A Meal at the Chez Panisse Cafe

First came the oysters.



My principal taste of the famed Chez Panisse could not have been less impressive. I was shocked at how cold and flavorless these were. While immaculate in their presentation, I couldn't get over how much better the oysters are that I buy in a parking lot behind a post office at a Somerville Farmer's Market. Elise thought they might have been sweet and subtle, but try as I might, I simply couldn't taste them.

Next came a cauliflower puree with black truffle oil.

Musky, savory, and smooth, it was everything the oysters weren't. We experiment with cauliflower puree quite often, but it had never occurred to me to add a flavor as radical as truffles. The vegetal taste of that famously pale brassica was perfectly matched by the dank funk of the oil.

Our third appetizer was a Dungeness crab salad over shaved fennel and blood orange and grapefruit slices.



The fruit reminded me of the high quality backyard citrus I took for granted growing up in South Florida. The shreds of meat was expertly mixed: some sweet, some gamy, implying that the chef had thought to include different "cuts" of crab.

Waiting for the main course, we had time to savor the excellent Acme "Upstairs" sourdough, and the house wine, Green & Red Zinfandel, prepared specially for C.P. by the Chiles Mill Vineyard of Napa.

For the main course, I had a local rock cod blasted in the wood fire oven along with new potatoes, leek, and beets, served with an aioli. I was told by a friend and former C.P. reservationist to get anything cooked in the oven, and was glad that I did.

The fish had a nicely roasted brown top and the vegetables were delicate and simple, especially the tiny potatoes. These contrasted well with the leek, which had become a savory, tubular mush in the intensity of the hearth. Somehow, the aioli was even better than aioli normally is.

I was even impressed by the shape of the fillet, which was not the clean, symmetrical block that every other restaurant is too afraid not to offer. I received that customary piece as well as a scraggly, barely attached secondary hunk. It seemed a metaphor for the restaurant itself. Just because the ingredients are local, it doesn't mean that you're going to miss out on anything. In fact, you'll get more than you're used to. Chez Panisse: it's not just a block - it's a block plus a hunk.



Elise ordered the duck with homemade pasta and mushrooms. I was surprised when her plate came out without a showy, handsome leg. Instead, the three main ingredients came in equal proportions, as though the duck was no more important than the humble pasta. They rested in a shallow pool of rich broth which we were all too happy to sop up when nothing solid remained.

For dessert, Elise ordered the chocolate pave with hazelnut flecked whipped cream. I mean it as a compliment when I say it was the finest brownie you can imagine, topped with an extremely delicate yet crunchy crust.

I had the huckleberry and pear crisp.

My only prior experience with crisps had been when someone who doesn't know how to make a pie wants to put too much sugar on fruit. This dish maintained the rustic personality of the crisp without succumbing to any of its pitfalls: overly sweet, poor quality fruit, homogeneous texture, and limp crumb. The topping actually was crisp, the pear not at all too sweet and with its grainy texture intact, and the huckleberry was almost masculine, spreading its strong flavor and color throughout the filling.

The meal had come a long way since the oysters. I was deeply satisfied, even though I had never spent as much money on any one meal. Nor had I sat at table for two and half hours, eager and alert for every minute of it.

Thanks to Chez Panisse's commitment to local cuisine, we bought more than food with our money. We also made a contribution to the highly visible cornerstone of a culinary movement. One with farmers, communities, and the preservation of food culture and the environment in mind. We also probably bought a little more duck fat than we realized.

We were very happy with our choice of the cafe over the restaurant. Unbound by the prix fixe, we got everything we wanted and experienced twice as many dishes. Next time I'll go for the full dining experience of the downstairs restaurant, and you'll certainly read about it when I do.

The Best Coffee I've Ever Had?

Yes, it was. Philz is perhaps the only place in the world where you have to answer the question "floral or earthy?" at 7am. Not a coffee drinker for some years now, I've recently been intrigued into few mugs by reading "Coffee: A Dark History." Philz's was indeed dark, and also earthy and rich, with aspects of smoke and minerals. If I lived there, I'd be interested in going to one of their tastings. I'd also have to be careful to go often enough to show my support, but not so often that it put my body into shock. The caffeine had me dancing through San Francisco.

This was one of many thrilling food experiences while visiting the Bay Area last week. Stay tuned for "Mission: Taco" and "A Meal At the Chez Panisse Cafe."

Honey Orchid Gold Medalist

When I went home over Christmas, I didn't bring any Dan Cong and I was surprised how much I missed it. I had spent the days before the trip tasting several and gotten used to their strong and soothing flavors. Karen gave me some excellent Dan Cong for Christmas, and Imen included a few samples, so this is by no means my last Dang Cong post, but it does conclude the series that I started a few weeks ago. According to the description, the gold medalist honey orchid is harvested and processed one tree at a time. I'm not sure exactly what this does for a tea, but the thing that strikes me here is how clean the flavors are. This honey flavor isn't as rich as the other honey orchid, but its cleanliness allows me to focus on its subtleties. The honey flavor is accompanied by a juicy sweetness. The tea is undoubtedly strong, as the flavors have yet to subside over 5 infusions and it certainly can make being inside on a snowy day pleasant.

