Many summers ago, my friend and I drove our boss’ car across country when the company was relocating to the East Coast. He paid our travel expenses and we spent a fun week cruising from California to Boston.

My friend, who is of Hawaiian-Japanese descent, packed us a cooler full of goodies and it was then that I learned the importance of quality munchies to a great road-trip.

We had fresh fruit, carrot and celery sticks, a HUGE bag of Dorritos, Oreos and her homemade teriyaki chicken and seaweed-wrapped onigiri, ie. Japanese rice balls.

I was a relative novice in the kitchen at the time but as a college girl learning to cook for myself, I was very impressed with her delicious and easy to make teriyaki marinade. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t believe how easy and versatile it was.

Savory and sweet, it makes a tasty base for a variety of meats, tofu or skewers of veggies like mushrooms, peppers and onions.
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On a recent visit home, my mom showed me how to make this dish which is a special favorite of mine. Unlike the traditional dessert-style chimaki served on Boy’s Day in Japan, this one is a meal in itself, more savory than sweet and chock full of tasty veggies, meat, and rice.

These rice bundles are wrapped in a fragrant bamboo leaf then steamed, perfect for picnics since they come with their own “plate” (the leaf) and hold their shape well when unwrapped and taste quite good at room temperature. My mom packed up a few for our drive home and we happily ate them watching the surf and seagulls along the coast.

Like tamales, they can be steamed and then frozen for another day. Then, when you’re ready to eat one, just pop it in the microwave for a minute and lunch is served!

Chimaki are actually very easy to make though a bit time consuming. You may encounter slight difficulties folding the bamboo leaves on your initial tries but don’t give up. The trick is to get your mom to do them — no, wait…the trick is to remember you’re not making anything elaborate, just a simple triangle. And we’ve got step-by-step photos showing you the correct way to fold these guys. So no origami credentials are required
How To Make Savory Chimaki
Step 1: The Recipe
Step 2: Folding the Leaves
Step 3: Steaming & Serving

From those lemon flowers
Set free
By the light of the moon
From that
Odor of a love
Frustrated,
Sunken in fragrance,
There came
From the Lemon tree its yellow,
From its planetary system
The lemons came down to the earth.

Tender merchandise!
Our shores filled up with it,
The markets
Of light, of gold
From a tree,
And we open up
The two halves
Of a miracle,
Congealed acid
Which ran
From the hemispheres
Of a star
And the most profound liquor
In nature,
Unchanging, alive,
Indestructible,
Born from the freshness
Of the lemon,
From its fragrant house,
From its acid, secret symmetry.

Inside the lemon the knives
Cut
A small
Cathedral,
The window hidden behind the altars
Opened to the light its glassy acids,
And in drops
Like topazes they were dripped
Onto the altars
By the architecture of freshness.

So when your hand
Squeezes the hemisphere
Of the cut
Lemon onto your plate,
A universe of gold,
You have poured out
One 
Yellow cup
Full of miracles
One of the sweet-smelling nipples
Of the breast of the earth,
A ray of light that became a fruit,
The diminutive fire of a planet.

Pablo Neruda

We’re spending a quiet Valentine’s evening at home with the cats, no reservations made, no special menu planned, just a simple, hot, tasty home-cooked meal of sauteed zucchini, tofu and beef over rice.

When I was younger, I used to believe that it was important for the man I was in love with to make a concerted effort on this *one* day of the year (forgetting for the moment that he should also make that special effort on my birthday, our anniversary, Xmas, etc etc) to show how much he loved me. After all, I spend the rest of the year doing all kinds of little things for him to show how much I cared. For example, I was busy rearranging the contents of his kitchen cabinets and drawers, potentially much of his furniture as well (even though I had a home of my own), putting out fresh flowers, adding plants, cooking delicious meals, even (gasp) doing his laundry because it was an outward expression of how much I cared.

