Channeling Sandra Lee, and going one better?

We were getting hungry for dinner, and I hadn't made it to the Farmers Market or grocery store, so I had to come up with something quick and easy and relatively healthy from the fridge and pantry, and thus was born the Whole Wheat Flatbread Pizza.

Ingredients:
Whole Wheat Pita
Spinach - small handful (can sub with Arugula)
1 egg (farm egg if possible) at room temperature
Your favorite melting cheese (mozzarella/pepper jack slices
or brie or goat cheese or cheddar if that's all you have on hand
Crushed Red Pepper (optional)
Salt
Cooking spray or butter for the pan
Parmesan for grating (optional)

Preheat oven to 500 or 550.
Spray an oven safe pan with cooking spray (or butter for those so inclined) and heat.
Add the pita and let it crisp a little
Add cheese
Lightly saute the spinach in the space left over the pan next to the toasting pita,
and add a tiny bit of salt lemon juice if you like.
If using arugula or other salad greens, toss with salt and lemon juice and set aside.
As the cheese begins to melt, add the sauteed spinach or raw arugula.
Break the egg on top and carefully transfer pan to oven and turn oven dial to broil.
The egg should cook in a couple of minutes to soft set. You could also skip this step
and add a poached or lightly fried egg with a soft yolk instead.
Sprinkle with crushed red pepper flakes, and grate the Parmesan on top if using.
Transfer carefully (using a fish-spatula or regular spatula) to dinner plate and
eat while warm!

Hope Springs eternal every Spring

I'm finally absolutely sure of one thing and that is that Spring is my absolutely favorite season!
Everyone else I know seems to love Fall and Winter, and the change of seasons but I just don't get it. It's easy for me to hate Winter - I love heat and sunshine and long hours of daylight and hate being cold, so it's pretty much a no-brainer! In my mind, cold and rainy days are good for one thing and one thing only - staying indoors and lazing around all day without feeling a shard of guilt.

I have to admit that Fall in the Bay Area is gorgeous - filled with warm Indian Summer days, but that's small consolation for the end of Nectarine and Pluots Season, shorter days, the falling leaves, and the worst offenders, the end of Daylight Savings Time followed by anticipation of the dreaded advent of Winter. And the litany of sorrows continues: the Christmas carols beginning in October, the forced cheer of the Holiday Season, winter weight gain, dogs who believe that they are going to melt in the rain (but then maybe they are taking their cue from me?) and refuse to go outside. I'd be remiss however to not mention the only saving grace of this season: Cyber Monday scores! Now if I could only find a deal on Louis Vuitton, Fall and I might begin to repair our relationship. Maybe there's a Relationship Counselor out there we could go see?

But I digress..I digress from the hope that is Spring, hope that is spilling out of my every pore as I sit outside in our backyard in the sunshine. All around me are the signs of anticipation: the roses that will be a riot of color by next week, my first real clematis about to bloom, the heady smelling orange blossoms that dream of growing up into fruit. The hope that the tiny green apricots and pluots will survive the squirrels, that the hummingbirds and blue-jays will continue to party it up and feast on the brilliantly pink Fuchsias. The hope that this year I'll finally manage to grow arugula, and lots of it. The hope of a weed-free garden that takes care of itself, the hope that Obama will win in November and that I will actually manage to post regularly to this blog again. And then the hope spills over into dreams big and small: to be thinner, taller, rich(er). To have a perfectly organized closet; that the Supreme Court will see the errors of their current ways, that the conservatives will stay out of my womb, and that of all my sisters; the hope that Palestine and Israel will learn to peacefully coexist. And if I can hope and dream for all that to come true, maybe I can hope to win the lottery too (even though I never play - talk of miracles!). As they say, a girl can always dream!

How dinner made itself AKA the advent of summer!

Since we finally made it to our local Farmers' Market today, I knew that summer was finally here! I tasted some sweet ripe California strawberries, the tiniest little clementines, and inhaled the delicately heady aroma of green garlic. Given the relative short season for green garlic, buying them was a no-brainer, but then my brain ached as I worried about how to showcase them without overwhelming them. But inspiration soon hit and it all fell in to place: I found some fresh oyster mushrooms and asparagus, and on the way home, I stopped by Trader Joe's (how did I ever cook before TJs?) to pick up some dried pasta, goat cheese and mache.