Chocolate Spice Cake

Another dinner party dessert, but a different breed. The pudding cake party was casual, but decorous: Mr. B and I were home by midnight. This dinner party featured china and crystal but was thrown in order to watch a friend's performance in a Lifetime movie premiere. Drinking games for the teens' angsty pluck, please, and why don't we all try on the flannel onesie that someone got for Christmas? More important, what to bake? This cake is easy enough to make that it won't matter that no one will remember what it tasted like.

This is my family's birthday cake, so I felt a bit funny tinkering with it. My mom puts in 1tsp. of cinnamon and leaves it at that, but I wanted to try and recreate a truffle made by a chocolatier in Charlottesville, Gearhart's. Most prominent in that confection are orange zest and cayenne, but I wanted cloves to balance the orange. Oh, and lastly, I know this is one of those 1950's style quick cakes scorned by many, and that's fine - more for me and my onesie.

Do this:

Sift together 2 c. sugar and 2 c. flour. In a saucepan bring to a boil 4 T cocoa, 1 stick butter, 1 c. water, and 1/2 c. oil. Pour over sugar and flour and beat well. Add 1/2 c. buttermilk, 2 eggs, beaten, 1 t cinnamon, 1/4 t cloves, 1/4 t nutmeg, 1/8 t cayenne, the grated zest of one orange (or a little less). Mix well, pout in 13x9 pan, bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Here's the best part: A few minutes before cake is done, bring to boil 1 stick butter, 6 T milk, 4T cocoa, 1 c. nuts (I used salted macadamias here) and 1 lb powdered sugar (or a little less). Boil a few minutes, and when the cake comes out, poke holes all over it and pour the icing over. Turn the oven off anf put the cake back in for five minutes. Happy Birthday!

Ancient Green Tuo Cha

This raw pu-er from Rishi starts as a tightly compressed tuo cha and slowly unwinds to reveal silver pu-er buds. This is the only pu-er I've had that consists wholly of buds, rather than leaves, and it shows. The tea is sweet and fruity, though fairly thick. If I were ignorant, I'd guess that it was a white tea. It has staying power: it didn't really get going until the 6th infusion and it is still going strong as of the 9th. Definitely an interesting tea, though perhaps not quite worth the steep price tag.

Black Skillet Mussels

This was certainly the easiest recipe I've made, and perhaps the easiest I've heard of. We expect no less from Bittman. Just get a cast-iron skillet really really hot and put the mussels in. They open up and release their juices, which they then steam in. Throw a little salt and pepper in and serve them in the pan. They're juicy and a bit smoky. A perfect appetizer.

Kombucha Factory

Pu-er isn't the only fermented tea I keep around. I have a little Kombucha factory in the corner of my kitchen where 2 gallons are always in the works. It is a little exciting to know that there's a living thing in the corner of your kitchen, eating away at sugar and caffiene in order to reproduce. Also, if you wait long enough the kombucha gets fizzy. As you can see, I use tea bags for my Kombucha. This is the only reason I use them anymore: you just can't beat the convenience. The Kombucha flavor takes over anyway. (If you don't know what Kombucha is, click here.)

Roasted Bi Lo Chun

After hours of roasting the leaves didn't look too different, so I assumed they wouldn't taste too different either. I was wrong. The Bi Lo Chun has taken on an entirely new character. Surprisingly, there is almost no roasted taste at all. Instead, there is quite a bit of seaweed-ish richness that actually reminds me of a sencha. This starts to wane after the first infusion and it is replaced with a nuttiness that is characteristic of Bi Lo Chun, but was missing in this tea pre-roasting. Imen says that the tea will continue to change for a week or so, so I'll check back soon. I have the faint feeling that I've violated some taboo by roasting Bi Lo Chun, but I enjoy the post-roasted version much more than its pre-roasted counterpart.

Showy Desserts, Part Two

Okay, I realize that from the photo this looks like vanilla ice-cream with strawberry sauce, but it is actually coeur à la crème, a dessert that is not much harder to make than whipping cream but is a showstopper if you have the heart-shaped mould. Maybe I'll buy it for next time? It's made much like a cheesecake, cream together cream cheese and confectioner's sugar (called icing sugar in Canada), then switch to the whisk attachment on your mixer and add vanilla, lemon zest, and more heavy cream (called whipping cream in Canada) than is decent and whip it all together. Then into the fridge overnight wrapped in a cheese cloth and sitting in a sieve until it sets. So yummy--and my first experience using a cheese cloth, which was super fun. I also made the strawberry sauce--Bon Maman Strawberry Preserves, strawberries cooked in water and sugar and a little bit of Grand Marnier in the food processor. I would make it a little less sweet next time since the preserves were already pretty sweet, but this was for Peter's birthday and he has the sweetest tooth of anyone I know.