“I care so much about you that I must manipulate your physical surroundings to my taste. I also hate how you have a pile of laundry taller than me in your closet and cringe to see you wash a single set of clothes every day (shirt, pants, underwear, socks). Here, this is how you do a load of jeans.”

In discussions with girlfriends, I believe I am not alone in my experience. Perhaps, you recognize some of these traits and tendencies as well?

Through the years, the boyfriends, and now the husband, I’ve learned to keep my expectations about Valentine’s Day in check. In the handful of years we’ve been married, hubby and I are rarely on the ball enough to make reservations on time so we often make do with something more spontaneous or casual.

Last year we took a road trip to Mendocino and, seeing a sign for the Charles Schultz museum, turned off in Santa Rosa on a whim. We caught the “Little Red Haired Girl” exhibit when all little red haired girls had free admission. My hair is black and had blue streaks at the time.

But the museum was marvelous. We rediscovered why we had fallen in love with Peanuts in the first place. We weren’t just crazy kids way back when, the strips really were better eons ago.

That night we stayed in Ukiah where we stumbled upon the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas monastery just as twilight was decending when we were looking for something (anything) to do. It’s a magical place where peacocks roam the ground, settle on rooftops and scream from high atop the trees, and where a colony of squeeky bats lives in the rafters of the main building.

This year we aren’t going anywhere and haven’t made any plans for the evening. But during the day at work I found myself anticipating the time I could go home just to be with my husband.

Now he’s now cooking me dinner and I feel relaxed, blessed and loved. The bouquet of flowers on the dining room table looks lovely and I’m looking forward to the meal and spending time a quiet evening with the ones I love.

Here’s hoping that your Valentine’s is just as memorable.

PS. Incidentally, all is not lost on the laundry front. My husband is actually able to do a full load of laundry now. Alas, the new challenge is in getting him to move that load into the drier before it starts to crust over.

I’ve spent much of the day cleaning up my Movable Type templates and it’s getting late. I’ve still got work-related stuff to do so in lieu of an blog entry, here’s a wonderful piece by Brendan Sodikoff that was published in the San Jose Mercury News on Nov. 28, 2001.
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Our potted meyer lemon tree is full of ripe, fragrant lemons. During the winter I love making piping hot lemonade sweetened with one of the honeys we pick up at Middle Eastern markets. This is an ideal drink to curl up with when it’s chilly out and the honey and lemon combination is especially soothing if you have a cold or sore throat.

But this week has been surprisingly warm and sunny so I made the standard summer version with simple white sugar and chilled water. Refreshing and sweet.

Recipe
1/3 c. fresh meyer lemon juice (if using regular lemons cut down to 1/4c)
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 c. water
2 mint leaves for garnish, optional

Mix juice and sugar together then pour in water. Then stir until sugar is dissolved. For the hot version, replace sugar with your favorite honey and use hot, instead of cold water.

Another cold day in the Bay Area. Made a luscious risotto with the remaining fresh shitake mushrooms, pot au feu stock and meats. Added a splash of white wine and a handful of parmesan and the meal was ready.

Sunday’s Pot au Feu was pretty disappointing but having all those leftovers started the gears turning in the old noggin. As a matter of fact, I was downright excited about taking those boring remains and trying to make something delicious with it.

I started mulling over what to do with it immediately after dinner, going over permutations with M and finally decided on homemade ravioli using the meats for filling and a sauce with the broth. With that known, I strained the foods & herbs from the broth, removed the meat from the bones and packaged up 4 containers of liquid, bones, meat & veggies and put them in the fridge.

The next morning I roasted the bones in the oven, then threw those into the defatted stock along with fresh carrots, celery, the uncooked leek greens from the day before, a new handful of fresh parsley, 2 bay leaves & several sprigs of thyme and set it all on simmer with the lid off for the rest of the day, filling the house with its wonderful aroma.

While the stock was busy becoming a pseudo-demi-glace, I thought about what to do for the filling.