Our good friend Michele was over, and we went to work. We roasted the oyster mushrooms with some thinly sliced green garlic, tossed in extra virgin Olive oil, Salt, Pepper and some thyme from the backyard at 350 degrees for about 17-18 minutes - watch to make sure that it does not burn, and use your tongs to move the mushrooms around the cookie sheet a few times. Then we cooked about 1/2 a cup of diced pancetta, poured out the excess, added 8 oz of mascarpone to the pan, and heated it through, adding the cooked mushrooms to the pan at the very end. In the meantime, the dried pasta (pappardelle in this case, but fettucine or orichette would also work) was cooked al dente and added to the mushroom sauce and served with some grated pecorino romano at the table. Accompanied by a 2001 Scherrer Pinot Noir, it made a sublime dinner!

We also had a warm goat cheese salad and roasted asparagus, but the pasta was so incredible (and so simple!) that it warranted a blog post, at least IMHO.

And thank you Michele, for sharing in the inspiration, the cooking and the eating, and most importantly, for being my friend!

Slumdog Millionaire

My friends Dola & Laura asked me what I thought of this much acclaimed film... Frankly, I did not think much of it, and I fail to understand why it has become such a critics' darling. On second thoughts, maybe I have an idea why: it's timing - Slumdog set in Mumbai happened to be released just before the Mumbai massacre in November 2008. And with the world's attention focused on this city and its misfortunes, it is easy to fall in love with this vibrant hopeful movie set in Mumbai, even if it is seriously flawed as a film. Yup, the sympathy factor.

First and foremost it suffers from an identity crisis - it cannot decide whether to be a fable, a fantasy love story or a gritty art house film. It tries to be all of these, plus throws in a healthy dose of Bollywood Music for good measure and mass appeal. Granted, many movies combine genres with great panache, but in order for a such a combination to be successful it has to do so seamlessly. And have a heart. And for me, this is where Slumdog fails. The present day story is inter-cut with events from the Protagonist's past: These flashbacks are intended to explain his current predicament and advance the narrative - however, they end up feeling forced and the back and forth slows down the story significantly, and create a disconnect from the main characters.

If you have heard that is extremely violent, you've heard right. And the violence is excessively graphic - so bad, that ultimately I felt numbed by it. In spite of it though, or perhaps because of it, this film succeeds in one very big way: it brings to light the awful and very real living conditions of the slum dwellers in India. And if this helps even a small handful of these children escape those conditions it would be worth it. They don't need to become millionaires, they just need a real lifeline out of there...

That moment in time

My afternoon was pleasantly unremarkable by the standards of most people, but for me it was a very special time. Perhaps the stars had aligned: I happened to be working from home today, on an unseasonably warm January day (~ 69 degrees in the sun) and I happened to be reading a heartwarming book about love and wine Love by the Glass: Tasting Notes from a Marriage while taking a very late lunchbreak in our backyard. And my feet were being warmed by our lab Sammie while our sun worshipping dachshund Masala snoozed on her little bed right next to me.



It felt like spring had sprung early: the birds were chirping loudly enough to drown out the traffic outside, the sky was a brilliant cloudless periwinkle, and the callas that had just come into bloom were being ravished by a couple of butterflies. And the best part of all was that my two favorite girls were curled up side by side at my feet. Sammie and Masala are not known for their affinity for each other and it is a rare sight to see them sleeping close enough to touch! I desperately wanted to take a photo to preserve this tableau for posterity, but I knew that getting up to get the camera would ruin the moment. My only choice was to record it in my mind's eye.



And that's when it hit me - this was one of life's most perfect moments - the kind you wish you could bottle and preserve forever. And although I am lucky enough to have experienced a few of those moments with my amazing Sweetie, I cannot say I have ever wanted to freeze time while I was alone (minus other humans that is). And here I was today, experiencing a perfect moment of profoundly peaceful solitude, literally in my own backyard. True self-contentment. It was an enlightening and quietly empowering moment, and I have my dogs to thank for it.