One thing that came out of this dessert was a conversation about differences in dairy and sugar products in the US and Britain / British colonies. Peter is from the Bahamas and claims that there are dairy products with even more fat than heavy cream and things like castor sugar that you can't really get in the US, which means that there are desserts you can't really make. I believe it--during my brief year in the UK I did consume more different kinds of dairy than ever in my life, and when I moved to the US I was uncertain as to whether heavy cream would whip since I had only known it as whipping cream in Canada.... This is a question that merits further investigation I think--and maybe an experiment in making clotted cream?

Tacos Lupita

Tacos Lupita probably has more dishes that fit my "Perfect Food" criteria than any other in Somerville, if not the whole US. That means there are plenty of items that meet all of the following requirements: regional, unprocessed, locally made, under two dollars, and good.

The best way to do Tacos Lupita is to go with a few friends and order one of everything. Then, on subsequent visits, you can pop in for your whatever you liked best. On this occasion, I had a tamale and a mulita de lengua (tongue). Large and stuffed with chicken, potatoes and, surprisingly, chick peas, the tamales are extremely filling and comforting. I eat one whenever nothing that I make at home will do the trick.

I liked my meal at Tacos Lupita so much that I forgot to take a picture of it, and it was only once I had wandered outside, slightly dazed and full of different preparations of cornmeal, that I snapped this pic. But if you're feeling over-gorged after a T.L. feast, just go next door to Tea Zone, the yin to Tacos Lupita's yang. There you can have a freshly brewed cup of any tea in the house, and it's the perfect digestive compliment to all that otherwise Perfect Food you ate.

Blue Hawaii

Ummm, so I think enough time has passed that a bit of wedding lore can be resurrected. Mr. B and I served our wedding dinner family style, passing around big ol' platters of pork, grits, and greens. (Okay, they weren't that big, and the grits had mascarpone in them, but I'm trying to set the stage for a despoiled authenticity sort of thing here.) I did want, however, a plated starter and chose a favorite treat from my Memphis childhood, a peanut butter and banana sandwich. I asked the chef in Cape Cod to serve this grilled as an amuse-bouche with a honey butter sauce on the side. Well, even in Memphis we know that an amuse-bouche is a little ol' thing, so imagine my surprise when a tower of brioche comes out to begin our meal. Don't let the picture fool you; it was the size of my head. And garnished with an edible orchid. I've made my peace with the size surprise - I'm just still confused about the orchid. And how do I know that it's edible?

Anyway, I've found that too few have enjoyed this most delectable sandwich. I like crunchy peanut butter and a thin layer of honey on the banana side. I think we made a few converts at the wedding, but I can't really remember - I was still a little weepy from Dave's lovely toast.

Home Tea Roasting

A few days ago I finally made time for a home roasting experiment. I used a Bi Lo Chun that I have a lot of and don't love. I really just wanted to see what roasting would do to it. I put a single, even layer of tea at the bottom of my crock pot and set it to low. The tea roasted for about 4 hours and I tossed it around occasionally. It smelled nutty and grassy. As for the taste... more to come in my exciting next post.

Showy Desserts, Part One

This might be antithetical to the spirit of this blog, but I will confess that my mom and I are always looking for showy desserts that aren't too much work to make. This one was a winner--Pear and Gingerbread cake from Canadian Living magazine--basically butter and sugar creamed together, all the spices you would put in a gingerbread cookie (ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg) and some hot water to dissolve them, and of course, flour. Then some pears artfully arranged on top. All in all it took less than half an hour to get into the oven, and the result was a nicely spiced gingerbread dough and a moistish cake that meant that even those who don't enjoy the brittleness of some gingerbread could enjoy this treat. The sweetness of the pears was lovely with the spiciness of the gingerbread. We served it with whipped cream. It helps with the presentation if you have a nice cake stand--even the easiest dessert looks impressive on a cake stand. I may make this again for my reading group. An added bonus is that it keeps well.

Castelton Snow Bud

My last Indian white is grapey with some honey. An excellent evening choice: low of caffeine and relaxing. Indian whites have such a different profile than Chinese whites, they are a bit louder and fruitier. I wonder what it is that makes the difference. It is clearly nice tea, though not something I'd buy again.

The Host Squid

I'd been in the mood for squid ever since watching Korean monster film The Host. Though most of the movie is about a squid-like monster eating humans, in more than one scene we see humans eating squids in a poignant reversal that begs the question: who is the real monster? (According to the movie, the answer seems to be "Americans.") Either way, it made me want to eat squid. Unfortunately the presentation at Kame in Beverly, MA was nicer than the squid, which was too chewy. But so are humans...

