sybarites

My French, she is returning!  But not really.   Usually, she returns only in the form of a thick Québecois accent for humourous commentary.   And yet here, we have les salades d’été.

First, a whim of le Marc in the form of a spicy ceviche with  roasted corn and red pepper salad. This was a first course of a 4-course menu, 3 of which escape my memory.   This is the inaugural attempt at home-made ceviche as the idea of it does flirt with danger:  fish cooked only in citric acid.   Mind you, if underdone, what is the worst that could happen?   The fish was extremely fresh; at worst, we would end up with citrus flavoured sushi, hardly a tragedy.   But the plate, she held perfectly “cooked” mahi mahi, with a pleasantly savoury hint of spiciness from a tiny red chile.

Et puis, nous avons le Salade de Fennels, Mango et Walnuts.  C’était si bel.

Finalement, the French Laundry Salad of Black Mission Figs with Roasted Sweet Peppers and Shaved Fennel.  An impromptu purchase of the fresh figs was what prompted this incarnation.  In the recipe, he writes “In the summer, I’ll find a fennel patch alongside the road, where the buds are still green and haven’t blossomed, and I’l cut all the tops off.”   Off the side of the road!  And it’s true, we see fennel growing everywhere here.  I snap off some wispy fronds as Sammy and I walk by and rub it into my fingers to have the scent with me for awhile.    That licorice bite with the sweet figs and tangy balsamic, a first course that is California.

“Sam so wishes he were human right now.”

“He’s looking at us wondering where his plate is;   ‘Um, I’ll have two tacos, please thank-you.'”

“He wouldn’t even taste the home-made mayonnaise.”

This week turned out to be so very San Francisco.  I patronized two exceptional restaurants, bought a bouquet of flowers I don’t recognize, heard the foghorns drifting up from the bay at night, concocted a delectable dessert, watched a naked protest and walked across the Golden Gate bridge.   “What was that, I’m sorry?   A naked protest?”   Indeed, that is what it was.   Naked men on bikes – one on rollerskates – riding slowly down Market Street at 2:00 in the afternoon on a Saturday.   We were stopped at an intersection so caught the chant, “Less gas, more ass!”   The precise details about what they were protesting was unclear, but from the chant, and the fact that they were on bicycles, I surmised that they were protesting overuse of fossil fuels.   But then why were they naked?   Oh wait-  because it’s San Francisco, and because “ass” rhymes so well with “gas”.

I finally made the short journey to Citizen Cupcake, the restaurant that produces the desserts to end all desserts.  I met two friends for dinner and the rules were that we could not order the same foods.   Ergo, a berry shortcake, a lemon-drop inspired medley, and my chocolate cake-like, Brazil-nut-studded, pineapple-shot-accompanied miracle.   The other two desserts were good, but frankly, my thoughts were focused too keenly on my own plate to have justly tasted the others.  Chocolate, no less!   I have to change my self-described rule of never ordering chocolate. But what really set it apart- what really made it something extraordinary – was the spicy pineapple shot.  There must’ve been cayenne in that there drink, or somethin’, because it made my eyes widen – and then water – in delighted surprise.  Served with chocolate cake and Brazil nuts?  Who thinks of this!?   Elizabeth Falker, that’s who. My new hero, she who created the recipe for the sweetness I built last Tuesday: condensed vanilla custard with caramel crisps and pistachio cookies.  Jaw-achingly sweet, even though the cookies are almost savory with their saffron edge.   It is, perhaps, a little much when consumed in the same day as the cherry pie Marc made (the first pie he has ever made), but somehow, we managed to find enough will-power to eat both.  For breakfast.

I came to the realization some time ago that I am not a dessert person. I rarely order from the dessert menu, am never tempted by the ubiquitous chocolate concoctions available for $8.00. Occasionally, I might be talked into sharing a few bites of something with a fruit compote. My after-dinner weakness takes the form of cheese, much harder to resist than sweetness: a lovely, hard, rich cheese to nibble on between sips of a dessert wine, a creamy blue cheese to melt on the tongue.

