sybarites

Strange New Ingredients With Which We Cooked Last Week:

1 – organic goji berries (a.k.a. Tibetan wolf berries; Tibetan wolves must be crazy for them)

2 – vital wheat gluten flour
3 – epazote leaves (in the picture)
4 – tomatillos

5 – smoked Hungarian paprika (which I’ll admit, isn’t really strange or new, but rather unusual)
6 – gnarled-looking heirloom tomatoes
7 – chayote
8 – purple potatoes

Some Direct Results From Having Experimented With Above Ingredients:

1 – Chicken with Tomatillo Sauce and Braised Fruit

2 – Peel and Eat Shrimp with Barbecue Spices

3 – Skewered Honey-Glazed Scallops with Peach Salsa

And this is just the tip of the iceberg; we are eating like kings out here!
We do other stuff, too. Like, walk the dog, shop for groceries, walk the dog to the grocery store for shopping. We showed up at the Berkeley Bowl last Saturday before it opened, hoping to beat the rush, only to find the parking lot full already and a queue at the door. A queue at the grocery store! Love it.

One of the best things about staying here in Dreamville (aka. Berkeley) is its proximity to überDreamville. Just a quick trip on public transit across the bay and we’re in within reach of the Ferry Building Market.

This is the market to end all markets; big, crowded on the weekends, expensive, touristy and overflowing with delicious, pretentious food- my favourite. First things first, though: if we were going to make a trip all the way across the Bay, we were going to first visit Marc’s all-time favourite coffee place, the Blue Bottle Company on Linden. A mere slip of a place, it serves coffee and espresso-coffees from freshly roasted and ground-to-order beans. We made quick work of finding it again and slurping down a delicious macchiato and cappuccino. (Sidebar: it turns out that there is a café 5 blocks from our house that sells this very coffee, about which we knew nothing until last weekend. We plan to be regulars.)

From there, it was a long-ish walk down Market street to the Ferry Building so we stopped, briefly, at Crate & Barrel – just briefly- just to see what they had on sale. An hour later, we continued the journey, with nothing to weigh us down but a mental list of all that we saw that we “needed”. Seriously considering starting an heirloom cast-iron frying pan.

Finally, there was the Ferry Building. We needed lunch, we needed oysters, and we needed to browse the food stalls and kitchen store. Lunch was most critical so we ate at the first place we saw that wasn’t – for the moment – overflowing with customers, Lulu Petite. Marc ordered a duck confit and arugula sandwich and I had a ham & provolone melt with truffled honey. We also had some sort of extravagent sparkling pomegranate juice and it was all extravegently delicious.

Next, we tried to visit Hog Island Oysters for a little oyster sampler but it was egregiously busy and there was a waiting list to sit at the bar, so we walked over to the seafood company and ate two each, raw, barenaked and juicy, from the kid selling them at the little table out front. Even that kid was busy, taking money in between his concentrated shucking.

The food stalls were a little too busy to peruse, even for us, so we instead inspected all of the products on offer at Sur La Table. Unfortunately, we could not justify buying all the things we wanted – what with the fact that we are leaving in a couple months – so settled for just an oven themometer and a promise to return if/when we can really do some damage.

We bought some strawberries on the weekend- beautiful, ripe and red. Who knew that strawberries could be so fragrant, but after rinsing them and setting them out in a bowl to go with our sparkling prosecco, I found this to be so.

Ages ago, Holly told us about a woman she had met who pronounced it “pron-say-co” and now, as a joke, that’s what we’ve started calling it. And you just know that someday, the joke will be forgotten and we will become the person of whom we made fun.

We’ve been making some decent meals lately, if I do say so myself. First, we have Miso-Glazed Sea Bass with Asparagus.

I love that we didn’t have make any substitutions for the ingredients in this recipe, as so often we have had to do in the past. But what do we do with a cup of left-over miso paste?

Another meal that turned out to be surprisingly tasty was the Sausage, Sourdough and Bell Pepper Spiedini.