I got out the Cuisinart and added a about 1.5 c of the meat (oxtail, veal shank & short ribs) , a handful of walnuts and about 2 tbsp of grated Parmesan with salt and pepper to taste and did a coarse chop. Added some of the cooked carrots and celeriac to smooth out the texture and add some sweetness to the filling. This combination was DELICIOUS. We wanted to keep eating it straight out of the Cuisinart with a spoon.

That evening I quickly made some pasta dough, one of my favorite cooking tasks, then cranked it out into sheets. D helped form the ravioli, meticulously brushing the pasta sheets with eggwhites (remains from the pot de creme recipe), scooping the meat with a melon baller and pressing them firmly closed with his fingers and slicing them into individual ravioli with the dough scraper.

Once the pasta was ready, I put a huge pot of water on to boil. In a saucepan I melted butter and added the marrow from the veal shank. When this started to sizzle, I added some fresh, cut up shitake mushrooms and let that cook for a few minutes. Then I added a few ladles of our concentrated stock, a splash of red wine and dinner was ready.

The sauce was decadent, with a depth of flavor I don’t think I’ve acheived in a sauce before. The assorted bones and veggies from the pot au feu made a superior stock! Unfortunately, while the filling was tasty, it didn’t really work well with the dish texture-wise.

It was just too dry and really needed more moisture in the form of roasted veggies or gooey cheese or maybe just more cooked carrots & celeriac. Everything from the meat to nuts to cheese choices inflicted a dry papery texture to the silky pasta and luscious sauce that didn’t work. It wasn’t something we noticed eating it on it’s own so I think we’ll use the rest of the filling as a spread for bread.

So if and when you decide to make this, either eat the filling separately as a spread or add more smoothness and moisture before filling the ravioli. It’s a promising dish but definitely needs tweakage.

Filling:
2 c. pafl (pot au feu leftover) meats, bones removed
1/2 pafl carrot
1/2 pafl celeriac
handful walnuts
2 tbsp parmesano romano
2 eggwhites
salt & pepper to taste

How to Make Homemade Pasta Dough

I’ve been very curious about Pot au Feu for some time now. I just couldn’t understand the brouhaha for what, essentially, was a bunch of boiled meats. I kept wondering if some mysterious alchemy turned the pot of assorted odds and ends into something more magical than I could imagine.

So since we were having M&M over for dinner and since I wanted to make something out of Tony Bourdain’s new Les Halles Cookbook they got me for Xmas, I decided to finally bite the bullet and try his Pot au Feu.

Well, it turns out there is no magical alchemy and it still is really boiled foods. It’s tasty in it’s own way, but still pretty boring. I served it with a variety of mustards which was kind of exciting for me as D always has at least a half dozen varieties in the fridge and another half dozen or so as back up in the pantry. Use up the mustard with wild abandon, yay!!

I have to say making the pot au feu was tremendously easy, just throw everything in a pot and let it simmer slowly for a few hours. I basically followed Bourdain’s recipe verbatim except I added more herbs to his wimpy bouquet garni. I mean, 1 parsley leaf?? Come on. So I upped the herb quotient with a handful of parlsey, 2 bay leaves and several sprigs of thyme.

The house smelled delicious from the stock which simmered for hours. I think maybe this dish is a type of comfort food for people who have grown up with things like this. I have my own, rather bland set of comfort foods that satisfy my palate (mmm, hot white rice with avocado & soy sauce! Macaroni & cheese with hot dog slices!) but boiled meats & veggies isn’t one of them.

I’m not saying this dish was terrible. On the contrary it was satisfying in it’s own way: a simple, hot fragrant broth full of tender, tasty meats and soft veggies. It’s just not worth it for me to make on purpose again.