But then, from the library, I borrowed Elizabeth Falkner’s Demolition Desserts, and have been unexpectedly converted to the dark side. She’s local, this woman, owner and operator of Citizen Cake and Citizen Cupcake. I know of her, I’ve read about her in cooking magazines, seen her on TV, but have yet to walk the short distance to her restaurant to sample the art. It’s definitely on the list of places to try, indeed, walking to the library constitutes a quarter of the distance it would take to get to the café, and we practically drive past it each week for groceries, but I haven’t mustered the motivation to go out just for dessert. Now, perhaps, ça vaut le voyage.

This is a book in which I am actually tempted to try each and every one of the recipes. The pictures make my mouth water and I enjoy reading the background explanation for each creation, how she came up with the idea and the title for each. The fact that each dessert has a title should be proof that they are works of art, like “Untitled II: Chocolate with Raspberry and Fennel Tones“. The first recipe in book, and the first one I tried, was perhaps not art per se, but rather a plain warm-up to what was to come: I started wtih Chocolate Chip Cookies Straight Up. I have, what I consider, The Best Chocolate Chip cookie recipe- doesn’t everyone? – so I was curious to try another person’s interpretation of The Best, especially that of an artiste. Plus, I had on hand some fabulous Dagoba dark chocolate chips (I will never go back to milk chocolate) and turbinado sugar which, at Elizabeth’s suggestion, decided to experiment with in a cookie recipe. The one main difference I noticed in this version was that it included baking powder, which I had never put in cookies, but which yielded very pretty, puffy, chewy cookies. Alas, they were not as good as The Best. I suppose personal taste is everything.

Skipping ahead, I settled on a plated dessert to try: Norcal (An Homage to Laura Chenel) – chevre rice pudding, dates, candied kumquats, pistachios, honey. I chose this one only because we had goat cheese on the point of souring in the fridge, which turned out to be an unlikely and fortuitous happenstance. Kumquats just happened to be on sale and, oddly, Medjool dates were actually on special display at the grocery, so it was practically destined. I didn’t realize that rice pudding could taste this good. How could I ever have known that such ingredients could be combined to transform what is normally a cloudy sludge into light, fluffy, salty, sweet magic? I will never look at rice the same way again.

Thus initiated, it took little time to decide on the next experiment: Lovelova: Persian Strawberry and Saffron Pavlova. This, now this, is quite possibly the best dessert I have ever tasted. It is rose-perfumed bliss, every bite enveloping my senses with strawberries and saffron, roses and pistachios; it is something to taste with the whole mouth. I am astonished and continue to be astonished with how good this is. I have not, as yet, bought the twenty-two dollar bottle of pistachio oil which is the only thing I skipped in the presentation of this dessert, but now, I feel that the droplets of dressing to surround the sweetness warrant the purchase. It certainly won’t expire because there will be no shortage of occasions to use it. This sensational dessert and I am only three recipes in! We have some amazing 3-course meals in our future.

By the bye, I include this photo of Coconut-Lime Cake with Mascarpone Frosting. It sounded good in the magazine, but the dry, heavy cake is an example of why I don’t normally go in for dessert. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the picture. And the frosting.

For some reason, I’ve been noticing the sidewalk writing lately. I don’t know if it’s because we walk so often now that we don’t have a car, or if it’s because people hereabouts tend to express themselves more frequently by writing in wet pavement, but it seems more prominent. April 16, 1970 must have been a particularly inspiring and particularly empty day in the neighbourhood as it is the day that DANNY SCHUMACHER wrote his name and the date in at least 5 different places.

Several statements have caught my notice these days:

• Love Yourself
• Scott Loves Jason
• POOP (with a smiley face with X’s for eyes)
• Fuck Nixon
• Fuck Teeth
• Eat Your Acid, We Ate Ours
• Let Them Eat Cats
• The Joy of Soy

… and a home-printed poster taped to a tree in Golden Gate Park that was a memorial to someone’s dog named Dude- “he fought for a long time to stay with us but lost the battle in the end. So long, Dude!”