I’m surprised partly because the recipe didn’t look anything special and because we don’t actually have a BBQ; we do have a George Foreman grill. Never used one of those things before and, for a novelty kitchen applicance, it operated within acceptable parameters. It grilled the veg evenly, though they lack that irreplaceable BBQ flava.

Last night, for dessert, I roasted some fresh, Mission figs with honey and cream. If we had a broiler, I would’ve broiled them, like the description in the book, “Under The Tuscan Sun” but we don’t and I didn’t. They were not perfect – and not organic, BTW, even though that option was available at twice the price – but they still tasted lovely.

Also, being the nerd that I am, I’ve also started keeping a wine log online. The idea is that one can keep a personal log of wine consumed, complete with notes, tags and comments, price, vintage, winery, etc. One day, when one of us (read: Marc) has an iPhone, we can refer to our wine log while in the wine store in order to find something that we liked in the past. What adorable efficiency!

We ironically found ourselves in a wine store that sold only French wine within an hour of arriving in Berkeley, a stone’s throw from Napa. Rather than splurging on local a bottle we had to celebrate our arrival with champagne, which neither of us has had much experience tasting. We usually enjoy the sweeter, and less expensive, Italian prosseco. I would say the champagne was refreshingly crisp, instead of dry. I was once again reminded that spending a few extra dollars can make a bottle of wine into an experience.

After driving for 24 hrs, we grabbed food at our nearest source, a gourmet takeout restaurant named Gregoire’s. They managed to squeeze our order in between the 30 other boxed meals that the one cook was creating at a frenzied pace. I had a chipotle flank steak with creamy gremolata and roasted sunburst squash and zucchini. Janet, in a continuation of her endless streak of selection the best dish, ordered a Puffed Pastry with Potato and Eel. I couldn’t imagine what how my experiences with barbeque eel sushi, one of my favorites, might be reflected in this french style dish until I tasted it. The textures of smooth oily eel, crispy pastry and starchy firm potato slices struck me immediately. There was sauce inside the pastry, possibly the same sauce used in eel sushi, which added a familiar flavour for me. This was her second choice, so I can only imagine how great her first choice would have been. For sides we ordered a potato gratin with olives, which was a little pasty and cold. Fresh from the oven, it may have been better, though more butter and cheese would also have helped. The spinach salad was fine, but nothing to blog about.

I’ve been searching for an excuse to go back to Gregoire’s. Perhaps, “because it’s Gregoire’s” will suffice.

It’s been two days and I still can’t stop talking about my trip to the grocery store. Not the kind of thing I would normally swoon over, this version of the market is independently owned, local, and brilliant. It is called Berkeley Bowl.

I made ready for the inaugural trip to the store with a huge list of items, the kind of list one makes after having just moved, the kind of list that mostly involves low-key staples like flour, mustard and butter. I had found a recipe for sea bass and was crossing my fingers that this place would have both the fish (it’s sort of rare and I think the Chilean sea bass might be an endangered species) and the miso paste for the glaze. In Calgary, I would be looking at a morning spent visiting at least a few different store in order to find those two ingredients but here in Berkeley, people are spoiled with the choice of fresh or frozen sea bass and no less than seven different kinds of miso paste. But, oh, that was just the beginning!

I had left Marc working at home and was thus free to take my time and examine what this place had to offer; that’s why it took me two hours to get through all the aisles. Honestly, I have never seen so much variety in food- not anywhere, not even in Asia. There was a massive bulk food section (I didn’t even know there were six different kinds of lentils or that one can buy ‘rainbow’ peppercorns), a pile of choices for organic breads, milk, yogurt, meat, and cheese, fresh sushi made on-site right next to the in-store Taqueria, a whole row of juices that I’ve never seen before made from fruits and veg that are new to me (what does sweetened with agave mean?) and this was all before I got to the produce section.

