chef immediately shook his head no, no he wouldn’t make that, and if “you want a 49er roll, go down the street [to the other sushi place on Cole]”.  The man backed off, saying he wouldn’t go because the sushi here was better.   A grunt and nod from behind the bar. We stuck rigidly to the menu.

And so, unagi, sea scallop, tuna sashimi, monkfish liver, Tokyo roll (prawn & avocado), tako and sake-steamed lobster.  Has it been too long since we’ve had sushi?   Each bite was a pleasure, so fresh, so light.  The unagi – something we both really like – was particularly enjoyable, the warm sauce gently drizzled over warm eel.  We could have been in someone’s home, a little trip to Japan.   There’s no question that we’ll go back.

Upon returning from this near ritual of a supper, I unexpectedly got sucked in to Diners, Drive Ins and Dives on the Food Network, hosted by some jack-ass with bad hair and an wrap-around sunglasses clinging to the back of his head.  Thus I was dragged from delicate sushi to monstrously huge fried things with cheese.   However, at last there was one positive outcome of having watched part of the program:  an inspiration for this morning’s cool weather breakfast of bacon and tomato hash.     A little worcestershire, a good dose of salt, this eye-opener should effectively offset any good that a meal of pure fish and rice could have done.

In an odd conjunction of circumstances last week, we found ourselves eating a dinner of sake and hot dogs.    I had bought some fancy schmancy Niman Ranch hot dogs and gourmet buns with plans to load those babies up with caramelized onions, big lashes of classic French’s mustard and dripping wads of sauerkraut.   Marc likes to steam the buns until they nearly devolve into the dough from whence they came.  Fried up good, these are some tasty dogs.

And then, unexpectedly, we found ourselves with two bottles of sake.   America’s First Sake Store™ True Sake , is located in Hayes Valley, conventiently within walking distance of our place.  October is a bright and sunny T-shirt month here, so we strolled down the hill with no particular intention of buying anything and came away with some new clothes and two interesing-looking bottles of sake.   Don’t know anything about sake, couldn’t name one type or brand to save my life, but we decided a taste test of them would be fun.    What else does one do with such a shop?   We got some blue kind and another bottle that was greenish, both covered in Japanese-  it’s like a blind tasting because we can’t read the labels.

And so, a proper tasting of sake (one was drier than the other one, that’s the best I can do), and squishy, overloaded, messy hot dogs.   How I adore living in this city.

Arguably, art should mimic life and not the other way around.   And arguably, advertising is not really art.   Yet, I purposely arrange my morning coffee to mimic an ad I once saw for Starbucks, trying to sell their beans for people to brew at home.   The image was of one small, rickety folding chair set on a back step of a house in what looked like it could be a garden; on the chair sat a folded section of newspaper and a large Starbucks mug.  The caption  was something like “Coffee for one.”

I’m not a regular ‘bucks drinker anymore, but I never forgot that ad.    Here, in this flat, I find an opportunity to approximate this scenario-  my coffee, my reading material of choice, our wee, cozy garden in the morning sun.

…and a dog nose sniffing through the bedroom window.