La Cena

Shabbat shalom and l'shana tova!

Tonight I headed north for dinner chez mon BFF. Because I'm a foodie, I am going to write about food.

[Mimi, read only on a full stomack, 'k?]

I took a bottle of Jacob's Creek Reserve Shiraz 2005. We enjoyed it thorooughly.

Round 1: homegrown red and green peppers (red mild, green a bit hot), roasted and peeled; homegrown garlic, roasted; goat cheese; olive oil over all; homegrown thyme leaves; chunks of good sourdough bread on which to place the above. Yummy.

Round 2: Chicken and vegies. To wit: sauteed chicken with a sauce full of homegrown tarragon, butter, and a demi-glace base. OMG it was awesome. BFF adjudged this the best sauteed chicken he'd made in years. Served with grilled homegrown eggplant slices, homegrown tomatoes, and mozzarella slices in overlapping layers, drizzled with olive oil and chiffonade of homegrown basil, all roasted a while in the oven. Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. The vegetables took well to the wonderful tarragon sauce. Heaven!

Round 3: Fresh ripe black figs quartered with cream poured over them.

After all this we had ginger tea.

I am spoiled. And loving it.

--the BB

Submit, or else

Images courtesy of Wikipedia

A number of years back we finally got around to visiting a local historic site, Fort Point. It is situated on the tip of land by the south anchorage of the Golden Gate Bridge. It is a Civil War era fort constructed to defend against enemy warships and is now administered by the National Parks Service.

In what was once the kitchen area there is a sign with text from cooking instructions from the Civil War period, stating quite authoritatively that vegetables should be cooked for several hours until they are soft and tender and easily digested.

I don't remember if we were initially gobsmacked or sent into gales of laughter but it certainly explained one (rather fallacious) theory behind much American cooking. Having discovered the joys of vegetables that still have color and texture and flavor (i.e., vegies that are lightly cooked or undercooked), we viewed this notice with humor and abhorrence.

My friend Bill's phrase for such 19th century cooking methods is vegetables "cooked into submission," the result being described as "gray." This latter is because the original bright greens (usually) have been lost.

The crowd at work, or many of us (this anti-social hermit included) went out to a restaurant last night. This exhausts my extraverted sociability budget for the quarter so it won't happen again on this project. Anyway, the broccoli arrived in mushy pale green and carrots "melted in the mouth." No crunch, almost no flavor, certainly few vitamins left. Very sad.

The lowliest line chef in California would be fired for doing this to food. No one around me seemed to notice.

I am in an alien land here.

If you ain't into fried you're somewhat out of luck. The thought of super fresh with minimal but very thoughtful preparation and fabulous presentation is not part of the general culture.

And I am reminded of how radical the "California cuisine" movement was and remains. Blessed be Alice Waters.
--the BB