The produce, wow. I can’t even- it’s so fantastic- so many choices- where do I start?! First of all, there was a section of the store devoted only to organic veg and fruit. These are the more natural, rough-around-the-edges, more-expensive-than-the-rest types. I picked up a couple things here just because I’m curious to see if/how they taste any better than the standard. Then I rounded the corner to cast a glance over the rest of the marvelous produce and it was actually pretty exciting. There were kales and chards, frisee, live butter lettuce, banana flowers, ramps, large asparagus, small asparagus, wild asparagus, coconuts, all the fresh herbs, more than several types of mushroom, chayote, spiny chayote, tomatillos, okra, plantains, more types of eggplants than I imagined existed, ditto for the squash, piles of grapes, row upon row of apples, peaches, apricots, nectarines, berries and then just slew of vegetables with Asian names that I didn’t recognize. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I wish I could remember half of what I had tried to mentally record to I could tell Marc what he had missed. A few things I couldn’t resist buying just to try them for the first time: goji berries (a.k.a. wolf berries), a French Kiss melon, sunburst squash, jarred kimchi and bulk organic coffee.

The next time we go shopping, I’m going to go out of my way to pick recipes with crazy ingredients just to test the Bowl.

P.S. They don’t sell Coke, which I kind of admire.

Subtitle: What Happens When One is Merrily Unemployed

Facebook. Innocently, I accepted an invitation to become a member of Facebook, a phenomenon that I still don’t completely understand. People who would normally communicate with friends and family via phone, cell phone, email, text messaging, internet phone or even snail mail now have one more medium through which to connect. Facebook represents a new password to remember and another database where information quickly becomes stale and useless; it also seems to be the low-risk, photo-curious contact method of choice of high school friends and ex-es. It is undeniably silly and arguably quite pointless, and yet, I am drawn to it. Each day I witness the excitement of someone becoming friends with someone else and then updating their ‘status’. Riveting. If nothing else, I have some official proof of my friendships other than years of contact, support and shared interests.

Nigella Lawson. This TV food woman, rarely seen without a coy look on her face and a half-moon chopper in her hand (how does she use that unweildy thing?) has become a strange fixation for me. Despite her shameless use of creme fraiche and cheese, her cooking has a sneaky kind of appeal that hasn’t yet failed to inspire. It irks me that I like her; she is uncomfortably sweet and coquettish, like the cliche that is chocolate souffle. Last night I watched her make spaghetti carbonera, without apologizing for its richness and the addition of a half-pound of bacon, and then found myself making the same thing for dinner. I don’t even like spaghetti carbonera! How does she do that?

Grand Marnier. I’m not really a fan of orange-flavoured anything but it seems that Grand Marnier slipped through my net. Actually, I seem to recall it being the culprit behind one very un-memorable Christmas…. Upon our return to Canada, I found a bottle amongst our few remaining possessions and decided to give it a try when we ran out of port. It turns out that I sort of like GM and now, I can’t resist a wee, luxurious glass as a nightcap. When every day is a Saturday, this habit is of little consequence.

I don’t think I realized just how much I would miss having a kitchen.  Before we left, I took some pictures of the kitchen I loved in our old apartment and carried those with us because I knew I would want to look back and reminisce about the meals we had so much fun making.  Which I did.  I also couldn’t resist going back through some of our old food posts and drooling over our favourites:  honey braised short ribs, pan-seared scallops with cèpes and sherry reduction, lamb curry, chèvre chaud salad… at times, I was desperate for goat cheese.

So, true to form, the first thing on our agenda upon return was to cook.  Breakfast on Day -1 was eggs benedict with bernaise sauce and some good, fresh coffee.  Oh, what a relief to have fresh coffee again after so much Nescafé!   After that came Boston Marathon chili, then the short ribs, and then, finally, some nice weather which beckoned us to the grill.  We’ve made good use of Makela & Dave’s bbq while we’re here house-and-dog-sitting;  one of the first things to go on the grill was some exquisite marinated lamb chops, possibly the best I’ve ever had (though this observation may be as a result of not having had good lamb for 361 days).  The second thing to go on the grill was the Ultimate Burger.

The Ultimate Burger, according to some guy we saw cooking on TV, consists of the following:  ground sirloin cooked to ‘juicy’, melted swiss, heirloom tomato,  horseradish-mayo, caramelized onions, and rosemary bacon on a fresh sesame bun.   The half hour we spent watching the preparation of said burger was enough to convince us to try it, especially because we’d been so long without a proper burger.  Thus, we have our excellent result, minus the bacon which really seemed over the top.  (In hindsight, I would’ve totally done the bacon.)