Anderson Valley: My Happy Place

When life gets too hectic, my favorite escape is to the Anderson Valley, specifically to The Other Place . I wish I could say that it is really my other home, but sadly that is not the case :). It is a dog friendly rental home perched high above the town of Boonville and Hwy 128, and we like to go there once or twice a year for our vacation with the pups.

The dogs get a couple of fenced acres of their own to run around unfettered, and dig for moles and voles to their hearts' content. Sammie likes to swim in the pond, which also doubles as Kevin's Kayaking training area. And then there's a few hundred acres of private land to hike around on. Our favorite cottage is The Oaks, named after a couple of ancient oaks that shade it, and it offers 270 degree views of the mountains that surround Boonville.

I love the bucolic nature of Anderson Valley -- It is green and lush and still a whole lot unspoiled, at least compared to Napa & Sonoma. No fancy tasting rooms, low/ no tasting fees, no attitude, and no drunken frat boys veering wildly on the road. It is mercifully free of fancy hotels and resorts, and celebrity chef restaurants. What is has instead is several very good wineries -- most specializing in dry Alsace Whites and dustier, earthier Pinot Noir.

Navarro is a long time favorite of ours and we served some of their dry whites at our wedding - they are also very dog friendly, and have a nice picnic area -- make sure to taste their late harvest dessert wines -- sweet, but with enough acidity to make it interesting. We also like to stop by Roederer (preferable to go during the week when it's less crowded) Greenwood Ridge (the prettiest picnic area, and a very cool tasting room designed by one of Wright's disciples), Handley Cellars (with a female wine maker making some kick-ass wines) and Husch (their lighter white and dessert wines are a great value) and a comparatively new presence in the area: Zine Hyde Cunningham. I would be remiss not to mention, Golden Eye - they are the pinot arm of the venerable Duckhorn empire, but that venerability comes at a slightly higher price, at least by Anderson Valley standards. It is certainly worth visiting, especially if you can do a tasting in their beautiful outdoor tasting area overlooking the vineyards.

Our latest winery discoveries in this area are two of our favorites next to Navarro, and definitely fall in the not-to-be-missed category. And it is not just because they are really nice dog people, but also because they make great wines and are warm and welcoming when you visit. The first is Londer - chances are you will be tasting with Shirlee Londer in her kitchen, with her dogs at your feet. My favorite is their dry Gewurtaziminer but I also like their syrahs and pinots, especially the Anderson Valley Pinot.

The 2nd is Toulouse, which we found entirely by accident since they were one of the last ones open at the end of an afternoon of wine tasting. We really liked their wines and enjoyed talking to the owner, Vern, and his friends and bought a couple of bottles. The next day we went back and retasted the wines to make sure that our judgement had not been impaired the previous evening. We liked the wines almost as much, and bought quite a bit more. We have pretty much drunk our way through our Toulouse stash, and recently when I called to see if we could restock, learned that they had sold out of all our favorites. And that is also when I looked through their website and discovered that some their wines had been reviewed very favorably by both the Wine Spectator and SF Chronicle. Go Vern, we said, but we were just a little bit sad that it was no longer "our" secret winery. But we are happy at their most deserved success and wish them all the best!

Date Night Dinner with Melissa Perello

Kevin and I like to do monthly date nights. You know, keeping the romance alive, getting away from the daily grind and all that good stuff. Oh yeah, and creating an opportunity to indulge in culinary decadence of some sort on a monthly basis ...

December's date night happened to fall on a Monday -- one of those Mondays when Melissa Perello (former chef of Fifth Floor Restaurant) happened to be serving one of her $45 four-course dinners at Sebo. Turns out that she misses feeding a restaurant crowd (her new restaurant Frances is in the planning stages) enough to start serving a pre-fixe dinner to a reservations-only crowd on Monday nights when the restaurant is normally closed.And we also happened to snag a reservation for what apparently is rather a hot ticket in this foodcrazed town. And frankly, it wasn't even that hard - I read about it on tablehopper (or was it the Chron?), immediately joined Melissa's email list, and then responded with our reservation request as soon as she announced the dates for December! Easy Peasy... and I told myself that finally I had discovered an upside to working a lot - one can respond to important emails like these as soon as they are received!