And while we’re on the topic, I can’t forget the out-of-the-ordinary folks that cross our path in the course of our walks: the guy wearing several random pieces of suede safety-pinned around his person in order to form a kind of neo-native-punk look, complete with feather-decorated mohawk and bead jewellery; the man singing the Star-Spangled Banner, opera-style, alone in his parking garage on a Tuesday morning so that it echoed into the street; the man walking down Stanyan carrying a large American flag for seemingly no reason; the woman who, half-way through walking across an intersection, stopped to get on her unicycle, turn right, and proceed down the hill; the man who asked me about Sam “How’s the baby-boy this morning?” He’s fine. He’d like to know how you are.

First of firsts: I successfully created mayonnaise. The qualifier is important here because this is not my first attempt, but it is the first time mayonnaise was actually realized.

The first attempt was made in Istanbul when, in a fit of craving for tuna salad sandwiches, we gathered together the ingredients I figured would make mayo in the small kitchen in the apartment we had rented. Needless to say, there was no convenience mayo to be found in sealed jars in the local market; plenty of baklava, pistachios and lamb, not a hint of mayo. What exactly constituted this creamy dressing/spread was kind of blurry- I was certain there was egg yolk involved (otherwise why all the hulabaloo about keeping potato salad out of the sun at picnics?) and there was definitely oil, because emulsification was a an ingredient.. but beyond that…? Anyway, that first feeble shot was grossly short of anything resembling Miracle Whip. The version of last weekend, because approached with a recipe in hand and the trepidation associated with a previous failure, was a delicious success! Orangette, a food blogger whom I read and who now writes for Bon Appétit, described how to properly obtain a creamy, salty, even spreadable condiment and I was inclined to believe her report. Marc had insisted that we purchase an “emergency” jar of convenience mayo- justifiably, I suppose, as he was witness to the first attempt. But after having tasted the real thing, it remains unopened on the pantry shelf. Sprinkled with chives, it was first applied to home-made burgers, and since then has graced our plates several times- enough that we even had to make a second batch! I don’t know that we’ll go back.

Second of firsts: the Bay To Breakers race in San Francisco. 12 kilometeres, hordes of people, several rollerskaters, numerous mobile beer kegs built from transformed shopping carts, costumes, live bands and plenty of nonchalant nudity. It is really less a race and more a public parade. It wends its way through the park about 2 blocks south our our place so this year we spectated, not knowing what was what; next year we’ll definitely participate.

And last, but certainly not least, this past weekend marked the first time I had ever tasted morel mushrooms. Why, you ask? Partly because the sign above their bin in the grocery reads $59.99/lb. and partly because they’re seasonal. But if ever there is a time to lash out and buy them, it’s for use in one of the French Laundry recipes: Pan-Roasted Main Jumbo Scallops with Morel Mushrooms and Asparagus Purée. Sure, we’ll get four ounces. Even the people at the check-out comment on them “Oh wow, going with the morels, huh? I hear they’re awesome.” [direct quote] (Of course, this is the Rainbow Grocery, a place where the beers are gourmet, where the cheese is made from raw milk and where you can buy three different kinds of pink salt. In bulk.)

Once again, this recipe proved to be over-the-top laborious and as such, exceedingly enjoyable as an afternoon’s pursuit. The asparagus stems blanched and puréed, the morels sauteed in a little alot of butter with shallots and brunoise, tomato diamonds, seared scallops with ladles of buerre montée, and I produced this representation of springtime on a plate.

A few brief bites and it’s over, but this is the kind of thing that makes me realize why it is worth whatever we pay for good food. Good food, and good wine- for we enjoyed this with a bottle of Chardonnay (Chardonnay! something at which I normally wrinkle my nose in distaste!) purchased at Bouchaine whilst wine touring in Napa with Dave and Makela the week before. We had viewed the very vines from which this wine was produced, which I suppose is not that miraculous, but when consumed with such glorious food, that one Sunday-evening appetizer made the Monday that followed that much lighter.

If I had invented meatloaf, I would’ve come up with a better name. “Meatloaf”. It is what is says, but isn’t there anything better? “Beeflog”? Hmmm… no. “Pork in Shape of Pan”? Um. “Beefyslab”? I kind of like that one; and if it has pork: “Beporkyslab”. Now it sounds fun, and kind of Eastern Bloc, which is not a combination you will often come across.