Cake of Puddin'

I'm no baker, but a new year of dinner parties has begun, and tonight I am providing a dessert for dinner at my editor's house. So I'll turn to an old favorite, which is a classic - it appears in my Cordon Bleu book as 'Lemon Surprise' - but may now be becoming a bit trendy, according to my unscientific poll of menus in restaurant windows. The description is lengthy, but it's terribly easy, and when you're done, you've got - surprise! - little cakes with pudding on the bottom!

You'll need:

Softened butter for the ramekins
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 plus 1/8 teaspoon table salt
1-1/4 cups whole milk, at room temperature
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice, at room temperature
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest


how to make
Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F. Butter eight ramekins and arrange them in a baking dish.

In a large bowl, whisk the melted butter with 2/3 cup of the sugar and the egg yolks until smooth and light, about 1 minute. Add the flour and salt and pour in just enough milk to whisk the flour smoothly into the egg yolk mixture. Then whisk in the remaining milk and the lemon juice until smooth. The mixture will be very fluid.
Put the egg whites in a large bowl. Beat to medium-firm peaks, adding remaining 1/3 c. sugar at the soft peak stage. Scrape one-third of the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture, sprinkle the lemon zest on top, and whisk until combined. Gently incorporate the remaining whites into the batter, using the whisk in a folding/stirring motion. The batter will still be thin.
Portion the mixture evenly among the ramekins; the cakes don’t rise much, so you can fill the ramekins to within 1/8 inch of the top. Pull out the oven rack and put the baking dish full of ramekins on the rack. Pour warm water into the dish to reach halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake until the tops of the cakes are light golden and slightly puffed, and when touched with a finger, they should feel spongy and spring back a bit but hold a shallow indentation, 25 to 30 minutes. Using tongs, carefully transfer the ramekins to a rack. Let cool to room temperature and then refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours before serving, with whipped cream if you like.

Ten Ren Oriental Beauty

As predicted, I couldn't resist plopping $5 down at the supermarket despite being burned in the past. Ten Ren Tea is ubiquitous, with stores in multiple states, malls, and continents, as well as a website that prominently features their business model. This made me pessimistic.

The tea itself is nice and honey-ish. It is not complex at all but it does have staying power. It can go strong through 6 or so infusions: not bad for a supermarket tea. Drinking decent Oriental Beauty is fun because it is a better version of so much bad tea that I've had in Chinese restaurants. Not too bad for a $5 investment.

Tea Zone's "Fruit Medley"

A cross between tea and trail mix, this blend by Somerville's own Tea Zone is really, really fruity. Sometimes during these bleak months I crave the deep color red and non-chewable vitamin-C pill flavor of a sour, fruit tea. This was full of all kinds of crazy flavors, and it was fun to drink. It also gave me a chance to try out the super-macro feature on my new camera. Mr. Teaandfood, imagine the leaf shots you could get!

Avocado Leaf Tea

Our friend Dr. Jonathan Dworkin "discovered" this drink during a stint with a traditional medicine practitioner in Hawaii. I decided I would try it whenever I had some leaves on hand, and the perfect opportunity presented itself while pruning an indoor avocado sapling given to me after it sprouted in a friend's compost heap in Vermont.

I covered two dry leaves with almost boiling water and let steep about seven minutes. The liquor was a smooth and rich, golden-green drink with a noticeable calming effect.

Blinded by the fruit, we often ignore the full range of a plant's possibilities. We're never more than a stone's throw away from a cup of coffee, yet few of us have ever tasted amertassa or kuti, the green and black equivalents of coffee leaf tea. Or kish'r, the drink made from the coffee cherry itself. Nor have we simply eaten the coffee cherry, which some say has flavors of watermelon and jasmine.

Drinking a.l.t. helped me better understand the avocado itself. What an all around soothing and sensual experience it is to eat that fruit, in terms of texture, color, flavor and even temperature. There are many uses for different parts of the plant, including the seed, which is used to treat both snakebite and unwanted pregnancy. Fortunately, I had no need of testing its powers as a vermifuge.

1999 Loose Leaf Pu-er

When I surveyed my bag of travel tea I discovered that many odds and ends ended up in the bag precisely because I don't love them. One exception was a small bag of 1999 loose leaf pu-er that I bought in the wake of loving the broken nugget pu-erh. The 1999 ripe tea quickly became my travel favorite and I brewed nearly every evening for 11 days. As a result, I got to know it quite well. It hits its peak at about brew 4 which produces a rich and sweet liquor that quickly relaxes me. As instructed, I patiently waited for the tea to cool and was rewarded with some additional woodiness. Curious about my habit, my parents began requesting tea after meals and I routinely brewed this for them. Both enjoyed it and, I think, will continue to drink pu-er, at least when I'm around.

Happy new year.