ON THE MENU

Munchies
- Pate de Campagne
- Brie
- Manchego (a hard white spanish sheep’s cheese)
- Sesame & Water Crackers

Main Course
- Pot Au Feu
- Bread: I was kind of at a loss trying to come up with a starch for this dish, but it doesn’t really need one beyond the small potatoes I added to the stock pot and veggies. I did bake my foccacia and some of us sopped up the soup with that.
- Cornichons: Bought these at Trader Joes and they were horrible. I don’t know what I was expecting but I couldn’t eat these. D said they were sort of like sweet gherkins but I thought the ones at Bouchon were more sour. I didn’t really eat much of those, either.
- Sea Salt
- Mustards: Dijon, Horseradish & Stout
- Celeri-rave Remoulade: also from Bourdain’s book. I had never tried cooking with celeriac before today and was surprised to find how easy that ugly root was to deal with. Just a quick peel, julienne with my cheap Japanese mandoline and I was set. This dish was fast to make and Mr M and I found it tasty. D thought it was a little bland. He called it my french cole slaw.

Dessert
Chocolate Pot de Creme: Basically creme brulee with Sharffenberger chocolate instead of vanilla bean. M loved it but I found it lacking in depth of flavor. Next time I make this I’d add the vanilla bean for added depth. But the texture was thick, rich and smooth.

On Friday, D & I went to Bouchon in Yountville for lunch with his mother & J, an old family friend and stage manager for the current production of Miss Saigon.

It was one of those typical Northern California winter afternoons, mostly drizzly & gray with intermittent bursts of sunshine through the clouds. We were greatly looking forward to our lunch and were happy to find the bistro quite empty at noon.

Not for long. By the time we started in on our appetizers, the place was bustling with people. The space was warm and convivial and the food was delicious - the perfect place to have our last lunch of the year.

What We Ate

Starters:

- Mixed Fresh Oysters (1/2 Dozen): Slurp back a smooth, quivering mouthful of oyster together with its cold, slightly briny juices. Chew slightly to release that fresh ocean flavor. Swallow.
- Pate de Campagne: Served with 3 toasted slices of thick crusty bread, cornichons, thinly sliced radishes and watercress. Mmmm.
- Onion Soup: Not as oniony as some I’ve had but this one had a deep, flavorful stock fragrant with thyme, just the way I like it.

Main Courses:

Saumon au Poireaux

Sauteed Atlantic salmon with melted leeks & sauce beurre blanc
You can see from the pictures below that they take great care in *not* overcooking their fish. The top 1/3 of the salmon was not quite raw but just warmed over. The sauce was delicious, not at all heavy and a perfect accompanyment to the salmon.

Skate Wing w/Savoy Cabbage, bacon lardons & mustard creme fraiche
One of the specials of the day and I thought it was the best dish at our table. The skate was cooked with it’s cartilage on to keep it moist. When brought to the table, a waiter carefully removed the bones then reconstructed the toppings for a perfect presentation. The sauce was killer and I must replicate it as soon as possible.

Truite aux Amandes

Pan roasted trout with almonds, brown butter & haricort verts.
The most delicately flavored of all our dishes. Still good, but with all the sauce action going around it was a bit bland in comparison.

Moules au Safran et a la Moutarde

Maine bouchot mussels steamed in white wine, mustard & saffron, served with french fries.
The mussels were unlike any I’ve had before. They were small and plump with excellent texture, not chewy at all. They don’t skimp on serving sizes here. The bowl was overflowing with mussels and the broth was delicious. When I was done eating, I put the pot in the middle of the table and we all sopped up that saucy goodness with bits of bread.

Dessert:

Profiteroles w/vanilla ice creme and chocolate sauce: Good, but nothing special.
Orange infused Pot de Creme: Absolutely delicious, with wonderful texture though we didn’t notice any orange at all.
Cappucino & Coffee
…

Details
Bouchon
6534 Washington St.
Yountville, CA 94599
tel: 707.944.8037
http://www.bouchonbistro.com