So, Exhibit A, is the America’s Test Kitchen version of meatloaf, which turned out to be more complex than it needed to be. And involved giant tubs of ketchup. Vats. So much ketchup that I wonder the whole thing didn’t taste of same. It is pictured here with tomato salad with homemade blue cheese dressing. Not unpleasant, satisfying, befitting of the title “Beporkyslab”.

Exhibit B (not pictured) is from a recipe from a work-mate who fancies himself a chef at heart. This was more of a jelly-roll affair, with blanched veg tucked into the middle with soft cheese and prosciutto. Really, anything that involves cheese and prosciutto can hardly be bad. It’s almost cheating- of course it’s going to be good! It’s pork on pork action! Certainly a far and welcome cry from Exhibit A, in all its ketchupness. The one to beat is still the meatloaf at Diner Deluxe in Calgary, located conveniently on the former route home from work. Perhaps I will find or fashion something comparable someday.

Let’s talk about oysters. All of a sudden and for no fathomable reason, I seem to see them everywhere. They were exulted in my recent library find, Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet where I learned which ones were eaten by the upper crust and which species people were forced to contend with during WWII. Lately, I can’t resist cracking open a tin each week of slippery, oily, little smoked oysters, pried away from each other with a toothpick and eaten with Raincoast Crisp crackers (arguably the best crackers on the planet earth and inexcusably unavailable in the US) before supper. With a bottle of chilled prosecco, that could be supper.

I can never visit the Saturday market at the Ferry Building without making a stop for second breakfast at the oyster table in front of the fish market. There’s a kid there shucking them fresh for a dollar which we slurp up bare naked [the oysters] as we stand dodging the market crowds; they a protein blast of energy. When combined with a few heavy shots of Blue Bottle espresso, there’s no sleep ’till Brooklyn.

And now I’m craving the tiny, juicy ones they serve fresh during happy hour at Eos, the wine bar down the street. We order them by the half dozen and they arrive at our table creamy and wobbling in their liquor, perched atop a pot-full of crushed ice. These are irresistable with the sauce they provide on the side: a shallot-flecked vinaigrette that is the only thing I will deign to dress them with. These must be consumed with a martini, mainly because the martinis are also a part of happy hour but also because of the delicious contrast of slurping from a shell in one hand and from a martini glass in the other.

And now, flipping back through some food photos from FEBRUARY, I found this one of Pickled Oysters with English Cucumber “Capellini” and Dill, a gem from the French Laundry Cookbook. The capellini in this case, are thin strands of cucumber, which, I gather, would normally be pasta.

This was so long ago, I can’t quite recall the flavour. They look salty with caviar, perhaps a bit sweet from the pickling. I remember shucking them though, my first ever attempt at doing so. Ahhh, now I remember, that was what twisted the tip of the paring knife into a snarly tangle. I thought I remembered prying open something…. The first one was terrifying, convinced as I was that the knife would slip and slice violently through the kitchen towel wadded around my left hand and lop of a finger. The second was aggravating. The rest, as I recall, seemed to get easier. I read a Canadian saying once, a simile for a difficult task which seems, now, funnier and very concise: “…like trying to open an oyster with a bus ticket.”

The dog, he likes the ribs.

And who could blame him? These are Tyler’s Ultimate ribs, taken from the eponymous tv program which we must watch on mute because we cannot stand the “a’ights”. It’s like a tick. An annoying verbal tick.

Speaking of annoying, here’s something from The Food Network website I’m glad I didn’t write: “Tyler stirs up a sticky barbecue feast that will have you clinging to your napkins while you squeal with joy.” The only squealing and clinging that occurred during our preparation of these oven-cooked beauties came out of the dog in sheer frustration at not being human enough to share in the feast.

Thick, lovely slabs of tuna.  Red and quivering,  glistening with a slick sheen of a soy marinade.  Seared with hot grill marks, cool and raw in the center, it fits perfectly under a moist tangle of slaw and a spongy brioche.   I wish lunch were always this perfect.

A fist-sized steak of fish carefully sliced into thin ruby strips, mounded onto a bed of crisply dressed carrots and cabbage and made to glow from the egg yolk dropped into the centre.  A capricious toss of black sesame for drama, a glass of champagne, just because.