Buche de Noel, pt. 2

In a rush to replace my buttercream, I hastily piped the castaway chocolate-marred meringue into mushrooms. They went into the oven alongside my pristine white mushrooms, just for the sake of experiment. The straight-up meringues gradually dried, crisped, and ultimately bore a texture reminiscent of packaging material. The chocolate meringue dried almost instantly on the outside, yet retained a soft gooey center even as the plain mushrooms turned to hockey pucks. These delicious mushrooms reminded me of a French macaroon, without the chewy grit of ground almond. A week later (as I gave in and polished off the last of the mushrooms) they were still gooey inside.
The crowning bit of decor is this mini Totoro, a shoutout to Studio Ghibli (and to my girlfriend, who loves Totoro). I warmed up a wad of marzipan and wrapped it around a hunk of Valrhona gianduja. Dried cranberries went in the top for ears and the whole thing got dipped in dark chocolate and rolled in confectioners' sugar. The eyes are disks of milk and dark chocolate. It came together haphazardly, in between other steps of cakemakery, but was delicious nonetheless. We cut 'im open and compared him to a Mozartkugel. Totoro, unsurprisingly, was the winner.

Christmas Goat Cheese Quiche

After gulping back a splash of coquito and a cup of coffee, we undertook the enterprise of baking a goat and parmesan quiche. Loaded to the brim with mushrooms sauteed in butter, shredded broccoli, onions and garlic (and of course more cheese), this quiche was the second best part of our day. The first best part involved homemade minstrel wrapping paper reminiscent of the French underground theater and recently pruned yew branches standing proud in a dish of water on my floor.

Buche de Noel, pt 1

What better way to take a break from the long hours working in the kitchen than to spend a few hours...working in the kitchen. I decided I would mark the Yuletide this year with a Yule log, mainly so I could have an excuse to produce inane edible decorations.
The Buche marked a number of firsts for me: first cake, first icing, first piped meringue, first use of marzipan, first log. I did stick to my habit of ignoring recipes, however. It's probably for this reason that the cake itself is a bit grainy. The coarse texture would suit a tea cake, but is at odds here with the filling.
Chestnut paste is apparently a popular choice for filling, but I wanted a chocolate theme. For simplicity's sake I used a butter ganache, and as a nod to wintry flavors, incorporated fig jam and a splash of port. The result was a creamy ganache with just enough body to hold its own against the cake, a slightly seeded texture from the fig, and a well-balanced sweetness.
With the foundations of the cake well in hand, I went to work on an Italian meringue butter cream. It turned out very badly indeed, as I failed to halve my recipe properly. I really should just write these things down. I turned instead to Pierre Herme's Chocolate Glaze and set aside some compromised meringue. Fortunately that meringue proved to be a delicious anomaly that I now must recreate.

Pure Potential

This is going to be good.

Matzo Ball Soup

It's a little perverse, but I decided to introduce my family to a good Jewish soup using our Christmas leftovers. I appropriated my dad's homemade turkey stock in a twinkle, satueed onions, brought the stock to a simmer, added in matzo balls, carrots, celery, and little thin egg noodles in that order. The broth was rich and delicious, the matzo balls were light and fluffy (unlike last time, when they were dense little pucks!)--my family was delighted! Next time I will use less salt.

Warm Coquito

Pictured above alongside a cranberry pocket, coquito is a Puerto Rican holiday drink much like a coconut flavored, rum laced eggnog, not to be confused with the Chilean palm wine by the same name. Coquito seems to get its name from either or both the Spanish word for coconut - "coco" - and the name of PR's beloved tree frog, the coqui. A rough English translation of this delicious drink would therefore be "cocofrogo" or "frogonut."

Traditionally served cold in honor of its hot place of origin, it seemed fair to heat it up in wintry New England. The warm coquito Elise and I made was fantastic, even though we ignored many of the ingredients that all the recipes suggest. We just went for the basics: coconut milk, egg, milk, sugar, rum, and those magical spices we all love at this time of the year. I also added pepper, having wanted to ever since reading about the addition of pepper sauce to hot punch in the Jack London short story "To the Man on the Trail." The coquito was warm, sweet, rich, and strong.

Since my first sip of a coquito made by our friend Marilola at a Brandeis party, I've wanted more. Ours was almost as good, though difficult to wipe off of the holiday cards it spilled on when I was trying to get a better angle for the photo.

Note: I predict that within five years the general public will be aware of coquito in the same way that dulce de leche has become a household flavor. It has all the makings of a food trend and only needs to tip.

Bog Blog

Cranberries help make a tart live up to its name. Made from leftover scraps of dough and filling from several tartlets, this is the only item that survived our dinner long enough to be photographed. Cranberries are one of only three native fruits still grown commercially, and these came from an old bog in Jersey that relies on IPM (integrated pest management). Look out cranberry blossomworms, cranberry fruitworms, cranberry tipworms, cranberry girdlers, and cranberry flea beetles!