We had reservations for the 2nd seating at 8:15pm (the first one is at 6pm would be way too early for us -- and I can see my friend Laura shaking her head in dismay at this!) and showed up at the restaurant, miraculously on time. We made our way through the small throng smoking just outside the door -- majority of the guests that night appeared to be from the bay area restaurant industry, and they were busy socializing with each other and with the servers sneaking in a quick smoke break before start of service.

We were greeted warmly and seated promptly at table 1A, close enough to watch some of the plating action in the open kitchen. This was my first visit to Sebo -- I could not find a website for it, but rumor has it that it serves very pristine and very pricey sushi on other nights in its true incarnation as a sushi joint, and is quite popular in foodie circles. Rumor also has it that Danny, one of the co-owners of Sebo, who is not at all coincidentally Melissa Perello's current arm-candy, also happens to be rather hunky eye-candy.

The restaurant is located in a smallish space with mellow lighting and soothingly uncluttered modern decor in a vaguely Japanese vein. The music playing on the night of our visit is probably best described as danceclub-ish, but thankfully just the thump thump thump of the bass beat was the only thing audible, and it was easy to have a conversation at the table.
The pleasantly unobtrusive but very capable service continued after we were seated and throughout the meal. Given that most of the staff working that night had also worked with Melissa at The Fifth Floor, it was not at all surprising that the service was at least a notch or two above what one could reasonably expect at this price point. Once we got the mildly annoying "bottled or tap/ fizzy or flat water" question out of the way, we were presented with the night's menu: 4 courses for $45 with no choices, based upon whatever was fresh at the previous days' Farmers Markets.

We started with lightly fried almonds - simple but yummy, salty crunchy and warm -- what's not to like? And not too filling - a much better alternative for starting the meal than bread or chips. Already excited at the prospect of a nice meal with a very reasonable $10 corkage, we were even more excited to see roast suckling pig as the main course. We requested the waiter open the bottle of 2001 Scherrer RRV Pinot that we had brought with us. It was smooth with muted but discernible fruit, and just enough mild tannins and acidity to be a good food wine -- once again I was reminded why I like drinking wines, and why I love drinking Fred Scherrer's wines.

The first course of roasted caramelized squash with pickled (and crunchy) currants with a sherry vinaigrette was the highlight of the meal for me - the contrast of the sweet squash with the sourness of the vinaigrette and and the interplay of soft and crunchy textures was just perfect.

The next course was a dungeness crab soup with chunks of very fresh tasting crab - a great way to showcase our local crab which has just come into season. The accompanying mini creme fraiche biscuits stole the show however - the warm, flaky, buttery golden orbs were just irresistible, and it did not matter that they were a bit too heavy for the rather thin soup.

The main course of roasted suckling pig was perfectly cooked, but a bit bland and overly fatty for my taste. I needed the accompanying scalloped potatoes and braised kale in every bite to "brighten" up my meat, but given its perfect symbiosis with our mellow aged pinot noir, I had no complaints. However, in the absence of the wine I might have been slightly less thrilled.

The dessert course was a light and buttery brioche bread pudding with distinct savory notes and it would have been nice with the black tea we asked for, but sadly none could be located. The bread pudding was served with a babyfood textured applesauce that did little to enhance it -- I would have much preferred a scoop of ice cream or caramelized apple slices instead. But my real quibble is that this applesauce was referred to as "apple confit" on the menu. Confit - pray why I ask? Confit = preserve in fat, or in the cases of fruit, perhaps candied. This apple sauce was neither -- even my lazy microwave apple sauce tastes far better.

Thankfully, my disappointment did not last long - the peanut brittle served at the end with our check more than made up for the lacklustre bread pudding. Made from the chef's grandmother's recipe, it was crunchy and yummy, with just the right balance of sweet and salty, and since my date dislikes brittle, I was more than happy to eat both our shares.

Overall, it was a very pleasant experience at a reasonable price -- particularly, the white tablecloth service at no-tablecloth prices. I am not the sort to be star-struck but I enjoyed the opportunity to comment about the meal to a celebrity chef right after she had prepared and served it to us (she stopped by all the tables at the end). I hope she was not offended by my comment that she should consider selling the cool burlap aprons that she had made for her wait- staff. And, if you are interested in repeating the experience, hurry up and email monday_night@me.com - you never know when she will stop doing these fun intimate one-of-a-kind dinners!