I am a huge fan of the set lunch menu. If ever we come across one on our travels, especially if it is of the French variety, I insist on making an effort to give it a go. Nine times out of ten, it is a delicious lunch for a great value, usually three courses with a drink and maybe even a coffee thrown in at the end. If we´re lucky, two of us can get a big meal for under $20. Plus, I have a theory that these lunches are even more delicious if there is a crowd of people in the restaurant and a queue at the door.

Twice in recent weeks we have come across dreamy set menus. The first was in the antique-y, bohemian barrio of San Telmo in Buenos Aires. We were actually looking for some other restaurant with a set menu and happened across a cafe named something like ¨Via Via¨. Anyway, it was crammed full of suits but we managed to snag one of the tables and ordered “dos, por favor.” This one was only two courses: roasted quarter of a chicken, salad and rice with home-made ice cream for dessert. Simple enough menu for a late lunch but it was hot and tasty and left us full enough that we didn´t need to eat again that day.

For the past two days, we have eaten lunch at the same cafe in Valparaiso, Le Filou de Montpellier. Yesterday, it was a crepe filled with bechemel and cheese to start, then roasted chicken with this fantastic mushroom reduction sauce and then profiteroles with ice cream and chocolate sauce. It´s making my mouth water just to remember it. With wine, it was $22 dollars and there was a queue of people at the door waiting for our table. Hurrah! The meal today was a tarte of tomato, eggplant and camembert, slow-cooked beef in wine sauce with a gratin of potatoes and then Ile Flottant for dessert. No wine this time (thanks to a pisco-induced hangover today) but still, the best-value lunch menu I can remember having had. If we were staying here longer, I can almost guarantee that we´d be going back at least every other day. As it is, we´ll be going back tonight to Alegretto for – arguably – the best pizza I´ve ever had. We may not be eating classic comida Chilena, but I´m digging the food here.

It’s no secret that the people of Argentina and Chile adore their meat. It is available everywhere, on every menu, in several different forms, served day and night, and almost always grilled to well done. I wouldn’t want to be an animal in South America as it’s only a matter of time before you end up on a menu.
At a grocery store in Mendoza on a Saturday, a riot* of people had gathered around a meat counter that was struggling to keep up with the orders being shouted to the back. Meat is serious business and a good butcher, we’re told, is highly coveted and his address is held close to the chest. In Argentina, I thought I had reached the limit of my carnivorous consumption, but I was dead wrong; that was just the beginning.

Today’s lunch in the pretty Bellavista neighbourhood of Santiago consisted almost entirely of meat. We ordered the parrilla special for 2 and what landed on our table would’ve easily served six. Imagine a 9×9” square casserole dish filled to heaping with 2 big, grilled pork chops, 1 large, grilled steak, 2 blood sausages, 1 spicy chorizo sausage, 2 huge, grilled chicken breasts, and 2 large, boiled potatoes. That was lunch. There was some thyme on the chicken, and there was a salt shaker on the table, but that was all the seasoning that appeared. Luckily, a stray dog sleeping the shade of the next table was only too happy to eat most of what remained on my plate while the waiter wasn’t looking.

*Speaking of riots, it turns out that there was some serious rioting in Santiago the day we arrived. It was the annual Day of The Young Commbatents riot/protest staged in memory of the 1985 student riots during which many students were killed. This year’s anniversary protest was aggravated, we’re told, by some discontent with recent public transportation changes. At any rate, our afternoon arrival at the bus station, metro ride and walk through part of the downtown area was entirely uneventful; we didn’t sense the slightest whiff of unease. When we arrived at our hostel, one of the guys staying there asked, “What are the streets like out there- is it madness?” Of course we didn’t know what he was talking about and it was then that the hostel worker said that yes, there were riots, and that perhaps we should stay in the hostel that evening. The next morning, the news showed this. Santiago makes two cities now that we have visited while riots were in progress and we didn’t even know it. (The other was Budapest in September.) Stupid foreigners.