The full menu:

1. olives and cheese (sorry Bittman!)
2. a Wellfleet oyster on a slice of buttered, toasted baguette
3. chestnut puree (fantastic, but I had overindulged by this point)
4. arugula, empire apple, almond, white balsamic vinegar salad
5. mushroom risotto and eggplant goat cheese lasagna
6. the afore mentioned tartlets
7. gyokuro

The Roasted Chestnut

It wasn't until I was already preparing a roasted chestnut soup that I realized I really didn't understand what a chestnut was. I had observed their annual arrival in displays at the end of supermarket aisles from a distance, thinking they were nothing more than some kind of expensive hazelnut and generally feeling above the hooplah.

But when I cut into my first roasted chestnut and saw the sheer mass of food available inside, I began to second guess my aloofness. When I tasted my first roasted chestnut, I was so impressed by the texture and sweetness that I was instantly made a convert.

The chestnut also has a fascinating history, from the devastating blight on the American Chestnut to it's use as a staple starch by other cultures, to the reverential spot it occupies in holiday rituals. I'll post again after I serve the soup tonight, but luckily I bought a few too many and have been enjoying those on their own.

Tea Travels

Well, I didn't get to the last Dan Cong before I left to visit my family until the 30th. I guess that the exciting conclusion of the Dan Cong series will have to wait until 2008.

The next week and a half should be fairly pleasant. My main tasks will be eating and reading novels. Of course, with so much time on my hands I want to enjoy some good tea. Before taking off I made a little travelling collection of odds and ends I've amassed. Maybe I'll post about some of them. Here is my stock: 1 raw pu-er tuo from the puerh shop, 1 small bag of 1999 Loose Ripe Pu-er from the puerh shop, part of a sample of a 2006 GuoyanZhang Lao Ban raw pu-er cake, Goomtee Indian Oolong , the rest of my Junshan Yinzhen Green, Supreme Jasmine Pearls from Imen, and some Moonlight White from Rishi. Whew.

Review: Grand Prix Cafe

The Grand Prix Cafe really is the cafe you've always been looking for. Quiet, professional, reasonable and delicious, it even has free wireless.

With nothing more than a single burner and a panini press, Serge, the ever present man behind the counter, somehow manages to turn out incredibly diverse and satisfying meals. The fresh bakery items are constantly in flux, including such specialities as spanikopita, ravani, and "fresh" tiramasu.

There's also a mysterious drink known as Greek Mountain Tea that is only available seasonly and which features one ingredient that I'm told doesn't translate. If you want something hearty, you can sample the homemade keftedes, or Greek meatballs, with feta. Today there's something Serge describes as "honey Christmas bread," which is oozing honey as I type.

Though I come often, I'm regularly surprised by new items or new preparations of old ones, like the time Serge brought out a late in a tall parfait glass, the milk and espresso separated as well as beers in the most skillful black and tan. Other perks include organic eggs and this boast from the menu: "None of our products are remade." I also never tire of the European sports paraphernalia, and many patrons stop in just to watch soccer on the flatscreen.

I once overheard a woman who had just returned from a cafe tour of Paris in which she sampled the city's finest coffees. She told Serge she was glad to be back at the Grand Prix, because his is better.

Spicy Red Marrow Bone Crock Pot Stew

While picking my way through ice and slush and bitter wind this morning, I was reminded of the powerful warming effects of the spicy stews I had on the Navajo and Hopi reservations in Arizona last winter. I decided that's what I needed tonight.

The basic idea for this dish was to make a hot, red stew using one of my River Rock Farm marrow bones as a base. The bone provided a gorgeous layer of golden oil that floated on the top of the stew and then disappeared back into it. I soaked some pintos, then added them. It's nice to remember how wonderful a well cooked bean is. Not a bit overdone, they were still plump and firm. I dropped in a chipotle, and once it had reconstituted, I mashed it into a paste with some of the broth, then reintroduced it. I used a frozen scotch bonnet from Farmer Al, which I removed about three quarters of the way through. Two and a half diced onions, a bunch of whole garlic cloves, a can of tomatoes, and a chayote inspired by the Salvadorian take on menudo at Tacos Lupita.

The chayote is a perfect soup vegetable, and is almost exactly a cross between a potato and a zucchini, with the attributes of both and none of the drawbacks (mushiness and sogginess, respectively). Towards the end I incorporated a can of hominy, only because I couldn't find it dry. It was a shame that it couldn't spend the whole six hours in the crock, but it got to know the other ingredients fairly well. I ate the stew with a lime in hand, but was surprised to find that it's earthy heat begged no tang. The lime went into my beer, which reminded me a little of overdoing it in Cancun once, but was still a nice contrast of temperature, texture, and taste.

It kept me warm for hours.

Honey Orchid Dan Cong

The Dan Cong tasting continues, sorry for the delay.

I finally finished a draft of the paper that I griped about and a cup of tea was my reward. Honey is the dominant flavor and taste. It is thick and soothing. Floral, too: I assume that's the orchid though I can't pick out the flavor of orchids generally. I've infused this tea 5 times and it is still going, though the honey has gotten a little less pronounced. It will be interesting to compare this to the Gold Medalist Honey Orchid, my last Dan Cong. I recommend drinking this tea while your dog licks your feet.

Peach Dan Cong

I've spent much of today on the phone trying to get wood delivered before a foot of snow comes tomorrow. On my break from that I made sure to put in some time staring at my latest paper, not thinking clearly enough to make revisions. I just couldn't concentrate. After lunch and before wood stacking I brewed this organic Peach Dan Cong. As soon as I lifted the gaiwan lid the peach scent hit me. Keep in mind that this tea is not scented with peaches, mixed with peach peel, or anything like that. The leaves just naturally smell this way. Amazing. I was expecting to be overwhelmed by the peach flavor, but the tea has so much else going on: an excellent earthiness. The peach taste really is wonderful too. It reminds me of the part of a peach that is closest to the pit: more pungent and less sweet. After one cup of this I was feeling relaxed and more mentally sound. Now it is time to get back to wood stacking.

Yu Lan Xiang Magnolia Fragrance

Day one of a four day Phoenix Oolong event.

The White Leaf Dan Cong roasted at Tea Habitat was a pleasure to drink, though it was hardly subtle. This Yu Lan Xiang is obviously a more refined tea: it has a pronounced honey-like texture and the floral flavor sneaks up on you. Having never eaten a magnolia, or been sufficiently attentive to their smell, I can't say whether the floral flavor is clearly magnolia-ish. The flavor, though, is sort of soft. Much more like a discernible but distant flower smell than like rolling around in a patch. According to the description, Chinese women are known to use this as a perfume. If so, I bet it is fairly pleasant. Better than anything I've smelled from Karen's Vogue, anyway. So I can recognize the quality, this is surely an excellent tea. That said, it is not something I'd choose to drink all the time.

Drunken Goat and Prosciutto

These two ingredients make an excellent combination. Thanks to my absentminded house guests for leaving them.

Buckwheat for Breakfast

I like eating buckwheat groats, or "kasha," so much that I can't explain it. My best guess is that it springs from some cultural memory in my Russian heritage. It's in my blood - and stomach!

Breakfasting on this grain has remained a staple for getting my day started on the right foot ever since my old holistic doctor prescribed it to me years ago. I topped this bowl with a little pan-scrambled egg. This food is so grounding, so warming, so energizing. The only comparison that comes to mind would be to somehow ingest an extra backbone while sitting in a hot tub. That must be why some Russians say "schi and kasha are what we eat." Guess I should start eating schi.

On Brewing

One of the exciting things about tea as opposed to, say, wine, is that I get a say in how my tea tastes. The taste of tea depends on time, temperature, vessel, and water, to name a few. Whenever a cup is unpleasant, I assume that it is my fault and whenever a cup is amazing I spend subsequent brews attempting to reproduce those same conditions. I usually fail, of course. The temptation is to get scientific: thermometers, timers and the like can make things consistent. Unfortunately, they can also make things a bit sterile. It is wonderful to count to 30 and smell the pu-er steam rising to your nose. It is less pleasant to wash dishes until a timer goes off. I do employ some brewing aids, and I may even purchase some more. I am sympathetic to Marshal's warning though: brewing tea should be more relaxing than a chemistry experiment.

Whole Foods Dungeness

I didn’t eat shellfish for most of my life due to religious reasons, so you can only imagine how exciting it is to me now that I've abandoned those particular commandments. While I’ve since become comfortable with simple recipes, I’m still inexperienced with such basics as how to eat a crab. But when I saw cooked, cracked, whole Dungeness crab at Whole Foods for $7.95 a pound, I figured it would be a good intro. It was, tossed with broccoli rabe in oil and butter, black pepper, sea salt and served on pasta with raw garlic grated atop. I wish more restaurants offered that instead of parmesan.

I know you should cook a crab yourself, but plenty of juices still ran out of this one as I cracked the pieces over the pasta. Crab meat is so delicate once it's been removed, but serving it in hunks of shell gave this dish a rough appeal. Cracking the shell and digging out the meat with the butt of a fork and my own teeth, I couldn’t help but feel like that early human ancestor who first ate a cooked crab. Hopefully it was resting in a seaside patch of wild garlic and primitive rabe when the lightening struck.

Jasmine Green

Imen did send me a few non-oolongs. Among them were two Jasmine greens, her Supreme Jasmine Pearls and the Snail-Shaped Jasmine Green I enjoyed today. I'm certainly not a big flavored or scented tea fan, and that goes for jasmine. In the past I've brewed some jasmine tea and I found it offensively thick and syrupy, like I was chewing on the tea instead of drinking it. I was expecting to dislike this tea. Luckily, it is a world better than the candyish jasmine I remember. It is sweet and refreshing without being cloying. Far from disliking the tea, I quite enjoyed the sample. I look forward to the supreme jasmine though I doubt if either sample will move me to a regular (or even semi-regular) jasmine habit.

Ohio Cape Gooseberry

This delightful morsel is a cape gooseberry, or "ground cherry." I was drawn to a basket of them at the North Market in Columbus, OH, because they looked interesting and because it said "take one." I did, and then bought a handful for thirty-six cents. They're a smaller, sweeter relative of the tomatillo, and have fun little paper husks to peel back. They were a refreshing snack after all the other things I ate at the market, which included cassoulet, free range goose chowder, a samosa, miso soup, a mochi cake with bean paste, something from a Vietnamese stand called broken rice with chicken, a summer roll, and a demi baguette so crusty that it seemed stale until I discovered the pillowy center.

Tale of a Teapot

Teapots from Yixing are made with porous clay suitable for slowly absorbing flavors. With frequent enough infusion of, say, an excellent aged pu-er, the Yixing will come to smell like the tea and impart the flavor to future steepings. This sounds great. Unfortunately, pores don't discriminate. I purchased the (very cheap) pot above from ebay. It came quickly and with a rank warehouse smell. I was distressed. I rinsed and aired out the pot. Still bad. I simmered the pot for a few minutes. Still nasty. A day and a half of additional experiments didn't cure the smell. Eventually I simmered the pot for about an hour with some excellent oolong. Finally, the scent of storage had been replaced with the scent of oolong. I tested the pot, tasting water from the pot alongside water from other pots and there was no discernable difference. The moral of the story: don't trust just anybody on ebay. From now on I only get pots from dealers I trust.

Dave's Fresh Pasta (Sauce)

A few weeks ago I made this pasta sauce. Some end of the season tomatoes, slivers of red onion and garlic, crushed red pepper, and some pieces of ground beef I shaved off a frozen block. The texture of the beef was more interesting and delicate than those firm little bits we're all used to. Served over black pepper capellini from Dave's Fresh Pasta in Davis Square. The photo shows the tomatoes when only half cooked. They were prettier then.

2003 CNNP Spring Banzhang

Oolongs still dominate my days but I needed a break for pu-er this morning. It is illuminating to taste the difference that 4 years of aging makes. Most of the bitterness is gone, and the smokiness is morphing into woodiness. Most interesting is the minty aftertaste that sticks around until the next sip. Different from my last Ban Zhang pu-er, it must be the aging.

Lao Cong Shui Xian

My march through the bounty continues with Lao Cong Shui Xian, a Wuyi oolong. Wuyi oolongs come from the Fujian province and many are purported to come from hearty tea plants that grow between rocks in otherwise infertile conditions.

This tea stands in stark contrast to the White Leaf Dan Cong. That tea was peachy and sweet, this is rich and deep. Its flavor isn't easily explicable in non-tea terms, it simply tastes like oolong: smooth, a bit sweet, and lingering. Perfect for slow enjoyment in front of a winter fire. Then again, so many teas are.

more leftovers

Pictured above is my first effort at a turkey. All in all not as daunting as I thought it would be, though the white meat was a little dry. Perhaps I'll roast it breast-side down next time. Or not, ahem, turn the temperature so high...

Even better though, was the turkey tetrazzini I made with the leftovers. Like Aaron's bread pudding, this dish was made entirely from ingredients that were already in the kitchen. I made a roux with some butter, flour, some turkey broth that I had made from the turkey carcase and a little milk, salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme. I folded the roux with leftover turkey, egg noodles, some peas for colour, and sprinkled bread crumbs and parmesan on top. The crispy topping was perfect with the creamy middle, and even the white meat tasted moist in its new incarnation! It would have been better with mushrooms, but we didn't have those in the pantry / Dave forgot to pick them up!

I have very fond childhood memories of turkey tetrazzini my dad made with canned mushroom soup the day after Christmas, but this was better.

I Think I Can, I Think I Can!

I am now the proud owner of six jars of homemade, canned applesauce. Last night, Elise and I magicked the remaining 15 or so pounds of Macouns from the last farmer's market into their current form. Of course there is no sweetener, just cooked, unpeeled apples, a splash of water and some grated ginger for a touch of warmth. At least once in the 2 years and 8 months that I'm told it will keep, I plan to serve the sauce with a savory dish, perhaps alongside my homemade sauerkraut. Wouldn't that be nice?

But don't expect to get one of these jars as a gift. My first canning experience seems to have been a great success, but I'm not positively sure that I won't get botulism, even though a friend of mine who grew up in a log cabin in Vermont said that I really shouldn't.